Peter Weir: makes his way back to Australia for post
by: Rachael Turk

Screen Hub
Friday 8 May, 2009

It has been confirmed that Australian director Peter Weir will complete his next film 'The Way Back' in New South Wales through a substantial post-production and digital visual effects component.

EFilm and Stage One Sound will conduct the sound mix and the DI (digital intermediate), having had their senior colorist Olivier Fontenay working alongside DOP Russell Boyd on the shoot in Bulgaria.

Rising Sun Pictures is the sole provider of the film’s 81 visual effects shots. It was through this clustering of work that the $5m threshold for the 15% PDV rebate was triggered.

“This is a good example of VFX, lab work, sound post and picture edit working as a collective to make things happen,” said Rising Sun chief, Tony Clark, who was also on set in Bulgaria.

The Way Back is set to bring 100 jobs and a $5.3m injection to the state. Cast includes Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan. Weir wrote the script based on the memoir by Slavomir Rawicz about a group of soldiers who engineered a grueling escape from a Siberian labor camp in 1942.

This development follows the announcement three weeks ago that big-budget Hollywood film Green Lantern will be shot in NSW, creating around 500 local jobs.

It5 came as welcome news for many amongst the ‘below the liners’ who crammed the Screen Australian theatre last night for its ‘Future Directions’ Q&A in which Screen Australia’s CEO Dr Ruth Harley, Ausfilm’s CEO Caroline Pitcher, and the chief executive of the New South Wales Film and Television Office, Tania Chambers, fielded questions on the state’s current lack of large-scale feature work.

This is Weir's first return to directing since he made Master and Commander in 2003.

Although Soundfirm and Spectrum contributed to The Truman Show (1998) and Fearless (1993), and Weir completed his sound post-production on Green Card (1990) at what was then Atlab Australia, this is the most significant PDV component he has brought back to Australia since his 1975 classic Picnic at Hanging Rock.

“Hopefully the PDV incentives had some influence on seeing Peter Weir return to Australia,” said Pitcher.

Pitcher added that, although a strengthening dollar could see some hard months following a mini-boom, the industry should look forward to a positive end of 2009 / 2010.

Dr Harley hastened to add that this year’s Cannes Film Festival could be “more of a reality check than we’ve had to date”.

Rachael Turk
Rachael Turk is a Sydney based writer and the former editor of Inside Film Magazine. She has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, British Cinematographer and Online Asia and has three film projects in development.

http://www.rachaelturk.com

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