Redfern resident Dan Abbot is just weeks from completing a six-month post-graduate certificate in cinematography with the Australian Film Television and Radio School at Moore Park. The course at AFTRS is the culmination of several years of study, filmmaking and travel. “In some ways I just wish I knew what I wanted to do when I was 19,” Dan says. “But traveling and working has given me life experience. I’ve loved it. It’s made me more confident and more certain about things.”
Having dropped out of uni (a course in hotel management on the Gold Coast), Dan traveled to Washington DC where his uncle is a documentary filmmaker. “He makes films for National Geographic – including war-related correspondence in Afghanistan,” Dan says. From there Dan moved to Edinburgh – where he lived for seven months and assisted on a couple of “bizarre short films” – then to Amsterdam.
“I went for a weekend and stayed for three years. My uncle lives there and has a gallery there. I worked in a youth hostel and made a few music videos. I was living in a rundown apartment with intermittent electricity and water.”
In Amsterdam Dan met Toby Robinson, son of Michael Robinson, the creator of the Skippy TV series. “Tobe was an inspiring person,” Dan recalls. “He really encouraged me to pursue filmmaking.”
A two-year intensive in film production at Melbourne’s School of Audio Engineering (SAE) afforded opportunity for studies in writing, directing, film history and semiotics. “It was a very positive experience. The lecturers at SAE were amazing.”
While in Berlin for a year – where he worked on a few corporate videos and enjoyed creative and social life in the “fantastic and affordable” city – Dan applied, successfully, to AFTRS.
This month sees him involved in a couple of student film shoots before seeking work (“for six months at least”) with film crews in and around Sydney. “Hopefully, I can get some work as second AC [Assistant Camera] with a few projects and keep learning from the best cinematographers.”
Dan is enthusiastic about Australian filmmaking and storytelling. Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah, The Sapphires, The Turning) is an inspiring screenwriter, cinematographer and director. Cinematographer Peter James (Driving Miss Daisy) was a guest lecturer at AFTRS.
“There tends to be a lot of high-stakes filmmaking in Australia,” Dan notes, before adding: “I think being overseas for a while helped to give a perspective on what’s happening and what’s important. In my extended family there are several Aboriginal and Torres-Strait Islanders – my cousin’s partner and kids are TI. I’d really like to work on projects that explore the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people – the broken relationships as well as the potential for understanding and for new cultural identities …”
His favourite filmmakers are committed artists: Jim Jarmusch (“I really like his early stuff – the little things, the details, the improvisation”) and Wes Anderson (“the form is accentuated but the human reality is there too”); Ellen Kuras (Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Robbie Mueller (Coffee and Cigarettes, Dead Man, Breaking the Waves). Jean-Luc Godard is a long-admired auteur (“New Wave cinema is anti-Hollywood – it’s about natural lighting, breaking the rules, interesting dialogue”).
Sitting outside the Woolpack Hotel in Chalmers Street, Dan reflects on the “cinematic” inner-city suburb. “There are definitely more than a few characters here in Redfern,” he smiles. When asked if he could imagine a film being made about his own life, Dan offers a few light-hearted suggestions: “Perhaps Jack Black could play my character,” he quips. “Jack Black in a serious dramatic role!” And the soundtrack? “Maybe the Flaming Lips … or Sublime … or the Black Eyed Peas … before Fergie …”
