Sydney Film Festival interview: Anthony Firth on Mockbuster

Addy Fong and Anthony Firth chat bad movies, filmmaking, existential panic, and making a name for yourself.

The biggest thing that stood out to me in Mockbuster was your existential panic of, ‘oh crap, years have passed I need to make a movie.’ You’re a father now, was there this urgency of, ‘I’m about to be middle aged, I’m a dad, how do I make a movie and a name for myself?’ 

Yeah, to the point where it’s like, you’ve got to start being a real person, a real adult, get a real job and give up on everything you wanted but not being able to let go of that as well. I always wanted to be a filmmaker and never got to do it. So, this was a way to have my cake and eat it too, I think I kind of folded into it.

The company is featured in Mockbuster is known for shitty movies. Do you have a favourite shitty movie? I was like, ‘heck yeah, they made Sharknado’. Do you have a favourite or a newfound appreciation for ‘shitty movies’ given the process of making one?

Yeah, I love bad movies. Always loved B-movies. I love Troll 2 it’s so funny. I watched a movie recently with some friends called Miami Connection, which was unbelievably funny. I was crying through some of it. He was a karate teacher in Miami, and he made this film about himself where he’s like the guy everyone goes to solve all the crimes and stuff, but like, oh man, it’s so good. I can’t even describe how funny it is. You have to see it.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching really bad movies I find on YouTube. One time I watched live-action Sailor Moon made by a bunch of American teens, or bad dubs English of Chinese films with old white-haired men and bad eyebrows. You’re from Adelaide, right? I wanted to ask what’s film culture like there? How were they with your film?

Everyone was supportive. The documentary helped, but everyone got around it. I saw it as an opportunity to make something that had a story behind it. We’re making a film in a week; that’s a story that you get to tell now to everyone. Adelaide’s friendly, everyone here’s nice, the industry is friendly and open, people were excited that anything was happening here. When a production comes here, it’s an exciting, fun thing. Everyone got behind me and rallied with me, which was sweet.

Have you heard of the short filmmaking movements like Kino, Take 48, where you make a film in a short timeframe? Are you involved? Or for this film did have that experience or go straight in with, ‘oh, I made a few corporate videos and now I’m going to make a movie. I’ll just figure it out.’

Yeah, it was the deep end for sure. I never did the 48 Film Festival or anything formally, but my friends and I would make stuff for fun that we’d shoot in a day. It’d be like a four- or five-minute thing, so we kind of did that, but never anything of this scale. We were shooting 30 pages a day on some days; an average film would shoot 3 to 6 pages, so we were doing ten times the amount, which I think pretty much everyone who worked on the film had never done before so it was a learning curve for everyone. For better or worse, you know, I guess sometimes the deep end is better.

With time restraints were you like, ‘I’m only doing 3 takes, I trust my gut, it’s good enough, I’m gonna just roll with it.’ I’m assuming as a director, as a producer, on the fly you’re cutting for time. Did it show in the end when you had to redo the some of one of the scenes or make the story cohesive?

It was mostly one take. We did two takes if we missed a line or the camera was out of focus but primarily it was one take. It was better to get more coverage, more camera angles than it was to keep shooting the same scene and same setup because you could just cut between, from the bad take to a better take. We erred towards coverage.

I know sometimes with directing coverage you do the master shot and then inserts. Did you do master shots or were you like, ‘I know I’m not going to need that; I know what needs to be done’ Did you make storyboards, or was there no time for preproduction? 

We tried to do a shot list, but we threw it away the second we got to set. Each scene was structured in a pretty similar way. We would do a master shot and then go in and get the inserts of characters, all their close-ups. Time permitting, we would get any other coverage, which was rare. I don’t think there’s any other cutaways, really. Maybe they pick something up or whatever, but that was aspirational at best.

A random extreme close-up of a hand that doesn’t make sense but works! I noticed you had two sound setups on set. Often people say, if you don’t shoot well, you still need good sound you can’t recover that. Is this true?

So, we had the sound recordist and a boom operator for Mockbuster, then a sound recordist and a boom operator for Land so we had four sound people. Yeah, it was to make sure that we got everything because it’s better to get it on set, performance wise and stuff. There was some ADR in The Land that Time Forgot, but it was mostly recorded on phones and sent in.

Was the post-production process longer because you guys were rushing the shoot?

Not really. We finished, I can’t remember what day exactly, but I think we just finished shooting on, say, Wednesday then by Friday, they had a cut of the whole film. Yeah, the Asylum worked quickly. The documentary took months. The Land that Time Forgot took a week.

The Asylum is in based in America and you were filming in Adelaide, so how did the process of sending footage to them work?

We had a data wrangler; he started in the afternoon and would work all night. By the time the guys in The Aylum woke up, they would have the footage ready. He would be syncing it, logging it, and then sending it over so they were getting the footage immediately. I think they were getting it a day late so then I would get notes on the first day, on the third day. They would say, ‘you screwed this up. This is shit. You need to refilm it.’ Or like, ‘that was great. Good job. More of this, less of that.’

Talking about ‘this is shit’, one of the things in the film that I felt empathy for was when you went to the visual effects dude and he was like, ‘the 180 rule is broken.’ ‘Why is the dude running this way?’ Let’s talk about that. Did it challenge your worth as a director? What was going through your head emotionally? How did you recover from the feedback?

I guess you kind of quantify it in your own head because you had such limited time you’re like… I’ll let it slide. If you had days and weeks to shoot, you’d probably kick yourself more because you’d messed up the 180. It’s so stupid of me because the 180-degree rule is like so embedded in the director’s job and I failed. But you know, considering the time constraints and how quickly you’re moving, and those things get lost so quickly so I’ll own it, I messed up. But also, I didn’t feel too sort of bad about it cause it’s like, what are you supposed to do?

You’re having fun! This was a cool opportunity. They said yes! Have you seen that meme of the ‘this is fine dog’ in the fire? Was it like that on set, everyone being like ‘he’s crazy’ but as the director you need to be the person in charge? Do you have any advice for that when you’re already dealing with your own chaos, being the calm one to make sure your cast and crew are happy. Was that something on your mind as a director?

Yeah, totally. I think filmmaking is fun and should be fun. I think it rots from the head down usually, like if the people up top are being nasty, it reflects the set. It’s important to internalize everything. There’s people on set, heads of department and stuff that you can confide in and producers you can confide in, but regular crew who are just there to do a job you don’t want to burden them with your own fears and insecurities. I think finding the people you can confide in on set and just remembering you’re essentially the face of the production. So, your mood and your tone is going to reflect everyone else. You go to work and your boss is angry and you’re like, ‘oh, this sucks. It’s going to be a bad day because everyone’s in a bad mood.’ It’s usually because someone higher than him is upset. So yeah, just thinking of it like that.

Do you have any tips for collaboration because it was highly stressful having such a short time and people react to stress differently. Were there times on set it was a bit tense and you had to diffuse the situation, or everyone was chill?  Do you have any tips or advice?

I mean, all those sorts of moments were in the doc, so when people buttheads, I’m responsible for one, so that’s fine. It’s the first time I’ve really had those sorts of issues on set. Prior to that, I made little docos that were small crews or short films that were over so quickly it didn’t really matter and with those, you have time.  I haven’t been on enough big sets to know for sure, but with the Asylum, you have six days and complications of the script being late, costumes needing to be approved and that just inherently bubbles away in the background so I think people are kind of more on edge because of that. Whereas I’m assuming with a normal feature film, there’s still people butting heads, but they’re over things like personality differences rather than the background noise of an asylum production.

I was wondering if you noticed a difference between the documentary crew and the ‘bad movie’ crew? Is there a difference between American and Australian working styles?

With short films the difference is you’re making the film without any expectations. Whereas with the Asylum, you’ve got these very specific expectations from the heads at the Asylum, the three owners. In Adelaide we had great crew. Adelaide’s quite a small industry, pretty tight knit. We got incredible crew because they were between jobs and everyone of thought it’d be fun to jump on. Whereas in LA, there’s so many jobs going at any one time so you’re just getting the people who are off and just doing it for the money. They’re not as in it as the people in Adelaide whereas here it was like, ‘oh, let’s make a movie. We’re going to make a movie about dinosaurs. How fun.’ Where they’re like, ‘we’ll just get it done.’ And they just move really slow. I think that’s just a quirk of the asylum and not a quirk of LA. I feel like if you got a real big budget film up in LA, you’d get the best crew ever and it’ll move smoothly and everyone would be professional.

The Asylum crew, were they in-house crew?

No, they’re all contractors, freelancers. Except I think their editor, the guy who cut Land that time forgot but he lives in England which is funny. A few people like Glenn, the VFX supervisor…he was great. He passed away after we shot, which was sad. He was a Hollywood legend. He worked on the original Tron, the original Star Trek, all these incredible things and ended up spending the rest of his career at the Asylum because as the VFX industry grew, he realized that you have to choose very specific things. Whereas at the Asylum, he could do a shot, like he wouldn’t have to rotoscope and pass it on to someone else. Every shot was his baby. He could do the animation, everything. He loved it. They got a few in-house people. Not as many as they used to, mostly post.

In the film there was this sound dude sleeping. That was so relatable haha

I studied sound first too before film, so I get it. We’re sleepy people.

Did you want to talk about balancing filmmaking, family, and fatherhood? There’s the debate of once you have a kid, you can’t make movies, but you obviously disprove that in a way.

I think that’s what it comes down to. If I was a single parent or something, it would have been impossible. We’re also lucky that my wife was still on maternity leave during the production so she could be the primary parent, which was good. It’d be much more complicated now, but I think we could make it work but it’s just a matter of her taking the brunt of it. It worked out because I was away for a few weeks but then the rest of the year, I was home. It’s like, go to America for two weeks and then I’m home for the rest of the year. I work from home primarily too so it evens out, whereas, a regular person has a nine-to-five office job and they’re at the office every day, whereas I’m around home and hang out with my family. So it worked out really well, kind of a perfect storm.

When the documentary filmed? Cause things take a while to edit.

2024 into 2025. I think we finished shooting in January 25 and then we edited up until June, I can’t remember exactly and then it was three or four months of just sitting on the shelf until the Adelaide Film Festival premiere.

Did you get any funding from Screen Australia or? Did you have to pitch the idea first? Or you just decided to make the documentary because of the Asylum opportunity? 

No, we got financed the traditional way. We had Screen Australia, South Australian Film Corporation, VicScreen and we had two distributors, Umbrella in Australia and Giant Pictures in the US. We had the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund and it’s a private investment. We decided to go through the traditional method so everyone could get paid fairly and was compensated for their work and time.

Was that part of the budget from the Land film or the documentary?

That’s the documentary. The Asylum paid for land at time forgot completely themselves, so they own that film entirely. The documentary was a separate production. The only thing was like me directing both that was the link between the two.

Since it’s such a low budget for Land, were you involved in figuring out budget or was that external? Or just a fly in-out director?

Pretty much. Brendan did all the budget and negotiated that with the asylum. They gave him a figure and he essentially worked it out from that figure.

I think the biggest thing is when you’re making films, money seems a sensitive topic, but we need to talk about it and the sustainability of industry. People like to do stuff for ‘exposure’ but it’s often unpaid, it becomes an ethical thing of how long can you work for free?

Exactly. And it depends on what you’re working to, I think. Doing something unpaid for your friends is different from doing something unpaid for like a Channel 10, $10 million show. Everyone wants to make sure you’ve got the chops and stuff, but you also have to eat.

You’re Adelaide based, I understand. How was VicScreen involved?

We had three producers on the project, Sandy Cameron, Naomi Ball, and David Elliot-Jones. David and Naomi live in Melbourne. We also did some of the post-production in Melbourne. We did the like colour grade and some of the mastering in Melbourne. That unlocked VicScreen financing for us.

I read you have a panel at Sydney Film Festival you’re part of?

It’s a panel about micro budget filmmaking. It’s with two other filmmakers who made micro-budget films. I think we’re just talking about how we made our films for a small budget. I’m in a weird position because I think it’s more about the aesthetic of micro-budget filmmaking and how you put your own integrity and artistry into it whereas my film wasn’t quite on that level. I think it’d be interesting. It’s always fun to discuss filmmaking.

Once you fit the movie’s conventions or structure, did you see yourself in it or was your creative voice restricted cause of production limitations?

The final Land that time forgot is 90 minutes. The first cut I got was about an hour and 50 minutes. I could see myself in there, the things enjoy and what I wanted to do. Then all that stuff got cut out. 

They didn’t want you to exist. 

[laughs] They know what they make, they’re purely business. So, their films need to reflect their brand, very specifically. I think there’s moments in there I’m proud of. I love The Land of that time forgot. I think it rules. 

I was trying to look up your movie but it’s not out yet. There’s an older 2009 version. Have you seen it? Is it similar or very different?

So different. They gave me a DVD copy to watch. It’s so different. That film’s mostly about like siphoning gas out of a submarine but mine’s just people running through a jungle with a World War One guy.

Just wanted to share, it’s funny cause I’m interviewing you about the making of bad movies. So, the day before I started studying at film school, I was feeling moody and watched this movie called Menopause. It’s about women on their periods who start murdering their husbands and boyfriends. The lighting was overexposed, the acting and everything was really bad, but it stuck with me. It was a fun way to start my masters journey watching this bad feminist horror film.

That’s so good.

There’s definite a charm to bad movies

I think so. There’s something special about them, especially like a real good one, one that’s earnest and you can tell that everyone really tried and it’s got this soul you don’t find in a typical movie. There’s a naivety to it that’s kind of sweet. I love that they’re usually at genre films too. They’re always the bad horror movie. They just love genre so much. It’s so sweet and fun.

Do you think you’ll you make another bad movie or are you traumatized?

The Asylum asks me often. It took me months to recuperate. It was such an exhausting process.

Physically or financially?

Physically and emotionally. [laughs] Emotionally, yeah. My heart’s in documentary. I’d like to get more documentaries out, but if worse comes to worse I think I’ll jump back in the Asylum saddle.

I don’t have any other questions except maybe we just keep talking about shitty movies we’ve seen on YouTube? Have you seen Kung Fury? It’s shit but it’s good, especially the special effects.

There’s one called Black Dynamite that’s quite funny. It’s a comedy but it’s like made to look like a 70s blaxploitation film. Miami Connection is incredibly funny. I was crying through it. I was laughing my ass off.

I’m a sucker for predicable Hallmark films and White Christian evangelistic movies. I know it’s not Art. It’s so shit. I go from French New Wave Art house to like The Princess Switch or whatever like crappy movie

Oh man, they’re so good [laughs] it’s the best. Bad movies rule.

There are a few cinemas here in Sydney I think would be good for your film – Randwick Ritz, Hayden Orpheum. I heard they screen The Room at The Orpheum and throw spoons so having your film there makes sense. It’d be fun. Are there any places in Adelaide like that?

Yeah, we’ve got a few independent cinemas that are quite fun. There’s one near me, the Odeon, which is quite good. They’re a little family-owned thing and they do I think Wind Back Wednesday where they play cult films every Wednesday. It’s such a nice little cinema. It’s always fun going there.

Mockbuster screens 6th June, Event George Street and 7th June, Dendy Newtown as part of Sydney Film Festival. Details here: Mockbuster – Sydney Film Festival.

Interview by Addy Fong.