ARMSTRONG, GILLIAN – OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2007
One of the iconic figures of Australia’s film renaissance in the 1970,
Gillian Armstrong, is this month honoured by her peers with the Outstanding
Achievement Award; the filmmaking process has many highlights for her, she tells
Andrew L. Urban.
“We all feel that the most significant honour is from your peers,” says Gillian
Armstrong, “because they know exactly what you do.” Armstrong is talking about
her Outstanding Achievement Award from the Australian Directors’ Guild (May 11,
2007), which puts her in the “honoured company” of Phillip Noyce, Peter Weir,
Ray Lawrence and Fred Schepisi.
Her wicked sense of humour kicks in and she says, “But as I told Phil (Noyce,
2006 recipient) that I’d have got it last year, before him, but I was away
shooting!” She and Noyce went to AFTRS together in the early 70s and both have
enjoyed remarkably successful careers ever since. “I was lucky to graduate just
as the Government set up assistance schemes for the industry.”
"special highlights during the process of making a
film"
Currently editing her latest film, Death Defying Acts, in Sydney, Armstrong
says there are several special highlights during the process of making a film.
“The first is at the first reading of the script when you feel that you alone
can make this film and you are ready and willing to put two or three years of
your life into it.
“The second is at casting … a reading of the script which sends a chill up your
spine, like when Judy Davis read My Brilliant Career or Cate Blanchett read
Charlotte Gray and everything comes alive.
“Another highlight is when you finally find that perfect location, and it’s the
fourth day on set and you get just the right light and there is an incredible
moment with an actor…
“You get a thrill with a specific cut of a scene, and a piece of music that
works beautifully … And of course when you see the final mix and your film looks
so much bigger than you’d imagined.”
Both these last two stages are yet to come for Armstrong with Death Defying
Acts, which stars Guy Pearce as Harry Houdini who is touring Britain in 1926 and
has a a passionate affair with a psychic (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who is trying to
con him. Shot in England, Death Defying Acts
“But of course then comes seeing the film with an audience who love your film –
that’s very special.” And that’s probably the last time Armstrong will see the
film, unless she is visiting a different country. “None of my films are as
perfect as I’d wished them to be, so it’s depressing …”
As for the editing process, she loves it, “but it’s also painful because you see
your mistakes, the scenes where you know you should have got that extra shot, or
where you didn’t have the right light and had to rush, or you realiose you
should have had a different angle. But I love working with (editor) Nicholas
Beauman …”
All films change as you’re making them, she says; “the cast are alive and you
have to listen to yourself and make adjustments.”
Published May 17, 2007
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Gillian Armstrong
My Brilliant Career
Charlotte Gray
Unfolding Florence
GILLIAN ARMSTRONG – FILMOGRAPHY:
Death Defying Acts (2007)
Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst (2006)
Charlotte Gray (2001)
Oscar and Lucinda (1997)
Not Fourteen Again (1996)
Little Women (1994)
The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992)
Fires Within (1991)
Bingo, Bridesmaids & Braces (1988)
High Tide (1987)
Hard to Handle (1986)
Mrs. Soffel (1984)
Having a Go (1983)
Starstruck (1982)
Fourteen's Good, Eighteen's Better (1980)
Touch Wood (1980)
My Brilliant Career (1979)
The Singer and the Dancer (1977)
Smokes and Lollies (1975)
Gretel (1973)
One Hundred a Day (1973)
Satdee Night (1973)
Roof Needs Mowing (1971)
Old Man and Dog (1970)
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