SCI FI PI

AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SHANE ABBESS AND ACTOR ANDY WHITFIELD FROM GABRIEL




"We don't make genre movies in Australia". Really?

When Shane Abbess managed to cobble together $90,000, he knew he didn't quite have the cash to make his dream of making an action packed fantasy film in Australia. But he kept on going, and with the extraordinary help of cast, crew, friends and small-time investors, he finally created the impossible. Now he is in Los Angeles, making the final rounds of US publicity for the DVD release of Gabriel and is in final deliberations for his next project - a bona fide studio picture.

The dream of Gabriel is one that many SF&F fans share, the story of Gabriel is almost as genre-bending as the film itself. Director Shane Abbess and star Andy Whitfield caught up with SCI FI PI and told us what they're up to now.

First off, a little background for those unfamiliar with Gabriel.

THE GABRIEL STORY

With a final budget of $150,000, the film is a blend of spectacular fight scenes and Christian mythology, with the archangel Gabriel descending to Purgatory to combat 'The Fallen', hellbent on taking over Purgatory and tipping the balance of souls towards evil. With a rock'n'roll sensibility and stylistic nods to films like The Matrix and The Crow, the film is a bold attempt to make a giant genre movie on a micro-budget. With actors speaking in Americanised transatlantic or 'mid-Pacific' accents, it is firmly aimed at an international market, and the critical response overseas has reflected that.

Local critics have been less enthusiastic, but everyone who has seen the film is unified in their appreciation that such a film could have been made on such a small budget. With a large amount of close ups being one stylistic choice made primarily due to the lack of budget, it seems that the film will be more effective as a DVD than on the big screen, and with a monster 'making of' doco, it seems a good DVD bet for all those with genre film-making ambitions of their own.

The film took several years to make, the stories that came out of film-making include the cinematographer who moved to Melbourne and slept on a couch for half a year, breaking up with his wife in the process (they were subsequently reconciled). Director Shane Abbess was told the day before shooting that he was not permitted to make the film by his insurance company - because he did not have a large enough budget, obviously thinking that this was a poorly organised fraud rather than a motion picture production.

A last-ditch effort saw the film properly covered, but the money troubles were constant and savage. At one stage, a garbage man chipped in his life savings to extend production, and director/producer/writer Abbess had to return to work at a call centre, during shooting, to make sure enough cash was on hand for the non-deferrable minutiae of production.

Bad guy Michel Piccirrilli broke his leg two weeks before shooting and had to have his legs doubled for walking. Andy Whitfield literally reached a state of hypothermia during extended night shooting for the climactic finale.

That said, the film continued, with grand leaps in vision. Shot entirely in HD, and having stunt coordinator Kyle Rowling (from the Star Wars prequels) on set and and crew garnered from The Matrix and Superman, a little went a very long long way.

And now Shane Abbess' audacity has paid off. Having been told countless times that 'we don't do genre pictures in Australia', he has gone to do them in the US.



Hang on a sec, isn't that? Yes it is, Samantha Noble, from All Saints.

SHANE ABBESS - A DIRECTOR WITH A VISION

Hi Shane how are things in LA?

Fine thanks! I'm standing in a Santa Monica mall watching the people walk past.

Are you fending off lots of offers?

I'm actually weighing up two film projects at the moment. There was a stack of scripts that I went through, but there wasn’t a lot of the kind of things I was looking for.

The thing was finding a project that I felt I wouldn’t have any problems with, or to find a script that I felt would result in something that I felt was achievable. I can’t just go and do something that has action in it - it has to have the support of a decent plot in it. So after all those scripts have narrowed it down now to a couple of projects. I'll know what I'm doing in a few weeks.

A NON-LOCAL HERO

The film has been very well received in the US and when we it came to Australia we were very excited, but the reaction locally hasn’t been near the same.

I know - it's very, very different. Back home, after the film had been out for two months, someone sent me a script by accident, thinking I was somebody else. Then when I came to the US, within two weeks, I had over a hundred scripts. I had to get another two suitcases just to carry them back with me to Australia. A lot of offers from studios. It’s just an entirely different vibe. There’s a lot more love from Overseas than from back home. But I think also people just seemed to get it more. Where locally people had trouble with the accents that were kind of transatlantic, in the US it wasn’t an issue, whereas in Australia there was that cultural cringe about the neutral accent, or whether there was an accent at all.

Shooting the film cost $150,000. Does everyone think you’re a genius, El Mariachi style, that you can make something out of nothing?

Yeah yeah, very much so. Over here that doesn’t even cover the golf budget!

The ‘angel’ genre seems to be expanding and creating a very loyal fanbase (with films like The Prophecy etc). Have you discussed your sequels with Sony?

Obviously it was written as a three part story and I really want to go to part two, but I want to wait for the film to have been and done and to run its entire course and really see what people really want. Obviously I have a set story where two and three are going. Two kind of answers all the questions that were raised in one with the Light and the Fallen and the universe and how it all works, which was something we wanted to answer in the first one but couldn’t, due to the limitations. But that said, I really want to go and do something different, maybe not necessarily in tone, but a lot different in terms of studio-based support, and then come back to it.



The Chiropractor from Hell.

PAYING YOUR DUES

You mean a film where you don’t have to go and work at a call centre at night while you’re shooting?

Yes! (laughs) A film where you don’t have to beg, borrow and steal and nearly die and get killed to make it. I’m excited about doing a film where I don’t have to do that. People are asking me how are you going to go working with the constraints of opinionated Hollywood producers and the studio over your head from the get go.

It’s actually much, much easier, because nothing can be as constraining as the budget that we had on Gabriel. I was actually forced to shoot a particular way, say lots of close-ups, because I had no more set. Move the camera a bit to the left, and you've got car park! If it comes to that, I am far better equipped to deal with someone’s opinion on the next film rather than sets falling over or half the crew not turning up because they’re not getting paid.

There’s always that sense of answered prayers causing more grief than unanswered ones. Are you more elated or more terrified about the next film, now that you have the resources to pull it off?

I’m not being overly confident or cocky, but I think I wouldn’t have tried to do what I did with Gabriel if I didn’t want to be over here and shoot these sorts of movies. I feel good about it, obviously there’s a sense of nervousness and excitement, but there’s a whole different support network out here as well. People are actually able to make these types of films. Shooting someone else's script is going to be interesting - just focusing on the direction. Dropping nine hundred of the jobs I had to do and just doing one will be a nice change! (laughs)

THE CITY OF ANGELS

What is it about LA that you expected to be a certain way but were shocked and horrified was not the case?

First off when I was here I had to go and see all the tourist stuff. Because I’m a big rock head, I had to go and see The Whiskey and The Viper. James Vernon, who was one of the execs from Gabriel was driving us around and showing us - "that’s it there, there and there". "Oh, that’s it." And then we went to Hollywood Boulevard and I said I’d love to see Mann’s Chinese Theatre and he said, "actually, we’re here". "Oh'".

It’s almost like the city is like a film set itself. There are so many cool and beautiful parts of it, but when you ‘pull back to the wide shot’ everything around it is not that cool. The attitude here is amazing. There’s a sense here that literally anything is possible. Any movie, any idea. Maybe that’s a bad thing as well, but there’s a kind of energy that people are really here to make films.

Now that the strike’s over people are just kicking in again. Even Andy, who played Gabriel in the film, in Australia, no one could see where to pt him in other projects, but here he’s inundated with offers and he’s got the top agents representing him and a manager so it’s great for him.

The myth is that when you ‘make it’ to Hollywood they drive a dump truck of American dollars to your brand new house and you drink your chocolate flavoured yak's milk from gem-encrusted goblets. Is this the case for you?

Far far from it. I think I’ll be, such a bad phrase, but I’ll be ‘keeping it real’ for quite a long time. My next film will be my first major feature in Hollywood, so I don’t expect to get paid much at all. But as long as I’m paying the rent and not struggling to support myself each week while I’m making the film, then I guess I’ll be all right. I see this next one, as having to prove myself all over again, I have to prove that I can handle a bigger studio-based Hollywood picture. I’m confidant, but let’s see how it all turns out. I think Gabriel is a fantastic DVD film. It’s got a 90 minute making of on it. It should be very enlightening.



Trouble with a capital 'T'.

ANDY WHITFIELD, RISING STAR

After chatting with Shane, we spoke with Andy Whitfield, who was still in Australia but preparing to head back to LA the next day. Andy took up acting only recently, having previously garnered employment as a male model. His appearance, even at the trailer stage, gave the film the look of true star vehicle, and whilst local response has been lukewarm, it's all guns blazing for him in the US.

Why are you going to LA, what could be possibly be there for you?

We went for a screening of Gabriel in December and from that I got a manager and from that I got a few more projects to test for and from that – one of them is actually happening and I have to sign the deal for that.

Did you think, five years ago, that this would be happening to you?

Five years ago, I’d just started acting, so I had no conscious thoughts abut it at all. It’s been two years since we shot the film, so in some respects it’s come very, very slowly. But once it was there to be ‘used’ our next projects and career developments are happening much, much quicker.

JJ ABRAMS AND THE X FILES

Obviously we'd imagine that you’re being offered ever 'fallen angel' role currently going around Hollywood. Or is there something you’re being offered that you were surprised to get?

It’s hard to know. As an actor, nobody knows where they fit, apart from the very wise producers, who have their own science (laughs!) A couple of weeks ago I tested for the new JJ Abrams TV show, which is like a new version of the X-files. So I went to final final screen test with the network and the producers but my American accent didn’t quite cut it, so I didn’t get it.

And that had only come up two days before. I’d happened to be in LA for another project which was a fairly American bolshy leading man type character, so anything goes really.

Tell us about the JJ Abrams thing! SF geeks across the globe are vibrating to hear about JJ Abrams and X-Files!

Hahaha. (laughs, chuckles, laughs again) So many non-disclosure agreements have been signed! I think I'd be dead before I finished my sentence!

Were you surprised by what you found in LA?

I’m amazed at what a business it is. I did a shop-around of all the major agencies, and it’s like being in a pharmaceutical company or a bank. It’s like anywhere where there are lots of suits and corridors, you realize it is an incredibly massive, fast-turnover industry. When the strike happened, 30% of it got destroyed, in a month. That's how quickly it all gets churned out.

On the other hand, it is nice to see it as a business. Here, it’s almost a hobby. There are projects just coming out of every orifice, and I’m thinking why not be part of that if you want to be an actor?

Do you have any reservations about becoming a genre actor? Say after Gabriel 2 and 3 have come out?

I love genre and Sci Fi. Some of my favourite films, like Aliens, and those kind of films. As long as the script is good enough. Like any actor, I’d like to do as many different roles as possible. But with people like Shane writing genre action flicks but with a bit more heart and story, well, of course you’re wanting to do that!



This is a movie about Angels, right? Fellas? Fellas!

L.A. - THE ENTOURAGE WAY

Are there things that you have on the pot? Irons in the fire?

I signed on with a manager just before Christmas, and rightly or wrongly, I have put all my trust into him. I’m not the best judge of what I should do next, of what’s going to be good or what’s going to be bad. Here’s a guy who’s connected to the industry, he represents the Entourage boys and Mark Whalberg and all that. I like the energy of their projects, so I’m just so hungry for the next thing. Everything I get sent I see the possibility in. Except I did just receive a romantic comedy script, starring a couple of very big LA names, and it’s just terrible! So I do have some dignity.

But you are an actor?

Yes, so I guess the dignity will go.

Of course, you do have ‘will risk hypothermia for film’ on your resume, which is most appealing to directors.

I’d rather do that than one-note romantic comedies with ‘xxxx’ and “xxxx’!

Have you bumped into anybody stupidly famous yet?

Well I did have lunch next to the owner of Google who was having lunch with the owner of Facebook. I didn’t know who they were, but my manager pointed them out saying 'there’s probably $100 billion worth of lunch going on there'.

Wonder who paid?

(laughs!) Really though, my manager is trying to instill a certain Vince from Entourage attitude, keep it mellow, relaxed, so you sail through it all without being too serious. It becomes fun, so you attract the kind of things you believe in.

If you’re going to live the dream why live it as a nightmare?

Exactly. But it could so easily be!

Well good luck with it, and we look forward to getting all the good scoops and goss at SCI FI PI!
You bet!


Gabriel is available now on DVD.