by Franca Lafosse
The Way of The Wind “The Ragged Man races across the desert, a shadow follows.”
Franca: Congratulations on being selected for Flickerfest! Is this the first time you’ll be screening Way of The Wind with an audience?
Nick: Yes, it’s the world-wide premiere! I’m kind of going in blind, the only people who have seen it are the editor Liam D’Silva, the producer Jack Langford, who hasn’t actually seen the final cut, and also Nicholas Bourlotos, who did the sound design and score. But I haven’t shown it to anyone else so it’ll be really interesting to see how it’s perceived – because it’s not what is normally shown here. The Way of The Wind is super short and concise, It’s a thriller, it’s a western, there’s no dialogue, and no one really does Westerns anymore, especially from this period, so I’m really interested to see how it’s received.
I wanted to ask about the sound, because it drives so much of the tension and anticipation during the film, particularly that recurring sound of – is it a cowbell?
Nick: I actually don’t know! Nicholas Bourlotos used Audition to create the score, so when we were trying to find a chime or a bell that sounded the most ominous, that one came up! I think it’s a very divisive bell. We played around with different ones, but this one felt the most real and most visceral. Because it is a period film, I wanted to make sure it sounded like it was using things from the time, instrumental and also materials from the time, which gives the film a more earthy feel.
Luke: And I think that links back to the idea that no one does westerns in the traditional sense anymore – they have merged into the modern action blockbuster. The idea of a Western, which most of our grandparents grew up on, have no longer exist, so We wanted to take the most popular genre since the birth of cinema through to the 60s, and then wanting to modernize it, to look at that through a contemporary lens. It was really fun to be able to take that genre and remould it into something new.
Yes, another element that played hugely into the genre was the location, which is so striking throughout. Where did you actually shoot, and was that a location you knew you’d have access to from the get-go?
Nick: The film is split across three different locations, a lot of the landscapes are from the Flinders Rangers which we shot up near Hawker, which is 600km North roughly. Luke and I drove up there for our test-shoot, and then used some shots again for the film. But then most of the film takes place at this massive property in a small town called Truro in South Australia. It was like 7,000 acres of rolling hills and wide open spaces, which I happened to come upon through a family friend who used to live there. So there was a connection there, but then also for three or four months I would drive up to the northern area two or three times a week to just scout locations. For example, there’s a house location in a day-for-night sequence which was found while Jack and I were driving down a random road. I actually completely forgot where it was, I only knew it had to be somewhere down this one road… so I spent two hours on Google Maps going down this 50km stretch of road trying to find it, and I did!
It was a big process, and there were a few locations that we really wanted to film at but the response would be ‘no, thank you’, but a lot of the time people went ‘yeah, sure, you’re shooting a film here? Why not!’. Especially for that house location, they said they were going to knock that down in the next month, so it was great timing! We’ve truly captured spaces that don’t exist anymore.
Luke: There is actually a behind the scenes as well on the Instagram page (@wayofthewindfilm) if anyone wants to see the first trip up to Hawker we did. It is such an inherently South Australian film in the ways of process, of asking who you know, because everyone wants to be part of filmmaking. And locations and beautiful landscapes are only an hour away.
Nick: It’s true, this film didn’t have a budget. Most of it was Kickstarter or self-funded, so then having people be willing to give up their land for our production was incredible. The caretaker of this property took me on a 45-minute tour out of his own time, he took me on a buggy, which he then gave to us to shoot, and he wouldn’t accept money or anything, which I think is a truly South Australian thing. So, every shot of Luke running is basically me hand-holding the camera on the back of the buggy! It was great, because the original plan was to shoot in the back of a car, but this way we weren’t limited by windows. I do feel bad for Luke because there’s this opening wide shot, that is only about 15 seconds… but I made Luke do that 200m sprint like 8 times! So I am super thankful to the cast and crew for all of the time and effort they put into the project, and so grateful that people believed in it – particularly since we didn’t get any funding from any major bodies. But I think we did find a freedom through that because we were in charge of all the decisions.
Luke: For the most part too, having a group of people making this film and having Nick write, direct and shoot brought a different layer of trust within the group. Nick’s background is as a cinematographer, so we all knew the film was going to look insane, but it was great to see him bring that to his role as a director along with my skills from the acting point of view, it’s what made the scenes relaxed!
Since the house location was going to be demolished in a month, did you have to schedule shoots around that?
Nick: Not really, because the main shoot went for four days, which we had to delay by a week, we ended up shooting in June. Originally we were going to shoot in May, based on a lot of the scouting I did across April and March when everything was dry and beautiful. But then the day before we were supposed to shoot they were having massive torrential downpours, getting 30mm of rain every day, so I was afraid that by the time be got there everything would be green! But it didn’t, the unfortunate thing with the current climate is that you either get extreme dryness or extreme wetness, so a lot of the time the water basically fully evaporates – which is a terrible thing, but I suppose lucky for this production.
Since we were shooting around the weekend, all the farmers were very understanding of pushing the shoot back, and I truly think it was for the better, because if it was raining the landscape wouldn’t have been right for what the film needed to be – it’s dry, it’s unpredictable and I don’t think it would have been the same on a cold and overcast day. We really wanted to show off the natural Australian landscape, we have such a varied landscape with beautiful colours that I really wanted to capture. So, in contrast with a lot of Westerns, this one’s a very colourful film, with striking oranges, blues, and purples – and that was all about enhancing what is already there, where we shot. For example, we didn’t have any lighting, other than the scenes by the fire where it was necessary, which also shortened the shooting process. When I went to each location, I would get the sun map up and note where the sun needed to be for each scene, and the schedule was then built around that. Natural lighting really helped us highlight the harshness of the landscape and, since we were shooting on super wide 2.67:1 anamorphic, we really wanted to get the most out of those lenses when capturing the bright sun.
I also loved how much the landscape stood out in correlation with all the other design elements.
Nick: Thank you, yes, shoutout to State Theatre Company of South Australia for lending our costumes, it was great to go to their costume store and rummage through drawers, and also shout out to John Coory who was our armourer on the film, he really helped create a very safe environment and never settled until everything and everyone was 100% safe.
Where there any films that were strong reference points for you heading into production for this film?
Nick: Yes, I’m a massive fan of the resurgence of neo-Westerns, so films like No Country For Old Men, Hell or High Water, Wind River, Sicario, all these kinds of films that play with Western tropes but are all contemporary. So, I really wanted to make something that was a throwback. I wrote this film on the tram back from Melbourne after attending MIFF in 2023 and being inspired by the passion behind the short films being shown, and then I developed it throughout the next few months. No Country For Old Men is one of my favourite films of all time, it’s a film that does everything incredibly well, and similarly I wanted to make something that was really clean and with no fluff. And then even films like The Proposition, which Jack and I love, I think a lot of the blood in The Way of The Wind is owed to that film and how it doesn’t have any respect for its past. It’s not glamorized. Even throwing it back to the first feature film ever made, The Story of The Ned Kelly Gang, which was a western! So, Westerns really are the beginning of film, and though it’s sad they aren’t as popular now, there are so many interesting ways you can use the tropes of those films to make something different.
Luke: Australian westerns are also so different, I think in America there is very much the cowboy aesthetic, whereas a lot of our films – like Gallipoli or Sunday Too Far Away, may not classify as ‘Westerns’ per se but use the rural Australian landscape so well… They don’t glamorize, they are about frontier wars, they are history-driven. A lot of the content that is shown in Australia is based on our history, whether it be wars or various conflicts on the land. So, to have that as a backing, to transport back to that time, and use conventions like a day-for-night scene, felt very traditional and old-school style.
Nick having gone through the whole process of writing, to directing, what was it like to then go into post-production?
Nick: This was one of the smoothest post-productions that I’ve ever worked on. Our editor Liam D’Silva, is one of the great editors form South Australia, and he understood the story really well. It also helps when you have amazing performances from Luke, Nicole and our young actress Tessa. After he showed me the first cut, I asked him to make it feel more manic, more desperate – that was my main thing, because there is no dialogue, to use the editing to make sure that the narrative is clear, entertaining, and that you fully understand what the character is going through. I asked Liam to put us in his shoes and make us worried for him. And then my sound designer Nicholas Bourlotos, I think I really worked him to his core. We had a cut around August and then spent about 3 or 4 months working on the sound alone! It was great because I’d then send a cut to Liam who would say ‘the sound design is like a Pinot Noir right now, you need to make sure it’s a Shiraz.’ So we really worked to hone it in and pushed to keep developing it instead of settling for something that was just okay. I hope that shows in the final product.
And for you Luke, throughout the film we see your character evolve and then eventually devolve, how much did that factor into your performance and preparation?
Luke: Well, I think I were really lucky to be making to have so much driving time together, to be able to read the script from an early stage and be involved in the location scouts… we had a lot of time to talk about the film. And the one thing Nick and I were both passionate about was the use of short-form structure to make a concise narrative short film – not a proof of concept, but to really use the structure to test how quickly we could establish a character and then test the relationship the audience has within 8 minutes.
Shooting scenes out of order was an interesting process, a lot was dependent on the makeup done by the wonderful Maddison Bugg, who made the character look more and more deteriorated. It very much became an environment where, the more time we spent on set, the more efficient everyone got at their job. And when shooting out of sequence, we were very fortunate to have a bit of leeway with Nick, because a lot of that process was based on trust. Oftentimes Nick was focusing on the camera as well as direction, and he wouldn’t shape absolutely every detail, so he had to trust that I as the actor could swim through the scene, and I had to trust him with how it would look. So it was really exciting to experience that character change, and to be honest with each other when it wasn’t scanning.
Brilliant, and to finish up, what’s up next for you?
Nick: There are a few films in development which I’m attached to hopefully shoot that I’m incredibly grateful for, and I’m also hoping that this year I’ll be able to follow up with another period piece short film, both in South Australia. Ultimately, I’m really looking to collaborate a lot more and keep meeting other filmmakers, which is the great thing about Flickerfest!
Luke: And there’s something so beautiful about taking a film that you’ve made locally, bringing it to another state to share with an audience, and then going back to where you’re from to make the next thing. So many filmmakers, actors, artists do that, they go out, explore, travel – like the both of us love Korean cinema, and travelling over there to get influences – and then being able to bring it back to an environment that we great up in if such a gift.
Absolutely, well thank you for chatting with us and all the best with the screenings at Flickerfest this week!