There’s his loony sister working against him and a fugitive from justice who wanders into the picture and fuels the increasingly obsessive flying dreams. The soundtrack for the film was nominated for an ARIA in the 1990 Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album category (the original cast recording for Anything Goes was the winner that year). Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, it was a story of success and failure, like dream and reality. … Composer sound designer and art director Peter Miller stood in for Betty in a couple of distant shots, while production designer Sean Callinan played the second Pursuer. Amazon.ca - Buy Spirits Of The Air Gremlins Of The Clouds at a low price; free shipping on qualified orders. How could he when he earned less than $4,000 for two summer’s work on the film?. At the last minute, Betty announces she’s not going … and an exasperated Felix smashes up her musical instrument with his wheelchair. He seems to skim over several contrasting emotions at the one moment, and does so with delicate control. “I don’t want to make a film under those circumstances again,” he says. The scenery is just stunning and the songs that were chosen accentuated the drama and were so good. More could have been made of sexual tension between the Norm and Betty, more could have been made of the Pursuers, there could have been more nods to conventional story-telling, but Proyas determinedly pursues mood, atmosphere, visuals and the exotic musical soundtrack in preference to everything else. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1988) M 09/02/1988 (AU) Adventure, Science Fiction 1h 33m User Score. I’ve said it to bands. The interiors were created on a set at Supreme Studios in Sydney. There are only 355 people that rated this movie and I guess that at least eighty percent of those rates are from people that know somebody that was involved in this movie, friends or family, and that's why it has a ridiculous high rating. Maybe this time. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2018 CD release of Spirits Of The Air, Gremlins Of The Clouds: The Original Soundtrack By Peter Miller From The Meaningful Eye Contact Film on Discogs. Locations: according to the film’s composer and co-art director Peter Miller, the main exterior location was on the Mundi Mundi plains. Screen Australia's database here lists the 1989 Brussels and Sitges festivals, and in 1990, Seattle and Yubari. A few interiors were dressed on location to provide a match between the exteriors and the studio work. “I don’t consider myself as a guy who makes commercials or music videos. One of the hardest things to do is to tell a thirty- or sixty-second story. FAQ The house and Felix’s shed and the flying machine runway for the plane were built on location, with the interiors shot on set at Supreme Sound Studios. Really, I still don’t consider myself a screenwriter, I consider myself a director, first and foremost. You would have to be a much cleverer director than I certainly was at the time to be able to achieve it. Perhaps it leans a little too much towards making money, but the process of making a film to satisfy an audience and make it a profitable process is absolutely fine. But Betty intends to stay to tend the grave of her dead father as they promised, and in turn Felix reluctantly decides he’ll stay too, giving Smith a better chance on his own to escape …, The wind cranks up, Felix reminds Smith of the flaps, the launch proceeds, the propellor-driven craft takes to the sky and Smith flies away … leaving Felix with his sister …. | The debut feature from Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City, I Robot), Umbrella Entertainment presents a 2K scan from the original 16mm negatives. Many who worked on that film call it the most fun they ever had being young and poor. Soon he was doing the best band sin the country, including INXS. His ability as a film-maker was recognisable from his student films, which won prizes not only in local film festivals but also in London. Alex Proyas began his career as a music video director, then directed some short films before pond-hopping his way into the hearts of goth and sci-fi fans with the one-two punch of The Crow (1994) and Dark City (1998). With nothing more than sand and sky in his palette, Proyas paints a thematic picture of longing and loss, both almost exclusively intertwined with each other. The mention of flying presses Felix’s button. In the meantime, the film occasionally turns up on YouTube - at time of writing it was available in an indifferent version derived from VHS here. The SFX shoot involved a clever mix of models and forced perspective, rare for Australian films of the period - these are used to give the opening credits title sequence a big screen impact. Brother and sister endure alone together in a post-apocalyptic Outback until the sudden arrival of a stranger. Lake describes the interaction of the three sole cast members as a type of “unholy trinity”; they have also been described as an Adams Family of the outback. The first feature by Alex Proyas ( The Crow, Dark City ), it was filmed on 16mm around Broken Hill in the same period Proyas was shooting the music video for INXS’ “Kiss the Dirt” , … Movie: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989) info with movie soundtracks, credited songs, film score albums, reviews, news, and more. Paterson claims that the music soundtrack was the first Australian film to be mastered digitally, and he used the original PCM encoded music soundtrack recorded onto 3/4” Umatic tape in his restoration. Metacritic Reviews. Ironically, Proyas walked away from Caspar, but his complaint about government funding was repeated in a profile in the Sunday Age on 26th April 1998: … Some years later Proyas complained that to make a film in Australian required a director “to conform to a certain group who control the funds and that can be limited”. In ‘Spirits of the Air’, Lake plays Felix, an eccentric paraplegic who is obsessed by baked beans and the motion of flight. In June 2018, director Alex Proyas released a trailer on his YouTube channel for a re-release of the movie, remastered from original 16mm negative and featuring a restored soundtrack from the original Dolby Stereo mixes. By the time he started on The Crow, Proyas had established a reputation directing big-budget, prestigious commercials for Nike, American Express and Coca-Cola, among others, many of them in the US. In Australia, the system requires you to conform to a certain group who control the funds, and that can be limiting.”. Yeah...I don't know where I got that idea.". Cinema Papers’ production surveys have it in production in the May 1986 issue, and in post-production in the July and November 1986 and January 1987 editions. The collaborative aspect is extremely important in that sense. You have to be absolutely secure with the story, the characters and the actors. The film picked up a special prize at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, 1990, in Japan. Lake, whose endearing presence and soft English accent are reminiscent of Tom Conti, moved to Australia in the 1970s with a former girlfriend. Proyas then compares later easier digital technology - the ability to shoot a movie on a phone and cut it on a lap top - as compared to the old days of expensive gear and film stock and hire of editing rooms (though he does acknowledge that in the modern era, the business of releasing a movie has become increasingly hard). A contemporary of Jane Campion at the AFTS where he started at the age of 17, the Egyptian-born Proyas was always considered most likely to succeed. Alex Proyas. The film isn’t listed in the Film Victoria report on domestic box office and this is hardly surprising. I’ve always used my work in commercials as a way of understanding and telling a cinematic story more concisely; I have visual approach to storytelling, but I don’t think it’s any less relevant than characters talking in a theatrical manner. Proyas started the interview by recalling his coming to a housing commission flat in the inner suburb of Waterloo in Sydney (though born to a Greek family, he came from Egypt, at the age of 3) and then as an only child being let loose with a super 8 camera at the early age of 10. Lake, the tragic hero of the new Australian film, recalls the tale of his outback disappearance with the pathos of a man who won’t allow himself to be taken too seriously. It’s clear with all the crosses and religious symbols around the place that Betty is a deeply mad fundamentalist,  and it emerges that Felix himself is restricted to a wheelchair because he’s the victim of one of his failed flying machine designs … (he was a know-it-all genius who rushed into it and buggered his legs). So they gave us a little bit of money and we made it piecemeal and never really had the resources to get the thing off the ground when we finally made it. Umbrella announced it was releasing the film on Blu-ray in September 1998 with the following extras: Audio was in 5.1 DTS, the aspect ratio was 4:3 - suitable for a film originated on 16mm - and with English subtitles, which would please the hearing impaired and is a break from usual Umbrella policy. It could have been a contender, having many connections to the sort of outsider landscape orientated art of such films as de Heer's Incident at Raven's Gate, or Scholes' The Tale of Ruby Rose, or Pringle's The Plains of Heaven and even Valhalla-related As Time Goes By, rather than the more obvious futuristic post-apocalyptic crash and bash of a Mad Max 2. A Leidecker Rig was used to control the miniature flying machines for the flight sequences. But that’s where the similarities end. The Sydney Valhalla was mainly a repertory and cult first release venue, and the film only had a short two week season. Here's hoping it might be revived and released in digital form - if nothing else, the visuals and the score would continue to attract interest, especially if offered in a better format than VHS. Dabblers. One of the more informative interviews was a Black Label podcast for Matthew Eeles’ Cinema Australia - it could, at time of writing, be heard in full here. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds - WikiMili, The Free Encyclopedia - WikiMili, The Free Encyclopedia Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds soundtrack from 1989, composed by Peter Miller. Whatever might be said of the finished film, there remains strong interest in it as a cult offering. It even has hints of Ward's The Navigator about it, or in a curious way, another de Heer film, about a boy's attempt to fly in Tail of a Tiger. Directed by: Alex Proyas. A "debut screening" was held at Film Australia in Sydney on 2nd September 1987. Rated the #76 best film of 1987, and #4955 in … Alex Proyas: I guess I was eight years old, maybe even younger, when I saw “Lawrence of Arabia.” I mean I’d seen films before, obviously, but I remember that being the first cinema-going experience that had really blown me away. Paterson records the work as having been done, not for public release, but for his client’s own personal archive, though he does wonder if the film might be given a public release and develop a cult following. A three-hander is the most difficult thing you can ever do as a director. “Just by adding a few scenes, I turned what would have made a nice 30-minute film into a 90-minute film. I think that was the time I started thinking that I lusted to be doing that somehow; I think I went straight from wanting to be an astronaut and working for NASA to wanting to be a film director or something. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics.If you would like to participate, visit the project page. The results in this area continue to make the film very watchable. Proyas didn’t have to meet any bureacrats and received absolutely no editorial interference from them, but the FFC did learn that a 100 page Fox contract with rolling break-even points mainly amounted to many elaborate ways of saying “there will be no net profit.”, Proyas also discussed the making of the film in a profile by Lauren Martin published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25th July 1998 under the header Art of Darkness (see the photo gallery for the full story). The score is as quiet and wonderful as the life itself while as intriguing as its characters. Although fabulously imaginative with its low-tech effects, it is, all in all, a bit patchy. It’s a very specific skill to do that well. The comments about the film apply to a VHS viewing, and there's no doubt the Umbrella re-release will look and sound infinitely better. If this site was to list 1,000 films at a cost of $35 a film, that would be $35,000, which is beyond an interest in Australian films to a form of madness. Even if the aim was to do a Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky has more moment to his moments. The story, mainly set in inner city Newtown in Sydney and featuring Proyas’ memories of garage band and video clip days, did disappointing business, with the FFC losing its money and the film receiving lukewarm reviews. Spirits Of The Air, Gremlins Of The Clouds: The Original Soundtrack By Peter Miller From The Meaningful Eye Contact Film ‎ (2xCD, Album, RE, RM, S/Edition) Not On Label: none: Australia: 2018: Sell This Version Peter Miller, who did the soundtrack, has a website here which shows how these were done. It was literature that made me really focus on the genre. (Not to overstate it or anything) A three hander set in a post apocalyptic Oz outback (but one which is wildly more fantastical than Mad Max), Spirits of the Air tells the story of Smith, a stranger on the run who happens upon Felix and Betty, far into the desert. The Crow is not really Proyas’s feature debut. The Mad Max comparisons are obviously rife because of it's Australian desert setting. The original PCM encoded music soundtrack mix still existed, recorded onto 3/4" Umatic tape (the only way to record digital sound at the time). He became stage manager at Penrith’s Q Theatre before starting up his own theatre restaurant, Brown’s, where he did everything from performing to washing dishes at four in the morning. It was such a wonderful epic vision. Audacity. It makes it hard to stand out.”. “I feel the system is so much more established and honest here. The transfer was described as being a 2K scan from the original 16mm negatives. In fact, the English-born actor is a happy man if he gets paid for a role. The film was shot on location near Broken Hill, New South Wales and at Supreme Studios Sydney. The film also turned up at other festivals such as the 1990 Vancouver Film Festival. The simple plot which speaks of broken dreams and desperate hope is childlike and touching. Proyas has an eye for quirky set design and striking colour contrasts and David Knaus captures this perfectly with the … It would be really hard for me to recommend this movie, as the story is thin, the three characters unlovable, and if you are not into 1980s New Age electronic music, then you definitively WILL throw something at the screen before an hour is up. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds. He vowed never to make a film under those circumstances again and between his Hollywood gigs he has paid the rent making commercials and videos. I’m a real whore if there is an opportunity to shoot something, to make something.”. That band’s management heard he had a film script. Spirits was released to the Australian public, which didn’t much notice. Top Billed Cast. Although Lake never actually saw the stranger, the voice remained potent in his mind, almost haunting. Smith intends to head north, over the distant mountains, but Felix assures him there’s no way across … you can’t climb those buggers. So Lake decided to re-enact the opening scenes of ‘Paris Texas’, and stumbled around a la Harry Dean Stanton for five or more minutes until it dawned on him the camera was unmanned. If Proyas has all the negatives in his possession, this raises the question of why James Paterson used tape sources for his digital restoration here, a process which involved removing time code from one tape source. I have come close a couple of times over the years with various distributors but the deals have all fallen apart. Australian distributor: self-distributed, Meaningful Eye, AFI. To me, that’s really the most important thing. It turns out he’s obsessed with building a flying machine that will help him fly like a bird and escape the desert. The characters are absolutely charming in their eccentricity, and despite the fact that they are, (on purpose I expect) slightly caricatured, it seems to fit in totally with the alternately gaudy and melancholy feel of the environment. (A tribute to the Cadillac Ranch). Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds - Trailer Leider haben wir zu Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds bisher noch keine Videos. I’ve always loved stories. Apart from appearances on the film festival circuit, the film also didn’t travel internationally and it quickly disappeared from view, generating a cult reputation amongst those who attended the sci-fi and fantasy or Australian sections at the back of the video store, but never troubling mainstream viewers. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, Like a dream, some things can only be experienced to understand, Warning: no gremlins appear in film, flying or otherwise. We had just made a video with INXS and these guys wanted to get involved with movie making and they had no idea either. entfolgen. There is hope though. Okay, let's be clear about this. The low budget film will be remembered for its apocalyptic visions, some superb photography, not to mention its strong characterisations. But people have always said, ‘Could you do this for us anyway,’ and I’ve always said, ‘Well I don’t have anything else to do, fine.’, “The most exciting part for me is shooting. Home Explore Movies Explore Composers Resource Directory Forums Contact Us About Us. He was the last of 40 men who auditioned for the part. The final images show Felix still in his wheelchair in the loneliness of desert …as his sister plays her strange musical instrument. The story goes that he and his co-star, Norman Boyd, decided to go for a drive during a break in filming only to get bogged on the Mundi Mundi plains, outside of Broken Hill. Ozmovies previous remarks on the film’s availability have been retained below for the record, at a time when it was believed that the original 16mm negative has disappeared. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds ( 12 ) IMDb 6.5 1h 36min 1989 16+ Felix is obsessed with flying and Betty is childlike and unable to contemplate any existence away from their home. Playing via Spotify Playing via YouTube. A few people turn and stare as Lake recalls a few lines from the film …”So what made you come here…” Heads turn back; no lingering looks of recognition. After committing to directing The Crow, Alex Proyas spent the better part of two years developing the script. It was a protracted process, filmed over a year as he struggled to find the finance himself. Other films in the season included Campion’s Passionless Moments and Acquisto’s Hungry Heart. Navíc, odehrát to celé ve třech lidech, klobouk dolů. “We were all disappointed,” Miller (Peter Miller, Proyas’s business partner for 10 years in the ‘80s) admits. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. It concerned the tribulations of two bible salesmen - Orville and Wilbur Wright - and their adventures in a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It also becomes clear that the mysterious Smith is being followed by shadowy Pursuers and is fast running out of time before they catch up with him ... After Smith takes to clumping about, wearing heavy boots to build up his leg strength to drive the propulsion system, the pair finally manage to construct a launch ramp and a craft that, with the wind at the right speed to assist, will fly …. That’s pretty much the way we worked on “Dark City.” I wrote many drafts initially and then worked with Lem Dobbs and David Goyer to focus on what it was we were trying to do and to use them as a sounding board. The interview was done to help promote a short season of the film at the Longford cinema in Melbourne: Michael Lake and Mel Gibson have a lot in common; they both have piercing blue eyes, charisma and both are variously regarded as exceptional actors. “Dark City” is the direct result of it, of all these ideas that I was influenced with at an early age coming back to haunt me. For example, the Marlboro billboard was a forced perspective miniature, as were the cars used in the iconic shot of cars buried bonnet down in the earth. This site doesn't usually link to unofficial versions but it's worth noting that in the absence of a Proyas-approved release, this release is closing on on 30k views as of September 2016 (and composer Peter Miller used the comments section to provide a link to his site about the film here). He directed a very low-budget feature, Sprits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, in Australia. That’s for sure. Original Title: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds Voted: 512 Brother and sister endure alone together in a post-apocalyptic Outback until the sudden arrival of a stranger. Proyas made much the same sort of comment about the shoot in an interview with Miguel Díaz and Iván Suárez for Ultramundo at the time that Gods of Egypt was due for release: The movie is as simple as they come, a small cast, one location, shot in three weeks. Proyas: I think “2001” was an early encouragement to be in the cinematic genre, but I didn’t think of “2001” as science fiction because I didn’t know what science fiction was because I was so young. In the meantime, the film occasionally turns up on, This site doesn't usually link to unofficial versions but it's worth noting that in the absence of a Proyas-approved release, this release is closing on on 30k views as of September 2016 (and composer Peter Miller used the comments section to provide a link to his site about the film, It could have been a contender, having many connections to the sort of outsider landscape orientated art of such films as de Heer's, As a result, the film disappeared. The film was a three hander and the cast didn't move on to larger acting careers. The score is a haunting blend of inspired minimalist electro pads and creaky violin, that conjures up perfectly the sun-bleached skulls, the tumbling weeds and the pathos of the two characters caught in their own cycle of madness and humanity. Where and when: ’Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds’ is on Friday and Saturday nights as the regular late show at the Longford Cinema, 59 Toorak Road, at 11 pm. The editing insists on a very slow-moving pace, and the expectation that something bigger is just around the corner is constant, but it never arrives. We are sitting in a Clifton Hill street cafe and Lake switches to “action” mode to illustrate the animated fashion in which he won the role. It’s much more difficult in many ways more difficult than writing a novel. I said, ‘Do you realise putting money into a short film is pretty much insanity?’ and they said, ‘Well, could you make it into a feature?’”, It took a weekend. For you won’t see Lake signing a $5 million Hollywood movie contract, or casing Malibu for a new home - at least not yet. He had many other offers to direct but was careful in his choice of material. A book about flight was the only book he got, apart from his old man’s religious books ... Felix persuades Smith to stay, and they begin building models for a new aircraft design, but while Betty keeps railing at the intruder and consigning him to hell, the models keep failing. As they say “if you want to do something well, do it yourself” I will self distribute. A micro budget. The homage to the. I really use my writing abilities — or lack of writing abilities — as a way of bringing forth the emotion that I want to portray in a movie. Video-Empfehlungen “That seems to be the standard procedure for a young director who shows some visual ability and can handle action, they give him a follow-up to an already proven film. We certainly didn't have the support of the Australian Film Commission, who basically told me that I should give up making movies after seeing the film. 'Spriits of the air gremlins of the clouds' is better known as simply "Spirits". Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds Model: DAVID3857 SKU: 314837. Why bother? It's worth a 7 for being brave and technically brilliant, but I'd really think twice about making it a gift for a new friend. Set against the beautiful Australian landscapes in the outback, "Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds" is certainly not a film that is fun science-fiction in the classic sense, which is not really surprising given the arthouse tone. The NFSA here suggests it has only tape sources in its holdings. Details by clicking on the Blu-ray listing here. Peter Miller Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds ℗ 2018 Peter Miller Released on: 2018-09-27 Auto-generated by YouTube. Felix, he ways, evolved from childhood memories of a mysterious man who used to walk by his old school near Brixton, incessantly yelling out the name, “Henry”. Some would recognise him as the Marxist hotelier in ‘Young Einstein’; others know him as George Smilovici’s other half in ‘The Lobotomy Brothers’ comedy show. Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds is a 1989 post-apocalyptic Australian film directed by Alex Proyas.It was his first feature. I hope to get onto it soon but every time I say that, another project comes along and it distracts me. That’s why I wanted to make films, and commercials and music videos are a great training ground, to learn technical aspects. The pricing is understandable in terms of recouping the cost of restoration, but A$35-00 for the Blu-ray extras, is rather handsomely priced. So the crazy kids made a movie about a loony inventor living out in the desert. Theatrical release: The film was given a very limited theatrical release. Stunning to look at, even on wretched VHS, thanks to locations, the intriguing photography (some using forced perspective), the excellent and evocative production and costume design, and good to listen to, thanks to Peter Miller's music (but no thanks to the treatment of the dialogue in the mix), these departments provide a handy distracton from the film's flaws as a drama. User Ratings I like to tell stories in a visual fashion, and I’ve always been drawn to films that do that. | Their morbid serenity is altered when a samurai-like stranger (Boyd) moves in and eventually helps Felix to build a flying machine. For example, the Marlboro billboard was a forced perspective miniature, as were the cars used in the iconic shot of cars buried bonnet down in the earth. His innovative work for advertisers Nike and Coca-Cola and artists such as INXS and Fleetwood Mac has won him plenty of awards …, Ironically, at a difficult point in his career he returned to Australia to receive federal government investment funding from the FFC for the 2002 Garage Days, which jointly funded the film with Fox Searchlight. Smith assures him he’ll press on, he’ll get over them even if he has to fly. It might have made a very effective short feature and given Proyas the feature film calling card he desired, but that length would never have attracted investors.

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