Posts filed under 'Miscellaneous'
After months of waiting, constant emails and even a petition circulating at one stage, fans of the epic film Australia finally have their full length soundtrack! If you have previously purchased the EP version this soundtrack builds upon it with pieces of stunning score by musician David Hirschfelder. The album features 19 tracks, a beautiful digital book of artwork and is currently available exclusively on iTunes.
TRACKLISTING:
Welcome to Australia (Overture)
The Drover’s Ballad
All Night Long
You Ride Your Way, I’ll Ride Mine
No Man Hires Me, No Man Fires Me
Cantero de Ti
The Rush
First Kiss
Over the Rainbow
Faraway Downs
Whoa Babe
Life Begins Again
I Will Come For You
Fire From the Sky
King George Calls
Nimrod (From the Enigma Variations)
By The Boab Tree
Waltzing Matilda
June 19th, 2009
As the lead VFX company for Australia, Animal Logic was awarded the task of designing and creating the key VFX shots that take place within the port town of Darwin. This entailed creating a CG Darwin, complete with harbour, wharf and ships that had to be re-dressed across the three time periods seen in the film: ‘Cattletown’, ‘Militarised’, and ‘Post-bombed’.
The Animal Logic team brought to life a CG Wharf modelled from lidar scans of Darwin wharf as well as various larger-than-life ships, creating the “heightened reality” of a romanticised Darwin. Referencing colour palettes from vintage photographs and classic epic films, the splenderous 1930s landscape provided an exciting canvas for the wide aerial shots and set extensions created.
In addition, CG cattle were added to boost the numbers in the cattle yeards, the cattle race and during the “triumphant return” when Sarah droves cattle into Darwin. These shots involved the combination of multiple plates shot accross three locations: the cattle town set in Bowen, Darwin harbour and the bluescreen wharf set on a stage in Sydney. The CG FX work includes the harbour water, huge burning smoke plumes, burning oil tanks, funnel smoke, fog, clouds, wakes, flames, atmos and cattle dust.
As seen in excerpts above, you can view a fantastic gallery of images, credits and additional information at the Animal Logic website Australia section.
June 16th, 2009
Baz Luhrmann’s epic romance Australia has become the second-highest grossing Australian film of all time.
Now in its 14th week of release, the film has grossed $A36.78 million at the Australian box office. On Thursday Australia overtook the 1995 hit Babe’s long-standing box office figure of $A36.77 million, and is surpassed only by Crocodile Dundee’s record $A44.7 million.
The film, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, is also set to pass $US200 million ($A307.93 million) at the global box office this weekend, with the film still to open in Japan.
“The ongoing box office success of Australia has been outstanding and a unique testament to the way the film has been embraced by this country,” Twentieth Century Fox Australia managing director Marc Wooldridge said.
Top 10 highest grossing Australian films at the local box office:
Crocodile Dundee - $44.7m
Australia - $36.78m
Babe - $36.77m
Happy Feet - $31.8m
Moulin Rouge! - $27.7m
Crocodile Dundee 2 - $24.9m
Strictly Ballroom - $21.8m
The Dish - $18m
The Man From Snowy River - $17.2m
The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert - $16.5m
source: ninemsn news
February 25th, 2009
Monday the 26th of January is a public holiday down under for Australia Day (think along the lines of The Fourth of July for USA). This long weekend marks the perfect and patriotic time to take family and friends to see Luhrmann’s epic Australia.
If you’re living in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney take a picnic, some wine and head on out one evening this weekend to your local moonlight cinema as they’re holding special long weekend screenings. Most shopping and event attractions are closed on the public holiday Monday, but many cinema chains will be open and are also holding special Australia Day screenings.
To those around the world, ex-pats and moviegoers alike, you don’t need an excuse to see this movie (again!), but now that you have one why not help the country celebrate in style?
SEE ‘AUSTRALIA’ THIS AUSTRALIA DAY!
January 24th, 2009
Official news that Australia will be arriving on DVD in the not too distant future! 20th Century Fox have announced that on March 3rd we (possibly USA only, thus far) will receive the film on Blu-ray Disc. For now the DVD extras are limited but, perhaps pending viability, director Baz Luhrmann has mentioned that he hopes to release a supersized version of the film on DVD by December 2009.
Features for the iminent release include:
Deleted Scenes:
- What about the drove?
- Angry staff serve dinner
- Australia: The people, the history,
the location featurette [Blu-ray only]
Behind-the-Scenes: [Blu-ray only]
- Photography
- Production Design
- Costume Design
- Locations
- Cinematography
- Sound
- Editing
- Music
- Visual Effects
source: high def disc news
January 14th, 2009
Time for a revisiting, all the way back to November 2008. Seems so long ago now, which is why it is particularly strange to have an interview released then, but all of a sudden make headlines now. In November, Australia was being premiered and the stars were out doing their usual media interviews.
Nicole Kidman took part in an interview with Australian radio hosts Kyle Sanderlands & Jackie O. Those who have listened to their show in our media section or from the 2dayFM website know that it carries a candid, friendly and jovial atmosphere. Amongst other things she discussed how she is self conscious watching her own performances in all her films, a known trait of this shy but accomplished actress.
It’s interesting to see the amount of times this very site has had to point out the lack of research conducted by the present day media. With all the eyes of the world on this film, Australia still stands tall despite taking many hits to the chest throughout its run, most of them undeserved, particularly the latest in regards to Kidman. The internet is a very powerful tool for spreading information, unfortunately there’s no one to separate fact from fiction. All it took was one small foreign site to mis-translate and state Nicole’s words grossly out of context and before you know it reputable news outlets were actually carrying fanciful stories about Kidman not being proud of her work in Australia, or unable to look at it.
“It is quite ridiculous for anyone to believe the reports if they listened to the actual interview,” a spokeswoman for Kidman said. “It’s hard to believe some of the world’s media have fallen for it.”
But eagerness to tear down a Hollywood star has yet again prevailed over the ability of many to convey a simple act of journalism. Fact checking. For this reason we encourage everyone to listen to the interview in question. Fan of Kidman or not, you’ll quickly see how misrepresented and out of context her alleged statements are. It also serves as a reminder to the consuming public, don’t believe everything you read.
We also recommend this insightful NY Times blog, stemming from the debacle about “The Perils of Candor” and how stars are just going to become more closed up when giving interviews in the future. After the hand that Kidman has been recently dealt with blown out issues from her TV and Radio appearances, one couldn’t blame her from shunning them altogether. Thankfully she’s a professional and continues to allow us insights into her career.
January 13th, 2009
“Where’s the Australia Soundtrack?”, “Who composed the score?”, “Where can I purchase David Hirschfelder’s music from the film?” and again “Where is the Australia Soundtrack?” are just a mere few examples of many many e-mail enquiries, forum posts, and guestbook entries wanting to know what on earth Bazmark and 20th Century Fox are doing. Even a large amount of our site traffic is coming from other forums and serach results looking for the same thing.
At first it appeared there was simply a delay, but as time goes on it’s fast becoming a disappointing reality that the score for this film, by musician David Hirschfelder, may not be made available to the public. We’ve been told that the rights obviously lay with Bazmark and Fox, and beyond that it is unknown what the decision for release will be but, “at this point it doesn’t look likely”.
It’s a befuddling world we are living in when random films such as Just Like Heaven, Serendipity and The Wedding Planner have soundtracks made available but an epic film such as Australia cannot release a hardcopy CD containing the works of an award winning composer. Where’s the logic?
With the recent boost in interest generated by international filmgoers, there may still be a chance for the soundtrack to reveal itself yet. However in the meantime davidhirschfelder.com has generously put five full songs from the Australia score in high quality streaming format on the composer’s official website.
The website reads, “David spent 7 months on the project from temp to trailers to finished score. His imposing score at times combines frenetic percussion of pounding cattle hooves melding on the barren red desert and river beds to the majesty of a herd of wild brumbies galloping across the dusty plains. With over 2 hours of underscore it is hard to pick highlights…”
Tracks made available are Bombing of Darwin, Nullah Enchants Sarah, England to Oz, Stampede and Nullah is Safe. The website is best viewed using Internet Explorer.
January 5th, 2009
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