Inventive Film Students Turned Promising Producers: Inside 100% Pure Rage
Three Griffith Film students are tackling the industry head-on with their very first feature film
Sporting a small budget and an even smaller production crew, three Griffith Film students are creating their own high-quality feature film outside of university they hope will reach national film festivals.
Local students Haruki Ryles, Finn Williams, and Clancy Ellerman-Miller partnered up 1 year ago to start producing 100% Pure Rage, a new indie and action-dystopian film which boasts bold, colourful shots of Brisbane’s CBD.
The film presents a futuristic Brisbane, known as The Void, in a post-apocalyptic world where it is the last city left on Earth after the mass destruction of World War III. It follows a disillusioned writer called Ricky, who forges an unlikely alliance with a masked vigilante and a charismatic sociopath, to save The Void from the clutches of an evil red cell syndicate.
100% Pure Rage Director Haruki Ryles said they took inspiration from Hong Kong Producer Wong Kar-Wai’s visual style, particularly his use of mise en scene, vibrant colours, and jewel-coloured lighting.
“Wong Kar-Wai’s style of filmmaking - going handheld, the really wide lens, very stylistic - helped bring down the budget, because all of a sudden you don’t need a tripod. You don’t need a massive crew, so a lot of the times it would just be the three of us,” Ryles said.
“I'm also a really big fan of his style so it was pretty fun to make,’ he added.
Ryles also revealed they mirrored the hand-to-hand combat and one-take style that South Korean film director Park Chan-wook mastered in his 2003 thriller, Oldboy.
“It’s as if you’re witnessing it from a distance and the take, it’s just five minutes of a single take all uninterrupted, and you can visually see people progressively getting more and more tired. And it makes the fight look so sloppy and messy, but it feels so real,” he said.
Despite starting with a tight $500 budget and little experience within the industry, Ryles and Williams have effectively mimicked professional production and marketing techniques to increase their chances of entering the festival circuit.
The emerging producers have split the film into three separate acts, and have written and shot them individually, repeating the tedious processes of filmmaking: development, pre-production, production, and post-production.
Ryles said they employed this strategy to showcase each act at test screenings at UQ’s Able Stuart Theatre, which he said garnered valuable feedback and money for the next round of production through ticket sales and their GoFundMe page.
“A lot of people were really blown away with what we’ve managed to make with our budget and time. But we also had a survey where people could submit what they thought of the film, which really helped improve its overall flow and how the story unfolds,” Ryles said.
“I think now we have about $1,250 raised, and that’s just from students who have given us a little bit of money to go towards the film,” he added.
100% Pure Rage Producer Finn Williams said the screenings were also designed to make a powerful impression on other filmmakers and prospective distributors, of which has already been elevated by their excited, predominately student-age fanbase.
“We’re building that audience as we create the film. We have the people at the screening acting as the ‘super fans’, you could say, and they will help promote the film and talk about it,” Williams said.
“It’s also really good to demonstrate to more established filmmakers out there that we are very serious about this project. So, when we do potentially bring on some stunt coordinators, stuntees, producers, or even some sales agents or distributors, they’ll see that we have done some sort of test-screening.”
Associate Professor at Griffith Film school Richard Fabb, who has provided mentorship on the film, said he was impressed by its quality, as it is “very unusual” for first year students to start producing their own feature.
“[Feature films] are big beasts, and most directors don’t get to do their own film until they’re into their 30s, but here’s a bunch of first year students, probably in their late teens, making a feature film.
“I walked away from seeing those clips as well thinking, ‘oh, there’s something in this’”, Fabb said.
With the third and final part of 100% Pure Rage under production, the student filmmakers already have their eyes set on their feature film entering local festival circuits, and potentially turning it into a TV series.
If their film is successful at a festival, Williams said it would be a “major milestone towards the finish line,” as awards or nominations from one could help them land a distributor, agent, and even a streaming platform.
“We will try to continue to get it out there and then maybe get it as a TV series where we can split it up, but that hasn’t been confirmed just yet,” he said.
The high-quality nature of their screenings is a true testament to Ryle’s and William’s determination and innovative thinking, as they have overcome the challenges of being time-poor, inexperienced university students through their nifty solutions.
Many short films like 100% Pure Rage will typically have a crew of 10-20 people across different departments dedicated to design, camera, lighting, their respective heads of department (HODS), the main production crew, and a separate team of actors.
However, to save up on time and money, Ryles, Williams, and Ellerman-Miller have stepped into multiple different roles and cut their crew down to just three people, casting as they go along.
“It helps a lot in the sense of having the efficiency of having Haruki and Clancy both do camera, directing sometimes, acting, and me jumping in with prop design, costumes, and sometimes action design. It’s nice to have a smaller crew, and it’s quite a unique thing for a production,” Williams said.
“Finn and I made all the props from scratch using household items. I have had a background in doing some cosplays so the knowledge from that has sort of carried over,” Ryles added.
The promising filmmakers also navigated through their lack of resources through utilising student actors, gaining connections through mutual friendships, and striking up unique opportunities with various organisations.
For instance, Williams and Ryles met their skilled cinematographer by chance during the early stages of production, in which they only had budgeted equipment that Ryles purchased with his own money.
“We began filming with a Blackmagic camera and two lights, which I saved up for. And then I met a cinematographer called Clancy, who has access to the craziest gear. I was very fortunate in meeting him, and you can definitely see us skyrocket in production value.
“Because out of the blue, we got access to a Netflix approved camera and proper lighting gear,” Ryles said.
The duo even managed to score special permissions to film at an EzyMart and on the rooftops of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
“We’re actually gonna shoot a fight scene on a hospital roof which we managed to get permission for. Just ask, you never know. They might say yes, no matter how outlandish it is,” Ryles said.
“Since a lot of it was sort of approaching places, we would digitally re-do all the brandings. So, we would swap out the EzyMart for VoidMart, trying to keep it within this world,” he added.
The core trio were ably supported by a small group of committed and talented individuals who were generous to offer their time and energy into the project.
Whilst there is no release date yet for the film, Ryles and Williams aim to finish editing by July this year.
Statements from the actors
Kaleb Stokan (plays Hades) and a good friend of Ryles:
"I've never seen something like this done, the amount of people working both in front and behind the camera isn't like anything I've seen before from university aged film-makers like myself"
Ronan Dougherty (plays Hammertime):
“Pure Rage is a very unique, collaborative and lengthy project. It's an honour to be part of an awesome cast, and seeing the creative processes on set was definitely a sight to behold. I still find it crazy that I got to play an acting role considering that I don't really see myself as an actor. Yeah sure, I've acted in my own and some other films, but that's basically it. But yeah, playing Hammertime was honestly really fun (I got to beat people up with a Hammer for free!) and the crew is amazing!”
Bjorn Weedbrook (plays Anton):
“I have been working closely with Haruki throughout a lot of the production, mainly when it came to the scripts. We would talk for hours about certain line choices and character actions, with some of the changes even making it to the fine cut. I have been working on Pure Rage for about a year and a half now and I cannot overstate how amazed I am at the passion and commitment shown by the cast and crew. Some sets have had their fair share of issues but now that were at the last hurdle I can't wait to see it through.”