Internationally acclaimed director Alex Proyas is driven by the unlimited potential of modern movie making in all its forms. His latest work, the horror short Mask of The Evil Apparition, will reveal his latest exercise in filmmaking forethought - the visionary images being crafted in his state-of-the-art studio, Heretic Foundation, and the big screen luminescence of his leading lady, Bonnie Ferguson.
The highly-anticipated film premieres for cast and crew at a private screening in Sydney next week, ahead of festival screenings and an online release via Proyas' YouTube channel, Mystery Clock Cinema.
Inspired by the director’s love for Britain’s Hammer Horror classics, the plot synopsis for Mask of The Evil Apparition reads, ‘A young woman lost in a nocturnal, dreamlike city, with twin psychic brothers, who try to help her find her way home as she is pursued by a shadowy cult known as The Mysterious Ones’. With Ferguson (pictured, above) as lead character ‘Olivia’, the cast also includes Dean Kyrwood (The Flood; Beast No More) in the dual role of mysterious brothers; Alex King as the enigmatic Sandra; and Goran D. Kleut (Hacksaw Ridge; Nekrotronic) as a vast number of cult members.
Having met initially through family friends, Proyas and Ferguson have proven to be a potent creative force. “She’s incredibly smart, of course, but she is also what some people call an ‘old soul’,” says the director (pictured, right), whose credits include the Australian cult classic Spirits of The Air Gremlins of the Cloud and Hollywood blockbusters The Crow, I-Robot and Knowing. “She’s got wisdom beyond her years and I think that will serve her well. For me, that’s always important in an actor, having someone who gets beyond the surface level narrative, and she’s one of those rare talents.”
For Ferguson, the mentorship provided by Proyas has been invaluable, citing a 2019 photoshoot with the director as a turning point. “During that shoot, he worked on creating a supernatural mood, crafting this ethereal environment, which I absolutely loved and responded to and we promised to work with each other again,” says the actress, who has built an impressive resume with roles in Book Week, Moon Rock for Monday, the series Made for This, the soon-for-release feature Just Ruby and the currently-in-production film R.S.V.P.
Mask of The Evil Apparition is the second short that the pair have shot together; in 2019, their mood piece Phobos became a web sensation. “We shot Phobos over five hours, in Sydney peak hour, jumping on and off of trains,” says Ferguson, fondly recalling the guerilla-style production. “Alex started shooting with a very clear vision, which is exactly what you want as an actor. And his eye for capturing the most beautiful images [by] managing natural light is wonderful. Alex has a wealth of knowledge and experience on massive productions, but he was so enthusiastic about just scaling it back.”
Proyas agrees, saying “[We] basically went out one day, just me and a camera and Bonnie and surfed the inner-city railways. It was great fun, we enjoyed working together, so I got her to come back in for Mask…” (Pictured, right; Ferguson on-set, at the Heretic Foundation facility)
Proyas has acknowledged that Mask of The Evil Apparition has become an extension-of-sorts of his cult classic, Dark City. In March 2020, he told If.com.au, “When Liz Palmer, my brilliant costume designer on Dark City and nearly everything I’ve done, started dressing our gorgeous cast in these hybrid neo-1940s fashions, that’s when this notion began to present itself. Filmmakers are often doomed to repeat themselves; the same concerns and obsessions keep reappearing in our work.”
The current wave of production activity for Proyas is a crucial element in his expansion plans for Heretic Foundation, the virtual-studio facility providing photo-real 3D backdrops for Mask of The Evil Apparition. The director told if.com.au, “This short is R&D for the technology as well as the economics of eventually producing features in this way. This allowed us to shoot very fast and to achieve a polished finished product set in a stylised ‘German-Expressionist’ city,” he says. (Pictured, left; Goran D. Kleut as 'The Mysterious Ones')
Since shooting Mask... with Ferguson, Proyas has employed his green-screen studio and Unreal Engine 3D creation software to film a teaser for his proposed 2021 project Box, with Nicole Pastor and the feature Sister Darkness, a gothic ghost story with Lauren Grimson and Rodger Corser.
Australian cinemas are only just starting to re-emerge from pandemic lockdown (Victorian exhibitors have shuttered again as a second viral outbreak takes hold). With distributors tiptoeing around release commitments, a roster of genre festivals unfurling in the final months of 2020 will be amongst the first wave of specialised programming and fresh content.
This unique situation - brought about by a combination of reworked dates, relaunched brands, reconsidered formats - represents both a huge challenge and wonderful opportunity to these science-fiction/horror/fantasy events...
SCIFI FILM FESTIVAL When: August 28-30 Where: Event Cinemas George Street, Sydney What we know: As the major capital city festivals succumbed to COVID-19 conditions, organisers for the SciFi Film Festival bided their time, while admitting that options such as shifting online, postponement and cancellation were discussed. This week, with the backing of their venue partner Event Cinemas, the 8th annual program was announced, with tickets to go on sale in the days ahead. Programmers have secured some high-profile festival hits (Arati Kadav’s Cargo (pictured, right); Jeremy LaLonde’s James vs His Future Self; Erin Berry’s M.A.J.I.C.) and will be counting on savvy audiences keen to see big-screen sci-fi to turn out in support.
MONSTER FEST 2020 When: October 1-9, Melbourne; October 29 - November 1, Sydney / Perth / Adelaide / Brisbane / Canberra. Where: Cinema Nova, Melbourne; Event Cinemas - Myer Centre (Qld.), Innaloo (W.A.), George Street (N.S.W.); G.U. Film House, Adelaide; Capital Cinemas, Manuka (A.C.T.) What we know: The only truly national genre event, Monster Fest has a two-tiered roll-out schedule - early October in its hometown of Melbourne; Halloween weekend in other capitals - that has made dealing with the pandemic doubly challenging. Having committed to a presence at the recent Marche du Film virtual marketplace (where Monster Fest reps are sought out by global sales agents, eager to secure the brand’s credibility), organisers are now faced with the second coronavirus wave in Victoria. The lockdown did not mean 'shut down' for Monster Fest bosses; in recent weeks, it was announced that Monster Pictures will partner with Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) in the genre funding initiative, ISOLATION. (Pictured, right; Monster Pictures General Manager Grant Hardie, left, and the Monster team).
SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL When: November 19-21 Where: Actors Centre Australia, Leichhardt What we know: While very much the new kid on the block, the Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival has ambitious plans for their inaugural event in November. With an eight film-strong core screening schedule, it will also feature a broader sci-fi community commitment; planned are script-reads, art exhibitions and filmmaker presentations. Patron Alex Proyas (The Crow; Dark City; Knowing; I, Robot) will present a masterclass at the Actors Centre Australia campus, a state-of-the-art facility that has itself recently undergone extensive refurbishment and upgrading. Submissions are still being received via their FilmFreeway site.
A NIGHT OF HORROR FILM FESTIVAL When: TBD Where: TBD What we know: Few festival organisers have felt the sting of the pandemic like the team behind the re-energised A Night of Horror event. Originally slated for May and with a leading inner-city venue on board, coronavirus conditions saw the finalised program mothballed (which boasts Dean Yurke's Stay Out Stay Alive, Josh Reed’s We're Not Here to F**k Spiders and Sam Curtain’s The Slaughterhouse Killers) and the exhibitor back out of the deal. Determined to bring the brand back to all its glory (the once high-profile event has been on a two-year hiatus), A Night of Horror is moving forward but treading softly-softly; organisers assure it is coming in 2020, though details are being closely guarded.
REVELATION PERTH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL When: December 2-13 Where: Luna Cinemas, Leederville, Perth. What we know: Renowned for its progressive, proactive approach to festival presentation, Perth’s Revelation event became the nation’s first ‘hybrid festival’ experience. To hold strong to their third-quarter dates in defiance of COVID-19’s impact, they launched their ‘Couched’ online screening roster; come December, the physical event will move forward at their spiritual home, Leederville’s Luna Cinema. A classic case of ‘making lemonade out of lemons’, the Revelations team have strengthened their online presence while still standing by their regular patrons.
FOOTNOTE: One of the most popular genre film gatherings, the annual Sydney Underground Film Festival, was not able to reconcile its 2020 schedule with pandemic conditions and had to cancel its physical event. The organisers will be presenting a series of virtual sessions, including the TAKE48 Film Challenge, Inhuman Screens Academic Conference and SUFF Online, a collection of short films. Donations can be made to the festival's Australian Cultural Fund campaign here.
SCREEN-SPACE editor Simon Foster is involved with the organisation of SciFi Film Festival, Monster Fest and Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival.
FANGORIA X MONSTER FEST 2019:In 1999, four young men set about resurrecting a neglected narrative within the Australian film industry – the horror film. They had little experience – for screenwriter Dave Warner, producer Martin Fabinyi, director Kimble Rendall, their collaboration represented each one’s feature film debut; composer Guy Gross had industry cred (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 1994; Blinky Bill, 1992), but he had never scored a horror film. Together, they conceived of a slasher film deconstruction, a teen splatter film set within a teen splatter film; the project would be called Cut, a pun riffing on the central themes of murder and movie-making, and it would star Molly Ringwald, Kylie Minogue and Jessica Napier.
Twenty years later, to celebrate Umbrella Entertainment’s 4K restoration of the film, the four men were brought together by Fangoria x Monster Fest | Sydney to revisit an ambitious, fascinating and wholly undervalued slice of Ozploitation cinema. For a Q&A hosted by Festival Director and SCREEN-SPACE’s Managing Editor Simon Foster, the team behind Cut recalled its conception, production and reception; an edited transcript of the evening reveals the passion and frustration it took to bring home-grown horror back to Australian screens… (pictured, above; from left, Fabinyi, Rendell, Gross and Warner)
Dave: We’d been working on a Mushroom Pictures documentary and Martin said to us at the Bayswater Brasserie one day, "I have been thinking we should do a horror film, because one of the things we have in Australia is young talent on shows like Neighbours and Home and Away." Kimble and I said, "Yeah, that is a great idea." It was just before Christmas. I didn't go away that year and in the six days of Christmas I wrote a script, and that started it. (pictured, right; Kylie Minogue as director Hilary Jacobs in Cut)
Martin: We worked on it fairly consistently together. I remember being in your office at Flat Rock on Bayswater Road, and we worked on it there with Kimble.
Kimble: We met at a Chinese restaurant and ended up in a cinema watching I Know What You Did Last Summer. At that time, there were no Australian horror movies. Even though there's a great history of making genre films here, going back to the days of 10BA, there was none of them being made. We thought we could do it low budget with some soapie stars. I'd worked with Kylie on a short film called Highway to Hell. Martin was at Mushroom, the home of Kylie. So it was, "Ok, we'll get Kylie in it".
Kimble: Originally, we were going to cast Daryl Hannah, and Martin went to Los Angeles, because apparently Daryl Hannah bought a horse every time she did a movie, so every movie was worth a horse or two.
Martin: She agreed to come out and do the movie, and so we started pre-production and we were halfway through and then she dropped out because her boyfriend told her it was bad karma to do a horror movie, or something like that.
Martin: Yeah, she was a very weird person. So Molly came on board and she was far, far better, and loved it. She loved the experience. (pictured, left; Molly Ringwald as actress Vanessa Turnbill in Cut)
Kimble: Molly was the biggest star in the world at one point, and everyone loves Molly. We approached her and she got the joke and the whole concept. We started in New South Wales and ended up filming in South Australia, and Kylie and Molly turned up and away we went.
Martin: We shot in July 1999, in the dead of winter and it was in the mountains in the Adelaide Hills, so it was particularly cold.
Dave: We had this foreign minister called Alexander Downer. He was famous for the photograph of him wearing silk stockings. That was the house that he grew up in. That was his family house. (pictured, right; Rendell, right, on the set of Cut)
Martin: So it already had a horror element to it (laughs).
Dave: Adelaide, as you know, is a great place to shoot a horror movie. Then we were lucky enough to get a great composer, in Guy.
Guy: I was another Mushroom staple, part of the Mushroom world. We hadn't worked together; we got thrust together. This was the days of old synths, of low budget, so it was a seven foot rack of synthesizers doing that orchestral score. And it was nice working with those old clichés and dipping back and forth into both old film and new film [styles]. I love absorbing whatever I hear and I did hear some old horror films, and went oh, that's the harmony. It's a musical thing you do. You have to just absorb yourself in a style and then dive into it.
Dave: I loved horror movies. When Scream came out, that was really exciting for us, because it completely re-enlivened that genre.
Kimble: Wes Craven, John Carpenter and of course, Alfred Hitchcock. I've wide, eclectic tastes, but I love the classic horror movies. From a filmmaker's point of view they're great fun to make, all the prosthetics and visual effects stuff. I would like to have another go at the prosthetics in Cut, but in those days we had the incredible guys from Makeup Effects Group. They did the baby in The Matrix and they've done some fantastic stuff since. (pictured, below; actor Frank Roberts with Makeup Effects Group artist transforming into Scar Man)
Kimble: In Australia, it did okay. In France, it was the second most popular [Australian] film, after Strictly Ballroom, and it did really well all around the world, so it did connect to audiences.
Martin: It actually made its money back, internationally, which is really remarkable for a local film.
Kimble: It's the marketing. I'd been working on some commercials, which ended up being the most successful anti-smoking commercials in the world. So I said to UIP, the distributor, "Why don't we bring in the creative team behind the ad campaign?” These guys came up with some great ideas. Instead of creating our own posters, we were going to slash everybody else's posters; we were going to have fake murders in cinemas and have people carrying bloody stretchers out. So I took the two guys into this meeting with UIP and said, "These guys can help us," and all the marketing guys from the film side said, "There's no audience for horror in Australia." I said, "I don't think that's correct. I think if you market to that audience, then it'll connect with them." They said, "Well, we're going to release it on Gay Mardi Gras weekend.” I said, "Um, you've got Kylie and Molly in it, so…I guess." They literally never spoke to us again. It came out but it didn't really connect and it was to do with the marketing. Overseas, it got into a festival and there were hundreds of people who’d seen the film throwing snowballs at me, yelling, "We love Cut! Cut, we love it!" and I thought wow, there is an audience. They had a fantastic marketing campaign.
Guy: Technically, we've got a lot more control these days and synthetically, I could create much fatter and big sounds, but it sounded orchestral. I was happy, not embarrassed. I'll walk out chest out (laughs). For me, the film rocks along quite fast. I expected it to be a lot, lot slower than it's come out. Credit to you guys. It really stood up well.
Kimble: I actually haven't seen it since I went to that festival. That's not uncommon. You make a film and you don't watch it again, so I was quite happy. Of course, there are things I would have loved to have another go at, but I have a soft spot for it. You love a film, sometimes you don't. I enjoy it, I think it looks good and you listen to the score and you go, that's a really good score. It's fantastic. (pictured, above; the villainous Scar Man)
Martin: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I jumped and laughed seeing it again 20 years later. Literally, I haven't seen it since 2000. I think the number of people who worked on the film who've gone on is remarkable, including everyone here. I just think it was a real fun time, as much as films can be. (pictured, below; Stephen Curry as Rick Stephens in Cut)
Dave: I was in awe of the filmmaking ability of Kimble and Guy. They did a fantastic job. For me, I really wish they'd filmed my fucking second draft (laughs), which I thought was a lot better than the final one. It's a weird thing when you're a writer and you've got elements to it but not the whole thing. Despite that, I enjoyed it because of the great craft of those guys and Martin for putting it together. Compare that to what you've seen from other people with a lot more tools at their disposal, I think it was a brilliant job.
Kimble: A scene that we cut out had Scar Man on the balcony of the house and we're playing music and he did this mad rap dance thing. One of the producers, the really insane one, said, "You've got to have that in the movie. It will be a hit if you put it in." He might have been right, but we didn't think so, so we took it out. He wasn't right. (pictured, below; Jessica Napier, star of Cut)
Dave: I always think that in classic horror [narratives] somebody has breached a moral code, which we may not know about until [it’s] too late, so I was careful. I can see [my] overall story arc - there's a tragedy on a film set 20 years ago and then a new crew returns to finish the cursed production. Halfway through our film, a different producer took over and rewrote my script, so it's a weird experience because you conceive of something that changes. In fact, in the original one, it was a #MeToo film really. I didn't have Scar Man in the original. It was purely within the character, so there wasn't a supernatural element to it at all. Once those building blocks are gone, it's hard to re-scramble the egg, but if you've got talented people working on their craft, it doesn't matter. They get the essence of what's going to work, so I wouldn't change anything of that. But if you went back two drafts or three drafts, yeah, it changed quite a bit.
Kimble: Martin went on to make Chopper and Wolf Creek. Guy, of course, went on to do some amazing films, as did Dave. I went to this whole Hollywood world as well. It was the start of our journey, the film that sort of kicked it off, strangely.
The selection of 10 horror shorts have been directed by Australian women filmmakers, with a wraparound narrative starring Andrea Demetriades (pictured, above) as ‘Clara’ and directed by Megan Riakos binding the diverse narratives.
The overarching plot focuses on Clara, as she begins to sort through her deceased mother’s home. She discovers a mysterious heirloom, the ‘Book of Dark Whispers’, filled with chapter after chapter of strange stories. Each weird tale reveals a new facet of the twisted human, or not so human, psyche. (Pictured, right; from left, 1st AC Carina Burke, Riakos, Demetriades. Photo: Lauren Orrell)
“Our motivation for making the film was to release more wicked and wonderful stories by women into the world, much as our protagonist unleashes powerful ideas with each page she turns,” says Riakos, director of the 2015 feature Crushed and NSW chair of the industry body Women in Film and Television (WIFT). “It’s a metaphor for the darkness that lurks within us all.”
In addition to Riakos, directors contributing to the project are Angie Black, Briony Kidd, Isabel Peppard, Janine Hewitt, Jub Clerc, Kaitlin Tinker, Katrina Irawati Graham, Lucy Gouldthorpe, Madeleine Purdy and Marion Pilowsky.
A high-profile roster of Australian acting talent is on board, including Asher Keddie (X-Men Origins: Wolverine; The Hunting), Anthony LaPaglia (Lantana; Holding the Man), Tosh Greenslade (Mad As Hell), Melanie Irons (Noirhouse) and Bree Desborough (Home and Away).
Riakos and producing partner Leonie Marsh are overseeing the project, with Deadhouse Films’ Enzo Tedeschi on board as Executive Producer and Briony Kidd, co-founder of female-focussed horror film event Stranger With My Face, serving as Associate Producer. (Pictured, left; l-r, Tedeschi, Riakos and Marsh)
It was while attending Kidd’s Hobart-based festival that Riakos found inspiration for the project. In June, she told IF.com.au, “The festival focuses on female filmmakers whose films take a unique approach to genre storytelling. I wanted to bring films like that to a wider audience.”
Following the CinefestOz launch, Dark Whispers – Volume 1 will seek further festival placement ahead of a planned 2020 theatrical season.
Time spent deep in one of New South Wales’ most beautiful yet misunderstood eco-systems can mess with a young man’s mind, if Roger Scott’s debut film is any indication. The Marshes is a psychological eco-thriller, brought to malevolent life by a new kind of mythological Australian killer, The Swagman. Ahead of the World Premiere of The Marshes at A Night of Horror Film Festival, Scott (pictured, below) spoke at length to SCREEN-SPACE about conjuring menace and mayhem from Australia’s dark past and stunning landscapes…
SCREEN-SPACE: When did the mythology of The Swagman, Australia's most iconic bush figure, strike you as the inspiration for a horror film?
SCOTT: Ten years ago, I was working in the Macquarie Marshes as a research assistant. I had been struck by the landscape’s filmic nature and that it was an Australian environment that audiences never see. I had a fair amount of discontent with how we manage our landscapes, which fed into the story process. From local level water resource management through to global level climate issues, you could say I was gripped by fatalistic sense of horror. [So] horror was the only genre in which the narrative symbolism would have the power and plasticity I desired. And the fact that it was a landscape of billabongs and Coolibah trees brought Waltzing Matilda to mind. Once those elements had come together the story took on a life of it’s own.
SCREEN-SPACE: You pull a skilful bait-&-switch on your audience; the film opens with familiar genre tropes but then begins to deconstruct its own reality. What influences and inspirations did you draw upon?
SCOTT: My observations of the difference between people’s perceptions of the world they inhabit and the reality helped form that structure. To capture that, I drew upon films such as The Cabin In The Woods, Deliverance, 12 Years A Slave, The Descent, Onibaba, The Shining, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Upstream Colour, Under the Skin, Walkabout and Sampson and Delilah. Also non-film sources such as the art of Alexis Rockman, The Yellow Wallpaper and Terra Incognita. (Pictured, above; the the three leads of The Marshes, on-set)
SCREEN-SPACE:One way you defy horror traditions is by finding terror in broad daylight. What specific challenges did that hold?
SCOTT: Trying to create tension and horror without darkness meant we were relying more heavily on performance, pacing and psychology. Deliverance is a film that does this particularly well. Lighting was still an issue, of course. Giovanni (Lorusso, DOP) is experienced at shooting against the light, aided by Andy (Robertson, gaffer) who has decades of experience lighting in tricky locations, so he was able to create great images despite the limitations. Once the characters became lost in the reed beds I wanted the light to remain ‘mid-afternoon’ for the entire time they were lost. It reinforced that sense of being trapped in a maze-like timeless limbo. This added a scheduling headache for Elisa (Pascarel, 1st AD); there was a lot of ‘cheating’ of shoot times to achieve this. Going into the grade I was hoping for enough latitude in the images for our post team to balance. Thanks to Giovanni’s skills, we were able to balance them. (Pictured, above; Mathew Cooper, left, and Sam Delich)
SCREEN-SPACE:The Marshes continues our strong cinematic tradition of being fearful of the 'The Bush', of city folk being at the mercy of the mysteries of this huge land. How did the location influence your storytelling?
SCOTT: It is common for directors to say that the location was one of the characters in the film, but this is only true when changing locations changes the story. This landscape is entwined in the story. The physical features of the land effect the movements and decisions of the characters. It provides both ‘Pria’s world and the socio-political context for the story. It also gave us a beautiful sort of eerie Australian gothic. Audiences have come to expect that when characters in an Australian movie drive inland that they will arrive in a dry red environment, so being in the marshes immediately confounds those expectations. In some ways, the story continues the cinematic tradition you refer to, but in other ways, less so; it is more about being at the mercy of the mysteries of the mind. I hope that different audiences view it in different ways.
SCREEN-SPACE: Does The Marshes further demonise country types? That the 'hillbilly horror' genre takes a condescending 'city-vs-country' approach?
SCOTT: The fact that The Swagman is a 19th century symbol makes it harder for audiences to draw parallels between him and country people today. A character such as [Wolf Creek’s ]Mick Taylor looks and sounds like people you can find in any small town. What is unavoidable is the idea that the bush is full of monsters, but then so too is the human mind. What is so great about The Swagman is that he is deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Demonising The Swagman makes it more difficult for people to use him as a lazy stereotype to refer to the bush or country people or nationalism or any of the purposes for which he is invoked. I wanted to disrupt the familiar symbols and structures people use to think about these things, to challenge their perceptions. (Pictured, above; Scott directing actress Dafna Kronental)
SCREEN-SPACE: 'Pria' is an unconventional female horror lead; from the first scene, she's a strong, determined, intelligent woman that clearly won't be a victim easily. Tell us about creating her and what Dafna Kronental brings to the role?
SCOTT: I spoke to a lot of women in science to develop a character formed by the wealth of her experience, providing her with particular strengths and weaknesses. I was cautioned a number of times to maintain her likability in a way that doesn’t happen for male characters. I needed a very knowledgeable person at the heart of the story that wasn’t fearful of the bush. Dafna brought her own strength and intelligence to ‘Pria’ and worked hard to define the character’s vulnerability, because her failings and vulnerability are just as important to the narrative arc as her strength. And Dafna showed great physical aptitude, performing as she did day after day in the waders, the reeds and the cloying mud. Just traversing that landscape was no mean feat, let alone performing too. (Pictured, above; Kronental, as Pria)
SCREEN-SPACE:The opportunity exists for your villain to spawn a new horror franchise; were you conscious of the 'origins' factor in your narrative?
SCOTT: We actually joked about it a bit as we were making the film, about what The Swagman’s next “adventure” might be but there was no grand plan in terms of a franchise. Telling this story well was my primary concern.
Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 2:39PM 
Having met initially through family friends, Proyas and Ferguson have proven to be a potent creative force. “She’s incredibly smart, of course, but she is also what some people call an ‘old soul’,” says the director (pictured, right), whose credits include the Australian cult classic Spirits of The Air Gremlins of the Cloud and Hollywood blockbusters The Crow, I-Robot and Knowing. “She’s got wisdom beyond her years and I think that will serve her well. For me, that’s always important in an actor, having someone who gets beyond the surface level narrative, and she’s one of those rare talents.”
Proyas agrees, saying “[We] basically went out one day, just me and a camera and Bonnie and surfed the inner-city railways. It was great fun, we enjoyed working together, so I got her to come back in for Mask…” (Pictured, right; Ferguson on-set, at the Heretic Foundation facility)
The current wave of production activity for Proyas is a crucial element in his expansion plans for Heretic Foundation, the virtual-studio facility providing photo-real 3D backdrops for Mask of The Evil Apparition. The director told if.com.au, “This short is R&D for the technology as well as the economics of eventually producing features in this way. This allowed us to shoot very fast and to achieve a polished finished product set in a stylised ‘German-Expressionist’ city,” he says. (Pictured, left; Goran D. Kleut as 'The Mysterious Ones')
