This year, the OPTUS ONE80PROJECT received an unprecedented amount of entries from all levels of the film industry - students, seasoned professionals, actors, writers, directors, producers – Australia’s burgeoning film industry is buzzing with undiscovered talent, proving that there’s no better time to launch fresh, home-grown drama on the small screen.
Maia Horniak, Will Howarth and Andrew Ryan who wrote and directed the standout pilot ’The Sellers’ will now will receive an amazing prize package including a share in $20,000 cash and a BlackBerry® Smartphone. In addition, the trio will work with MTV production experts and an Executive Producer at MTV Australia’s production facilities to develop and shape their original pilot into a full-length multi-platform drama.
Still buzzing from their Judges’ Choice win at the OPTUS ONE80PROJECT Festival we catch up with the winners to talk the next step and lessons learned…
MTV: First off congrats! Were you surprised at your win?
Maia: We had a pretty good idea of what would be the top few, but we were still on edge before it was announced!
Andrew: I don’t think you ever know, because when you have a panel of judges involved it’s quite subjective so you never count your chickens, but luckily we got there!
Will: To be honest, before it was announced I had no idea. I was confident in our product, but had no idea who MTV was going to back.
MTV: What was the atmosphere in the in the VIP section?
Maia: I got there quite a bit before and met all the finalists and everyone was quite nervous! I just think MTV did a great job with the way they designed the evening, with the lanterns and the couches, it was a really great vibe.
MTV: What do you think it was about your pilot that swayed the judges?
Will: I think you have to have an exciting premise that underpins the project. We worked really hard on a story that had a lot of places to go, because if you do win, you’ve got an hour of drama you’ve got to make, so you’ve got to have a really strong story.
Andrew: I agree, the when it comes to the medium of film, you’ve got to have production value and it’s got to look visually stimulating because otherwise you should go write a novel! And lucky for us we had a good combination of both.
MTV: Maia you mentioned before it would be interesting to see how The Sellers could be cross-platformed on different mediums such as mobile. Do you think that was a consideration for the judges?
Maia: I hope that it would be a part of it. I was just saying before that Australia really needs to move into that direction because I know a lot of international producers that work in cross-platform and interactive media, and there’s a lot of exciting things happening with that. I think that MTV taking this direction is exciting because it’s so innovative, and I think the story has good potential for that.
MTV: What is the next phase of development now that you’ve won?
Will: When we were planning., we were pretty meticulous about what our story would be for the hour, that’s a good starting point so now we have to develop a really good script for an hour of drama that’s as engaging as the three minutes that we showed on Sunday.
MTV: Maia it must be great for you as a teacher to use this experience as a case study?
Maia: Definitely. Interestingly enough Clara who did'Shift' was one of my students four or five years ago, so we talked a lot about the process of ‘learning is doing’. Actually making stuff is how you learn the most.
MTV: What was the biggest learning curve out of the whole project?
Will: That making film is a wonderfully rewarding experience but something that you have to work very hard at. Andrew and I have been working on this project for about six months start to finish, and we only got our crew together when we had two weeks to go so it was a really challenging experience, but everyone was so committed and hard working that we arrived at a great product we’re all really proud of.
MTV: Will and Andrew you starred in the pilot as ‘The Sellers’, when you develop it will you still take on those starring roles?
Andrew: Yeah I think we will, the story really told the narrative from people out age and point in life. Will and I have just come across that path and I think we can tell that story really well ourselves.
Will: For some reason a lot of us find ourselves not going down this ‘dream option’ that we had when we were little kids. And that’s what we wanted to cover.
Andrew: And we wanted to do that in a light-hearted manor as well. It was a balancing act between the hard issues but having it accessible as well for all audiences.
MTV: Will and Andrew, you wrote the script and then collaborated with Maia to make it. How gratifying was it to see your work on the big screen?
Will: It’s an unbelievable reward. You sit down and write your script and it’s your baby and you have your hope and dreams pinned on it, so we were lucky to have a director that helped us create the vision that we began with.
Will: That’s one of the greatest things about the project, it’s such a cool avenue for aspiring actors, writers and filmmakers directors to start filming. It’s cool for actors like Andrew and I to create your own work and then have someone like MTV to produce it…
Congratulations to Will, Maia and Andrew for their win! To watch the winning pilot, click HERE or for a full wrap up of the event, get to www.optusone80project.
Stay tuned for more updates as we watch ‘The Sellers’ turned into an hour long TV drama screened on MTV and Optus mobile later in the year!
Maia Horniak, Will Howarth and Andrew Ryan who wrote and directed the standout pilot ’The Sellers’ will now will receive an amazing prize package including a share in $20,000 cash and a BlackBerry® Smartphone. In addition, the trio will work with MTV production experts and an Executive Producer at MTV Australia’s production facilities to develop and shape their original pilot into a full-length multi-platform drama.
Still buzzing from their Judges’ Choice win at the OPTUS ONE80PROJECT Festival we catch up with the winners to talk the next step and lessons learned…
MTV: First off congrats! Were you surprised at your win?
Maia: We had a pretty good idea of what would be the top few, but we were still on edge before it was announced!
Andrew: I don’t think you ever know, because when you have a panel of judges involved it’s quite subjective so you never count your chickens, but luckily we got there!
Will: To be honest, before it was announced I had no idea. I was confident in our product, but had no idea who MTV was going to back.
MTV: What was the atmosphere in the in the VIP section?
Maia: I got there quite a bit before and met all the finalists and everyone was quite nervous! I just think MTV did a great job with the way they designed the evening, with the lanterns and the couches, it was a really great vibe.
MTV: What do you think it was about your pilot that swayed the judges?
Will: I think you have to have an exciting premise that underpins the project. We worked really hard on a story that had a lot of places to go, because if you do win, you’ve got an hour of drama you’ve got to make, so you’ve got to have a really strong story.
Andrew: I agree, the when it comes to the medium of film, you’ve got to have production value and it’s got to look visually stimulating because otherwise you should go write a novel! And lucky for us we had a good combination of both.
MTV: Maia you mentioned before it would be interesting to see how The Sellers could be cross-platformed on different mediums such as mobile. Do you think that was a consideration for the judges?
Maia: I hope that it would be a part of it. I was just saying before that Australia really needs to move into that direction because I know a lot of international producers that work in cross-platform and interactive media, and there’s a lot of exciting things happening with that. I think that MTV taking this direction is exciting because it’s so innovative, and I think the story has good potential for that.
MTV: What is the next phase of development now that you’ve won?
Will: When we were planning., we were pretty meticulous about what our story would be for the hour, that’s a good starting point so now we have to develop a really good script for an hour of drama that’s as engaging as the three minutes that we showed on Sunday.
MTV: Maia it must be great for you as a teacher to use this experience as a case study?
Maia: Definitely. Interestingly enough Clara who did'Shift' was one of my students four or five years ago, so we talked a lot about the process of ‘learning is doing’. Actually making stuff is how you learn the most.
MTV: What was the biggest learning curve out of the whole project?
Will: That making film is a wonderfully rewarding experience but something that you have to work very hard at. Andrew and I have been working on this project for about six months start to finish, and we only got our crew together when we had two weeks to go so it was a really challenging experience, but everyone was so committed and hard working that we arrived at a great product we’re all really proud of.
MTV: Will and Andrew you starred in the pilot as ‘The Sellers’, when you develop it will you still take on those starring roles?
Andrew: Yeah I think we will, the story really told the narrative from people out age and point in life. Will and I have just come across that path and I think we can tell that story really well ourselves.
Will: For some reason a lot of us find ourselves not going down this ‘dream option’ that we had when we were little kids. And that’s what we wanted to cover.
Andrew: And we wanted to do that in a light-hearted manor as well. It was a balancing act between the hard issues but having it accessible as well for all audiences.
MTV: Will and Andrew, you wrote the script and then collaborated with Maia to make it. How gratifying was it to see your work on the big screen?
Will: It’s an unbelievable reward. You sit down and write your script and it’s your baby and you have your hope and dreams pinned on it, so we were lucky to have a director that helped us create the vision that we began with.
Will: That’s one of the greatest things about the project, it’s such a cool avenue for aspiring actors, writers and filmmakers directors to start filming. It’s cool for actors like Andrew and I to create your own work and then have someone like MTV to produce it…
Congratulations to Will, Maia and Andrew for their win! To watch the winning pilot, click HERE or for a full wrap up of the event, get to www.optusone80project.
Stay tuned for more updates as we watch ‘The Sellers’ turned into an hour long TV drama screened on MTV and Optus mobile later in the year!
Copyright : MTV Australia
