Hi All, Tonight’s interview is the director of Beneath Hill 60, Jeremy Sims. This is a man who was known in Australia as the main actor of an 80’s adults only soap opera called Chances. He was once the heartthrob of oz but now whilst he still has that main man presence he now holds that commanding directors aura.
I wasn’t sure whether he would be able to direct of war film like Beneath Hill 60 but I was proven wrong and I am glad. He has masterfully enhanced an already amazing story and added depth so it didn’t become a one trick pony (review here). When I spoke to him he was cool and relaxed but also in a need to pick his kids up from school. So here is the interview Enjoy.

PJ- Hi, I’m from online movie site Cinefools and firstly I want say that genuinely no if or buts or because you’re here , I loved the movie.

JS- Thank you

PJ-So how did you become involved in the movie?

JS- Really simply, Bill Leimbach the producer and David Roach the writer came to my offices at Fox Studios where I was developing a script to follow Last Train to Freo and I thought they were insane and faintly ridiculous. They asked me to direct the picture and I said “well I will do some work on it but you need to pay me” and it turned out Bill already had found a bit of an investor in Townsville so I sat down with David and said I’ll do a month on it. And I discovered very rapidly  was an amazing story it was and what a good writer David was and we went from there.

PJ-So what attracted you specifically to it?

JS- Um…it’s really just a fucken incredible story. It could have been about people on boats but it’s just an extraordinary story. That there were 21 mines secretly laid under the German lines set off in sequence that was felt as far away as London and Dublin but it was a successful battle and war. Then when you get into the details of it you discover the top 30 feet was a layer of sand and then theirs water and then there mud then clay. Every time you looked deeper into it became more interesting. It was a total fascinating story. Also from my point of view it was obvious from very early on that if you got it right it could have a wide audience and that’s quite exciting when you have worked in storytelling in theatre for such a long time.

PJ- Are you a trained miner or soldier now in your preparation?

JS- Haha nah. The only thing I am trained up on now is structure, story structure. I have always been a big fan of studying that as a science. I think in this country we don’t spend enough time and effort on learning the basic rules of storytelling and then breaking them if you want to. The three act structure of this film is very finely honed with the setting up and knocking down of ideas and characters and all those things it was really great to work with David who also loves structure. If you watch the effect , it works . They are moved by that moment, they do laugh at that moment and they do relax as this moment and you just go wow that’s really great. It’s good to press those buttons.

PJ- You come from a big theatre background, did you apply any of those lesson learnt in theatre to here?

JS- Yeah I apply heaps. I apply heaps to the way I work with actors. The great thing to me was that to many this project looked impossible particularly raising the money. Like I was saying before $90,000 is harder to raise than $9 million. There is no doubt about that. Raising 90 thousand for a play is fucking one of the hardest things anyone could ever do. Raising 9 million dollars to make a war movie is comparatively easy because of the scale and because people want to see those stories

PJ- Why do you think people are so fascinated with war films?

JS- Look I don’t think they are necessarily fascinated just by wanting to see war movie. The story has great deal of impetus. As soon as people hear the premise. You just have to given the premise. Western Front. A bunch of Australian miner’s tunnel under the German line to set of the biggest bomb ever done. Just one sentence and you go FUCK!! I’d like to see that.
And you read all those Hollywood books and it says that if you can say your film in one sentence and people go wow. Then you have a good place to start.

PJ- Technically how important was sound to the film?

JS- I spent the first 6 months of the project telling people that the sound design would be 50% of the film. Then I spent 6 weeks after the picture was in edit showing the edit with temp sound on it with people, saying “look this is only 50% of the film and they were going “yeah, yeah sure.” And the never believe you. People just can’t imagine it in sound but they can imagine it in pictures but they can’t imagine sounds it’s weird.
But when Liam an I were finally finished we got the Melbourne symphony orchestra to do the score for us. When we brought all that I together and played it, suddenly people started to nod and came out and said “Fuck, the sounds like 50% of the film” I promised you it would be. So in terms of just a drama it had layers to the amount of bombardment you can hear , having different silences and having the real screaming shells over the top to the point that you just can’t stand it and then having a real old school lush orchestral score to go with it. It was just a joy to work on.

PJ- One of my favourite parts of the film is when he first goes into the tunnel and he’s whispering then goes out then there’s just these huge explosions everywhere and you go wow! Are there any scenes or anything that stand out for you?

JS- Well that’s it, I’m pleased that sequence works because there was a great deal of time and effort put in to saying how do we start this film and it gives a homage to Saving Private Ryan and in the film its that opening 20 minutes where we go we need to do what Spielberg did which is just say to you, you are in this war, you are in this fucking war this is what it would be like and then you can reveal character and then you can do all kinds of other stuff but very often with a drama you spend the first 20 minutes setting up character then we decided to spend the first 20 minutes setting up the premise.

PJ- Amazingly you made a story set in Belgium in Townsville, how hard was that and I heard the local community where really cool to you?

JS- Yeah Bill Leimbach knew really early on that if we were going to get this film made we would have to get the community behind us to make it. If we tried to make it in a lot outside of Sydney somewhere but it just wouldn’t have that energy. But still he was from Townsville and trained in Townsville. Many of the miners that fought in the first World War where from Townsville and Charters Towers and many communities around there – mining communities. We knew there was the possibility of raising private finance up there because of the mining industry and the GFC nearly fucked us completely but there are cluey people up there so we still did a fine 20% of our budget up there, just privately which was unheard of really in Australian films at the moment. A whole bunch of reasons why it was great to be in that place also, believe it or not, it was great to know what the weather was going to be everyday even if it was blue skies and hot at least then you can work from that movie scene. So then creating Flanders Fields and creating the tunnel and it then became a job that you knew the parameters of. Clayton Jauncy, the production designer just really went above and beyond the call and I hoped he would do what he did but I didn’t know if he would or could .

PJ- How important was the authenticity to the film and the feel to it?

JS- We always felt it was paramount really to keep the audiences interest in every frame so it was really important that they would be going ‘aren’t they nice candles the way they have them set there’, and ‘look at that little bit of tin they have used as a tin opener and there’s a box of all the candles they haven’t used but there waiting to use and that’s where they keep the canaries and that’s where’ you know all that detail was. You know the most influential films for me was Das Bott and the great thing with Das Boot is that even if you are looking at a character speaking your eye can wonder to parts of the boat and the set and just go “oh wow that’s a pressure gage there and that’s all dinted from when they hit something” you know it feels so authentic that you really do feel like you can relax in it and look around.

PJ- Like cutting the Canaries Toenail it’s so amazing.(there is a tip made in the mines in regards to cutting the canaries toes because if it dies it will fall off it’s perch and if the toenails are still on it could die and still stay on the perch)

JS- There are so many things like that that we could have filled that script with really. You know there is a 9 hour version of just bizarre facts like the Canaries toenails that we could have filled it with.

PJ- To be part of the story for so long is it hard to let it go?

JS- We open tomorrow and I’m incredibly nervous and worried about it and until I know it finds and audience, I’m going to be difficult and a pain in the arse . It does concern me, I want to find an audience I really do and if it doesn’t then its Paramounts fault as I’ve said from the word go.  (Laughs at the Paramount publicist who just walked into the room)

Paramount Publicist – hahaha And when it does find an audience it’s a triumph of Paramounts marketing campaign haha

JS- Well I have kids to pick up

PJ- That’s cool I understand, one last question then. What do you think of the current Australian film industry and where would you like to see it?

JS- I don’t know if I can answer that because I kind of don’t feel a member of the Australian Film Industry. I’ve spent so long in the theatre industry that I feel like I kind of come over, its like a raid I come over and get my film made and stuff and go home again. There is so much kind of doom and gloom about the future of film generally let alone specifically, well most of the doom and gloom is about the fact that there’s only going to be big budget or tiny budget films ever made there will be no medium sized films made again. If that’s the case I’m glad I got to make a medium sized film before the gates are shut.

Really frankly I think we make a lot of really boring films here, we make a lot of films with stories that are so niche and so particular and peculiar that yes a lot of times they are beautifully made and beautifully acted and really a credit to the film maker in some ways but the critical question is “Is there an audience for this film” This question is not respected very much in this industry and to some degree you have to say well you wasted your money, 6 million bucks and you made a film that no one wants to see, I don’t care how good it is. To me a launch smaunch , do people want to see your film or not. That’s why I feel privileged to have found a story that might find a broad audience and as soon as I knew I had that the important thing for me was to make a really quality piece of cinema. 

PJ- Let me sneak in one last question. If you were to ask Capt Woodward one question what would it be?

SPOLIER ALERT-Did you know we made you kill Tiffin? He would go No, Really? Yeah, at the end of the film you killed a 17 year old boy when you blew up the bombs. He would go “Oh my god, really” I would have said, my question would have been “Would you kill Tiffin?” and he would say “yes of course , it is my duty”

PJ- Thanks you so much for this.

JS- Anytime.

SO THAT’S IT FOR THE CAST AND CREW. NEXT INTERVIEW WILL BE FOR ALL THE HISTORY BUFFS. WE HAVE A INTERVIEW WITH WRITER OF THE NOVEL BENEATH HILL 60 WILL DAVIES.