patrick hughes 1 7 director profile
patrick hughes
PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMERON GRAYSON
Who is Hughes? A geeky cineast who views films in strict genre order or a wild rover getting all blokey in the bush? Laura Swinton is confused...
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director profile 1 8 patrick huGhes
Just when I think I’ve got Patrick Hughes pegged – an amiable blokey
friend. “It was a really amazing, beautiful experience,” he gushes. “You’re
Melbourne film buff with meticulous viewing habits and a geekish penchant
out in the bush, there’s no one around and you’re on horseback. You can just
for British comedy show Red Dwarf – he goes all rugged bushman on me.
disappear into the wilderness for days, weeks, months.”
So far we’ve been chatting about movies, a subject that inevitably brings
Listening to Hughes talk wistfully about the wilds and the anachronistic
out the nerd in any director. His father fed him ‘the wrong films too young’
mining towns that puncture the bush it’s no surprise that he’s planning to
– a six-year-old Hughes was terrified by Kubrick’s 2001 – but ever since he’s
shoot a film out in rural Victoria. Red Hill emerged from Hughes experiences
been methodically working his way through the greats and the not-so-greats
of the lonely, lawless Outback, and it’s due to be shot in May.
of cinema. There’s something slightly OCD about the way he picks a genre
“You go to these old gold-mining towns and it’s like going back in time.
and systematically ticks off every film in its back catalogue.
These towns are about 200 years old – which doesn’t sound like much to
Unsurprisingly, he’s itching for his two-year-old daughter to get past her
people in the UK – but in Australia that’s as old as it gets. There are these
Dora the Explorer phase so he can share the joys of geekdom with her.
wild outposts where one police station covers thousands of square miles.
“I can’t wait to play her some films. It’s almost like you get to be the DJ and
You can’t help but think ‘Jeez, there’s a western in there’,” he explains.
she’s the newbie who’s never been to a club and you’re playing the fresh
He describes Red Hill as a cross between High Plains Drifter and No Country
beats to her,” he enthuses.
for Old Men – a melding of his action man adventure streak and thorough
So just as a feature about Hughes alphabetising his DVD collection is writing
film buffery. It’s the story of a young police officer who arrives at a new
itself in my mind, the genial Aussie reveals himself to be a man of action, an
village from the big city with his pregnant wife. On his first day in the job,
adventurer. Surfing and motorbikes loom large in his life. He takes advantage
there’s a prison break in Melbourne and an old Aboriginal man escapes,
of international shoots to catch the world’s best waves and ride through the
returning to the village to wreak vengeance on the corrupt cops who sent
most challenging scenery on the planet.
him away for murder 15 years previously.
It’s not all boards and choppers though – back when he was 17, Hughes went
“I felt like Australia hadn’t had a modern day western but the mythology of
out brumbie chasing (going after wild horses) with his dad and a family
the landscape had been gagging for it for years. It involves the Aboriginals
Hughes immerses himself in the Outback landscape he’s shooting, assuming various action-man guises
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patrick hughes 1 9 director profile
and indigenous Australia and there’s a focus on issues about land disputes.
through a camera. I began to get frustrated and felt that, creatively,
When you look at westerns that’s what 90 per cent of them revolve around.”
I really needed to keep the juices flowing.”
Red Hill will be the first feature that Hughes has shot, but it’s not his first
It was time to make a change. So Hughes returned to the short films that
venture into movie territory. In fact, it’s his third script. But, unlike the
had seen him through high school and university. As a teenager he had
previous two, this is the first time one of his scripts has come to fruition. On
made films that largely centred around “guys that went out and did bad
leaving film school – Victoria College of the Arts – Hughes wrote a movie
things when they were drunk”. In 2001, he entered a short into Tropfest,
script that was almost immediately optioned.
Australia’s largest short film festival. Out of thousands of hopefuls, his entry
“It was going to be this Hollywood movie, this ridiculous notion, but you
was selected to be screened and scooped top prize. The next year, he was
know when you’re young and bright-eyed you tend to believe everything
invited back to write and shoot the TV and cinema campaign for the festival.
is possible,” says Hughes with a chuckle.
“I guess it was my first commercial,” Hughes reflects. It was to be the first of
But he was to find that everything wasn’t going to be as easy as he had
many. Released from the constraints of the sluggish movie industry, Hughes
naively imagined. For a while he found himself trapped in limbo,
had discovered that commercials provided an avenue that would release him
directionless, as his script did penance in development hell. While his film
from his creative purgatory and, more importantly, would get him out on set,
was churned through the machinations of the studio system, his emotions
camera in hand, and shooting as frequently as he desired.
ricocheted between hope and despair.
After some initial internet research, Hughes paid a visit to @radical.media,
“The highs are high and the lows are really quite low,” he muses. “You go
where he’s been directing ever since.
‘wow that’s amazing I got my screenplay optioned and I’m going to make
That was back in 2003, and since then he’s shot jobs for big clients, such as
a movie’, and then you get stuck in this rut as everybody does. In hindsight,
Vodaphone, Honda and Ford. Time and again throughout our conversation,
I know that the problem was I was trying to make something quite big.
Hughes keeps returning to his compulsion to work, his hunger for
I was still quite young and getting flown all around the world, which was all
stimulation. “You get to work with some of the best creative people in the
really exciting. However, as a director, all you really want to do is put film
world in terms of the crew members, you learn so much from the
“You’re out in the bush, there’s no one around and you’re on horseback. You can just disappear into the wilderness for days, weeks, months...”
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director profile 2 0 patrick huGhes
Hughes that man? Patrick Hughes plays dress-up
“You go to these old goldmining towns and it’s like going back in time. These towns are about 200 years old – which doesn’t sound like much to people in the UK – but in Australia that’s as old as it gets.”
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patrick hughes 2 1 director profile
experiences they’ve had and the stories they tell,” he says. He’s constantly
on edge. When you’re directing there’s not much you can hide behind on set.
learning, and every international shoot gives him the chance to explore
It’s not like being a car park attendant where you can just fall asleep on the
different cultures – usually on the back of a motorbike.
job, you can’t just have a nap somewhere.”
Of course, even after finding his stride within the world of commercials,
Thankfully Hughes has the kind of limitless physical and mental energy
Hughes is up-front about the frustrations of the job. For example, he’s been
to cope with the pressure. Even at the end of a busy day of shooting, he
around long enough to experience the typecasting that comes about
still has bounce to spare – at least that’s one explanation for his ritualistic
whenever a particularly good job raises his name.
‘wrap dances’ that conclude every shoot. He now has scores of videos
And then there’s the tight turnaround. “There’s the reality of being on set
of himself breakdancing in various locations around the world. Of course,
when there’s only an hour left of light and you’re boxed in a corner and have
he could just be storing up plenty of embarrassing dad-dance footage to
to make decisions. It’s not all a bed of roses,” he explains. He’s balanced in
inflict on his daughter a few years down the line.
his outlook though, and beneath the pragmatism, it’s obvious that his inner
The good-natured goofiness of the wrap dances epitomise not only his
adrenaline junkie feeds off the excitement and stimuli.
energy and enthusiasm, but also the pleasure he gets from a job that
In fact, Hughes can think of one time when he felt completely relaxed on set
combines his two greatest passions: film and adventure.
– and he ranks it as his worst ever shoot. “It was shocking, I had really bad
Indeed his fondest shoot memory combines the two. On a recent Mexico-
hayfever. I was a state, so I took what I thought was a hayfever tablet and
based shoot, the crew found themselves filming second unit shots on a
about 30 minutes later I started hallucinating. I had taken a Rohypnol. I don’t
Spanish galleon. They wrapped by 11am, but then the production manager
think it gets much worse than that,” he recalls. “It was horrible, really
reminded them that the boat had been hired for the whole day and
horrible. When you try to fight off the effects of a sleeping tab you go
suggested they sail it back to town. “We sailed back and got quite drunk. We
through a progression of stages – you hallucinate in the beginning, then you
got to captain the ship and hang out with all the boat staff who were dressed
can’t quite string a sentence together, and then you feel really mellow – I
as pirates. That was an incredible day – I went home with a tan. And if you
don’t think you should ever feel mellow on set. I think you should always feel
can get paid to play pirates… well it doesn’t get much better than that.”
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