Test Pattern

James Robert Woods is a Sydney-based writer and director whose debut feature, The Birthday Trip, sends three couples on a birthday getaway in the NSW Southern Highlands.

He joins Angus Truskett for a conversation about the movies that shaped him, his sketch comedy beginnings and making his first feature.
We get into: Handheld camera sickness, why everyone has a Babe story, shooting Cronulla for Tatooine, discovering Kill Bill and Mulholland Drive, Ted the Stunt Bear, comedy as a coping mechanism, going viral in 2013, making sketch comedy look like TV, the origins of The Birthday Trip, the horror of making new friends, writing bad people, the camera as a character, finding the rhythm in dialogue, formalising filmmaking and the future of Badlands.

Music by Gab Strum.

Find James on Instagram.

Find Badlands on Instagram.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Musician, composer and Nirvanna the Band the Show co-creator Jay McCarrol joins Angus Truskett to discuss Tony, the new A24 film starring Dominic Sessa as a young Anthony Bourdain.

It’s a conversation about movie scores, creative instinct and nearly two decades of making things with Matt Johnson.

We get into: the E.T. score that changed everything for Jay, finding the sparse and creaky sound of Tony, how he knows when a piece of music is actually working, his shorthand with Matt Johnson, The Sopranos, what’s next for Nirvanna the Band—and the Canadian film everyone should watch.

Watch the video episode on YouTube.

Music by Gab Strum.

Find Jay on Instagram.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian writer-director Sophy Romvari joins Angus Truskett to discuss Blue Heron, her debut feature, which draws on her own childhood and family history.

It’s a conversation about reconstructing memory, turning lived experience into fiction and the movies that stay with us.

We get into: childhood movie memories and films taped off television, capturing how memory feels, The Tree of Life, growing up in front of her father’s camera, casting first-time actor Edik Beddoes, making exactly the movie she wanted to make—and what makes the perfect bath movie.

Watch the video episode on YouTube.

Music by Gab Strum.

Find Sophy on Instagram.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maddelin McKenna is a Melbourne-based writer and director whose debut feature, Mad Rush, is having its world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

She joins Angus Truskett for a conversation about the movies that shaped her, growing up as a theatre kid and making her first feature.

We get into: Birthday movies, The Cranes Are Flying, ignoring subtitles, reassessing old favourites through older eyes, formative cinema memories, making movies as a kid, growing up in theatre, rehearsing a movie, the origins of Mad Rush, classy text on screen, shooting Melbourne, Alice in Wonderland, scoring a movie, what debut features reveal about their directors, directing conversations and remembering to have fun while filmmaking.

Music by Gab Strum.

Find Maddelin on Instagram.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cameron James is an actor, comedian and podcaster currently starring in the ABC comedy series Bad Company.

He joins Angus Truskett for a conversation about small-town dreams, comedy partnerships and the movies that made him funny.

We get into: podcast royalty, Netflix activations, forgetting Brett Ratner, second-screen auteurism, McG’s SEO supremacy, Mike Myers in Michael, Bootmen and the Tap Dogs, masking Eugene Levy love, community theatre, Bad Company, Christopher Guestmaxxing, commenting on celebrity Instagram posts, comedy partnerships, the perfect music-to-comedy ratio, The Wedding Singer, Housesitter, being grossed out by Cronenberg, the politics of Deuce Bigalow, Happy Madison’s character-actor ecosystem and Wayne’s World.

Music by Gab Strum.

See Cameron on tour.

Find Cameron on Instagram.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.