![]() ![]() Mad Max was the definition of a guerrilla production – low budget, big vision. ![]() After a couple of days, Miller rallied and completed the film, but it’s true the crew had little respect for him during the shoot. Trenchard-Smith’s advice was to hire instead a quality first assistant director to support the main man. At one point, Miller quit and producing partner Byron Kennedy rang up Brian Trenchard-Smith, who had previously made The Man From Hong Kong (1975), an action-packed Chinese-Aussie actioner (and a ground-breaking Ozploitation work in its own right) and inquired if he would take over. The production was often fraught with incidents and accidents. He was looking for a cameraman for a movie he was producing called Mad Max and had been given my name as a cameraman that was good at action, by two directors I had worked with at Crawford Productions, Simon Wincer and the other, George Miller.” “One day, out of the blue, I received a call from a guy called Byron Kennedy. I took a full-time position at the State Electricity Commission of Victoria,” Eggby reminisces. “It was hard making a good living as an unknown freelancer in the early Seventies, so supplemented my income doing various part-time jobs. The-then 27-year-old director of photography landed the job through a previous work connection to director Miller. Not bad going for a London-born, ex-Royal Australian Navy photographer plucked from a day job making safety and training films for local government. He lensed sci-fi gems Pitch Black (2000) and Riddick (2013), as well as Raja Gosnell’s live-action Scooby-Doo (2002) and shot the thermal camera footage seen in Predator (1987). no safety rules and regulations, back then.” He added: “I think what made the film so different was everyone – the actors, the crew, the stunt team – just went for it.” According to cinematographer David Eggby, the cast and crew “just went for it” when filming Mad Max.Įggby’s work on Mad Max led to a varied career at home and abroad. Looking back on the film, cinematographer David Eggby concluded the maverick spirit in which the film was made is truly reflected on the screen. George Miller proved his country could make action movies on par with Hollywood and at a quarter of the budget. While his Australian New Wave contemporaries were busy making well-received Victorian dramas, with films such as Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) and My Brilliant Career (1979), a mild-mannered ex-emergency room doctor turned filmmaker fancied his cinema more in the key of rock ‘n’ roll. Today, Max Rockatansky is up there with Ned Kelly, kangaroos, Dame Edna and the Sydney Opera House as among the county’s great icons. ![]() Audiences adored the death-defying stunts, memorable villains such as Hugh Keays-Byrne’s Toecutter and a rogue cop who out-crazies the baddies. Until The Blair Witch Project came along 20 years later, Miller’s film was in the Guinness Book Of Records as the biggest money-earner of all time. The low-budget Mad Max broke box-office records upon its release. Amid the flesh and metal carnage carnival, a hero will rise, though he must first experience tragedy and the greatest loss. The tit-for-tat skirmishes unfolds against a backdrop of social decay and a sense the world is falling apart rapidly. A ragtag group of cops – known as the Main Force Patrol – engage them on the open road, fighting dirty to wrestle back control. A pioneering sci-fi actioner made well outside the confines of Hollywood, Mad Maxand its sequels spawned a wave of imitators.Ī dystopian nightmare set in and around Melbourne, the Ozploitation masterpiece depicts a time and place bedevilled by demented biker gangs who have taken over the highways. While Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and the more recent Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) are better known and more widely seen by fans, the movie kickstarting one of the most iconic franchises of all time should not be forgotten. Released back in 1979, George Miller’s breakout debut, Mad Max, still packs a mighty punch.
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