Mick Green on the Inverloch foreshore.
By Catherine Watson
“TWO blokes, 10 days, one ocean – what could possibly go wrong?”
So runs the tagline for Inverloch film-maker Mick Green’s documentary Paradise Blown, which screens in Wonthaggi on April 15.
“TWO blokes, 10 days, one ocean – what could possibly go wrong?”
So runs the tagline for Inverloch film-maker Mick Green’s documentary Paradise Blown, which screens in Wonthaggi on April 15.
Suffice it to say that plenty does go wrong but the two blokes – wind-surfers Adrian Rowe and Matt Tonner – do make it home alive.
In fact, with a bit of luck, at least one of them, and the board they designed for their 1200-kilometre voyage around the Fijian islands will be in the cinema for the screening of the film.
Green, a keen windsurfer himself – he is vice-president of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club – would have liked nothing better than to have joined the duo on their adventure, but having a film crew along would have altered their adventure.
Instead he entrusted them with two small cameras and wished them well. When they returned, he combined their footage with his own taken before and after the voyage.
He says Rowe and Tonner continue a fine tradition of windsurfing adventurers finding their way across vast distances.
In the 1970s, Gippsland surfer Gavin LeSueur casually windsurfed from Melbourne to Sydney, pulling in to shore each night for a break. Later Nick Maloney crossed Bass Strait on a board.
Paradise Blown premiered last year in a benefit for Fiji after large parts of the islands were devastated by a cyclone.
A full-time film-maker based in Inverloch, Green has carved out a living doing consultancy work and running student film festivals to finance his true love: making documentaries through his company Drift Media.
He operates differently from traditional film-makers in that, rather than seeking funding to make films, he makes his films first – then tries to well them.
“These days you don’t need a lot of money to make a film,” he says. “That’s one of the things I like about the new technology. If you’ve got a good idea and a good camera you can just go ahead and make it.”
Paradise Blown screens at the Wonthaggi Cinema on April 15 as part of ABC Open’s 110% Film festival, a free community screening of short films made by Gippsland filmmakers. A Q&A session with filmmakers and subjects will follow the screenings.
Watch Mick Green’s Brass Monkeys, about the winter speed surfing competition of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club.
In fact, with a bit of luck, at least one of them, and the board they designed for their 1200-kilometre voyage around the Fijian islands will be in the cinema for the screening of the film.
Green, a keen windsurfer himself – he is vice-president of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club – would have liked nothing better than to have joined the duo on their adventure, but having a film crew along would have altered their adventure.
Instead he entrusted them with two small cameras and wished them well. When they returned, he combined their footage with his own taken before and after the voyage.
He says Rowe and Tonner continue a fine tradition of windsurfing adventurers finding their way across vast distances.
In the 1970s, Gippsland surfer Gavin LeSueur casually windsurfed from Melbourne to Sydney, pulling in to shore each night for a break. Later Nick Maloney crossed Bass Strait on a board.
Paradise Blown premiered last year in a benefit for Fiji after large parts of the islands were devastated by a cyclone.
A full-time film-maker based in Inverloch, Green has carved out a living doing consultancy work and running student film festivals to finance his true love: making documentaries through his company Drift Media.
He operates differently from traditional film-makers in that, rather than seeking funding to make films, he makes his films first – then tries to well them.
“These days you don’t need a lot of money to make a film,” he says. “That’s one of the things I like about the new technology. If you’ve got a good idea and a good camera you can just go ahead and make it.”
Paradise Blown screens at the Wonthaggi Cinema on April 15 as part of ABC Open’s 110% Film festival, a free community screening of short films made by Gippsland filmmakers. A Q&A session with filmmakers and subjects will follow the screenings.
Watch Mick Green’s Brass Monkeys, about the winter speed surfing competition of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club.