Australia: Hamish Rothwell; Jackassing About
Hamish Rothwell ponders baboons discussing budgets, the cruelty of violins & proves as entertaining as his fillms.
Hamish Rothwell is an animated sort of man. At various points during the course of our hour-long chat, he paces the room acting out some of what he’s saying, makes bold gestures to reinforce his points, performs unusual, impromptu sketches (one of which involves a baboon choosing scripts and discussing budgets, and which I, just for a second, think is a real story. I blamed jet lag then and that’s the story I’m sticking to) and, in general, makes me laugh.
He is, to quote Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, a funny guy. That humorous streak has served Rothwell well through his career, one that has seen him both in front of and behind the camera. Like Hannah Hilliard [see page 38], Rothwell began as an actor. Now based in Sydney, he is originally from New Zealand and attended Wellington’s Victoria University where “we basically had a really shit version of the Cambridge Footlights”.
Varying levels of dung
He mentions the cult 80s UK TV show The Young Ones as an inspiration to both him and his friends, and English comedy as a defining theme in his teenage years. While at university he and some similarly-minded students decided to get together and put on a show. “Some of us were really shit,” he laughs, “and some of us were better than shit. From there on I was acting professionally for three or four years.” Rothwell was actually enrolled on a music composition course at university but decided pretty soon that the course wasn’t for him; “I used to play the guitar and the violin,” he says, before shaking his head at the mere mention of the ‘v’ word. “Terrible, just terrible. It’s the most awful instrument known to man. Unless you are very, very good it’s actually a cruelty to most other people, and to yourself.” Rothwell quit the course before graduating and supplemented his acting wage by working at the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) when he wasn’t on stage. It was while working with the NZFC that Rothwell decided to go to film school. “When they [the NZFC] offered me a job I thought, ‘I’m not going to get that opportunity again’,” explains Rothwell. I had friends who had degrees who couldn’t get jobs so I jumped at it and it was really good. It was an amazing time because Peter [Jackson] was just doing his first films.”
When he was 23, Rothwell’s parents moved to the UK and so he enrolled at film school in London and travelled with them. He puts the change of direction from acting to directing down to his experiences with the NZFC but states that it, initially, wasn’t something he gave a huge amount of thought to. “We all co-directed stuff in the theatre but I’d never made a film or anything. It wasn’t one of those situations where I made Super 8 films when I was 12, like a weird child prodigy,”
he laughs. “I also thought, for some reason, I was better at having an idea of how to perform something than actually being the person performing it.”
The course Rothwell took, at the London International Film School in Pinewood, was very practical and completely reinforced his desire to become a director. He describes how his three years at the school taught him not only the practical skills he needed, but to love cinema and its ability to completely suspend disbelief. “That’s what I’ve always loved about film,” he says, “that you can do that. That some dude pulling some wires and creating smoke off-screen can, if you do it just right, make people believe there’s a spaceship landing on Earth.”
Friends reunited
Rothwell says that getting into advertising was a specific goal, and that he was in London at the right time to be inspired by what was happening in the industry. “It was a time when ads and music videos were, basically, awesome,” he says. “I remember all the Levi’s ads were brilliant; great stories with great twists, humorous but took themselves seriously enough to be good. And I know it’s a bit of an advertising cliché to say this, but all of Jonathan Glazer’s stuff was particularly great. As far as someone treating it as a storytelling art form, he was probably the best.”
Rothwell’s limited education visa meant that in 1995, not long after graduating from film school, he had to leave London and return to New Zealand. He was disappointed to be missing out on what was happening in the industry at the time, with many new directors being able to cut their teeth on low-budget music videos, but once back home it wasn’t long before he began working in his native film industry, with his contacts from the NZFC proving invaluable. It soon transpired that a few of Rothwell’s old friends had returned to New Zealand and they started working together shooting commercial projects, and soon enough he found himself signed to New Zealand production company Flying Fish. It wasn’t long before Rothwell was in high demand, working on commercials both in New Zealand and Australia. In 2003 he decided that, as more and more of his work was coming from Australia, he would need to move there. “I’d been working in Australia quite a lot and it got to the point where I just had to move as [the travel] was becoming ridiculous, [and] I didn’t want to stay at Flying Fish if I wasn’t going to be in New Zealand.” Rothwell is now signed to GoodOil Films and has helmed a variety of fantastic, often very funny work including the award-winning Massage spot for Fox Sports, Weetabix Opera, IKEA Have a Go and Volkswagen Jetta Flyboy.
“I’ve been pretty lucky I think,” Rothwell states modestly. “I would like to think I update myself all the time and work out ways of not being part of the ‘fashionable’ style of commercial making, which is constantly changing. I like to change things up and take a few good risks.” As a former actor himself, and much like Hannah Hilliard, it seems Rothwell excels at coaxing great performances, comedic performances especially, from his actors. Does he agree? “You mean I know how to cuddle?” he laughs. “If they’re doing something foolish you say, ‘don’t worry, it’s alright, you’ll be fine’.” He makes light of the comment but the strength of his work speaks for itself – there are too many examples of laugh-out-loud spots for it to be a coincidence. Rothwell thinks he’s been the beneficiary of the good scripts and positive atmosphere in the Australian ad scene over the last couple of years. Australian advertising often tends to veer towards the comedic and, says Rothwell, with a recent influx of British creatives to Australian agencies that situation has only improved. “It’s a great time,” he says. “We’ve been able to take some risks and the ideas have been really good. I think the guys here do demand a lot of themselves, and it’s been like that for a few years now.”
A rosy glow
Rothwell’s looking forward to more great scripts and having recently signed to Rattling Stick in the UK he’s hoping a few of them will come from his old stomping ground of London. He’s currently working on a project, through Rattling Stick, with BBH London, which he is excited about. The future, he says, is looking pretty rosy. “I’m just really up for diversity,” he says simply. “I just want to try different stuff.”
Connections
powered by- Production Goodoil Films
- Director Hamish Rothwell
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