STACK November Issue 68

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MAKE UP YOUR MIND
For those who haven’t seen the film,
tell us a little bit about it?
The Ground We Won is a 100%
authentic documentary that follows a year
in the life of a rural NZ rugby team. It’s a
film about what makes Kiwi guys tick in
this ‘work hard, play hard’ culture of ours.
We gather you and Miriam were not
exactly big rugby fans going in?
Yes, we’d probably be described by
our country friends as ‘arty-townies’.
We both grew up in the city and simply
didn’t understand why rugby was such an
important part of New Zealand identity.
We wanted to dive in deep to understand
why the game is so important to so many
people here - happy to report we both get
it now!
Why Reporoa?
We were looking for a rural rugby team
made up of farmers and we wanted to
find a team who embraced all the rituals
and traditions of a rugby season. We
found the Reporoa Rugby Club and never
looked back; they were salt of the earth,
hard working farmers with brilliant, bawdy
humour – perfect!
Were the locals initially a bit
suspicious about the film?
Everyone was surprisingly un-suspicious
actually! Like most places, Reporoa is
proud of their rugby club and the guys
were happy to share with us what was
important to them both on the rugby field
and in their daily lives. It’s a warm hearted
and generous community all round.
Why did you opt to shoot in black
and white?
I wanted the film to have a timeless feel
- to reflect the deep sense of tradition that
we felt was true to this world. Men have
been playing rugby and farming this land
for generations. It also helps to set the
film apart from all the images of rugby and
farming you see on TV - we wanted the
film to be seen as a timeless classic - and
fortunately, it has been received this way.
Were you tempted to return to
Reporoa to watch the Rugby World
Cup?
We miss living in Reporoa and all
the wisecracks from the sidelines when
watching a rugby game. We’re now back
in Auckland, but we’re feeling extremely
proud of the Reporoa born and bred Sam
Cane! Actually, if you watch the sidelines
in The Ground We Won closely, you’ll
glimpse Sam Cane supporting Reporoa’s
home team’s final.
The Ground We Won is out on
November 18
Pete Docter on bringing the mind of a child to life in Inside Out.
Documentary filmmaker
Chris Pryor on delving into
the world of grassroots
rugby in the acclaimed
homegrown feature
The GroundWeWon.
Ryan Reynolds couldn’t think of
anything worse than doing what
his character in the thriller Self/
less does: signing up for a second
life in another body.
“To live forever would be
kind of awful. It raises all kinds
of questions: for some people it
raises a theological argument, for
some it’s a moral issue, for some
people it sounds awesome. I
remember when we were scouting
some locations for the movie we
met a couple of billionaires in New
York because we were interested
in borrowing their penthouse for
Ben Kingsley’s character. Everyone
of them said ‘is that possible?’ You
just think ‘wow, you would do that
wouldn’t you’.”
Self/less is out on November 25
withdrawn, prompting
Docter to wonder what was
going on inside her mind.
He duly came up with
the idea of representing
the emotions that govern
our lives as real characters,
all of whom are working 24/7 inside
the brain to keep their host happy. In Inside Out,
the mind in question belongs to Riley, an ordinary
11-year-old, whose mind is thrown into turmoil
when Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) – the emotion
that has always ruled supreme – and Sadness
(Phyllis Miller) are inadvertently swept into the far
reaches of her brain.
The main message of Inside Out is that both
happiness and sadness are part and parcel
of growing up. “The people that really mean
something deeply are those that I have cried
with, experienced fear with,” Docter explains.
“It’s all the aspects of emotions that bond us
together. It became a story about Joy being
stuck with Sadness, who she does not
understand at all in the beginning.
But as she learns what Sadness
brings to the table, by the end she
realises that sadness is crucial to a
valuable life.”
Inside Out is out on November 4
P ete Docter, the Oscar-winning director of
animated blockbusters such as Monsters
Inc and Up, admits that he loves working
with made-up environments. So it’s no surprise to
discover that visualising the inner workings of the
mind of an 11 year old was irresistible to the
writer and director of the latest Disney smash
Inside Out.
“Places like Monstropolis are fun to create
because they let us look at our own world in a
different way, and take advantage of what we can
do with animation,” he says. “But we have to keep
ourselves in check – if you do something too far
out, it’s easy to confuse people. So, when I came
up with the idea for a film set inside the mind, it
was exciting because we could visualize locations
like long-term memory, the subconscious, abstract
thought, dream production – concepts
that are already familiar to people.
Inside Out gives us a chance to take
the audience to a world that everyone
knows about but no one has ever been
to before.
The story was inspired by part
by his experiences with his own
daughter Ellie, who provided the
voice of her namesake in Up. At
the time, Ellie was a lot like her
spirited screen alter ego, but had
since become quieter and more
Soundbites
Chris Pryor
12 NOVEMBER 2015
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