Director Vincent Ward speaks to the MADC
Last week, the MADC and Luscious International hosted an evening with director Vincent Ward, where the acclaimed director shared stories of filming in extreme conditions (including sleeping next to an occupied coffin), particular stars’ predilections (our lips are sealed) and how he feels a constant need to reinvent himself.
Ward is best known for creating the beautiful animated illustrated scenes for the Academy Award-nominated movie What Dreams May Come. He’s also directed River Queen with Keifer Sutherland and the ethereal Maori story, Rain of the Children.
But he admits it is the movie he hasn’t yet made that haunts him the most. Ward was appointed to write and direct Alien 3, based on his intricate concepts of a medieval world of the future – full of monks, religion and, of course, aliens.
Months into the production (and in a situation that Ward likened to the scenes played out in agencies every day), the studio making the movie was sold and the new owners wanted to change everything. The focus of the movie shifted and Ward and the studio parted company.
But all was not lost – Ward showed the crowd some of his incredible ideas and illustrations for the movie and is now pitching them as a graphic novel.
Vincent Ward grew up in rural New Zealand and his life has been heavily influenced by his father, a gifted storyteller who was badly burned during World War 2.
“The way I work changes every year. Cross-fertilisation is the way forward,” he said.
Speaking about the making of What Dreams May Come, Ward said the original script arrived, his dad had just died and he’d been wondering about the world he had gone to. That led to him accepting the script and wondering how to visualise the after-world in the movie.
“Hell is fantastic for painters – but paradise is tricky,” he joked.
Ward is also an international TVC director, having worked on campaigns for Vogel’s bread, Abu Dhabi and Singapore Airlines, amongst others. He also directed a series of six commercials for Universal Theme Parks with Steven Spielberg as his Executive Producer.
“They threw so much money at the ads that by the end of the job we were still half a million dollars under budget. Oh for those days again!” Ward said.
Ward has just released a book, called ‘The Past Awaits’ which “contains stories I probably shouldn’t have told,” he said. The book is filled with his stunning imagery and highlights his intricate composite works, revealing his fine arts training.
He finished the night admitting there were a lot of similarities between making a movie in Hollywood and the creative process in agencies.
“It’s a collaborative process for all creatives and nothing ever turns out the way you envisage it because so many hands end up in the process. What you’ve got to hold on to is that one core idea and then you can live with everything else”.
Photos from the night
