Category: Sam Bowtell

Killer Pig Productions/Benalla Rural City - 'Being Australian'

2/2/2020

Congratulations to Benalla Rural City for inspiring, to Killer Pig Productions' Jake and Sam Bowtell for producing and directing, and to the community members who took part in the making of this thought provoking and wonderfully edited, video which premiered at Benalla's Australia Day Event at BPACC on Australia Day.

Killer Pig Productions' new short 'Swamp-Hen Vignette'

16/1/2020

'Swamp-Hen Vignette', Killer Pig Productions latest work, is based on one of their comic book character concepts, Swamp-Hen.

I't's 'Bloom City. A suffocating summer night. The White-Tail Gang prepares for another night of orchestrated anarchy'..

Writer Jake Bowtell describes 'Swamp Hen Vignette' as 'chock full of bangin’ action from a bangin’ superhero'. and suggests it will appeal if 'watching an Indie Australian superhero beat down on a building full of scumbag gangsters is the kind of thing that jams your doughnut'.

Swamp-Hen Vignette demonstrates Killer Pig Productions' ongoing development as film producers. Jake and Sam Bowtell continue to challenge themselves, writing, directing and producing short films such as 'Swamp Hen Vignette' on shoe string budgets. Swamp Hen Vignette features only three actors (Sam Bowtell, John Larkin and Owen Maclaughlan) and the old SEC building's corridors and windows, The editing and use of music is skillful; the scene shot through the windows of an adjoining building particularly memorable and the use of graphics in the closing credits impressive..

Swamp-Hen Vignette is fast moving; skillfully edited and makes compelling viewing.

The corridors and stair wells at NEA will never feel quite the same again!

(An occasional BLog)

Killer Pig Productions Podcasts - now on Spotify!

28/7/2019

Among other creative activities (including film-making, writing, drawing, digital art and comic books!) Killer Pig Productions' Jake and Sam Bowtell produce podcasts!
A first series is available as audio on Killer Pig's YouTube channel

Episode 1: Jack Johnston
Episode 2: Franco
Episode 3: Owen McLaughlin
Episode 4: Annaliese
Episode 5: Ellen James
Episode 6 Lily Aagren
Episode 7: Felix Leunig

Killer Pig's podcasts provide a unique opportunity to 'eavesdrop' on wide ranging conversations between Jake and Sam in which they explore all sorts of ideas from a twenty something perspective in a comfortable, stimulating fashion, exchanging thoughts and ideas with their guests in a conversational manner.

Killer Pig Productions are on Facebook, Youtube, Spotify and the NEA website!

"North East Artisans @ Wall to Wall 2019"

8/4/2019

Red Road Cafe's Sam and Lauren in their new Wall to Wall T-Shirts

NEA's program over the Wall to Wall Benalla Street Art Festival at the weekend featured -

9:- 4 Red Road Cafe - Extended Hours
9 - 4 'Another Brick in the Wall' Exhibition
10 - 4 Gallery Shop - Extended Hours, plus:
11 - 3 Sunday - Makers Market at the Hub - 'Buttons to Go' was there!
10 - 2.30 Sunday - NEA demonstrations and tasters - Wall to Wall Hub - Catherine, Chris, Elaine, Jarita, Seamus with willing whittlers Sally and John.

The weather was perfect to be sitting at the footpath cafe drinking coffee from the Red Road Cafe in festival mode, perhaps catching Frank, Tom and Bruce in session, or visiting the NEA marquee at the Lake where our artisans kept busy whittling, carving spoons, making jewellery or folding paper. Thank you Elaine, Catherine, Chris, Elaine, Jarita and Seamus for being there; talking to the public about your work, sharing ideas with one another, and representing NEA at the Hub.

A very special thanks to Sharon Tharratt from all at NEA for helping us to realise most of the original concepts planned for the Hub and to Kylie for stepping in to facilitate NEA's involvement.

Killer Pig Productions new 'Suck It Up' podcasts on You Tube...

12/12/2018

Killer Pig Productions' Jake and Sam Bowtell are now producing weekly 'Suck It Up' podcasts from the studio they've begun sharing with Tim Bowtell at NEA.. They arrive at the studio early on Monday morning to produce the episode - to date Episode 1: Jack Johnson; Episode 2: Franco; Episode 3: Owen McLaughlin; Episode 4: Annaliese - and coming up - Episode 5: Ellen James.

The 'Suck it Up' podcasts provide a unique opportunity to 'eavesdrop' on wide ranging conversations between Jake and Sam (aka the Bow N Tell brothers) in which they explore all sorts of ideas from a twenty something perspective in a comfortable, stimulating fashion, engaging their guests with their ideas and also drawing upon their guests to add more to the conversational menu. Find a block of time in which you can focus on listening to their podcast - or perhaps dip into each one in 'biteable chunks;. Enjoy!

In Episode 2: "Jake and Sam have a voluminous philosophical gasbag with the unique and wonderful dude known as Franco. The nature of the barter economy, self, bonobo mating, community, school, accountability on social media, religion... all of these fill a pleasant balloon of conversation, ready to burst into your earholes."

In Episode 4 "Sam and Jake talk to Annelies, a local fermentologist (we did up a word thing!) who creates excellent food, drink and deep philosophical contemplations! We talk Vipassana, the popularity of Murder/Crime podcasts, body image, Guild Wars, the origins and practice of fermentation!"

Check out Killer Pig's playlist of podcasts and videos on You Tube...https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUu-Ad_l1I20680Dvca-H3g/videos

Killer Pig Productions - newly released video clips - Jenny Mitchell and Nigel Wearne at 'The Gallery Gigs', North East Artisans, 5 July 2018

27/7/2018

Jenny Mitchell, 'The Old Oak' The Gallery Gigs, North East Artisans, Benalla, 5 July 2018

Nigel Wearne, 'Drawing Circles' 'The Gallery Gigs' North East Artisans, Benalla, 5 July 2018

Thanks to Sam, Lauren and Jake at Killer Pig for not only making and releasing these video clips from a particularly memorable Gallery Gig, but making them available on You Tube.

Post Script - Another recent release documenting the Benalla music scene from Killer Pig Productions. This Way North performing "Head Above Water" Live at the Benalla Musical Garden, hosted by One Wild Apple. Event organised by Ellen James.

An occasional BLog.

Personalised Writing and Editing workshop with Jake and Sam Bowtell

9/6/2018

"The Personalised Writing & Editing Workshop with Killer Pig Productions was great. So much learnt listening to Jake and Sam talk about each piece attendees submitted., Recurring themes that came up, no matter what the style or genre, were having a sense of place and writing with intention.... Thanks Killer Pig Productions" Carla Gardner, Broken River Writers

Personalised Writing and Editing Weekend with Jake and Sam Bowtell

4/6/2018

Benalla Shorts Film Festival 2018 recognizes young film makers

20/3/2018

Broken River Writers--October's intriguing workshop with Killer Pig Productions' Jake and Sam Bowtell

15/10/2017

On Friday 13th November local writers met at NEA for the second of the Broken River Writers Discovery Workshop series, this time with Jake and Sam Bowtell of Killer Pig Productions. The focus in this workshop was to discover more about writing for film. Having immersed themselves in film production since 2009, if not before, Jake and Sam proved to have much to share with the group.

Jake and Sam introduced us to the story behind, then screened their film 'Slope'. It proved to be a wonderful springboard for a rich and vibrant discussion during which we seemed to switch seamlessly between responding as viewers and responding as writers. While the session included a rich 'film appreciation' element, the writers' process was regularly interspersed and explored by Jake and Sam.

We left Jake and Sam's thought provoking discovery workshop with an understanding that writing for film includes writing for silence; that the excitement of film making relates to its many facets - with considerations about the use of particular actors; sound; lighting and so much more involved in film production.

Thank you Jake and Sam!

Watch out for Carla Gardner's writing about this event on the Broken River Writers' Facebook Page!

An Occasional Blog' by

Bev Lee

Occasional Blogger - Tim Bowtell - "Winton Wetlands Project" (Part 2)

22/1/2017

The Winton Wetlands 'fish on trees' project is finally finished as the heat of summer descended upon us. The Wetlands team wanted the fish to 'POP' and they certainly do!

Adding the blue and green rings 5 meters up the old trees was made possible with the hire of a cherry picker from Delatite Steel Benalla. After about half an hour getting to know the machine I was manoeuvring high up between the trees with precision. While I was up high Sam was taking care of business down low filling all the fish with colour. Unfortunately I under estimated the amount of yellow paint and needed to return a few days later to complete the job. This enabled me to carefully touch up different areas till I was completely happy.

Tim Bowtell
January 22, 2017

If you haven't read Tim's first post on the Winton Wetlands Project you might like to check out this slide show of images of the project from go to whoa.

Occasional blog... mid summer miscellany

8/1/2017

There is so much happening at NEA currently! Some happenings have warranted their own posts, so this post is a miscellany of snippets...

Kylie and Tim's 'Coffee is where the art is'... pop up cafe in the foyer gallery is a wonderful place to meet people Sam Bowtell (of the Bow N Tell Brothers and Killer Pig Productions') called by on Saturday morning. The Centre in Wangaratta, is continuing to publicise and distribute Killer Pigs' movie 'Slope' and is likely to rescreen it in Wangaratta at end of January, Sam and Jake are also planning to screen 'Slope' at rural cinemas across the north east over the coming months and looking towards crowd funding a DVD to be distributed to schools - a key audience. They are busy on a number of projects, including a feature film - already two and a half years in the making,

Sam and Lauren

The atmospheric courtyard outside the foyer gallery/cafe is now providing a terrific home for the colourful mosaic table which community members contributed to under Deb Dodd's guidance at the Maker's Mart festival during Wall to Wall Art last year.

Seamus, Tim Schloss and Hudson.

It seems it's the season for our artisans and members to immerse themselves in their own creative development, with Margaret Zaal 'excited beyond belief' to be going to a four day workshop in Geelong; Merilyn at a lifedrawing camp in Queensland and Seamus having just returned from an Irish folk music week near Coroit. Seamus came away from the week having written a poem, a song and having been the narrator for a documentary oriented slide show on the Irish Rebellion which engaged other Irish musicians in the camp in song. There must have been some wonderful jamming sessions.

Merv posted this portrait by his friend CJHaumann on our timeline recently - prefaced by 'See what NEA is doing to me!"

Lots has been happening in Merv's life this week, a birthday, buying a house in Benalla, becoming engaged to Irina and taking an oil pastels workshop at NEA at the weekend.

To finish... - 'Caught' - a photo of the Friday morning to afternoon handover - with Annie Longmuir and Janet Leith caught arriving to replace Lise Darcy and Elaine Murphy recenlty.

Annie, Janet, Lise and Elaine.

"Fantastic turnout" at launch of Jake and Sam Bowtell's new film 'Slope'

1/9/2016

Follow up post found on Facebook about the successful launch of Jake and Sam Bowtell's new film last Friday evening. Great comments and a '10/10' from MP Tim McCurdy. Congratulations Jake and Sam!

'It's a slippery slope" ...Shane Douthie on Jake and Sam Bowtell's new film

25/8/2016

Monday's Wangaratta Chronicle featured an extended article by Shane Douthie on 'Slope', a 48 minute feature length drama by local filmmakers, actors and NEA associated musicians Jake and Sam Bowtell of Killer Pig Productions.

Like me, many NEA members take a continuing interest in Sam and Jake's developing film making careers and enjoyed their music during their group Bow & Tell 'Brothers' sets at the Makers Market area during the Wall to Wall Festival weekend.

"Slope", which 'looks at the ongoing 'Ice problem from a young person's perspective', was funded by a $10,000 Ice Action Grant provided to The Centre in Wangaratta in 2015. Former students of The Centre and also GOTAFE Benalla, Jake and Sam collaborated with The Centre's VCAL students in developing the screenplay and did all the cinematography, editing and soundtracking. Sam also played the part of 'Keefy' and Jake the part of 'Pelican'.

Link to stills shot during the making of Slope

"We built this story from the ground up, working with the students who contributed a great deal of ideas and thoughts in the process. ......Obviously we wanted to illustrate the danger and the threat that this particular drug poses to communities right around Australia, but we were conscious also that the people involved in this larger story of addiction, are people, not monsters'. (Jake Bowtell interview from Shane Douthie's extended report).

'Slope' is to be launched this Friday, August 27th, at a sell out screening at the Wangaratta Cinema Centre. Hopefully it will screen in Benalla very soon.

BL

Links"
An extract from Shane Douthie's article (Wangaratta Chronicle, August 22, page 2)
http://wangarattachronicle.com.au/2016/08/22/its-a-slippery-slope/
Douthie, S (2016) It's a Slippery Slope, Wangaratta Chronicle Monday August 22, 2016
Killer Pig Production's Facebook site is at https://www.facebook.com/killerpigproductions

Sam and Jake (on right) with Bow & Tell brothers at Wall to Wall Festival, March 2016