Director George Miller says the Mad Max film franchise that exists today was borne out of limitations.
Originally an emergency room doctor, the Australian director transitioned into film and created the story of a world where limitation is a central theme and abundance a dream.
Image: (L-R): Taylor-Joy with Miller on set. Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
The Australian director made his first Mad Max film in 1978 with a crew of 35 and a fresh-faced Mel Gibson as the lead.
He says it was filmed on a discarded camera lens from a Steve McQueen film, and the lack of resources to create the project ended up working in his favour.
Image: George Miller. Pic: Reuters
He tells Sky News: “The first Mad Max was definitely borne out of limitations. It ultimately turned out to be very key to it.”
The 79-year-old says the original story was written as a “contemporary story set in the city of Melbourne,” but financial limitations spawned the idea of it being set in a “dystopian future”.
“We couldn’t afford to have car chases in the middle of the street,” he says. “We couldn’t afford [to have] the extra cars or put stuntmen in those cars. We couldn’t have extras in the street, trams or busses and we couldn’t use the buildings so we decided to set it a few years in the future.”
Miller says they decided to instead focus on what they could use and thus the Mad Max franchise we know today was created.
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“We could shoot in backstreets, where there were no extras and no cars, or shoot in really old, decrepit buildings where the people wouldn’t ask you for rent. And that led to the film becoming more allegorical.
“Had we not done that? I don’t think we’d be still doing it.”
Image: Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
Burnt land and no speed limits
Miller is a cinephile at heart and for Mad Max, he had a vision – for it to be shot on a “big anamorphic widescreen”.
He previously credited his childhood in rural Queensland and the over-powering car culture there as the influences for Mad Max.
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At the time, the area consisted of completely flat roads, burnt land and no speed limits – the results of which Miller witnessed as an emergency room doctor at the age of 26.
“We couldn’t afford the cameras, or the lenses, but there was a set of lenses in Australia at the time, in one particular place that had been dumped out of Hollywood from the movie that Sam Peckinpah shot called The Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw”.
All but one of these lenses was “wrecked”.
He says: “The rental house virtually gave it to us for nothing. There was one lens called the 35mm lens, and we used that and it allowed us to get much more dynamics in the shot”.
Image: Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
Why are moments in the Mad Max franchise sped up?
Inspired by the silent film era, Miller’s aim was to create “pure cinema” and make “‘a silent film with sound”.
To achieve the aesthetic he craved, he played around with frame rates.
In film, video is essentially a number of images (frames) captured sequentially to make the image move. Movies display 24 frames per second.
Miller says his plan was to shoot everything at high speed but, because of financial restraints, could not use speed ramps as it would cost the equivalent of a day of filming.
When he started to edit Mad Max he noticed “something was too slow” and to achieve the look he desired, began removing frames from the sequence.
“It looks a little bit like the old silent movies and sped up. By the time I got to Mad Max two, we would shoot at 20 frames or 18 frames. And so, I started to do a lot of that.”
Image: Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
Reflecting on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, he says: “Nowadays digitally I shoot most things at 48 frames because you can ramp it up and down from 48 frames, provided you’ve got the resolution, you can do so much more with that.”
The film Mad Max was released in 1979 and put Mel Gibson on the road to stardom.
Oddly, at that time the film distributor in the US, American International Pictures, opted to dub the strong Australian accents used by the actors for fears that they would not be understood by American audiences.
A far cry from misunderstanding the Australian accent, the country’s actors have become some of the most well-known faces in Hollywood nowadays.
Image: Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Miller’s latest release, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga serves as a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road.
It was written before the Tom Hardy film began in production in order to “fully understand” the characters on screen.
It stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Imperator Furiosa and Chris Hemsworth as Dementus.
Miller says it feels good for the prequel to finally be in cinemas.
“We had a magnificent cast and crew who gave their very best. We tried to get the best story we could have on the screen using all the tools we have and hopefully it means something significant to people.”
Image: Pic: Warner Bros/Domain Pictures
Miller on the future of film
The Australian director decided against using de-ageing technology for the role of Furiosa and instead cast Anya Taylor-Joy to play the character first depicted by Charlize Theron.
It is not that he is against using AI technology in fact, Taylor-Joy recently revealed they used software to mix her face with that of the child actor, Alyla Browne, for her scenes.
Miller says the beauty of cinema is that it constantly changes.
“From the very beginning of cinema, which is 130 years old, there’s always change. The silent era and sound. Then there was Technicolor, then there was the digital dispensation in the early 90s. Once that’s come along, things have changed so rapidly even since then.”
Always attracted to the tech behind the scenes, Miller cites the digital ability to make Sheep-Pig talk in Babe or Mumble tap dance in Happy Feet as game-changing moments for him.
“By the time we got to do Fury Road, I realiSed, ‘Oh my God, we could do things that we never dreamed of doing back in the celluloid days’.
“Technology will keep changing and advancing… I don’t think we should limit ourselves if the tools are available. It’s always been the case, and cinema has to adjust.”
Austria has won Eurovision 2025, with Austrian-Filipino singer-songwriter JJ taking the glass microphone.
The 24-year-old singer, who originally trained as a countertenor, represented his country with his operatic ballad Wasted Love, staged on a storm-tossed ship.
The song, which was not dissimilar to that of last year’s winner Nemo, told the story of unrequited love, with a techno breakdown near the end. Austria has won Eurovision twice before, the last time in 2014 with Conchita Wurst’s pop hit Rise Like A Phoenix.
Image: JJ singing Wasted Love for Austria. Pic: Reuters
Israel’s Yuval Raphael, who survived the October 7, 2023, attacks which were the catalyst for Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, was the runner-up with piano ballad New Day Will Rise, performed in Hebrew, French and English.
The singer was left “shaken and upset,” after two pro-Palestinian protesters rushed towards her during her grand final performance.
Organisers confirmed a backstage crew member was hit with paint but was not hurt.
A spokesman for SRG SSR said: “At the end of the Israeli performance, a man and a woman tried to get over a barrier onto the stage.
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“They were stopped. One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit. The crew member is fine and nobody was injured. The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.”
Israel has won Eurovision four times, and last year finished in fifth place with Eden Golan’s Hurricane.
Image: Yuval Raphael performs New Day Will Rise for Israel. Pic:AP
Just as the grand final began broadcasting, Spanish broadcaster shared a message of Palestinian support which read: “When human rights are at stake, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.”
The broadcaster had already received a warning from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) over political statements reported by Israeli broadcaster Kan.
The EBU said in response to the latter incident: “We can confirm that we have spoken to RTVE regarding this matter and made it clear that commentators are expected to maintain neutrality within the broadcasts of the Eurovision Song Contest.”
During the evening, there were also pro-Palestinian protests near the centre of Basel, as well as a small group nearby protesting with Israeli flags.
Israeli National Security Council had issued a warning to Israeli civilians in the city to keep a low profile during the competition.
In a change from last year’s contest in Malmo, Sweden, the ban on certain flags being waved by the audience was relaxed which meant Palestinian symbols could be seen in the arena.
Image: Remember Monday perform What The Hell Just Happened for the UK. Pic: AP
The UK’s act – country pop trio Remember Monday – who performed in colourful Bridgerton-style outfits – avoided the dreaded “nul points”, coming in at 19th place with song What The Hell Just Happened?
However, for the second year running, the UK received no points in the public score.
The UK has had five wins at Eurovision, but in recent years have struggled to rank, with the exception being Sam Ryder with Space Man in 2022, who came second.
Last year, Olly Alexander placed 18th at Malmo, and Mae Muller was second to last the previous year in Liverpool.
The Eurovision grand final took place in the St Jakobshalle arena in Basel, Switzerland, with the winner from among the 26 performing nations decided by a mix of public voting and points from national juries.
The four-hour-long show was presented by an all-female team – stand-up comedian Hazel Brugger, TV presenter Michelle Hunziker and Eurovision veteran Sandra Studer.
There were performances by previous Eurovision runners-up Croatia’s Baby Lasagna and Finland’s Kaarija, as well as last year’s winner Nemo during the night.
Image: KAJ perform Bara Bada Bastu for Sweden. Pic: AP
Sweden had been widely tipped to win with their sauna-themed entry Bara Bada Bastu (Just Sauna), but ended up coming fourth.
Ukraine, who have made a strong showing each since they first entered the competition in 2003, and who won in 2023, came ninth.
Last year protests and politics overshadowed the singing event amid the outbreak of war in Gaza, with some calling for Israel to be kicked out of the contest.
Last year also saw Dutch singer Joost Klein kicked out of the competition by the EBU over alleged verbal threats to a female production worker, which he denied.
Next year’s competition, Eurovision’s 70th, will be held in Austria.
A second man has been charged with grievous bodily harm with intent after an incident at a London nightclub that allegedly involved US singer Chris Brown.
The Metropolitan Police said Omololu Akinlolu, 38, will appear at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.
Better known by his stage name HoodyBaby, the American rapper has been charged in connection with an alleged assault at the Tape nightclub in central London in February 2023.
Brown, 36, was charged on Thursday with grievous bodily harm with intent and was remanded in custody by judge in Manchester until 13 June.
He is accused of attacking music producer Abraham Diaw with a bottle during the incident in February.
During a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Friday, Brown watched intently as brief details of the case against him were outlined by prosecutor Hannah Nicholls.
She accused Brown of committing “an unprovoked attack with a weapon in a nightclub full of people”.
Brown spoke to confirm his name and date of birth, but did not enter a plea.
He will appear for a plea and trial preparation hearing in London on 13 June.
Brown – known for hits such as “Loyal”, “Run It” and “Under the Influence” – was arrested at a hotel in Manchester in the early hours of Thursday by detectives from the Metropolitan Police.
The Grammy Award-winning singer was due to tour the UK in June and July, with dates in Manchester, Cardiff, London, Glasgow and Birmingham.