music
hand me
the beer nuts
Beer Nuts Productions is a Gold
Coast-based film production
company. Founded in 2006, it
produces cutting-edge cinema,
television, downloads and e-books
on a wide range of topics. The
company’s director, gough, was the
first legally blind person to write,
produce, direct, edit and star in a
feature-length film. He spoke to
Anthea Skinner about his work.
Beer Nuts Productions’ first
feature film was I Will Not Go
Quietly, an exploration of gough’s
life. (gough prefers to write his
name with a lower case g.) It explores these issues through
discusses the themes of disability, interviews with gough’s friends and
mental health, drug and alcohol family as well as experts in their
abuse and suicide. “I found in fields, including drug and alcohol
my research that a lot of people counsellors, a neurosurgeon,
who have a disability can go on educators and even comedians.
to battle depression and other
types of mental illness,” explains The son of Australian comedian
gough, “mainly due to the fact Ugly Dave Gray, the filmmaker was
they have found themselves first given the nickname gough
the victim of discrimination, as a teenage fan of the band The
which is unacceptable and Whitlams. When he formed Beer
needs to change. The film was Nuts Productions he decided to
predominately made for those make the name change official.
without a disability in order to Gough’s vision impairment means
educate them and dispel some that he must work closely with his
of the negative stereotypes that cast and crew to achieve the results
can go along with all disabilities, he wants as a director. “Obviously
not just vision impairment.” The being legally blind does mean I
feature-length documentary have to have a crew around me
who I can trust,” he says, “So if I
want a certain shot, I know that my
cinematographer will do this and
not just go off on his own tangent.
I do have very limited vision, so in
the editing booth I can make sure
the shots are what I’m after, but
by then it is too late to change
anything as the vision has already
been shot and we don’t have the
budget to reshoot.” This level of
trust also extends to his actors,
“I can’t see facial expressions.
So I need to trust that they are
giving me the looks I am after. This
comes down to me being able to
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