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‘Filming my graduating film All We Have Is Time, after what was almost a year of pre-production, was honestly one of the most emotional and cathartic weeks of my life,’ says Fraser Pemberton, Master of Film and Television student.
One of Fraser’s goals with his graduating film (which is about an astronaut who reaches a temporal anomaly in the depths of space and must defy his understanding of time to decide his fate) was to utilise as many of the studio facilities available to him at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), as possible.
The crew of All We Have Is Time, which included a number of Master of Production students, built an entire spaceship set in Studio 1 at the VCA. The scope of the project was ambitious, but Fraser says this was a challenge he and his collaborating students did not shy away from.
‘I learnt what both myself and a core team are capable of doing under extreme limitations, [while] producing this graduating film during lockdown,’ he says.
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Before arriving at the VCA, Fraser had completed an undergraduate degree which equipped him with many of the technical skills necessary to start out as a filmmaker. However, he was left hungry to further hone his craft and expand his skill set.
‘The Australian film industry is a notoriously tough gate to open and I genuinely didn’t feel that I was completely ready to immerse myself in that challenge after finishing [my previous degree],’ he adds.
He describes relationships between students and teachers within the VCA, as paramount to the success of the course.
My greatest takeaway by far has been the people in my cohort and relationships we have forged over the extended duration of our course.
‘I haven’t made anywhere near the relationships or creative collaborators in any of my other academic pursuits than I have over the past couple of years at VCA Film and Television.’
Successfully producing an ambitious masters’ project has given Fraser the confidence to aim next for something even more ambitious: a feature-length film.
‘I am setting my sights on writing and directing a debut feature as my next step up the mountain,’ he says.
He is part of film-making collective Dogmilk Films who have a swathe of upcoming projects on the table, and aspirations for the future.
‘There are always reasons not to make a film; financial, psychological, existential but there is always one overarching reason that overpowers all of the negatives - because you simply couldn’t be happy doing anything else.’