Hysteria surrounds pair’s direction in DIYmovies

By Rebecca Fraser
TWO budding independent filmmakers are causing hysteria in Narre Warren North.
Director and editor James Cole and producer and writer Chris Daniels run Hysteria Productions from their small home studio.
But the talented duo are making big inroads in the world of corporate videos.
Mr Cole said they wanted to produce corporate videos with a difference, naming the short films ‘Nano Features’.
The 31-year-old said they intended to take on the age-old tradition of making boring, stuffy and often hard to watch training, educational and promotional videos for the corporate sector and instead offer an exciting, entertaining and creative alternative.
The pair believe the generally boring corporate video format lacks the ability to capture the imagination of audiences and hope to educate businesses through the magic of entertainment.
Both James and Chris have decided that they will produce movies with real storylines, plots and all the trimmings of a good motion picture adventure to sell products, services, profiles and images for corporations and business organisations.
Mr Cole said the new approach had already proved a hit with their first production of this kind, titled Nano Power, for the ‘visionary thinking’ technology organisation Realtek.
“With a good story, cool comic-style characters, intriguing drama, a fun sense of humour and a bit of action thrown in for good measure, we can offer something very different,” he said.
Hysteria Productions has already set benchmarks in the independent film making industry with their first combined movie project, the science-fiction adventure, Lost Black Earth.
The duo wrote the screenplay and pulled together a cast and crew of more than 100 members for the film and spent six months filming in their spare time and on weekends, in many extreme locations around Victoria.
The film screened at the 2004 Melbourne Underground Film Festival and won the best sound award.
Since then, Hysteria Productions has been involved in over 60 movie projects, including music videos for a number of local Australian bands.
Mr Cole said they were currently working on Fractured, a dramatic thriller with a supernatural twist.
Mr Cole formed Hysteria straight after graduating from Berwick Secondary College in 1994.
He said he would love to take his work overseas as well as producing films in Australia.
“Australia has the best creative crews in the world and awesome locations.
“I would love to go over to America where the money is and then come back to Australia and make more films,” he said.
Mr Daniels, a theme park designer, said his ultimate goal was to build Hysteria into a recognised and successful international film-making business.
He said he loved the creativity involved in film-making and enjoyed producing movies that entertained audiences and gave people enjoyment.
For further information on Hysteria Productions, go to www.hysteria.com.au.