George Miller

George Miller is my favourite director, simply because the wasteland, apocalyptic setting is one of my absolute favourite settings across all mediums, and I feel he manages to build the world in a very real way. The world in these movies feel very realised and are truly immersive, which is a very important detail to me, all of the action and the characters fit in with the world he has created, the prop design all feel reused, recycled and run down, nothing is new, everything is a struggle. Watching the Mad Max films, it is clear from the get go, just how hostile an environment the world has since become, and I believe this is entirely down to his creative control. The wasteland setting has been a favourite of mine, long before I watched the Mad Max movies, but it is down to these movies that it could be at all. The apocalyptic games I grew up with, all took inspiration from Mad Max, they would never have been made, or have never been of such a high, realised quality, were it not for the Mad Max movies. Miller grew up in Brisbane, attending Ipswich grammar school, Sydney's boys high school, and studied medicine at the university of New South Wales - this training later aided him with funding the initial Mad Max film as to earn money for it, he worked as an emergency room doctor. Whilst in his final year of medical school, he and his brother made a short 1 minute film which earned them first place in a student competition. Miller then went on to attend a film workshop at Melbourne university, where he met Bryon Kennedy, with whom he went on to create the initial two Mad Max movies and his first released short film, violence in cinema, part 1. Byron died shortly after the release of Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome was dedicated to his memory. Miller completed his residency at St. Vincent's hospital, spending his off time developing experimental films, Miller and Byron made a production company: Kennedy Miller Productions. Which after Byron's death, was later renamed to: Kennedy, Miller, Mitchel, to recognise Doug Mitchell's role in the company. Miller's first release was Violence in Cinema, Part 1, a short film which polarised recipients and critics alike, so much so that due to it's matter of fact nature when depicting violence in cinema, it was later recatagorised at Sydney Film Festival as a documentary. Miller's first feature film was Mad Max, independently financed, this led it to being the most financially profitable movie of all time, due to it's recording budget, but it was later beaten by The Blair Witch Project in 1999. The film was so successful that it went on to create 2 sequels with Mel Gibson remaining, then another reboot sequel, starring Tom Hardy, in 2015. Miller later went on to work on: the Witches of Eastwick, produce a Twilight Zone movie, co-wrote Babe, pig in the city and directed and wrote both happy feet movies (quite the change from Mad Max).Warner Bros gave over the rights to Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome in order for miller to step aside as director on Contact. He was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia in 1996 Queen's birthday honours, for his services to the Australian film industry as a director, producer and writer.