Life's one big rumble for this rising Filmmaker
When most people are confronted with the ‘Director’ paradigm, what commonly crops to mind are the likes of Scorsese, Tarantino or Coppola.
Although for latest Qantam Media College graduate Timothy Ly, the polished profession definitely stands for a lot more than merely being stamped in the history books of film, fame and glory.
As Ly sits consumed in his office chair, he ruffles aside some thirty-odd script notes scattered across the ground with his feet and prepares himself to be interrogated. Situated in the South Western Sydney suburbs resides Ly’s cubicle sized work office that also quadruples as a casting room, awards room and a camera and props storage room.
The initial suspicions that rise bare a certain pertinence to the many other clichéd success stories you hear about from the past. They are the type of rags to riches stories that usually involve a struggling filmmaker camping for that one single break to burst a fresh arsenal of creativity onto the Australian film market all the while earning public acclaim.
Ly is not one of them. Well not entirely anyway as he explains. “We’re more about moving forward as a team rather than glorifying any one individual”
His local film production team; Rumble Pictures, is also vastly different. As the proprietor and director of this Western Sydney film crew, Ly is quick to disperse the preconceptions as he apologises to me for his drowsiness and explains how his close-knit team had just spent the last forty odd hours of the weekend editing and piecing together a non-profit community project. Certainly a move that doesn’t quite resonate the typical path of a director shooting for the stars.
Rumble Pictures began its foray into film and media during Ly’s final high school years back in 2002. With a group of no more than five of his “close mates” and his love for old school martial arts films, Ly had begun shooting; directing and editing his very first short film, an action parody, that coincidentally never got to see the light of day. “It was fun [first film] but it wasn’t intended to be anything more than an experiment. “Something to test the waters with I guess and perhaps gauge our potential”.
What Ly didn’t realise at the time was that this accordance would later play a significant role in forging the raw foundations of Rumble Pictures.
“The result of that is reflected heavily in vision is based on a team of young people who aim to move against the grain from an area constantly scrutinized by the media, yet has the skills and professionalism to mix it with the best across Australia in terms of creative dexterity”.
When queried whether Ly viewed himself as being one of Australia’s rising young filmmakers, he replied with
Stepping forward five years, the team now accommodates up to fifty eager media professionals volunteering their skills from across Sydney. The group mainly consists of actors, camera operators, sound engineers, digital animators; media release personnel and public relations officers.
During this period of growth, Ly had entered his first official film under the Rumble Pictures signature into a local short film competition called Shortcuts. History was already beginning to weave itself when Ly’s satirical homage to the martial arts genre called ‘Maximum Choppage’ awarded him the 2005 Best Film Award at the event.
“We were running a side project to help benefit and motivate other young media savvy hopefuls in our local area,” he informs me.
“tap into their creative minds”
With the drive to attract more than just status in the highly competitive industry, Ly is not one to sit back and wait for the chances to come to him. He is the type of character prepared to create the projects that will ultimately define him.