PHC is raising the roof

Melbourne-based director, John Stewart, is most sought after for his music videos and spots that draw from the urban sub-cultures of Australia and elsewhere that few others are able to convincingly bring before the camera. 

Here he recalls his rigorously independent route into filmmaking, music videos and advertising, while talking us through making a stunning series of spots for apparel brand Crumpler – work that helped him become a joint winner of the 2024 New Director of the Year award and saw him signed to Academy.  

How it started  

“I loved movies. I loved Jack Nicholson. Then I realised it wasn’t him, it was everything around him, and what he brings to it. How could I get as close to that as possible? I never went to film school – I was like, film school is for fuckheads. Even though I know that is bullshit. So I studied art history and English literature. I wanted to make films, and I felt this will help me in some tangential way. 

I started working for Warner Music, interviewing bands from Melbourne. It felt so far away from what I wanted to do. Then I worked at a cinema. That felt even further away. I knew I wanted to make films on 35mm, because those were the films I liked. But I didn’t know anyone in film. I didn’t know how to shoot. I scrounged money to buy a 1,000ft roll of 35mm, and made some short films. That’s how I started. 

I never went to film school – I was like, film school is for fuckheads.

I shared a studio space in an old warehouse with the band Gizzard, who were close friends of mine. One of them asked, do you wanna make a music video? I said I hated music videos. They said I’d be great at it, because I hated them. I was recruited because of my cynicism.  

That was a fun couple of years. I started shooting on 16mm. Then we planned a feature film of raw, on-stage footage, and I went to Europe and filmed them, and turned that into the documentary Chunky Shrapnel.”  

Setting up shop  

“‘PHC’ means Preston House Company film. Preston House was the squat where I made my first films. It didn’t have a back door, the kitchen had holes in it and my space was a space between someone else’s room and the staircase. With PHC, I wanted to continue that feeling, but taking it more seriously.  

I haven’t shot on 35mm for a bit. It’s harder to justify when you’re using other people’s money. 

If you really fall in love with imagery and connection, and story and tone, you get images that feel just as good something made for a million dollars, as opposed to a thousand. I’m interested in DIY filmmaking that looks high-end. That’s why I like celluloid so much. The feel of it, the tone of it, the flicker of it. But I haven’t shot on 35mm for a bit. It’s harder to justify when you’re using other people’s money. 

This year I shot on 16mm twice. One was the Jerkin' video with Amyl and the Sniffers. I knew I only needed 40 seconds with each person, otherwise it kills the moment. You want to keep all that feeling and energy in front of the camera.” 

Capturing Crumpler  

“We did our first Crumpler shoot in Tokyo. I wanted to find ways of capturing moments that feel genuine, but with a high-end aesthetic. So how do we do that? I was thinking of amazing street photography with a very strong flash that captures and freezes the moment.  

We ended up drinking a lot of sake and shooting a lot. We had a great fixer-producer, which opened up so much for us there. He used to work in a Love Hotel, where you pay by the hour, and he’d take documentary photos of the rooms after they’d been used – a bed with a yellowy wet patch, bottles of beer, bento boxes. So we got access to shoot him in one of these rooms, and he’d brought his partner, and they became excited by the idea of being filmed. He was like, do you mind if we just have sex? And in a very controlled way, it started happening. It was weird. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it was so natural and non-confrontational. They were so confident. We’d gone in with an open mind, and they were so trusting of us, they let that happen, which never would have happened in another situation. Another day, a Yakuza boss let us shoot him. He was missing one of his fingers, covered it tattoos, with silver hair, in his 50s. We were shooting with all these amazing people you’d never have access to. 

I wanted to find ways of capturing moments that feel genuine, but with a high-end aesthetic.

When it came to do Crumpler Sub 3000, we decided to focus on the subcultures of Melbourne. They’re not superstars, they’re not really looked at, so it was like, ‘let’s hold them up high’. I saw them as prophets of urban decay – they have an almost spiritual nature, which is where a lot of music for the campaign came from. One piece is by the Tallis Scholars, another by an Austrian yodelling troupe. That connection between music and image is a classic tool of advertising. If it’s machined correctly it can be most effective. That’s the essence of cinema, sound and image. 

A lot of casting was through friends. There’s a sex worker in it, a friend of ours who helped us cast other sex workers. The skater crew on the pier we got via some underground rapper friends. It was reaching out to people we already knew to reel other people in, and winning their respect by showing them what we’d already done, and what it would feel like.  

That was before we signed with Academy in May. I’ve known them for years and loved the work they come out with. And Crumpler was definitely why they were interested in signing us.