{"id":8939,"date":"2021-03-04T02:24:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T02:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=8939"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:05:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:05:54","slug":"aaron-mak-filmmaker-with-multiple-talents-a-taste-of-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=8939","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Mak, Filmmaker with Multiple Talents: A Taste of Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is the holy trinity of\ncinema: to write, direct and star in a film. Aaron Mak is among the creative\nartists with multiple talents. Throughout his successful career Aaron has\npursued multiple creative interests. His visionary ideas be it directing films\nor music videos are more than an artform; they are very philosophical and\nthought-provoking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notable Director, Writer,\nActor, and Producer Aaron Mak was born in Singapore, and migrated to Melbourne,\nAustralia at the age of 10. He studied Theatre and Film at Monash University\n(Australia), and then studied abroad at the University of Exeter (UK), making\ndiverse short films along the way. Shortly after graduating in 2017, he founded\nhis own film company – Melbourne Film Studio – at the age of 21. In 2019, the\ncompany name was changed to Shimashou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, he has collaborated with the Australian rock band, Cynation, to create critically successful works such as \u201cGo Louie Go\u201d<\/em> (2018), \u201cAnthem of the Damned<\/em>\u201d (2019) and \u201cLighter<\/em>\u201d (2020), which all received official selections across film festivals around the world. The hit music video “Cynation: Go Louie Go<\/em>” (2018) won awards and received official selections in prestigious film festivals in Los Angeles, New York, London, Rome, Munich, and Melbourne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Aaron Mak, Photo by Alicia Pavlis Reel Photographs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cynation is a\npopular Australian rock band from Melbourne originating in Singapore. Its four\nmembers met in 1994 while in third grade. Since its formation in 1998, the Cynation\nband line-up has included Josh Mak (vocals and guitar), Simon Lai (guitar),\nAndrew Teo (bass) and in 2002 Shah (guitar) joined the band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Mak has also directed the feature documentary, “Rise: From Independence to Immortality<\/em>” (2018) which received official selections in London and New York, as well as the horror short, “The Seventh Month<\/em>” (2018), which was a semi-finalist at a Los Angeles Film Festival, and received an official selection at a Horror Film Festival in Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filmmaker Aaron\nMak has received numerous accolades including \u201cAstonishing Cinematography\nAward<\/em>\u201d for \u201cCoffee Run\u201d (2016, comedy) starring Josh Mak; \u201cOutstanding\nProduction Design Award<\/em>\u201d for \u201cJoke\u2019s on You<\/em>\u201d (2015,\nthriller\/fan-film) starring Aaron Mak and James Walker; and 2nd Prize Winner<\/em>\nfor \u201cHouse Sitting<\/em>\u201d (2016, horror) starring Ashleigh Gray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official music video\nfor \u201cCynation: Go Louie Go<\/em>\u201d directed by Aaron Mak, won the following\nawards: Best Film Award<\/em> (2019) at the Phoenix Film Festival in Melbourne,\nAustralia; The Rising Star Award<\/em> in 2019 from the International\nFilmmaker Festival of New York (IFFNY); Best Music Video Award (2019) at the Asians\non Film Festival in Los Angeles, California; Special Mention Award<\/em> at\nthe London X4 Seasonal Short Film Festival; Honorable Mention Award<\/em> at\nthe Kraut Film Festival in Munich, Bavaria (Germany). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Anthem\nof the Damned<\/em> directed and screenplay by Aaron Mak, won the Best Music\nVideo<\/em> award at the International Filmmaker Festival of New York<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview:\nAaron Mak, a Multi-Talented Filmmaker Who Wears Many Hats <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you\nview the actor \u2013 writer \u2013 director relationship?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think these\nthree roles work in tandem with each other, but none more important than the\nwriter-director relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe the\nheart and soul of every movie has to begin with the story, so if a director of\na film is not also the writer, it\u2019s important to have a good relationship,\ncommunication and  understanding between these two fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The director\nthen acts as the conduit to articulate the heart and soul of the script to the\nactor for them to embody and bring to life, the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are\nyou writing these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has\nadmittedly been a rather quiet year for working on any bigger projects, however\nI have found myself scribbling away little short stories  and the odd\npoem here and there. Whether these will ever be released on their own, or\nadapted into film, is something I\u2019ll certainly have to revisit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than\nthat, shopping lists I guess?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations\non winning \u201cBest Music Video\u201d Award at the prestigious International Filmmaker\nFestival of New York for Cynation\u2019s \u201cAnthem of the Damned\u201d. What does this award\nmean to you and the band?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/strong>Thank you so much, it truly was such an honour to receive\nthis award from the prestigious International Filmmaker Festival of New York.\nIt was a real milestone moment for us, winning our first ever award, and it\u2019s\nmarked for us how far we\u2019ve come, but also highlights the road ahead too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The success of Anthem of the Damned in the film festival circuit has further cemented our belief that attempting to do something different and daring, pays off in the end – even if it means filming in an unforgiving, cold, windy desert with impending thunderstorms on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is Cynation\nworking on any new material?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were\nplans for the rest of the band to come to Melbourne from Singapore for a gig\nthis year, but those plans fell through with the… globally unforeseen\ncircumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 2021\nrolling over soon, plans are already underway for the performance to happen\nlater in the year. Cynation frontman, Josh Mak, has been writing and composing\na new orchestral piece which we intend to debut during the band\u2019s 2021\nperformance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has\nCovid-19 pandemic affected the artistic community in Australia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t\nexactly speak for the rest of Australia, but Melbourne (and the rest of the\nstate of Victoria) went into an extremely strict lockdown for most of the\nyear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This really\nlimited a lot of artists and our ability to create and collaborate with each\nother. Filmmakers had a particularly hard time, but I do feel that many of us\nwere forced to exercise our creativity and innovation by making the most with\nvery little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were there\nany projects you were planning or would have hoped to have worked on this year,\nbut couldn\u2019t because of the restrictions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than not\nbeing able to have had the other members of Cynation come to Melbourne for a\nperformance (which we were planning to film in the style of a concert\nexperience), we were quite excited to film Cynation\u2019s fourth music film\nproject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were some\ngrand plans to film in the Australian countryside once again, and push the\nboundaries of subject matter and production scale further than we ever have.\nAlthough it was a shame that we weren\u2019t able to achieve this in 2020, we\ncertainly have an even more exciting 2021 ahead of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have\nyou persisted with your creative practice given the unprecedented circumstances\nand restrictions this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, I\nwrote the script & directed a short film in our home, which was quite an\ninteresting project given the restrictions placed on movement and gatherings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It combined two elements that I\u2019m quite familiar with – music videos and the horror genre – but with the added challenge of a one-man crew, a cast of two people and minimal film equipment. The short film is called \u201cNight Gaunts\u201d, which stars Ana Hristenko and Josh Mak (who also composed the score of the entire short film).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Still from Night Gaunts 2020, Featured Ana Hristenko, Shot by Aaron Mak<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Which\nscript of yours is a favorite and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a\nscript that I began work on earlier in 2020, which is a concept short film for\na story I intend to develop into a series. It\u2019s a story that\u2019s quite personal\nto me, and I found both a challenge and a liberation in writing it. The\nchallenge was posed with writing a short form glimpse into a tale that could\nunravel into a wider world, but the liberation came in the form of being able\nto write about something very relatable to my past experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s in\nthe future for your film studio in terms of goals and plans?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/strong>The idea is purely to continue creating and growing the\nscope of what we do, and constantly push ourselves with each project to aim for\nhigher and more ambitious goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plans to go forward with shooting the concept film based on the script I wrote, and further developing a long form series from that. I would also like to continue collaborating with more artists to expand our repertoire and home each others\u2019 skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Night Gaunts movie poster, Photo and Design by Aaron Mak

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

**Article Cover Photo Credit: Anthem of the Damned Movie Poster Photo, Design by Ross Gibson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the holy trinity of cinema: to write, direct and star in a film. Aaron Mak is among the creative artists with multiple talents. Throughout his successful career Aaron has pursued multiple creative interests. His visionary ideas be it directing films or music videos are more than an artform; they are very philosophical and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19205,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions\/19205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}