March 25, 2025

Gabriel (2007) - Part One: The Low-Budget Fantasy Film That Defied Expectations

Episode Summary:
In this episode of The Fandom Portals Podcast, Aaron and Brash take a deep dive into Gabriel (2007), an Australian indie film that took a bold step into the fantasy action genre with a budget of just $200,000 AUD. They explore the film’s gritty aesthetic, digital effects, and ambitious storytelling.

Aaron and Brash also go head-to-head in the Fandom Fact Face-Off, where they quiz each other on Gabriel’s behind-the-scenes secrets, including how the film was nearly canceled just days before filming.

Topics:

Why Gabriel Feels Different from Typical Australian Films
Community Reactions: Reddit & Threads Weigh in on Gabriel
Dwayne Stevenson’s Unexpected Background Before Acting
he Surprising Role Dwayne Stevenson Was Originally Cast In
How Uriel’s Actor Prepared for His Role in an Unconventional Way
The Shot Glass Scene – A Happy Accident or Intentional Symbolism?
Why the Film Used Real Abandoned Buildings for Filming
The Financial Struggles & How the Crew Worked Without Pay
The $200,000 Budget & How the Film Still Made $1.4 Million
How Gabriel Used Digital Effects to Cover Budget Limitations
Garden Hoses for Rain? The Extreme Measures Taken for the Climactic Fight
Andy Whitfield’s Hypothermia Scare During Filming
The CGI Bullet Time Controversy – Impressive or Distracting?
The Role of Sydney’s Industrial Locations in Gabriel
Final Thoughts & What’s Coming in Part Two

Key Takeaways:

Gabriel was shot on a micro-budget of $200,000 AUD, making it one of the most ambitious low-budget Australian films ever.
Dwayne Stevenson was originally cast as Gabriel, but his commanding presence led him to take the villainous role of Samael.
The production relied on abandoned buildings, digital color grading, and last-minute insurance deals to stay afloat.
Andy Whitfield suffered hypothermia during the film’s rain-soaked final battle, which was created using garden hoses.
The film’s visual style was heavily inspired by The Crow and Underworld, blending gothic and neo-noir aesthetics.

📢 Apple Podcast tags: Gabriel 2007, Australian cinema, indie films, low-budget filmmaking, Andy Whitfield, fantasy action, gothic movies, movie trivia, cult classics, digital effects, film history, action adventure, CGI in film, geek culture, Fandom Portals Podcast, Geek Freaks Network

Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Gabriel (2007)

07:11 - Gratitudes and Personal Updates

12:55 - First Impressions of Gabriel

22:38 - Fandom Fact Face-Off Begins

30:11 - Casting and Production Secrets

37:36 - Low-Budget Filmmaking Techniques

46:14 - Digital Effects and Fight Choreography

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:06.443
Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, the podcast where we explore the fandoms that help us learn and grow.

00:00:06.443 --> 00:00:12.567
This week, adam Brasher and I looked at the movie Gabriel, which is an Australian movie made in 2007.

00:00:12.567 --> 00:00:19.876
We look really deeply into how this movie came about with such a small budget of only 200,000 Australian dollars.

00:00:19.876 --> 00:00:31.030
We look at all the behind the scenes information and we also challenge each other with some more fandom fact based off trivia questions, so you'll get to know everything that we do about the movie of Gabriel.

00:00:31.030 --> 00:00:36.039
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have also just launched our very own website.

00:00:36.039 --> 00:00:38.689
If you want to go check that out, we would greatly appreciate it.

00:00:38.689 --> 00:00:43.371
You can find it at wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.

00:00:43.371 --> 00:00:44.804
It'll also be in the show notes below.

00:00:44.804 --> 00:00:45.667
Go have a little squizzy.

00:00:45.667 --> 00:00:46.268
Go have a little look.

00:00:46.268 --> 00:00:47.223
It's kind of nice.

00:00:47.223 --> 00:00:47.505
Over there.

00:00:47.505 --> 00:00:49.548
You can find all our amazing episodes.

00:00:49.548 --> 00:00:57.667
We've got some blog posts for you as well, and you can also sign up to our mailing list, where you will never miss an update and you will be the first to know about any future giveaways that we do.

00:00:57.667 --> 00:01:11.361
So if you're interested in that, wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.

00:01:11.361 --> 00:01:20.405
We hope you enjoy this episode on Gabriel.

00:01:22.665 --> 00:01:27.847
Welcome to the Fandom Portals Podcast, the podcast that explores how fandoms can help you learn and grow.

00:01:27.847 --> 00:01:31.748
I am here, as always, with my co-host, mr Adam Brasher.

00:01:31.748 --> 00:01:32.549
How are you today, brash?

00:01:32.549 --> 00:01:33.930
I'm tired.

00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:34.450
How are you?

00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:36.611
I'm going very well, very well indeed.

00:01:36.611 --> 00:01:42.313
We're here to talk about a movie that is an Australian movie and it's not like your usual Australian movies.

00:01:42.313 --> 00:01:43.692
This one is called Gabriel.

00:01:43.692 --> 00:01:59.338
It was made in 2007, directed by Shane Abus, and it was written by Matt Whelan Todd and Shane Abus himself as well, starring Andy Whitfield, and we're going to be talking about this one today as one of our March titles.

00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:11.973
But before we get into that, as always, we're going to jump into our gratitudes and growths, where each week, we begin by sharing a personal gratitude for the week or an area that we feel like we require growth in rash.

00:02:11.973 --> 00:02:12.335
I might go first.

00:02:12.335 --> 00:02:27.798
Yeah, um, a couple weeks ago, I did my gratitudes, where I was really grateful for for rainy days, and I'd like to take that back because ever since I said that, it has literally not stopped raining in our town and I'm not listeners, I'm talking like we have had flooding level events in our town Weeks and weeks and weeks.

00:02:27.798 --> 00:02:29.322
Yeah, weeks and weeks and weeks of it.

00:02:29.322 --> 00:02:36.662
So you know, love the rain in sparse amounts, but this amount not so much.

00:02:36.983 --> 00:03:02.031
But my gratitude, let's say I'm going to be grateful for herbal tea, because driving to and from work this week has been quite a stressful event and whenever I come home I have a nice herbal tea to relax me, which is good Drinking on some passion fruit tea right now which is like and you know the funny thing about these herbal teas, they always smell better than they taste but still relaxing.

00:03:02.031 --> 00:03:08.141
Grateful for herbal teas and relaxing after a hard day of driving through semi-flood waters to get home to my amazing and loving family.

00:03:08.141 --> 00:03:09.406
What about you, brash?

00:03:09.406 --> 00:03:10.128
What are you grateful?

00:03:10.149 --> 00:03:13.653
for I'm grateful for my work colleagues.

00:03:13.653 --> 00:03:24.542
My work has quadrupled since this rain and not all of them have like well, not all of them have softened the amount of work I'm doing, but they make it fun.

00:03:24.542 --> 00:03:43.945
So, yeah, so I'm grateful for the contractors that I work with and I've met for my job and most of them are all really good and we've had to go out and look at jobs together and discuss on how we're going to fix all the leaking stuff because of the rain and all the flutter stuff because of the rain and all the moldy stuff because of the rain.

00:03:43.985 --> 00:03:45.008
Yeah, mold's a big one.

00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:51.448
So I'm grateful for those people, because at least you have fun doing it.

00:03:51.949 --> 00:03:55.324
Yeah, and you know it's really awkward when you're sitting in the car with somebody.

00:03:55.324 --> 00:03:57.020
That isn't very nice, yeah.

00:03:57.020 --> 00:04:00.100
So it's good that you can actually have the time to have that sort of chat with some friendly colleagues.

00:04:00.100 --> 00:04:08.468
And you know what Some friendly colleagues and you know what Sometimes my work friends have turned into really good friend friends and that's like something that can come from it too.

00:04:08.468 --> 00:04:09.509
So that's really good to hear.

00:04:09.509 --> 00:04:11.051
Brash, I'm happy for you, man.

00:04:12.633 --> 00:04:14.014
Yeah, no grateful for.

00:04:14.094 --> 00:04:15.295
Ace this week because he's been naughty.

00:04:15.295 --> 00:04:17.322
Ace has been naughty.

00:04:17.322 --> 00:04:20.230
He's still our third unofficial co-host.

00:04:20.230 --> 00:04:21.380
He had a birthday.

00:04:21.380 --> 00:04:21.802
Let's, let's.

00:04:21.802 --> 00:04:25.711
Oh look, he has been naughty, but you can't not talk about his birthday.

00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:32.521
I've still been just spoiling the shit out of him, which I probably shouldn't do, but I do, but yeah.

00:04:32.521 --> 00:04:36.209
So yeah, it was his birthday on Friday, just go on.

00:04:36.589 --> 00:04:37.411
Well, he's an only child.

00:04:37.411 --> 00:04:38.132
You're allowed to spoil him.

00:04:38.220 --> 00:04:46.112
I'm sure he won't turn out too poorly adjusted, he is being very spoiled right now, me trying to figure out how to make sure his dinner is all lavished Very good.

00:04:49.319 --> 00:04:54.125
Only the best for our third co-host here on the Fan Portals podcast, and we do wish young Ace a very happy first birthday, a first year around the sun.

00:04:54.125 --> 00:04:58.709
Happy birthday to him from me and from you and from our community.

00:04:58.709 --> 00:05:01.966
All right, let's jump into it.

00:05:01.966 --> 00:05:04.629
We're going to do our first takes segment.

00:05:04.629 --> 00:05:14.894
Our first take segment is where we discuss how we first encountered the media, what our initial impressions of the movie were and what our feelings were on the media after having watched it.

00:05:14.894 --> 00:05:27.528
We might also share some of our community's thoughts on this movie and if you want to contribute to those thoughts in future, you can look at our social pages, which is Instagram Threads and Reddit, and you might find yourself being read out and shouted out on our show.

00:05:27.528 --> 00:05:29.211
Um, so brash.

00:05:29.211 --> 00:05:30.201
I'll ask you first.

00:05:30.201 --> 00:05:44.064
We're talking about gabriel, which was made in 2007, and gabriel is about an archangel and he comes to purgatory, a place where darkness and the fallen rule, and gabriel attempts to save the souls of the city's inhabitants.

00:05:44.064 --> 00:05:46.048
How did you hear about this movie?

00:05:46.048 --> 00:05:47.192
What were your initial thoughts?

00:05:48.807 --> 00:05:51.255
One of my best friends, who I've known for 25 years.

00:05:51.255 --> 00:06:00.843
He actually first introduced this to me because he was I guess still is was very into the angels, demons and whatnot.

00:06:00.843 --> 00:06:04.266
He's even got a big ass angel tattooed on his back to represent his younger brother.

00:06:04.266 --> 00:06:07.468
And what to represent his younger brother and what was for his younger brother, I believe.

00:06:07.468 --> 00:06:13.608
Yeah, so he first introduced it to me that was when it first came out in 2007.

00:06:13.627 --> 00:06:17.466
So you would have been around high school age, right 17,.

00:06:17.466 --> 00:06:19.302
Yep, yep, yep, all right.

00:06:19.302 --> 00:06:31.855
So for me, I first watched this movie when we had to put it onto the podcast, which is pretty much very similar to a lot of movies, because from this podcast, I've found that I have watched the same movies a lot.

00:06:31.855 --> 00:06:40.026
Yeah, and that's one of the best things about this podcast is there's opened my eyes to a different kind of movie and a different sort of horizon of movies, and it's increasing my palate.

00:06:40.220 --> 00:06:51.865
So I was actually very surprised to find that this was an Australian production to start with, because, looking at the title cover and also the trailer, it doesn't really look like your typical Australian movies.

00:06:51.865 --> 00:07:16.562
And that was probably one of my initial thoughts is that it doesn't really look like your typical Australian movies, which kind of you know, nowadays, in the 2020s, looks like Mad Max, fury Road and Fury Rosa Furiosa, but in the past it looks like a lot of family-based comedies or movies like Babe, various different musicals on occasion, or sometimes war movies that were set in Australia, and also sometimes some cultural movies that are trying to betray a message.

00:07:16.562 --> 00:07:20.523
So that's what I'm used to from Australian cinema, so this struck me as very different.

00:07:20.523 --> 00:07:22.850
When did you learn it was an Australian film, brash.

00:07:24.180 --> 00:07:25.728
Actually much later on, so I didn't actually learn it was an Australian film.

00:07:25.728 --> 00:07:31.485
Brash Actually much later on, so I didn't actually realise it was an Australian film, probably until I actually the DVD I showed you when I bought.

00:07:31.485 --> 00:07:37.310
That is when I found out, and I think I got that when I was 25?

00:07:37.310 --> 00:07:43.447
Because I watched it every now and then Because back in those days we didn't have any streaming sites to watch stuff on.

00:07:43.447 --> 00:07:49.728
So every now and then the only time I could watch it was when I either hired it from a thing until I eventually bought it and then I had it on DVD.

00:07:49.728 --> 00:07:55.040
But it piqued my interest because of well, back when I watched it in 2007,.

00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:57.127
So you're watching it now in 2025.

00:07:57.319 --> 00:08:14.228
I watched it back in 2007, where nothing was over the top like excellence yeah, no big boxster action flicks, or they were just sort of starting to come out with that sort of stuff that's when Iron man sort of around the time, iron man came out.

00:08:14.247 --> 00:08:17.009
So that's probably when Iron man came out.

00:08:17.009 --> 00:08:18.875
So I was like, damn, they can do some good shit.

00:08:18.875 --> 00:08:29.384
But even so, because even watching I was like oh yeah, this seems kind of low budget, but I did like the story of it and like always it's the same as Dragonheart I reckon this would be a really good show.

00:08:29.384 --> 00:08:30.920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:31.766
A really good TV show.

00:08:32.327 --> 00:08:32.509
Yeah.

00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:34.828
Sort of like how they made Shadowhunters a TV show.

00:08:35.280 --> 00:08:45.852
Oh yeah yeah, it's a really good concept for a TV show as well, in terms of, you know, heaven battling hell, or light versus dark, all of the archangels and the fallen in this movie.

00:08:45.852 --> 00:08:48.668
That's probably some of the most engaging parts of it.

00:08:48.668 --> 00:08:51.068
You did mention the budget before as well, being a little bit low.

00:08:51.068 --> 00:09:03.948
This movie was made on what they now suggest is about $200,000 Australian dollars, so if you're an American listener and you're listening to that, that's pretty much half Like our Australian dollar is worth about half of what your US dollar is.

00:09:04.028 --> 00:09:14.384
Yeah, I was going to say I'm thinking a lot of Americans realise that like we pay like double pretty much anything Like if we buy anything that looked like American, we have to pay pretty much double for it.

00:09:14.424 --> 00:09:24.649
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it cost Australian dollars wise $200,000, and the director, shane Abus, actually sort of struggled to come up with the money to make this movie.

00:09:24.649 --> 00:09:30.530
He actually had to continue working you know, second, third and fifth and fourth jobs to sort of get it done.

00:09:30.530 --> 00:09:37.248
And you know this film was actually pretty profitable, brash, do you know how much it made worldwide in US dollars?

00:09:37.248 --> 00:09:39.908
Sorry, what do you reckon the worldwide gross was in US dollars?

00:09:39.908 --> 00:09:40.870
In US dollars?

00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:47.469
So if it was more than what it did, so shit, it'd get back $150,000.

00:09:47.469 --> 00:09:49.511
In the US that'd be more.

00:09:49.511 --> 00:09:50.032
That's correct.

00:09:50.072 --> 00:10:02.886
yeah, I'm going to say $2 million Just under, it made $1.4 million, which is actually almost six to seven times its budget, which means it's a financial success in that regard.

00:10:02.886 --> 00:10:11.614
And I think it came out at the right time, because 2007, there was that sort of push toward gothic, neo-noir movies, that sort of.

00:10:11.614 --> 00:10:14.287
They had a target audience back in 2007.

00:10:14.287 --> 00:10:15.811
It was basically you and me in high school.

00:10:15.811 --> 00:10:20.782
If you remember the kind of music that we used to listen to or the kind of music that high schools used to listen to back in 2007,.

00:10:20.802 --> 00:10:24.028
You've got the rise, or the new rise, of the, the punk phase.

00:10:24.028 --> 00:10:28.806
Uh, a lot of the the metal sort of bands were very sort of famous around that time as well.

00:10:28.806 --> 00:10:34.701
So it really played into that, that aesthetic and that vibe, and you can see it from the trailer and actually from the movie as well watching it.

00:10:34.701 --> 00:10:42.427
It very much had its niche and I think that really paid off for it, you know, domestically, but also worldwide, which was good for australian cinema.

00:10:42.427 --> 00:10:44.129
Oh yeah, I was%.

00:10:44.129 --> 00:10:45.732
And what are your thoughts on the movie?

00:10:45.732 --> 00:10:47.625
When you watched it, you obviously sound like you liked it.

00:10:48.482 --> 00:10:56.870
Yeah, I really enjoyed it, Like, yes, some parts not all of it was great, but I think for the most part I don't really think I can look back on it and say, oh, I hated that.

00:10:56.870 --> 00:10:59.306
Most of the time I can say, oh, I liked that.

00:10:59.306 --> 00:11:07.323
Yeah, I'd say if I was half-headed, half liked it.

00:11:07.323 --> 00:11:08.489
I'd be more in the second half of liking it.

00:11:08.509 --> 00:11:09.875
So, yep, that's three quarters three quarters a tank full.

00:11:09.875 --> 00:11:10.317
Yeah, I think for me.

00:11:10.317 --> 00:11:11.160
I obviously saw it at a later time.

00:11:11.160 --> 00:11:29.144
I watched it in 2025 and there's been some very outstandingly visual movies that have come out between 2007 and 2025, so my expectations were higher than what yours were and as a result of that, I think for me there were some things that were really sort of well done in terms of the budget, and then there were some things that I kind of I couldn't really like.

00:11:29.144 --> 00:11:31.990
So for me, I'm hot and cold about this one Brash.

00:11:31.990 --> 00:11:33.081
That was my first thoughts about it.

00:11:33.081 --> 00:11:37.341
I think we'll probably get into it a little bit later on in our sort of rundown.

00:11:37.341 --> 00:11:49.625
But there are some things that definitely really sort of hit the mark and I definitely appreciate the fact that this is an Australian film that really tried to break the mold, but there are some things that really didn't kind of work for me as well, so we'll get into that a little bit later as well.

00:11:49.806 --> 00:11:58.289
Let's get into our fandom fact face-off segment, all right.

00:11:58.289 --> 00:12:04.149
So our fandom fact face-off segment is where the host asks one another a series of trivia questions associated with the focus media.

00:12:04.149 --> 00:12:12.701
The host with the most collected points from the Fandom Fact Face-Off segment will shout the opposing co-host to an all-expenses paid trip to the movie cinema Brash.

00:12:12.701 --> 00:12:13.706
I'm yet to win one of these.

00:12:13.706 --> 00:12:15.586
We've done two of them and you've won both.

00:12:15.586 --> 00:12:30.907
This week is our third run at our March Fandom Fact Face-Off, so we're both sitting at six all six apiece and we made the gentleman's agreement last week in our Dragonheart episode that we would stop going easy on each other.

00:12:30.907 --> 00:12:38.126
Yes, yes, we do, yeah, and I think for this one we talked about you know how we like to give each other clues.

00:12:38.126 --> 00:12:40.942
I think for this one we can give one clue, but then that's it.

00:12:40.942 --> 00:12:46.437
Okay, that's it, and you know you can talk about it, but once you lock in, you lock in.

00:12:46.437 --> 00:12:48.379
Yep, are you set with the new rules?

00:12:48.379 --> 00:12:50.881
Set, all right, lovely, do you want to go first?

00:12:51.883 --> 00:12:52.302
Yeah, sure.

00:12:52.624 --> 00:12:54.205
Go for it Okay.

00:12:54.404 --> 00:13:02.751
So my first one is you might know this one, dwayne Stevenson, who plays Samuel or someone else.

00:13:02.751 --> 00:13:08.767
He before he was, or did Gabriel before he was acting, what?

00:13:08.787 --> 00:13:09.575
do you do so?

00:13:09.575 --> 00:13:10.739
Before he was an actor.

00:13:10.739 --> 00:13:11.643
What was his profession?

00:13:11.643 --> 00:13:25.863
Okay, I am thinking I know that he did a lot of short films with, and he was very good friends with the writer Matt Hoylton-Todd, and they've been in a few shorts together.

00:13:25.863 --> 00:13:33.283
He's an Australian man, I'm going to say, because of the nature of this segment, I'm going to say he was a male dancer, he was a stripper.

00:13:33.283 --> 00:13:33.966
Do you want your hint?

00:13:33.966 --> 00:13:35.350
I'll take the hint, I'll take the hint, I'll take the hint.

00:13:35.350 --> 00:13:36.154
He was a stripper, do you want your hint?

00:13:36.956 --> 00:13:37.418
I'll take the hint.

00:13:37.418 --> 00:13:37.879
I'll take the hint.

00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:38.701
I'll take the hint.

00:13:38.701 --> 00:13:39.864
Good idea, am I that far off?

00:13:40.546 --> 00:13:43.330
um, yeah, quite a bit off.

00:13:43.330 --> 00:13:45.198
Alright, think Adam Driver.

00:13:45.198 --> 00:13:48.174
Oh, he was in the army, he was, he was in the Australian army.

00:13:48.736 --> 00:13:49.860
Oh good stuff.

00:13:49.860 --> 00:13:50.745
Yeah, that was a good clue.

00:13:50.745 --> 00:13:51.066
By the way.

00:13:51.066 --> 00:13:52.652
Yeah, thank you.

00:13:52.652 --> 00:13:53.495
I can definitely get that.

00:13:53.495 --> 00:13:58.284
He holds himself very well in the interviews and the behind the scenes that I've watched.

00:13:58.806 --> 00:14:00.229
Yeah, so yeah, he was in the.

00:14:00.917 --> 00:14:01.620
Australian Royal Army.

00:14:01.620 --> 00:14:02.383
Oh, there you go.

00:14:02.383 --> 00:14:04.001
Thank you, Dwayne Stevenson.

00:14:04.081 --> 00:14:04.243
Yeah.

00:14:06.316 --> 00:14:08.423
Alright, so it's 1-0 with my question coming.

00:14:08.423 --> 00:14:13.239
My question is also about Dwayne Stevenson's and I'm going to see if you know this one.

00:14:13.239 --> 00:14:18.923
Alright, so originally, when he was first attached to the project of Gabriel, he was one of the first members cast.

00:14:18.923 --> 00:14:24.985
Due to his familiarity with the script writer, he was attached to play a different part.

00:14:24.985 --> 00:14:26.861
He wasn't attached to play Samael.

00:14:26.861 --> 00:14:29.480
Which part was he attached to play instead?

00:14:30.484 --> 00:14:31.285
I do know this one.

00:14:31.285 --> 00:14:34.504
He was actually meant to be Gabriel, correct, yes.

00:14:35.274 --> 00:14:35.495
Yeah.

00:14:35.495 --> 00:14:43.681
So in this one he was attached as Gabriel for the longest time, to the point where when other cast members would come into screen test, he would play Gabriel's lines.

00:14:43.681 --> 00:15:07.705
However, when it got down to later casting in the role, Dwayne Stevenson actually saw a sort of tape of him doing some lines for Samael and the director, Shane Abus, sort of looked at it and said you know, he's got this gravitas, he's got this strong commanding presence on screen and it's really important for us to have a really strong villainous presence within the movie just to balance the light and dark tones of the film.

00:15:07.705 --> 00:15:21.109
So they approached Dwayne and he sort of disagreed to start with until he saw himself on film and found that, you know, he does have that sort of space within him to portray Samael, who ends up being the villain of the movie, Gabriel.

00:15:21.778 --> 00:15:27.186
And also being in the army and then having to play someone who's commanding Lesser.

00:15:27.254 --> 00:15:28.320
The forces of the Fallen yeah.

00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:34.621
Fallen as his warrior minions Like I reckon he did a really good job.

00:15:35.003 --> 00:15:45.634
Yeah, and I think as well, the mood he had to portray was intense, it was atmospheric as well and he really did need that sort of brooding presence.

00:15:45.634 --> 00:15:48.167
And I talked to you about this before we started recording.

00:15:48.167 --> 00:15:57.385
But he actually kind of went a bit method in his way where he would kind of stay in character and he had to wear those sort of white contact lenses very, very often.

00:15:58.697 --> 00:16:23.764
I suck, he was very unsettling to a lot of the cast members where he actually found people would avoid him around the set and he would stay, stay in his character pretty often to the point where you know um andy whitfield and he actually got into a little bit of a verbal altercation on the rooftop where they uh were filming the rain scene in the the final moments of the film and because of the, the situation and because of the cold and all of that sort of thing, they actually like really sort of got into a bit of a verbal.

00:16:23.764 --> 00:16:29.644
But they still remained friends and they knew it was a professional atmosphere and it was just the elements that sort of was getting the best of them.

00:16:29.644 --> 00:16:35.418
But yeah, it was really fun to sort of see that on the interview that he was actually attached to play Gabriel at one point before.

00:16:35.479 --> 00:16:36.019
Andy came along.

00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:44.365
Yeah, that's an idea I didn't pick up on initially Very good, all right, one, all your question, my question.

00:16:45.095 --> 00:16:51.447
So like Dwayne was very method, Harry Pavlidis was also very method.

00:16:51.447 --> 00:16:52.188
He played Uriel.

00:16:52.188 --> 00:16:56.645
What did he do to get ready for his role?

00:16:56.645 --> 00:17:01.206
Now, Uriel is the angel that was in the drive-in theatre.

00:17:02.035 --> 00:17:03.041
He was out in the drive-in theatre.

00:17:03.041 --> 00:17:11.702
Yeah, he's the one that was in the caravan for a really long time that Gabriel sensed when he first came down to Purgatory and he went to find straight away.

00:17:11.702 --> 00:17:13.109
So I do know this one.

00:17:13.109 --> 00:17:19.326
Harry Pavlidis actually played Uriel and he was sort of going through a personal crisis at the time and he thought to fully embody Uriel.

00:17:19.326 --> 00:17:22.601
And he was sort of going through a personal crisis at the time and he thought to fully embody Uriel's state of isolation and suffering.

00:17:22.601 --> 00:17:25.843
He would go and spend weeks alone in a caravan of his own in a national park.

00:17:25.843 --> 00:17:30.440
He did, yeah, and he would practice his lines by candlelight, he rationed his food.

00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:34.884
He fully immersed himself in that mindset of this tormented archangel persona.

00:17:34.884 --> 00:17:42.065
He said his dedication paid off because he was actually one of the actors that was praised by the Sydney Morning Herald when this sort of came out.

00:17:42.065 --> 00:17:45.488
He did a very good job, yeah, and they said that he was a scene stealer.

00:17:45.548 --> 00:17:47.500
So look out for Uriel if you guys are going to watch this one.

00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:56.044
He actually played it really really well and I actually agree he's probably one of my favorite characters in the movie just because of the way he delivered some of his lines.

00:17:56.044 --> 00:18:00.573
That was the reason I know so much about that, because that was actually part of one of my questions that I was going to do.

00:18:00.573 --> 00:18:06.503
Oh yeah, so I'm going to adjust this one, because there's a second part to this that I really wanted to talk about as well.

00:18:06.503 --> 00:18:26.287
So your question relating to Harry Pavlidis as well, who does play Uriel, there's a specific moment in the film where he picks up a set piece, which was this shot glass, and he very sort of shakily and anxiously sort of drinks out of that shot glass, and you'll notice that shot glass is a little bit sort of damaged.

00:18:26.287 --> 00:18:30.396
What's special about that scene, or what's special about that shot glass, brash?

00:18:30.396 --> 00:18:31.161
That's my question to you.

00:18:32.096 --> 00:18:34.756
Ooh, what's special about that shot glass, is it?

00:18:34.817 --> 00:18:35.559
explained in the movie.

00:18:35.559 --> 00:18:37.317
No, it's nothing.

00:18:37.317 --> 00:18:44.784
Character that is like, character wise that's significant, or plot wise that's significant, it's just like a.

00:18:44.784 --> 00:18:49.923
It's something that really sort of added to the aesthetic of the character of uriel um.

00:18:50.042 --> 00:18:51.567
Does he use it in the scene with gabriel?

00:18:51.567 --> 00:18:52.817
Does he use it with scene with lillith?

00:18:53.419 --> 00:18:54.962
he uses it in the scene with gabriel.

00:18:54.962 --> 00:19:04.823
Okay, after gabriel leaves and obviously gab Gabriel forces him to show himself, after Gabriel stabs him to heal and he leaves.

00:19:04.823 --> 00:19:09.632
He then takes that moment of solace and peace where he then goes and pours some alcohol and takes a drink out of this shot glass.

00:19:09.632 --> 00:19:17.544
And there's something very special about that shot glass that sort of indicates a little bit about his process and the way the film was shot.

00:19:18.005 --> 00:19:21.482
Unfortunately, I can't even think I'm going to take a stab, was it?

00:19:21.482 --> 00:19:23.538
Oh, I don't know if you already said this.

00:19:23.538 --> 00:19:24.420
Was it like cracked?

00:19:24.420 --> 00:19:25.561
Yeah, was it cracked?

00:19:25.561 --> 00:19:27.003
Yep, yep, that wasn't it.

00:19:27.003 --> 00:19:27.444
That's not the thing.

00:19:27.685 --> 00:19:28.406
No, that is the thing.

00:19:28.406 --> 00:19:29.229
Oh, it is.

00:19:29.229 --> 00:19:37.884
Yeah, yeah, the shot glass was completely smashed and shattered.

00:19:37.884 --> 00:19:41.048
He actually dropped it moments before they said action.

00:19:41.048 --> 00:19:47.858
And for two reasons the director decided to keep it in, the first being, obviously, they had no budget and no time, so they couldn't go and find a new shot glass.

00:19:47.858 --> 00:19:52.017
They had a certain amount of runs to do for the day and they needed to just move on and get it done.

00:19:52.017 --> 00:20:05.499
And the second was because the director, shane abis, thought that it actually fed into uriel's character, where he didn't have very nice things and this shot glass which is incredibly cracked, by the way, and would have been very hard to drink out of- I know, Especially if you just broke it.

00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:07.721
You just picked it up Like whether it's shards of glass or something.

00:20:08.194 --> 00:20:21.348
Yeah, that's what I thought as well and that's why it stood out to me and why I wanted to talk about it, because that's like of acting style that he was doing there as well, and it does sort of indicate that Gabriel was broken.

00:20:21.348 --> 00:20:22.369
Yeah, he was a broken man.

00:20:22.369 --> 00:20:23.651
That's the symbology of it.

00:20:23.651 --> 00:20:25.602
So, well done, good guess, that's like.

00:20:26.479 --> 00:20:34.064
I was like but I was actually going to say and I almost did but I'm like, oh, I'm like because that's my thing like he's a pretty broken character.

00:20:34.064 --> 00:20:34.997
I'm like, oh, they, it cracked.

00:20:34.997 --> 00:20:38.124
But I didn't think it was gonna be that sort of like symbolic.

00:20:38.124 --> 00:20:41.193
I didn't think it was gonna be that sort of like simple of a thing.

00:20:41.797 --> 00:20:49.578
But um, sometimes it's a simple question yeah, I was actually gonna say that I had a um my initial guess prior to the crack.

00:20:49.578 --> 00:20:53.780
I was gonna say it had a cross on it, like a faith to a cross on it.

00:20:53.780 --> 00:21:04.404
And so he's drinking because he just got healed again and had to bring it back because he's been hiding his angel side so long that he took a shot out of a shot glass with a cross on it or something.

00:21:04.685 --> 00:21:05.006
Yeah, yeah.

00:21:05.555 --> 00:21:08.940
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm lucky I didn't say that, or I?

00:21:08.961 --> 00:21:09.522
saw it in the wrong.

00:21:09.522 --> 00:21:12.344
Well, I actually read that throughout the movie.

00:21:12.344 --> 00:21:30.400
They tried to use terms like angel and demon and heaven and hell and those theology kind of terms as little as possible yeah, because they didn't want to be limited in the terms of spaces where they could present and show the movie or places where it could be shown and it gives a bit more um imagination and a bit more like um.

00:21:30.780 --> 00:21:34.938
You don't have to be religious or believe in heaven and hell to actually watch this movie.

00:21:34.938 --> 00:21:36.401
It could just be it can be.

00:21:36.401 --> 00:21:49.858
You can simply look at it as good versus bad yeah, or light versus dark which is what they they do portray it as that way very often and you could sort of what's the word I'm looking for, where you can have your own perception, perception of the movie.

00:21:49.878 --> 00:21:55.695
Yeah, it didn't have to be black and white yeah, alright, so it's two all, even though we're being harder on each other.

00:21:55.695 --> 00:21:56.457
We're just too good.

00:21:57.558 --> 00:21:58.701
We do our research here at the Fandom.

00:21:58.701 --> 00:22:02.267
I don't think I should have got the last one, because I did ask a few other questions on it.

00:22:02.267 --> 00:22:02.867
I'm giving it to you.

00:22:03.528 --> 00:22:07.602
I'm giving it to you, last one for you, and then my one is after that.

00:22:07.915 --> 00:22:09.255
So this one might be a bit harder.

00:22:09.255 --> 00:22:12.763
This is probably my hardest question, because you have to.

00:22:12.763 --> 00:22:21.324
This isn't so much about the movie, but also, um, the fact that it's an australian always made it a strut as an australian film.

00:22:21.324 --> 00:22:25.678
So there's a lot of australian actors, so a lot of them have actually worked, not so much together, but worked on the same projects before.

00:22:27.020 --> 00:22:54.917
So my question is out of the 12 uh, fallen and archangels, how many were on the tv show home and oh, for those that don't know, home and Away is a soap that has run for years and years and years Like it's probably gone for as long as I've been alive and it is based in Summer Bay and they have a rotating cast of characters where every single soap trope you can think of has happened.

00:22:54.917 --> 00:22:55.400
On that show.

00:22:55.400 --> 00:22:57.060
There's natural disasters every year.

00:22:57.060 --> 00:23:04.137
Somebody's pregnant, somebody gets like there's a wedding, there's someone dies, yeah, and they play the worst TV ads for it as well.

00:23:04.137 --> 00:23:05.604
It's very trashy, but we love it.

00:23:05.604 --> 00:23:14.759
We love it here in Australia, yeah, and also a lot of our Australian actors that our international listeners probably know are lily padded from either Home and Away or Neighbours.

00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:18.306
I know that Chris Hemsworth was on Chris Hemsworth.

00:23:18.467 --> 00:23:19.188
He was in Home and Away.

00:23:19.188 --> 00:23:19.669
He was on Home and.

00:23:19.689 --> 00:23:23.304
Away, boy, but I'm digressing because I don't know the answer to this question.

00:23:23.304 --> 00:23:23.664
Can you tell?

00:23:23.664 --> 00:23:28.782
So for this one, I'm going to guess there's 12 fallen and archangels.

00:23:29.675 --> 00:23:31.121
Nozman, this is your clue.

00:23:31.121 --> 00:23:35.240
I say this saying oh yeah, how many people have been in Home and Away?

00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:37.002
There actually isn't that many.

00:23:37.002 --> 00:23:39.909
Oh, I'll say two, then Four, four, which four?

00:23:39.909 --> 00:23:59.357
So Michael who plays Asmodeus, erica who plays Lilith, jack who plays Raphael, harry who plays Uriel, and that was the four, because I didn't, because, in case you sort of did look this up, there's actually a fifth, brendan, but he was in the movie.

00:23:59.357 --> 00:24:01.048
Ah, they had a special Hunter Away movie.

00:24:01.048 --> 00:24:03.703
He wasn't actually in the show, he was in the special movie.

00:24:03.703 --> 00:24:05.298
Brendan who played Balan.

00:24:05.439 --> 00:24:08.287
He played Balan yes, yeah, very nice.

00:24:08.287 --> 00:24:12.385
Okay, so five of the 12 actually appeared in the Amazing Great.

00:24:12.575 --> 00:24:16.646
I'll let you have it if you can guess who was actually a main on Hunter Away.

00:24:16.646 --> 00:24:20.701
Most of these are just a few episodes, or one episode, or three episodes, four episodes.

00:24:20.701 --> 00:24:23.084
There's one who actually did like 87 episodes.

00:24:23.255 --> 00:24:25.161
Was it Erica Haynes who played Lilith?

00:24:25.161 --> 00:24:26.625
She came on later.

00:24:26.625 --> 00:24:31.903
I did read something similar and I remember that she sort of came on after she starred in Gabriel.

00:24:32.042 --> 00:24:35.464
Actually no, sorry, it was 123 episodes.

00:24:35.464 --> 00:24:38.724
The person also broke their leg before the movie.

00:24:39.355 --> 00:24:40.942
I know Asmodeus broke his leg before the movie.

00:24:40.942 --> 00:24:45.404
The guy that played Asmodeus so that must be Michael Piccirilli Was Michael Piccirilli.

00:24:45.404 --> 00:24:47.702
I'm not going to take that one because I had too many clues.

00:24:47.702 --> 00:24:50.523
Okay, so the film of Gabriel and you have one question to go.

00:24:50.523 --> 00:24:55.923
The film of Gabriel had a extremely tight budget, as we spoke about before.

00:24:55.923 --> 00:25:04.845
There was actually something that happened three days out from filming that almost prevented it from being filmed all together.

00:25:04.845 --> 00:25:05.926
Can you tell me what that was?

00:25:05.926 --> 00:25:08.038
Oh no, would you like a clue?

00:25:08.038 --> 00:25:09.101
Yes, please.

00:25:09.101 --> 00:25:22.565
Okay, so australian movies are usually financed and they can get some government sort of funding, uh, but usually they get government funding for films that they obviously think is going to be backed by international buyers.

00:25:22.565 --> 00:25:27.702
However, any film that shoots in Australia or anywhere requires this to go ahead, and they lost it.

00:25:28.056 --> 00:25:29.079
Oh, I still don't know.

00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:32.684
I'm going to guess some sort of is it like the film license?

00:25:33.756 --> 00:25:34.559
Not the film license?

00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:36.300
No, oh, then I have no idea.

00:25:36.300 --> 00:25:38.425
So the licensing is something that happens when they actually have to have permission to shoot.

00:25:38.425 --> 00:25:38.624
The film license?

00:25:38.624 --> 00:25:38.721
No, oh, right, then I have no idea.

00:25:38.721 --> 00:25:41.352
So the licensing is something that happens when they actually have to have permission to shoot where they want to shoot.

00:25:41.352 --> 00:25:43.678
But this is actually, uh, the film's insurance.

00:25:44.220 --> 00:25:48.388
So, oh, I think I do remember reading something about this there.

00:25:48.635 --> 00:26:00.424
Yeah, the the film insurance was unexpectedly revoked and there's only, apparently according to, uh, some of the people that were on the interviews, uh, there's only apparently two major insurance companies in australia for film projects.

00:26:00.906 --> 00:26:06.065
One of them had already declined to work with Gabriel and the other one agreed, however, three days before.

00:26:06.065 --> 00:26:16.643
Due to the risky nature of the film and the action sequences, and especially the ending sequence involving Gabriel free falling off of a building, they decided that they would revoke their insurance.

00:26:16.643 --> 00:26:19.028
However, they did some scrambling.

00:26:19.028 --> 00:26:26.123
They had to push shooting back by two days, so instead of shooting on the Monday, they ended up shooting on the Wednesday and they found an insurer.

00:26:26.123 --> 00:26:33.907
However, it was for three times the cost, so their small budget became even smaller in terms of what they could actually do with the money.

00:26:33.907 --> 00:26:47.127
So, because of the small budget, they had some extras and crew members that left halfway through in principal photography, which made things hard, and the director, shane Abus, said that the ones that stayed were really driven by the passion and the belief of the film.

00:26:47.127 --> 00:26:52.925
They wanted Australian cinema to thrive and they also thought it could be a launchpad for their careers as well.

00:26:53.675 --> 00:26:54.597
I think probably for a few.

00:26:54.597 --> 00:26:55.340
It probably was too.

00:26:55.340 --> 00:26:57.346
Yeah, yeah, Andy's one.

00:26:57.855 --> 00:27:03.634
Yeah, andy Whitfield for one, and you know this isn't a question, but it's an interesting fact.

00:27:03.634 --> 00:27:07.266
Do you know how he got so many people on the crew to work?

00:27:07.266 --> 00:27:13.539
Besides the fact that you know obviously they were driven by passion and belief financially, do you know how he got them to actually work on the film?

00:27:13.539 --> 00:27:14.559
Don't ask.

00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:16.576
No, they actually they Donuts.

00:27:16.576 --> 00:27:20.005
No, they actually they agreed to work on a deferred payment.

00:27:20.025 --> 00:27:20.645
A deferred payment.

00:27:20.645 --> 00:27:25.925
Yeah, which was really good of those people, too, doing the work.

00:27:25.925 --> 00:27:29.306
But I'm grateful because I liked the movie.

00:27:29.306 --> 00:27:33.635
Yep, yep, but I had a little tidbit too, that I was going to like a little.

00:27:33.635 --> 00:27:34.538
Yes, did you know?

00:27:34.538 --> 00:27:35.398
Because you were watching.

00:27:35.398 --> 00:27:36.179
Do you watch it on Prime?

00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:37.121
No, I watch it on Apple.

00:27:37.280 --> 00:27:40.384
Did you know that there was actually there's actually a after-birth scene.

00:27:41.045 --> 00:27:41.325
Yes.

00:27:41.885 --> 00:27:42.767
Yes, I did.

00:27:42.767 --> 00:27:48.949
Where he shows up to Jade Jade and he's got brown eyes.

00:27:48.949 --> 00:27:53.897
He loses his tattoo because he becomes a mortal, because he gets rid of his wings.

00:27:54.238 --> 00:28:00.268
Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit later for the MVTs, because I think that's a very interesting kind of ending.

00:28:00.268 --> 00:28:01.490
That's some of the questions I had for you too.

00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:02.920
Yeah, good tidbit.

00:28:02.920 --> 00:28:06.535
Good, this is called foreshadowing people when we talk about something before that's going to happen later.

00:28:06.535 --> 00:28:10.304
It's a movie technique, but you know what I did forget to do?

00:28:10.304 --> 00:28:14.701
I forgot to read on the movie.

00:28:14.721 --> 00:28:15.923
So on Reddit.

00:28:15.923 --> 00:28:19.269
I'd actually be really, I'm actually really interested in seeing what they think.

00:28:19.529 --> 00:28:24.121
Yeah, so we put it on Reddit and we always ask what people thought of the movie Gabriel.

00:28:24.121 --> 00:28:27.519
We put up a movie poster as well and we had some people writing in.

00:28:27.519 --> 00:29:03.434
So on Reddit we had Mike Corneo who said that they've never seen it, but they're glad that the angel Gabriel got it due, because usually Michael's the hero and usually it's supernatural exactly, yeah, so Gabriel is I actually kind of I really like the name Gabriel for one but he's also seems to me to be like the unsung sort of youngest yeah, because him Michael Lucifer, and he's the always the one, that sort of yeah, the youngest child, yeah, the innocent one, yeah.

00:29:03.575 --> 00:29:04.900
Yeah, pushed around by their older brothers.

00:29:05.623 --> 00:29:13.976
Yep, we had Adam Effective on Reddit, who also said that it was a great idea, however terrible, terrible, terrible execution, they said.

00:29:13.976 --> 00:29:17.480
Of course it didn't have a really big budget, though, so there is that to note.

00:29:17.480 --> 00:29:20.521
So, very, very true with the budget uh, constraints there.

00:29:20.521 --> 00:29:27.064
And then going over to our threads all right, so on our threads we have cyber sentinel comic that says it was okay.

00:29:27.064 --> 00:29:30.138
They said that they thought that they might have to watch it again.

00:29:30.138 --> 00:29:32.627
And then we had the dreamer.

00:29:32.627 --> 00:29:38.837
The storyteller said I remember thinking it was a really cool concept, but but I barely remember it from 2007.

00:29:38.837 --> 00:29:41.140
So that's kind of like.

00:29:41.861 --> 00:29:56.491
Yeah, I'd agree with that, Like me, because when I watched it in 2007, and then I didn't watch it again for a while after that and then I was sort of like I sort of, because I sort of enjoyed it and I enjoyed the concept, I sort of remembered most of it.

00:29:56.491 --> 00:30:01.646
But even watching it again recently for this, there was some parts where I'm like, oh, I forgot that even happened.

00:30:01.666 --> 00:30:02.148
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:02.148 --> 00:30:03.192
Yeah.

00:30:03.192 --> 00:30:10.121
I actually really resonated with the dream of the storyteller's comment as well, because I actually think as a concept, this is actually really good.

00:30:10.121 --> 00:30:20.961
I think you know, as we talked about before, the uh, light and the dark, the heaven and the hell, the arcs and the that whole concept of that battle over purgatory, that's a really big draw for me.

00:30:20.961 --> 00:30:21.722
I really like that.

00:30:21.923 --> 00:30:31.251
And I have my own thoughts about the movie that we'll talk about later, but about that concept about good and evil and everything, Very good, all right.

00:30:34.536 --> 00:30:36.513
So with that we're going to move on to our Set Secrets segment.

00:30:36.513 --> 00:30:47.480
All right, so the Set Secrets segment is where hosts take a look behind the scenes of the movie to give you all the information on what went right, what went wrong, what was interesting and how the movie was made.

00:30:47.480 --> 00:30:53.087
So our question for the set secrets segment, brash, is how was this movie made on such a minuscule budget?

00:30:53.087 --> 00:31:02.429
So this is where we're going to go into all the techniques that the director, shane Abus, used in order to actually produce the movie that was his passion project for such a long time.

00:31:02.429 --> 00:31:05.865
You know the budget was about $200,000 Australian dollars.

00:31:06.635 --> 00:31:11.248
They have said that it's a really example of resourcefulness, of low budget filmmaking.

00:31:11.248 --> 00:31:21.803
They blended cinematography with minimalist production design and digital technology to kind of create this high concept action film.

00:31:21.803 --> 00:31:25.654
You know they overcame a lot of financial struggles and stress.

00:31:25.654 --> 00:31:29.955
They didn't have the industry's support until the sort of very end of the movie as well.

00:31:29.955 --> 00:31:32.073
So they didn't get any sort of industry funding at all as well.

00:31:32.073 --> 00:31:40.752
And you know this is during the time when there was some technical limitations too, because the amount of sort of digital camera uses that they could have weren't as advanced as they are right now, so to say.

00:31:40.984 --> 00:31:50.359
Well, for most of the buildings and stuff that they used were all just abandoned and run down abandoned places, so they didn't have to actually hire these places.

00:31:50.359 --> 00:31:54.643
They just went to abandoned houses and buildings and shit and just shot the film in there.

00:31:54.643 --> 00:32:04.795
So that's how they got like all the lofts and everything like that and like where Jade sort of spends most of the movie, and a few of the other places.

00:32:04.795 --> 00:32:09.855

Gabriel (2007) - Part One: The Low-Budget Fantasy Film That Defied Expectations

Listen On

Fantasy Movies Episodes

Australian Movies Episodes

Recent Episodes

Marvel Episodes

Dragons Episodes

90s Movies Episodes

Fantasy Movies Episodes

Cult Classic Episodes

Gaming Episodes

Australian Movies Episodes

Browse episodes by category