Interviewees, previous Australian Champions & Stampfl Athletes, Bev Francis and Marg Woodlock-McLean

On a sunny December day last year, Writer/Director, Sally McLean had the great privilege to be able to spend time over a few coffees with previous Australian Champions, Bev Francis and Marg Woodlock-McLean, both interviewees for “A Life Unexpected” and representatives from the sport of Shot Put.

Representing two generations of Stampfl athletes, this impromptu chat was a chance to bring two of Franz’s fascinating athletes together who had both competed on the national stage in the same sport.  Bev was on a flying visit from her home in New York and generously found time in her schedule to drop into a South Yarra cafe and spend some time comparing notes with Marg.

“It was a delight to sit with these two extraordinary women and hear their stories about their time with Franz and their lives afterwards,” said McLean.  ”It made me even more excited about getting them in front of a camera so their experiences can be shared with a world audience.”

Bev Francis is possibly best known on the world stage as the woman who irrevocably changed the sport of female body building.  As the star of the 1985 documentary “Pumping Iron II: The Women” (a follow up from the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), Bev essentially broke “the glass ceiling” of women’s body building by proving that women could build their bodies to be just as spectacularly muscular as men.

Bev was also known as one of the three “Strongest Women in the World” – a term coined by Stampfl while she was training with him.  He was the one to encourage her to take up weight-lifting while she was pursuing the sports of javelin, discus and shot put, which lead to her changing to the sport of Power Lifting.  The result of this change of direction? Bev would go on to  break more than 40 powerlifting records and win six powerlifting World Championships, as well as become the first woman to officially bench press over 300 pounds.

From Power Lifting, Bev moved into body building – going on to compete in several Ms Olympia competitions and winning the 1987 Pro World Championship.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Marg related to Bev’s experience with weight lifting, telling how Franz had insisted on all his athletes, but especially the throwers, undertake a full weight lifting regime as part of their training.  As she was coaching with him in 1955, this was unheard of for women and she initially protested at this addition to her training schedule.

“She told us that she said to him she didn’t want to get all muscle bound, but Franz told her if she trained the way he told her to, she’d be “trim, taut, terrific”, which is what happened.  And if you look at photos of her competing in 1956, she is showing strong muscle tone – a result of only 3 months of weight work – which looks great, in my opinion!” said McLean.

“And, as she is my mother, I can attest that all these years later, if I can’t get a jar open, I just have to hand it to her and she gets it open in a couple of seconds – she, like Bev, has incredible natural strength – which is testament to the training regimes they both undertook while competing.”

Marg Woodlock competing at the 1956 Olympics in the Shot Put

Marg would go onto be a 1956 Olympian in Shot Put and National Champion.  In later life, she would go on to compete against some of her original 1956 Olympic rivals in the World Masters Games and win a Gold Medal in Shot Put.

“She quipped that Franz always told her she’d be the best in the world – and it only took her 40 odd years to do it!”, laughs McLean.

Marg, like Bev, trained at Melbourne University in Physical Education, going on to teach in Australia and the UK, before becoming more heavily involved in Fundraising and the Arts. Both Marg and Bev would go on to establish their own businesses – Bev running the Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym in New York and Marg running a large-scale event management business before her retirement a few years ago.

Seeing these two entertaining and accomplished women together and hearing their stories, was a great taste of what would be captured on film for the documentary and a wonderful way to spend a December afternoon.

“I am so delighted with the calibre and generosity of all our interviewees, and cannot wait to start interviewing them all on camera,” said McLean.  ”With people like Bev and Marg involved, this documentary is going to be something truly special.”

Some of the “A Life Unexpected” team – L-R: Laura Wagner (German Translations), Melanie Brunt (Producer), Sally McLean (Writer/Director/Producer), Robert L Galinsky (Executive Producer) & Tim Egan (Director of Photography)

November was a busy month for the “A Life Unexpected” team, as they geared up for the official Investors’ Launch, held at St Catherine’s School, Toorak.

Stampfl Athlete & Interviewee, Olympian Gold Medallist, Ralph Doubell with Bob Lay and fellow guests

A plethora of Olympic and Commonwealth Games luminaries were in attendance, including John Landy, Ralph Doubell, Bill Hooker, Bob Lay, Nick Regos, Bob Joyce, David Boykett, Ondine McGlashen, and Marg Woodlock-McLean.

Interviewees & 1956 Olympians – L-R: John Landy (Athletics), Bob Joyce (Athletics), David Boykett (Rowing) & Marg Woodlock-McLean (Athletics)

Guests enjoyed wine from Morning Star Estate and Hickinbotham of Dromana, along with finger food and nibbles, before watching an exclusive screening of the latest version of the full teaser reel (only available to distributors and investors), followed by a presentation from Writer/Director, Sally McLean, Producer, Melanie Brunt and Executive Producer, Robert Galinsky.

Stampfl Athlete & Olympian, Marg Woodlock-McLean addresses the crowd at the A Life Unexpected Investor Launch

A highlight of the evening was Marg Woodlock-McLean’s sharing of her experience of the 1956 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Melbourne as one of the Australian Olympic team.  Guests were noticeably moved – some to tears – listening to Marg’s story of being a teenager in her first Olympic Games, sharing the wonder and awe she felt walking into the MCG to the extraordinary roar of 60,000 people with fellow athletes from every corner of the world.

Marg had spent a busy day talking about her time as an Olympian and her training under Franz Stampfl – earlier that day, she had appeared on popular Melbourne radio station, SEN (Sports Enterainment Network) on “An Hour of Power” with Commonwealth Games Gold Medalist, Peter Bourke, to discuss their Athletics careers and their coach, Franz Stampfl.

Signed poster for the film with all Olympic, Commonwealth Games and National Champions’ signatures who were in attendance on the night

During the evening many Athletes got the chance to catch up and reminisce about their time in their sports – some not having seen each other since they were competing!  It was just a taste of what the documentary itself will be like for those present – many of the guests experiencing first-hand the senses of humour and fascinating stories that these athletes have and the production team intend to capture on film.

It was an extremely successful evening, with universally enthusiastic and positive feedback from all in attendance.  And culminated with several people present now beginning the process of investing in the film!

The team would like to thank the following people for making the evening possible and such a success:

Our major supporters:

• St Catherine’s School, Toorak
• Morning Star Estate Winery
• Hickinbotham of Dromana Winery

And the group of generous people who gave of their time and expertise so freely:

• Marg Woodlock-McLean
• Catherine Middlemiss
• Chris Schembri
• Billy Smedley
• Judy Barrett
• James McLean
• Danielle Sands
• Radyn & Tim Hoffman
• Samantha Brown

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the evening.  Special thanks to Christoph Ziengenhardt for his wonderful photos of the night, which captured the atmosphere so perfectly.

News on the commencement of pre-production and other exciting developments will be released as it comes to hand, but in the meantime, enjoy the gallery of photos (from Christoph) from the evening below:

Front entrance to St Catherine’s Ballroom

A Life Unexpected Poster at front entrance

Olympian and current General Manager at The Sport Australia Hall of Fame, Bob Lay

Stampfl Athletes & Interviewees, Olympic Gold Medallist, Ralph Doubell with Commonwealth Games Athlete, Bill Hooker (also Dad to Olympic Champion Steve Hooker)

Olympian, Jim Barry AM MBE with wife Jan

Stampfl Athlete & Interviewee, Olympian Bob Joyce

Interviewee, John Beaurepaire with Denise Freedman

Executive Producer, Robert Galinsky

General Manager of The Sport Australia Hall of Fame, Bob Lay with Olympian Marg Woodlock-McLean

Hammer Thrower and Stampfl athlete, Nick Regos

Stampfl Athletes – Olympian Bob Joyce with previous National Event Coach for the Hammer Throw, Mike Edwards

Bobby Galinsky

Things are rapidly moving forward here at “A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story”.  Many exciting things are developing with the project, but the news we are most pleased about and are able to share is the appointment of our fantastic Executive Producer for the project – Robert “Bobby” Galinsky.

Bobby’s career to date includes time in various top advertising agencies, stints in different divisions of the Walt Disney Company© and many years in Hollywood as a professional screenwriter in his native USA.

Since relocating to Australia, Bobby has worked with a number of producers, specializing in “script doctoring” and helping to make their projects commercially viable and produced the extremely controversial but successful feature film “Prey”.  Bobby  is currently writer/producer on his latest feature film, the $40 million dollar project “Dust and Glory”, helmed by top Hollywood director Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Con Air, The Expendables 2).

To read Bobby’s full biography, go here.

We are truly delighted to be able to welcome Bobby officially to the team.  His passion for the subject matter and innate understanding of the philosophy behind the project and the story we are undertaking to tell, makes him the perfect person to helm our financing efforts.  In addition to this, his financial acumen, in-depth industry knowledge and network of international film contacts means that “A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story” is now moving forward at a rapid pace.  The fact that our senses of humour also gel is just an added bonus!

We are currently working with Bobby to secure private investment for the full budget for “A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story” – if you are interested in knowing more about the investment opportunities on offer, please contact us via the contact form here.

More information on recent developments will be forthcoming when publicly available … stay tuned!

Sally McLean
Writer/Director/Producer
A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story

1956 Olympian and Co-Producer, Marg Woodlock-McLean with Director/Producer, Sally McLean at the 2012 AbaF Awards Victoria, Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. Photo by Emily McCoy from EMC Photography (courtesy of the Australia Business Arts Foundation)

It was with great delight that myself and Marg Woodlock-McLean (Co-Producer, Fundraising) set off into the blustery Melbourne weather Wednesday morning to attend the 2012 AbaF Awards (Victoria) at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne.

I had been nominated as an Individual Artist in the AbaF Giving Awards category for fundraising activities via the AbaF for “A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story”.  This category is for individual artists and arts and cultural organisations’ giving (donations) programs: annual campaigns, capital campaigns, patron programs, bequest programs or projects supported by foundations.

After a rather scrumptious breakfast of strawberries and cream and a couple of glasses of very nice orange juice, during which time Marg and I finally met in person the lovely Denise Damianos (Manager, AbaF Australian Cultural Fund, who manages all donations for individual artists on the AbaF register), all guests were asked to be seated and the formalities began.

MC was Rafael Epstein (Drive presenter for ABC Radio 774) who did a great job in keeping the ceremony flowing with minimal fuss and a sense of humour.  The speeches from various political and Arts industry figures present were kept to a minimum and short, which is always a good thing and was most appreciated!

To start the proceedings, the list of nominated organizations was announced who had received a “Good Practice Recognition” nod from the AbaF Award judges for demonstrating good practice (based on their score against the awards judging criteria) in their work in fundraising. This takes in to consideration how the money is raised as well as how the donated money is used and utilised within the organisation, amongst other criteria.

As the list of 20 names scrolled over the screen, read out in turn by Rafael, it was with surprise that we realised that my name was amongst this group and the only Individual Artist from Victoria to be so honoured.  I was truly thrilled to receive this acknowledgement for our team, especially as we were listed among such august company as the Melbourne Theatre Company, the Melbourne Recital Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Melbourne Writers Festival, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Museum Victoria and the Victorian Opera.

We then settled in to hear who had won awards in the eight categories.  I was particularly pleased for Moonshine Movies who won the Arts & Health Foundation Award for their innovative work in partnership with Palliative Care Australia and St Martins Youth Arts Centre who won the newly created AbaF Arts Access Award for their work to improve access for people with disability to their venues, programs and services.  You can see the full list of winners and “Good Practice Recognition” recipients here: http://www.abaf.org.au/arts/abaf-awards/abaf-awards-2012-in-victoria.html

While we didn’t win the award for our category – that went to the Heide Museum of Modern Art for their successful fundraising partnership with ANZ Trustees Limited (a hearty congratulations to all involved – Heide is a fantastic jewel in Melbourne’s Arts landscape and should definitely be supported to ensure it’s works of art and ties to Australia’s art history remain accessible to everyone), Marg and I had a lovely morning with the added bonus of knowing that win, lose or draw we could walk away from the Awards presentation knowing the team’s hard work had been recognised and appreciated on a public stage.

It has been interesting to note that to date, with State Awards ceremonies now completed in South Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales and the ACT (with Tasmania and Queensland happening later this week), our project is still the only Individual Artist to have been named in the “Good Practice Recognition” list nationally – which also includes Bell Shakespeare Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Art Gallery of South Australia, Darwin Symphony Orchestra, South Australian Museum, Sydney Dance Company, Australian Youth Orchestra, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Film & Television Institute WA and Perth International Arts Festival..  This is a huge testament to the hard work, passion and integrity of the entire team working on “A Life Unexpected”, but in particular, Marg Woodlock-McLean who has worked tirelessly to implement and execute our donations program with such success.

We would also like to take this opportunity to again thank all our donors and supporters for making this project possible.  Without you we would not have been able to get to Europe to film our first round of interviews which has helped move the project forward immensely.  We will continue to raise donations via the AbaF, but will also be adding an investment focus for private investors and business to our fundraising mix for the project – details for this aspect will be coming soon.

Thank you again to all the “A Life Unexpected” team, to our donors and supporters and to the AbaF for their incredibly valuable services to independent artists and practitioners in the arts.

And now? Onto getting this project finished and out to the world!

‘Till next update,

Sally McLean
Writer/Director/Producer
“A Life Unexpected”

Being a fan of another Brit rock group – Queen – I really like it, and kudos to London for going with such a different kind of song to represent the feel of these Olympics on the world stage.  I think it works.

But what do you think?  Check out the song below and then feel free to leave your comments …

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Till next time,

Sally & the “A Life Unexpected” Team

Champion pole vaulter Steve Hooker is preparing to defend his gold medal at the London Olympics. Picture: Phil Hillyard

I have been following with interest the progress towards London 2012 of Olympic Pole Vaulter, Steve Hooker over the past few months.  There are two reasons for this.  In relation to the documentary, Steve and I share something in common – our parents were Franz Stampfl athletes (my mother and both his mother and father) and we have both been profoundly affected by Franz’s philosophies as a result – passed on from our parents.  Also, Steve is one of our interviewees for the documentary as a result of this influence.

As someone who has spent the better part of her life around Olympians and is also a performer, I sympathise with Steve’s fight to get back into form before the London Olympics in July.  I have heard so many stories from other Olympians who have had similar issues during their athletic careers, many of whom came out fighting and exceeded everyone’s expectations on the day of their actual Olympic event.  And, being an actor, I totally understand “the yips” Steve has talked about – and I never had to fly through the air on a thin pole to get over a bar nearly 6 metres above the ground!

Stage fright is a common malady.  Everyone suffers from it.  The actor whose lines dry on stage.  The public speaker who forgets their notes.  The Manager who has to face his team during redundancies.  Everyone in every walk of life at some stage has baulked at the gate, either in their job or their private life.  And it doesn’t matter how experienced you are or how good you are at what you do – it can strike without warning.  And, it takes time to tame that beast once it has you in it’s jaws.

Steve has done an amazing job of coming back from both injury and the subsequent anxieties that followed.  And let’s not forget that he has already qualified for the 2012 Olympics, as shown in the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I take my hat off to Steve for continuing to put himself out there, in the blaze of public scrutiny, as he continues to build up his jump fitness while managing an injury that’s on the mend and doing it with grace and a positive attitude.

I know all the team here at A Life Unexpected will be cheering him on at the Olympics in July and we are all already proud of him for all that he’s achieved - Olympian, Current Olympic Champion and Captain of the Australian Olympic Athletics team.  There’s not many that can list all that in their CV.

Go strong, Steve.  And know that you’ve already proven you’re a winner.  Fly high in Munich today and we’ll be cheering you on in London for being the champion you are.

Sally McLean
Producer
A Life Unexpected 

Want to know how to donate?  Either use our new Paypal donation facility here or check out our Donations page.

Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Donors and supporters at “Franz Stampfl: The First Reel” event, April 1st 2012

April 1st is known to many as April Fools Day.  Whether it began, as some think, with Chaucer or from earlier Persian traditions, no one is truly sure.  All we knew for sure this April the 1st was that we were finally going to be able to share with our generous and supportive donors, colleagues and friends of “A Life Unexpected”, the first teaser footage from our filming in Europe last November.  And we weren’t joking!

St Catherine’s School Headmistress, Dr Sylvia Walton AO with St Catherine’s Old Girl and 1956 Olympian, Marg Woodlock-McLean

We were delighted to see so many donors and supporters attend this invite-only function, which was held at the beautiful St Catherine’s School, Toorak with St Catherine’s School Headmistress Dr Sylvia Walton AO in attendance, pictured above with “A Life Unexpected” Associate Producer, event organizer and 1956 Olympian, Marg Woodlock-McLean (who is also an Old Girl of the school).

We are so grateful to have St Catherine’s support for this project and that we were able hold this event in the school’s historic main building – not only because the school has many connections to Franz Stampfl’s story, but also because it is a truly beautiful location and setting for any event – and matched in so beautifully with some of the interiors we had filmed in Europe, particularly Vienna, last year.

1956 Olympian, Marg Woodlock-McLean introduces Director, Sally McLean to the assembled crowd

With over 60 in attendance, the afternoon began with the serving of excellent red and white wine, kindly donated by two more of our generous sponsors for the day – Morning Star Estate and Hickinbotham of Dromana - and finger food, during which time people wandered between the main Drawing Room and the adjacent Dining Room to look at the various static displays of photos, articles and other memorabilia from Franz’s personal collection, before moving into the Ballroom to watch “The First Reel” – a five minute teaser of the footage we filmed in Oxford, Dublin and Vienna featuring interviews with Sir Roger Bannister, Sir Christopher Chataway, Ulick O’Connor and members of the Stampfl family.

Director, Sally McLean, puts the final touches to one of the static displays of photos and articles in the Dining Room at St Catherine’s for the event

And we are very happy to say that the teaser was very well received by all in attendance.  As many in the room had donated to our last fundraising effort, this positive reaction meant a lot to us – as it was these people who had made it possible for us to undertake these interviews and we were thrilled they were so happy with the result – even if it was just a “sneak peek” they got to see!

It was truly lovely to meet all the members of the Como Park jogging group who were able to attend, many of whom shared their memories of Franz and truly added to the atmosphere of the day.

Olympians Bob Joyce, David Boykett, Jim Barry, Pam Matthews and Marg Woodlock-McLean at the entrance to St Catherine’s during the event

We were also delighted to welcome Olympians, Bob Joyce, Pam Matthews, David Boykett, Jim Barry and Marg Woodlock-McLean who all wore their Olympic blazers for the event, adding dashes of the green and gold in among the crowd – very appropriate considering Franz’s involvement with elite athletes, especially in an Olympic year!

Members of the Melbourne filmmaking fraternity were also present, all of whom have supported this film with great generosity of spirit and their hard earned cash, as have those who have nothing to do with the film industry, but just want to support a story they feel should be told.  We are so very grateful and humbled by the support that has been shown by everyone and are now moving forward to the next fundraising phase with renewed passion and enthusiasm!

Special thanks must go to Director of Development at St Catherine’s School, Catherine Middlemiss, for going above and beyond the call of duty for us in the lead up to the event and on the day.  Also to Cristin O’Carroll who worked untiringly and with such lovely humour, again in the lead up and during the event.  We couldn’t have done it without either of you – thank you both!

Catherine also took all the lovely photos you see here – which will also be put up on the website over the next week.  While the teaser that was shown on April 1st will not be available publicly, as that was an exclusive donor event only, a short 30 teaser of the footage filmed will be made available in the next week online – so keep an eye out for that one!

And so, we are now onto Phase 3 of the Fundraising Drive for the film.  We have the goal of raising $40,000 by the end of June to enable us to film in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast.  It’s a big goal, but we know we can do it – with a little bit of help from our friends.

If you’d like to know more about how to donate – go to our donation page here: http://www.alifeunexpected.com/donate/index.html.  And we thank you for your support.

And onwards and upwards we go!

‘Till next update, take care and thank you all!

New "A Life Unexpected" Web Site (Designed by Incognita Design)

We are thrilled to announce that the new website design is now completed and live on the web!  In between editing the new teaser (which will be available online soon) and helping to organize the recent exclusive donor and supporter event (which happened on the weekend – more on that in the next post), we have managed to redesign the site, featuring our striking new logo created for us by Tim Hoffman (see last post for more).

Let us know what you think! http://www.alifeunexpected.com

See you next update …

A Life Unexpected Production Team

As you will have seen from our earlier post – the documentary has a new working title “A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story” and to go with the new title, we have a fantastic new logo designed by graphic artist extraordinaire, Tim Hoffman.

After a casual lunchtime meeting with Tim (and his lovely wife Radyn, who is one of my oldest friends) where we ended up discussing ideas on how to represent Franz and his life in graphic form, I had a bit of an initial play with the conclusions we came up with, working from a photo of Franz from the 1950’s and creating a couple of images to begin the re-branding process – and while the result was … okay … it wasn’t nearly of a good enough standard (in my opinion) to be used.  I emailed my efforts over to Tim for his feedback and he got really enthusiastic and asked if he could take the ideas further.  “Absolutely!”  was my unhesitating response.

To cut a semi-long story short – not long after his offer and with only a few email exchanges for tweaking purposes, Tim presented me with the following image:

A Life Unexpected: The Franz Stampfl Story Logo (designer: Tim Hoffman)

I love it.  The whole team loves it and we all agree that Tim has done a pretty amazing and rather brilliant job of realising on “canvas” what we were after.  The “images within an image” concept has really worked and we think encapsulated Franz and his story – a man of many interests and experiences who always looked forward, never back.

So we’d like to say THANK YOU TIM!!  We’re really excited with this new direction and this new logo for the film is, we think, perfect

The website has been updated with the new image, but the design of the site is now being completely redone in line with the new branding for the project.  That should launch in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I am in an edit suite, cutting a teaser from the footage we shot in November in the UK, Ireland and Austria.  And here is where the other Tim comes into the story – our intrepid Cinematographer, Tim Egan.  Tim, recently returned from shooting in LA, has very kindly given me access to his edit suite to begin synching and cutting segments of the film together under his guidance.  I am so very grateful to him for doing this, as without his offer of help, this aspect would not be able to be completed.

So, again, I’d like to say THANK YOU TIM (EGAN)!!  And I’ll see you tomorrow in the studio.

Now you can see why I titled this post the way I did.

These two Tim’s ROCK!  And their help and generous support of the project is very much appreciated by all of us.

‘Till next time …

Sally McLean
Director/Producer (and I’ve been told to add “Writer”, because I’m doing that too …)