On Reflection #1

It's the end of week one of the official pre-production of Galore.

Here's what happened, in a nutshell.

People were hired.

Locations were scouted.

I saw some spiders:

And visited one of our locations to discover that every room was full of books.

I cast some of the roles and agonised over some others.

I showed films to the cinematographer and images to the production designer.

I visited, while location scouting, the childhood home I lived in with my Dad after my folks split and discovered that the tiny place seems even tinier and is now the home of a whole bunch of migrant workers.

I took a bunch of photos in some of our other locations and tried to imagine shots, scenes and sequences.

I spent a lot of time thinking about bushfires and fistfights and fireworks. 

I ate out almost every night and spent a ridiculous amount of money on cabs while rushing from place to place and meeting to meeting. 

I watched films by Lucrecia Martel, Alma Har'el and Nikola Lezaic for inspiration. 

I terrified myself before bed every night by reading Misha Glenny's McMafia, and then tried to console myself by reading Junot Diaz' beautiful new short story collection This is How You Lose Her ("the half life of love is forever").

I scraped in some time to finish an episode of a TV series I've been writing. 

And I freaked out about my bank balance. 

Then I watched the AFL grand final, got stupidly, breathlessly drunk and tried to dance salsa until dawn.

So, all in all, a successful start to pre production. On to week 2.