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.

Hauntings #2

Another long day of street castings. Some of the young people we saw humbled us with the most extraordinary stories; of heartbreak and strength, love and loss, of overcoming the most amazing obstacles, missing parents, madness, accidental death and, extraordinarily, murder. We weren't looking for any of these stories but as soon as you take someone into a room and ask for something of their emotions, something of what defines them or makes them who they are, these stories always begin to flow. These were just regular outer suburban kids but their strength and stories were staggering. As well as that there was quiet wisdom, unruly ambition and the usual jittery madness of being in your late teens. This kind of complexity is what made me want to make 'Galore' in the first place as, despite being a simple story, it is all about surviving love and loss at that age. And if all that wasn't enough, one young girl came in to the casting with her finger nails painted like Chuck Taylor sneakers which had to be one of the most achingly cool things I've seen of late. So, we had many reasons to sit back in awe. At the end of the day, after long hours in a freezing cold hall, and with a kind of grave respect for sharing in these moments, quietly, quietly, we went out and chased the last light at some places around town, then boarded a plane to come home. Such rare pleasures. And some more pics of this whole messy, beautiful process.

 

Hauntings #1

Back in Canberra once again, haunting the locations of this upcoming film, street casting for kids who might play the lead roles and street casting for kids who might be extras milling around in the background. We saw around 40 kids yesterday and then, before night fell, tried to catch last light at some of our locations. And we're looking to see another 40 or so today. At the same time, we're walking through the skate parks and shops and hangouts to see who might catch our eye and asking them to come along and talk to us about the film.

Charisma is a strange thing. Some young people just have a formidable presence as soon as you see them and then there are some who are all smoke and mirrors. I don't envy them their age and we all feel bad at the bundle of nerves they bring to the casting sessions. Yet despite the nerves and sweats, no matter what scene they come from, however, or how much confidence they give off, some kids have a weight and a presence to them that is undeniable. It is awe-inspiring. At that age, I could barely tie my shoelaces and I would never have agreed to talk to a bunch of filmmakers with a camera and a light. But something about these rubbish modern times has aged kids in their ability to communicate. They talk with an emotional sophistication that is part facebook/reality TV and partly some new kind of cynicism and awareness that I certainly never had. It is humbling and strange.

We've also been casting at the Woden Youth Centre, scene of some great old hardcore gigs, youth bands and where I also shot a bit of an old, strange little handmade film of mine 'Firestorm'. It's nice to reinhabit these places from childhood and remake them into fiction. It's the temptation of any kind of imaginative storytelling... to erase the past and make fictions that can carry on into the present.

Some snaps from yesterday (with some polaroids to come when I get back to the studio and the scanner):