Here We Are #3

After many months of doing the rounds of releasing a film, preparing DVD releases, becoming enmeshed in the relative horrors of distribution and exhibition, tangling with release events, social media promotion and, step by step, losing the shine and inspiration of all the amazing people who bleed to make your film as you fall into step with the cynics and misery-peddlers who sit around at the end; after all this, it's easy to forget the bliss of shooting.

A couple of months back, we filled my brother's van with a bunch of friends whose abilities traversed acting, cinematography and production design and, for three days, we hooned around town and shot this clip on the sly for an old and inspiring friend, Joelistics. These were the people with whom there exists an easy shorthand and where the ability to create something ephemeral and difficult to articulate is possible because there exists a shared sensibility and understanding of what we're all reaching for.

The last story I told with this crew and these actors was one of a love destroyed just at the instant that it happened, so it felt right to create a story that is more like those loves that we experience; one of duration and hardship, or one where the love takes a different, albeit more wary form, after heartache, disappointment or deception; but one where there still exists tenderness and beauty and moments of levity. 

There are moments in here - the woman played by Lily Sullivan, casting her eyes back over her shoulder as she walks down a rainy street, or the man, played by Aliki Matangi looking up to the apartment where he knows his future might lie - that make me as proud as anything I've been involved in. This seems, after Small Mercies and Galore, like a footnote of heartbreak with, at last, more hope than hurt.


 

Horizons

While we've been haunting our locations for Galore, refining sequences, doing light tests and conducting rehearsals, DOP Stefan Duscio has been getting to know the landscape, the light and the strange horizons of Canberra intimately. Here are some glimpses of the landscape as seen through his camera. Every time I look at them I feel a sense of deep, unwavering confidence that everything in this crazed film is going to be just fine...

On Reflection #2

End of week 2 of pre-production. Strange how things slowly emerge into view increment by increment. We're still stalking the margins of our locations (below are a bunch of shots of some areas we're shooting in by esteemed cinematographer Stefan Duscio, who I've mentioned in these parts before); we've almost entirely secured a killer crew; the composers have sent through more demos and tracks; and, most, importantly, I've locked in my key cast - four incredible young people to play the central roles. So, everything has it's shape and form and the film is alive. Terrifying and electrifying.

 

(turns out i don't look as relaxed as i feel when i'm location scouting... looks like i'm taking a nervous poo in the middle of our location... probably felt like it too as i tried to work out the logisitics of a major sequence... better not to think about it)

Small Mercies #2

Well that went pretty damned swiftly.

After so much thought and preparation, the shoot for 'Small Mercies' was over in a few brief moments of madness, focus, precision and bad jokes spread over a blur of a week.

By the time of shooting, we'd assembled a crew and cast that were beyond my hopes. Leading the film are Oscar Redding, Mirrah Foulkes and Finn Woodlock and each turned in beautiful, complex and damaged performances; not an easy thing in a short, but kinda essential in one as layered as this dense little adaptation of Winton's short story. And we were also very lucky to get great actors for the additional scenes; each of which had to add to those layers of memory, misconnection and mourning without altering the overall tone. We ended up with actors Carol Burns, Dennis Coard, Elena Pellone, Madeleine Ferme, Jasmine Knox and Harry Borland rounding out the full cast. I have to confess that for a chump who's been lost in non fiction for a while, it was a blissful thing getting to work on set with actors of intelligence and subtlety. It was a soft entry back into drama. And a soft entry made all the more easy being surrounded by a killer crew, lots of old friends, and the welcome warmth of the Killy locals.

So, now, I'm lying around the house in my trackies, watching deeply trashy movies, with a double hangover from the wrap party on Friday and the celebration last night of the return of Black Arm Band's 'dirtsong' to the recital hall in Melbourne... and I'm feeling exhausted, contented and confident that, for a brief, glimmering moment, all is good in the world.

While, in general, the whole week's shoot was pretty damned great (despite some howling antarctic winds and a few late nights thrashing the video jukebox in the local pub) there were a handful of highlights that should be etched into the stone of the blogospherical:

The views of the broken shorelines of Gippsland every morning on waking.

The aforementioned video jukebox in the local pub, stacked with equal parts Mamas and Papas, soft metal, Oz rock classics and Jay-Z.

Tormenting DOP Stefan Duscio with the frightening Carly Rae Jepsen first thing every morning so that it earwormed him all day.

An entire day spent working on the final scene of the film with Oscar and Mirrah that involved numerous layers of performance for the actors and a fair bit of agility for the rest of us to honour their staggeringly good work.

The nightly meals at the Killy pub, sitting around the fire telling confessional stories of high school lust and making bad jokes in Scandinavian accents while eating pork belly or impossibly huge chicken parmas.

The stoicism of young onscreen lovers Harry and Madeleine who had to be lusty, cruel and loving in faked summer settings while enduring the extremes of Gippsland glacial winds.

The pioneering of the film genre descriptor 'Scando Hotness'.

And, most certainly the true highlight: a final night in Kilcunda that involved a guys vs girls sing-off of 'California Dreaming' engineered by Hoss, the local publican; numerous props and wigs that seemed to only make people drunker; and a soul train dance off engineered by my sister from another mother Andrea Distefano, in which the sound recordist busted out the worm down the aisle and was promptly set on by the pub pit bull (and attempted ear bitings only accelerated the speed of the worm which was true courage under fire).

Humble thanks to all involved... Good times. Now to the edit...

Sunday

This is a link to a lazy afternoon piece I cut together for friend and collab Stefan Duscio who shot all the beautiful images. It is one of an ongoing series* of skate atmos pieces Stefan has been working on; films about those blissed out, sweaty, aching mornings, afternoons and nights you can never get back, particularly if, like me, you're getting too old and crusty to hit the concrete. Cutting this together, albeit with stolen tracks from Eluvium and Broken Social Scene, was a great escape...

Sunday from Stefan Duscio on Vimeo.

You can see more of Stefan's beautiful work here. He's got a couple of new features coming out this year so I imagine 2011 will be a busy one.

*we hope... there is an unfinished one of a Brooklyn skate session currently sitting on the hard drive... sorry Stef'