Days Two to Eight: Victory!

This post has taken longer to write than I would have liked. I rapidly encountered the problem that daily updates are a near impossibility when you're shooting flat out everyday. I was continually completely exhausted after each day and the prospect of writing everything that I'd just experienced down was not an appealing one.

Now, however, the shoot is finished. We're set to enter post-production very soon and have a whole raft of challenges ahead of us which we'll need to tackle if we ever want "Alice(remix)" to get out into the world. You'll be hearing it here first on the blog, I'll let you know how the cut of the film is progressing, where we are with marketing, grading, mixing and music. It'll be an exciting couple of months as we get this thing ready for human consumption.

But first...

A SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY

To put it simply, the shoot was a huge success. I can't emphasise enough just how well everything went. We managed to get all the shots we wanted, both ahead of schedule and under budget! It was an intense eight days, but it was also a lot of fun and a wonderfully rewarding experience. Everyone on the crew got along and we had no serious on-set dramas. More importantly the quality of the work the exceedingly talented crew proffered up was positively mind-boggling. Every department pulled out all the stops in realising the world of "Alice(remix)". I was deeply moved by how hard everyone worked on this movie, which at the end of the day, was just something that started out as a doodle on a piece of paper. It's fascinating to me to see something which has been in my head for the better part of two years finally come to life on camera.

The location we shot in, my parents' place, was very easy to work in. We had great access to all the necessary amenities, could be separated from the rest of the house and had pretty much free run of the place. I am very grateful my parents were kind enough to give us access to the location and allow us to siphon off their water and electricity! Not only this, because we essentially shot the entirety of principal photography in this one location, working was very easy. No materials needed to be transported anywhere and we lost no time or money cycling through several locales, unlike many other short films.

The schedule we worked on was one of the easiest I've ever seen. Even though this film is quite technically complex, it was a rare occasion that we'd run over our allotted time. Props to our 1st AD Jacob Holmes-Brown and our producer Nikit Doshi for their excellent time management skills!

In fact, the quality of work from everyone on set was a wonder to behold. Our camera team consistently amazed me with the quality of their work. The lighting and framing of the film was a joy to behold and I am so glad that we were able to synchronise our ideas of what the movie should look like so early and so well. There are, to my knowledge, no shots that I'm honestly unhappy with. Shooting on the RED was a joy and was definitely worth it. The workflow was very easy to manage and the sheer quality of the footage honestly blew me away. Thank you Mr. Sam Winzar for all your patient and hard work and a special thanks to Arthur Bienkowski, our very talented DoP who was never short of any ideas except bad ones.

Monique Wajon and her production design team also really brought their A-game to this movie. Every prop and dressing in this film was exceptionally well thought out and used perfectly. I really felt that the set we made looked like the sort of place that our central character would live and when we started getting to the latter half of the script, I was doubly impressed by how the art department team realised Nick's final project. It looked gorgeous and disturbing, pretty much exactly what I wanted. Well done guys!

I have to single out two other people here for special mention, though of course everyone involved has my eternal gratitude, these are Miss. Gita Bezard and Mr. StJohn Cowcher, our wonderful and extremely patient leads. These two have been on an epic journey with me over the course of the past five months and it was an awesome final adventure, after all our one-on-one sessions in the middle of nowhere, to bring them to a fully dressed and crewed set and completely change the dynamic of our working style. They both handled it brilliantly and gave great performances. Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.

As I said, a big big thank you to everyone else who helped out on the shoot. It was easily the most fun and smoothest ride I've ever had on a set and I hope it was a similar experience for all of you. The footage looks great and I very much look forward to cutting a worthy film from it!

Day One: Finding Our Feet

As I said, my aim is to keep you abreast of how we've been trucking in our development of the film. We started shooting on the 14th. If you want a nice simple summary of how things have gone and can't be bothered trawling through the following few paragraphs, here's an easy one liner: "Extremely Well!"

DAY ONE

Arthur, Monique and myself had an early start, picking up the necessary equipment for the film at 9:30AM. This went off pretty much without a hitch and we were soon at the primary location for the shoot.

For the rest of the crew, the call was at 12:30PM. Thanks to Monique and her production design crew, the set was fully prepped for our first shot, which, typically for me, was an inordinately complex one. We have largely scheduled this film to be photographed chronologically, meaning the first shot we did was literally the first one of the movie. It involved a long shot, constantly moving and changing focus, gliding around the main character Nick's room, introducing us not only to the geography of the film, but Nick's personality and lifestyle. As with all first shots, this took us longer to achieve than we'd like, though Mr. Arthur Bienkowski and his camera crew took very little time to beautifully light the space. Our main problem was the co-ordination of movement and focus, as the shot contained so much information, as well as needing to be perfectly paced and clear for a duration of roughly 30 seconds. Not only this, but thanks to the stiflingly hot weather, we found flies to be a constant irritant, often flying into and ruining otherwise perfectly composed shots. After 11 takes, however, we finally had the shot we needed and our film had officially begun. I felt a little strange with StJohn on set, as this was really the first time he'd met a lot of the crew and I was anxious to make sure he felt comfortable. Once again, I was just over-thinking things as StJohn got along fine with the crew and, as always, took his direction exceptionally well. I very much cherish the fact that I got to cast such a well-known friend of mine for this role, as it allowed for an instantaneous intimacy in our work and I didn't have to worry about bruised egos.

We pushed ourselves hard, and thanks to Nikit's scheduling and Jacob Holmes-Brown's excellent ADing, we finished slightly ahead. Managing to get coverage for scenes 1 to 3. Our only real down-notes were an unfortunate case of food poisoning for some crew members including myself, likely brought about by bad yogurt, and some pretty significant oxygen problems on set, thanks to us failing to use ventilation. Neither problem really slowed us down and, really, what film shoot isn't without its problems anyway? We formulated a new plan to keep fans on set circulating air when we weren't recording and moved on, finishing the day exhausted but largely satisfied that we'd gotten what we intended to get in the time we'd intended to get it.

The Pre-Shoot: Methods and Madness

So, as I've mentioned in previous posts, one of our hurdles in producing this film was the requirement that we effectively split the shooting in two. The reason behind this is the fact that much of the film takes place with Nick, the central character, viewing old tapes of himself and Alice.

I decided that the best method of us recording all these essential clips would be to completely subvert the manner in which the 'official' shoot would be done. So, instead of utilising a large crew and complex equipment over a short intensive period of time, I resolved to shoot the film with only myself and the two actors, with one HDV camera which would be handled by the actors, over a period of several months. What came out of this experiment were over a dozen workshopped improv 'scenes' of StJohn and Gita, in character, dramatising different moments in their supposed relationship.

This was a highly unusual method of shooting for me, as I'm usually a bit of a control freak who wants the camera to be exactly where I envision it, the lighting to be perfect, the sound flawless etc. Shooting in this hand-held manner, I effectively forced myself to throw away all my techie impulses and just focus on the interaction of the central characters. It created very interesting scenarios where the actors and I would devise a scene, emotional beats and all, then the actors would walk off and perform their roles, with nobody present except the camera. I imagine it's a little strange to be committing to a performance with no audience visible.

Of course, not wanting to make things too 'easy' for myself, I decided that all of our workshopped scenes would take place in wildly different locations. So, over the course of about three months, we drove all around and outside the metro area. Though the large bulk of our focus was on performance and achieving a raw, 'truthful' picture of this couple, I did not want the footage that Nick views to be visually mundane or unappealing.

Having now done our first day of 'official' shooting, I think more than ever I appreciate the vastly different method by which we recorded our home video stuff. It was a wild, and weirdly personal journey. Being in such close proximity with your actors, with none of the usual technical or personnel accouterments, creates a very intimate space for performance and film. I cherish the fact that we got the opportunity to experiment with such a wildly different form of movie-making and get some great usable footage footage at the same time!

Life, Death and Rebirth: The OOMPF application and beyond

With all the essential crew now assembled, I began attacking the OOMPF application with gusto. Following an illuminating discussion with David Smith, the producer on last year's "Legacy", I determined that the application process would favour an overthought approach to the material rather than an underthought one. So, I set about obsessively assembling vast amounts of information about how the film would be produced, putting my unfortunate crew through some pretty early paces. We essentially had a period of pre-application production. This was mostly due to the fact that I knew that my idea was a fairly psycho-analytical/avant-garde one and that my visuals and set strategy would need a lot of thinking through to convince the board that I knew what I was doing.

My application, when it was finally completed after a period of about two months ended up clocking in at 137 pages and consisted of:

1) A one line summation of the plot.

2) A one page summary

3) The script

4) A full budget

5) The shooting schedule

4) The producer's statement

5) The director's statement

6) The marketing statement of intent

7) Crew CVs

8) The director of photography's statement

9) The production designer's statement

10) The editor's statement

11) Lighting plans

13) A shot list

14) A conceptual storyboard

15) Concept art of the set

16) A location summary

17) A detailed breakdown of how we were going to construct Nick's final project

18) Pre-Shot footage

19) Character biographies

20) Showreels from the director, editor and musician

Like I said, obsessive assembly of info.

So, in September we handed in our application and played the waiting game. This game proved to be tortuously protracted as we basically had the film on hold until we got word. All our plans were tied up one way or the other with the response from FTI.

Finally, in November, we got a response. There's no suspense here, the answer was "no". This of course was a bit of a blow, but I found myself surprisingly not too upset about it. We'd done so much work on the film already, it was basically unthinkable for me that we'd wrap everything up and kill the project. Sure enough, Nikit and I had a meeting and agreed that we'd see to it that the film would be produced, even without the extra cash from FTI. Fortunately over those past few months I'd been picking up some lucrative contract work with my production company and had enough money coming my way to make a self-funded movie a very real possibility.

So, we kicked the project into high gear. We set about locking down our shooting times (we had to push it back slightly to the middle of January, but honestly this ended up being more of a help than a hindrance) and ensuring all the crew was confirmed. Unfortunately, our very talented sound designer Damien Watt found it impossible to get out of full time work and guarantee his attendance, so we had to replace him, fortunately coming across Miss. Xoe Baird. Again, this was thanks to Adrian McFarlane and Sam Winzar. This guy will be getting a hefty credit I assure you.

With the crew sourced and schedules locked down, we set about arranging our first full crew meetings, which went exceedingly well. Everyone got along and we covered a lot of crucial info.

Due to our excessive work on the OOMPF application, we were at a real advantage for pre-production. A lot of the stuff which would usually have hamstrung us had already been figured out and it did not take long to get around what few problems remained. Our editor, Donovan de Souza, began the laborious job of assembling the footage for Nick's final project (he's almost done), we re-did the shotlist, hammered out a corrected schedule, got catering organised (essential to any good shoot), began buying props, got our contracts written up by a very talented law graduate (thanks Jehna) and recce'd the shooting location (my parent's basement -thanks guys). We then scheduled our test shoots and, well you know how they went!

So yeah, you're basically up to speed now! We're currently one day away from shooting. Monique and her team are coming around on Wednesday to bump in the rest of the set, the assistant director and producer are doing last minute checks of the location, the pre-shot footage (more on this tomorrow) is being handed over and we're basically all systems go!

Test Shoots: So Far So Good

Well, we did our test shoots today at the primary shooting location. The biggest thing we checked out and one of the critical things I was most worried about was Nick's final video project. I was mostly worried that we'd get ugly looking flickering screens thanks to an unsynchronised refresh rate from the screens which are being used for Nick's artwork and that our exposure levels would cause us major headaches trying to keep the environment and the screens perfectly visible.

Kyran working his computer genius magic.

It turns out both of my fears were a little needless. It did take a long time to set the screens up, but once we did, there was pretty minimal issues with the refresh rate of the monitors.

Some of the footage.

Our setup today basically involved a half-scale version of Nick's final project, trying to keep an even mix between the digital and analogue elements in the piece and utilising a wide array of displays. I have to give a special mention to Kyran Foote our screen tech's excellent work today in getting everything working. What a talented (and sexy) man he is.

Figuring it all out.

Of course, everyone who helped out today deserves endless praise, but I have to draw special attention to Sam Winzar, our heroic camera op who managed to come and do his part today despite the fact that he been working on another film all the way up to 5AM the night before and had done 47 SHOTS in just 14 hours! Crazy!

Sam Winzar. Man? Machine? Both?

StJohn came to the set for his costume check, which I think went rather well. It also revealed that our lead actor does not exactly have the most colourful range of clothing around. (I kid because I love) I once again realised today while we were sorting through StJohn's outfits what a coup it was getting Monique Wajon on board as Production/Costume Designer, this lady knows her stuff.

Tonight I also went around to Donovan's place for a last review of the pre-shot footage. It is awesome. What I'm particularly excited about it how disturbing it becomes as it progresses and how closely it matches my original idea. Getting Don on board, who usually works as an independent video/conceptual artist, has really paid off. He's infused the footage with exactly the right balance of experimentalism and deep emotion I was looking for.

Our Supafly editor Mr. Donovan de Souza and Production Design queen Miss. Monique Wajon.

We also began our dressing of the shooting location today, (Nick's room), and brought in carpeting, the bed, a desk, drawers and a filing cabinet. I have to say I'm getting very excited about how it's all coming together and I'm very happy with how great my crew is. Not only did we get all the work done that we needed to, we did it quickly, professionally and amicably. Everyone got along and did their jobs to a T. You can't ask for more than that, I reckon.

The beginnings of a set.

We're extremely close to D-Day now. Everything is entering the final stage of prep. Contracts are signed, schedules are written up, call-sheets are done, tests are done and we're all set.

We're bumping in the rest of the set on Wednesday and we shoot Thursday. Tuesday is basically a day of me running around getting a few last odds and ends straightened out. I'll fill you in on the last bit of info as to how we got to the position of shooting my crazy idea tomorrow as well. Stay tuned kids, don't touch that internet dial!

Putting The Pieces Together: Assembling The Core Crew

As soon as I'd made the firm decision to take my script to FTI for funding, I began assembling the first skeleton crew of the film, the majority of whom are still with me. I knew I'd need a crew who were both talented and committed and with a proven track record of delivering work and fortunately from previous work that I'd done I felt I knew enough people who fit this description to put together a really great team.

At this stage I contacted Arthur Bienkowski, Damien Watt, Christopher "Kit" Sparrow, Monique Wajon and Donovan de Souza. They all agreed to take part in my film, which was a very gratifying experience as I hadn't even put together a funding application yet! I'd worked with all of them in the past and all of them were exceedingly talented at their various roles and I knew would be enormous additions to my crew.

This achieved, I also set about contacting my old friend and long-time actor StJohn Cowcher. He had often made a point of hassling me about never casting him in anything I made, so I effectively custom-designed the lead role in "Alice(remix)" for him. His features and expressive face would be perfect for the emotional arc I'd need the character of Nick to undergo. Fortunately, in what I consider a bit of a coup, he agreed and we had one half of a cast and crew together before we were even out of the gate.

After some brief meetings and discussions with all the various individuals whom I had managed to wrangle into my project, I set about looking through the guidelines for the September One Off Member's Production Fund. I realised that the one key thing that our production missed and would otherwise be a fatal handicap to our chances at getting funding was our lack of a producer. Before this shoot I had never really had a "hands on" producer who actually had some money to work with and for the past few years I had self-produced all of my own work. I knew that if I wanted this project to be as great as I thought it could be, I'd need someone to take on the role of managing the production apart from myself.

So began an effective two month search for a producer. I sent out ads over local websites looking for someone qualified to fulfill this role, asked relentlessly around town and even did a short course in Producing with the express purpose of finding an individual who come in and take the daunting task of administrating the business end of the film off of my hands.

There were times when I was certain I'd never find anyone who had either the time or inclination to help out. After several stop-start encounters with various people who had expressed enthusiasm but were unable to take part due to various commitments, I finally got an email from one Nikit Doshi, one of those terminal overworkers who stated he was interested in my project. After a brief courtship I felt I had found "the one" and took Mr. Doshi on. This was one of the major turning points in the production of this film. I no longer had the fear of having to produce the film myself hanging over my head and our crazy little team gained a much needed boost of managerial legitimacy.

Simultaneous to this, I had continued to refine the script, with the assistance of several people in the local industry, most notably the writer-director Adrian McFarlane, who was a extremely helpful in his advice and generous with his time and patience. (Check out his new film "Goodbye, Cruel World" coming soon!) I felt I was shaping the script into something much tighter and much less abstract, but I was still successfully retaining that undercurrent of experimental conceptualism, which I thought of as key to the film's unique tone.

During this time, my cinematographer Arthur Bienkowski expressed his strong feeling that "Alice(remix)" would benefit immensely if it was shot on the RED camera. I agreed with him, thinking that shooting this film in 4k would not only allow us much more flexibility with our lighting strategies, but would also give our film that little bit of extra edge in marketing. Fortunately, again thanks to Adrian McFarlane, I was able to get in contact with Sam Winzar, who owns and operates one of the only RED cameras in Perth. We negotiated a deal and once again our film got a boost in legitimacy.

With most of the key roles in the production now fulfilled, I set about putting our funding application together, with what was to prove to be a brutal, vast, time-consuming, disappointing, but ultimately very useful piece of work.

Laying The Foundations: The Script History Of "Alice(remix)"

"Alice(remix)" originally began back in 2006 as a rough idea for a short story titled "Beach". The concept of this short story would be a narrative that leapt from disparate moments in a heterosexual relationship. We would follow a couple not by their chronology, but by the emotional rhythms of their time together.

That year, my time was pretty much consumed by the production of the science fiction short "Damage" and I never did much with my idea. Over the course of the year I toyed with the original story, adding and subtracting moments, reshaping the language and the characters, but still content to keep it on the backburner.

In 2007 I went through a severely traumatic relationship, one of those quick and nasty ones where you both spiral into a vortex of emotional masochism and sadism. Post break-up, I found myself constantly wishing the whole thing had never happened, or that the girl had never existed, or that I'd said this instead of that. Looking back on the disaster that was my relationship, I fantasized about alternate paths of action and found myself considering what parallel reality I would live in if 'd only done that one thing that would have made things more bearable.

After a while I got over my experience, (in as best as we all do), but the idea of re-thinking past experiences was something that stayed with me.

Late in 2008, a full year after my failed relationship and well entrenched within a successful one, I came back to the original story, wanting to create a little script that was simple (what a naive man I was), punchy and memorable. At the time, I was reading a lot of media philosophy, particularly McLuhan, Baudrillard and Jameson, was hungrily devouring the multimedia-saturated science fiction of J.G. Ballard and getting obsessed with Maya Deren. These elements, combined with the original story , soon formed themselves into a new story. One which took the original concept and framed it, contextualized it within a broader framing narrative. I devised a method by which the action would mostly take place in a single room, yet simultaneously be unbound by geography or chronology. My idea was to have a sterile "viewing" space, through which we would come to these wonderfully organic and alive natural moments between a boy and a girl in love. We'd watch as the relationship developed, flowered and finally rotted, all from the perspective of this single room.

Out of this, the first draft of "Alice" was written in December 2008. More of a treatment than a script, it was an extremely stripped down piece, with 5 pages and pretty much no dialogue. The character Nick was pretty much a cypher and Alice was effectively a cliched "perfect woman", worshiped by the footage. As you can see, I don't think much of it now.

In early 2009 I became determined that I would apply for FTI's OOMPF in September and, after a lot of deliberation, chose my script/treatment of "Alice". It seemed to me to be something which could be achieved for $5000.00 and potentially offered something not only emotionally raw, but visually stunning. It needed a lot of work though.

What followed was an intensive four month period of going off and on the script. At times hating it, at times being very pleased with it. Finally, I hit upon the idea of infusing the ideas I'd developed following my experiences with a failed relationship, creating what is basically the formal narrative for "Alice(remix)". I wanted to interrogate the notions I'd had of 'rewriting my past', pretty much attacking my own ideas and demonstrating how these sorts of thoughts can lead to unhealthy and even frightening conclusions. I tried to make the whole thing less conceptual and more anchored in the interactions of the two leads, humanising the thing and taking away from just being a cold thinkpiece. It was at this point I thought to incorporate John Cassavetes' "hand-held improvisation" technique (as seen in film such as "Shadows" and "Faces"). I thought this would not only provide a solid base of sympathetic interactions between Nick and Alice, but would also provide a clearer delineation between the reality of the footage and reality of the room.

With what I felt was a decent idea, I began gathering all evil to me. I mean... I started hunting for people who'd be interested in helping bring my ideas to the screen...

Elements In The Mix: The Crew For "Alice(remix)"

Before I start regaling you with the epic tale of how this film managed to find its way into production, I want to let you know some basic fact about the film and the awesome crew we've managed to assemble.

THE FILM

As detailed in the little info blurb on the right hand side of this blog, "Alice(remix)" is a psycho-drama about relationships. It's also an exploration of the necessity of emotional pain in healthy human consciousness, and how a denial or attempt to psychologically paper over this pain can be seen as a fundamentally dangerous and grotesque act.

"Alice(remix)" stars the very talented Mr. StJohn Cowcher (who has recently performed in such Blue Room plays as "The Bearskinner" and "A Reptile Dreamed") as the central character Nick Baly, a video artist who tries to cope with the chaos caused by the girl he loves abandoning him by turning to his art.

Miss. Gita Bezard (a member of Duckhouse Theatre Group) also stars as Alice Parker, the girl who Nick has lost and who he resurrects via his old recorded footage of their time together.

The film will paradoxically take place in one location and several simultaneously. Through the footage that Nick watches and captures to his hard-drive, we are taken to small moments all throughout the couple's relationship. We jump back and forward in time, across landscapes and memories, finding the core of their temporarily crossed lives etched into these tiny reels of digital tape.

THE CREW

I am incredibly happy with the brilliant crew we've managed to assemble for "Alice(remix)" and I can proudly say without hesitation that it's the best I've ever put together.

We have:

Mr. Nikit Doshi as our producer,

Mr. Jacob Holmes-Brown as our Assistant Director,

Mr. Arthur Bienkowski as our Director of Photography,

Miss. Monique Wajon as our Production Designer,

Miss. Xoe Baird as our Sound Designer,

Mr. Donovan Desouza as our Editor,

Mr. Sam Winzar as our RED Camera Operator

As well as a vast host of other equally talented crew-members who have all signed up to help bring this movie to life. I'm extremely grateful for all of them in having the confidence in both my script and my direction to become a part of this crew and to offer their not inconsiderable talents to this project. I of course owe them all a stake of my eternal soul and a few of my children. A toll I will be only to happy to pay when the time comes...

Storyboards

Let's start with some pretty things. This small sample of some of our incredible conceptual/storyboard art was done by the very talented Miss Samya Herath. It's become one the touchstones of the visual style and look of "Alice(remix)". It was done in preparation for our application for the One Off Member's Production Fund at FTI. We didn't end up getting the funding, but we did get some amazing watercolours!

Introductions

Hi there!

As the title of this blog would lead you to (correctly) believe, this is a production diary of my new short film "Alice(remix)". Over the course of the next few months I'll be writing a series of updates, letting you all know how the film is progressing and what we're currently up to. In order to keep you interested, I've skipped all that boring pre-pre-production stuff where we spend ages looking for funding and let you know whether we've succeeded or failed. This diary has been started smack bang in the heart of actual pre-production, with only seven days until principal photography begins! It's going to be a whirlwind tour and hopefully I'll be able to give you lots of great info about our creative process and the challenges we'll face trying to get this monstrosity of a movie out the cinematic door!

"Alice(remix)" is a psycho-drama which takes place after a failed relationship. Nick Baly, a troubled video artist, has just been dumped by his long-time girlfriend, Alice. He thought they'd be together forever, she thought otherwise. Seeking some way of salving his gaping emotional wounds, Nick turns to his art, constructing a new installation piece from old footage of himself and Alice. Soon, however, the project begins to take on troubling dimensions, threatening to not only destroy Nick's past, but obliterate his present...