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.
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