OK. I’m going to try this. I could go to the agencies, and still might – but what we’re looking for is a 50+ female to play a job-tired, confused academic. As we’re doing a bit of impro in this film, it’d be great if we could get an actress who kind of knows a bit of aca-speak (academic speak) or has spent a bit of / some time at a university because this character is buried in-the-system and doesn’t really know any other reality. Read the rest of this entry »
My plan to laboriously log all the tapes dove out the window when I started looking at the footage today. I’ve digitised the first act (roughly) and almost immediately started hacking into it. Read the rest of this entry »
Like the previous character run, this scene with Anna Bennetts playing Peta – Jillian’s highly strung and pious sister (yet to be uploaded) is a scene which doesn’t appear in the film – although it approximates some events. Read the rest of this entry »
We now have about 20 minutes in the can. Nearly finished the 1st act. Lauri des Marais has been going great guns on the music and Anna Bennetts and Anna Brockway have really been working well together. Mum has also put in a really good performance, too. This will be a very strange and deep film. But that’s what we’re into here at chez “Various Ages” dot com.
This is one of the first scenes I shot (on my stills camera – Canon Powershot S3IS) so we could see how Anna Brockway moves around on screen. She’s very dynamic and we need to know what she does with thingss like edge of frame etc. Read the rest of this entry »
Phil & I did a location recce today for next week’s shoot. You can see the stills here. I’ve uploaded this info to give Lauri, Phil and the actors a sense of how this film is going to come across visually. With low-budget stuff, you kind of have to go with what’s there as there’s (usually) a lot of dialogue to take the place of interesting viscerality (not a bad thing). Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday I get to audition Mum for the role of, well, Mum in the film. I’m so pleased about the way all this is all turning out. The outline is awesome and, unlike its much-more-expensive cousin, Beware The Stingray, it’s an easy film to do. Phil and I decided to make this without money because we want to get back to why we’re in this business. Trish is a poor me kind of person who is in and out of hospital. She sees her live-in daughter as a burden. This should be fun . . .
Despite my busy days earning the much coveted Australian dollar, beavering away on websites and marking student work, Phil (god bless his little cotton socks) has been forging a draft of the new script. We are only going to 1st draft on this as the film will be improvised by the actors. We feel we have a pretty strong storyline and 3 talented female actors ready to go. There are no men in the film – other than those heard on telephones, background TV and radio. This is strictly a Women Only venture. We have even solicited the services of a talented experimental musician Lauris des Marais who has agreed to score the soundtrack from her Boston hideaway. As the winter months approach, I , for one, am very much looking forward to how all this will turn out. Bring on the rain (I hate HD video sunlight).
Well. This will be interesting. We’ve started shooting some mini non-character test scenes to see what the two Annas – Anna Brockway and Anna Bennetts look like during moments alone. I’ll YouTube the best of these sequences as soon as a I get a couple of spare hours. But we’ve also had the weird idea of auditioning Mum to play the part of the two Annas’ grieving mother. I’m going around there next week with Anna Bennetts to see how play go together in an improvised scene. I might also have Anna interview Mum and see how that goes. I’ve done this before – with my Gran and it worked out really well. So – we’ll see abou this hair-brained idea.
Well. It’s early days again, but I’ve started doing some improvisational exercise with Anna Bennetts and, next week, Anna Brockway also. And soon Rose (nee Mckenna). The story has taken some twists and turns, but I’m starting to see the real core of it. The unusual sci-fi engine that is this film. I have a bunch of podcasts I’m about to edit and stick up on Geoffrey – but all that’s by the by. Let’s get the fat lady on the stage.
In October, Dad died after suffering for 9 months with oesophageal cancer and so this film was instantly put on hold. I hail from a close family, so suffice it to say we were devastated and are still feeling the loss. I have been busy with other blogs, recently venturing into the world of music – perhaps as a way of dealing with 2007. I’m happy to report that Phil and I have re-opened this project again and we plan to start shooting some time in the mid-year when the weather cools down. Ironically, Three Women of Various Ages also deals with death and time – but in a light-hearted way. More soon.
I’ve got the actors coming around to do a photo shoot next Saturday. This is kinda like doing things backwards – shooting the actors before we even have a script, but I’ve done it before to great effect. I recently snapped location pics for a Lis Hoffmann doco and they gave her a good sense of her subject as character. She was able to go away and write a really nice script. Then she called me and I shot the film for her! So, if you’re stuck do a photo shoot. It gives the writers a sense of character before they put pen to page and the everybody a sense of the kind of film you’re making. I’ll post the best snaps here and on Flickr.