The White Feather ascends

I figured that if I already had a blog I might as well keep using it - even though the subject of the blog is now changing to my new film: The White Feather. Set in October, 1914, it is a sweeping tale of betrayal and heroism using love and the first world war as thematic pivots. Two Australian brothers love two sisters; men are volunteering for war, but one brother does not want to go to war for a country he knows nothing about. He gets a white feather - the sign of cowardice -and thinks it is from his girlfriend. Off he goes to war. But it wasn't her at all... tune in for the next installment. What we need now in money - as usual. I will accept cheques, gold dust and promissory notes.

Update: did a comprehensive budget for Feather today - scarey stuff. Not to be intimidated I also started a film studio today. Seeking capitalisation of 4 million dollars. Roll up, roll up, people, best five bucks you ever spent.

Vindication of sorts

Yowie has just won Best Cinematography and An Award of Merit at the Los Angeles Cinema Film Festival of Hollywood! Of course I'm very chuffed. Overseas vindication means so much more in Australia where the cultural cringe means we don''t value anything that has not had the stamp of approval from a northern hemisphere big brother - usually the UK or the US. At the same time I'm a little down because we realise we can't take up the offer from the UK channel to show Yowie for seven years in ten countries because of the Chewbakka problem and Lukasfilm. Still film festivals will have to do - which is OK. Today I'm off to a funding meeting which may result in some money for The White Feather.

Just finishing off a 700 page novel and tried to get it to an agent who seemed keen till she realised its length. Oh no, she said, can't look at anything over 100000 words! Well, mine is 250000, lady. Size matters. Maybe I'll have to go the dreaded route of.. self-publishing (Aaaargh!). Not that desperate yet. we shall see. These things all act synergistically: If Yowie and White Feather are successful then an agent is more likely to look at prose. Methinks.

Halfway along life's path I found myself in a dark wood

The Yowie seems to have moved into a new phase. As soon as she poked her hairy nose from behind the curtain the public and others have responded. A UK short film TV channel has picked up Yowie and wants to run it for up to seven years in all sorts of countries. Excellent. We took no money for this, but ask for donations to breast cancer research both explicitly and in the run-off credits of the movie. The dilemma is whether to put it on the social networking internet: Youtube, Vimeo, Twitter, and so on. I have heard amazing stories of people putting stuff on Youtube and getting offers from Hollywood. Maybe they're just stories. Still, there are some fantastic short films on Youtube: check out Butterfly Circus if haven't already.
Last week we went to scope out Bungendore railway station: about 1850, stuck forlornly on a plain. Getting closer i could see it was pretty dilapidated: great holes in the platform and piles of pigeon poo everywhere. Still, it may do well as our 1914 location for the next film, to be shot on a Canon 5-D. While we were there a 1903 steam engine turned up with two carriages! Fantastic! They said they'd love to be in the film. Definitely a sign. Snake-handling follows. I feel like Dante being chased by a leopard up a falling scree.

The Yowie emerges...

So this is how it goes: a film festival is advertised, we send off the Yowie and hope for the best. Well it's working, people! There is a short film festival broking site called withoutabox and they tell me of all the upcoming film festivals. For the privilege of pressing a few buttons on my computer the Yowie is entered online. Disadvantages are the quite onerous sign-up process (lots of info needed) and the fact that every time you enter your credit card is stung between 30 and 50 dollars US. Ouch! My credit card is squealing and covered in stings. But onwards and upwards: the Yowie has been selected for the finals of the The Canberra Short Film Festival. My home town! Yes, I know it's not Tribeca but it's a start. There may even be a prize. I'm holding thumbs, and so is the yowie herself. She is also entered in Whistler, Hollywood, Beverley Hills, European, Sundance and good old Flickerfest in Bondi beach! Should score at least one of those. All the potential kudos may help generate funds for The White Feather next year.
?...continued/ - We've just come from the finals. What can I say without it sounding like a joke? So, with a straight face, here goes: the winner of the open national category was about a guy torturing another guy in a Tasmanian swamp. Not kidding. Winner of the Canberra section (ours) was a guy who writes angry letters to people who misspell his name on envelopes of junk mail. Go figure. Any, enough sour grapes. One thing I can say is I enjoyed the People's Choice awards in all three categories - what a relief, I was beginning to think I was weird. The people have spoken....

A Yowie dawn

After finally getting everyone together in one place and in time sequential order the final editing was done, including the audio striping, and the offline version 'put in the can.' However, this is really only the start of another process: getting the movie into different formats and out into the big world to film festivals and government bodies: to use it as leverage for the next movie. That's right, folks, the next movie! What, are you mad, man - after what you've been through??!? Yes, but this time it's going to be different (that's what they all say). I have been toying with an idea for a short film for ages: to be done mostly in flashback, as part of an 'interview' that runs the whole movie. With a few twists along the way. It's a script and some costume designs at the moment. Watch this space.

Back to "The Yowie." I heard that Cannes only does premiers, and it seems we've missed it for this year anyway. So I really would prefer to premier it here in Australia instead - forget Cannes - and see what the reaction is. There is a short film festival in Canberra soon and I'm trying to get everything done before the final entry date, which closes really soon. So there is no destination, only a journey -(other sententious claptrap coming soon). Seriously, there is always something new to be done or thought about in the world of movie making, resting on the laurels is not possible, especially when there are none to rest on. But people who've seen the film seem to like it, so there's hope. Thanks to all the team.

We entered The Yowie on a sort of central hub site called withoutabox; their job then is to inform you of upcoming film festivals and then farm out your details and your film to the convenors of the festivals. This is really convenient as it saves you having to laboriously apply to each and every one. There is only one problem: It seems to be impossible to upload the film to their site. I tried for three days to do it: after hours of 'loading' nothing appeared in the progress bar and the site informed me my 'video box' is empty. "Contact us for support" they say: I did and was told they could not help me, but someone else who'd had the same trouble was able to do it after converting their film to an MP4 in iTunes (!!). So I tried. I converted it to mobile phone format called m4V (the only option on my mac) Did it work? NO! I tried sending a hard copy DVD to Whistler - they told me it's region 4 and they can't view it - they need region 0 apparently, and they won't go and look at the film online at www.definitionfilms.com/yowie. Their excuse? Oh we have too many films to look at. Very unhelpful. And so we persist, frogs against the dawn (or is that boats against the stream??)

Two forward, one back

The weather in the Sydney area starts to cool in late March. With this cooling comes the rain - on and off and fairly unpredictable. I started to get anxious as March dragged on. Then J called and said 'we're on for March 13th' and I had to rearrange my life again to get up there and do my Yowie thing, as well as pay for everything and coordinate with the others. I was starting to run out of friends to stay with, but my old friend and colleague A, a fellow artist and doctor, said sure there's a bed available as one of my daughter's has left home and the other is about to, so come on down. A is a very interesting guy, apart from his medical work he also has a masters in film and is an innovative and dynamic artist. He goes up to Bali with sketches and gets local craftsmen there to carve big statues for him in what looks like Paulonia wood, then brings them back to Australia and exhibits them. They are very zany and post-modern, drawing on everything from ancient greek mythology to pop culture. I have one.

Back to the shoot: I had to drag out the Chewbacca suit and the Yowie suit and repair them both; the Yowie suit in particular had split all over the place and was covered in bits of bracken and gum leaves. the fur was very matted and I found to my shock that a bottle of glue had spilled on the trip home from the main shoot and leaked all over the face area, requiring lots of cutting of big chunks of hair out of the head. Potentially disastrous, and lots more work. Luckily I had saved a lot of fur and got to work with thinning scissors (my best friends) and glue. The crossbow also needed serious repair. After a speedy trip on Friday after work in the general practice, I got to A's place quite early and we interrogated a bottle of wine and the movie world fairly closely (joined by several mosquitoes) before a marvellous dinner with A and his wife. I didn't sleep very well, worried about the shoot, and got up quite early. A had already taken off for work so I met his wife (also A) at the coffee shop over the road, ate some Bircher muesli, and got going. I had to be in Bondi junction by 8.30 to meet the star, young Kevin in the movie, who was about to go on a state-wide drama tour to high schools. We met up fairly quickly using cell phones and then I turned on the GPS and got up into the Blue Mountains via the Lane Cove tunnel quite quickly.

It felt good to see the main crew again: J, C the DOP and D the Ist AD. The usual suspects. Luckily there was no rain, though the scattered clouds threatened to dump on us and the light played havoc with shooting. But we got it all done: lots of punching on the ground (kevin attacks the thugs) rushing through the bush and punching (the Yowie attacks the thugs) and then the Yowie holding the Chewie head at the very end and getting all excited. Took all day, though we took a long break at lunch and all went to the Kurrajong hotel for a 'slap-up lunch' and beers. The 1st had persuaded his attractive son-and-girlfriend up, and they were troopers; doing a new scene in which Chewie pulls a tent off the two of them. Also J the director was a man peeing behind a tree - the acting left a lot to be desired.

I dropped K off in Bellevue hill where he was staying with a friend, then turned the car for home. Got home pretty late. The drive to Canberra is not attractive at night: featureless except for very big trucks. In daylight it's a lot better, especially in early winter mornings when the mist lifts off the cow-mooching fields.

It now became a process, almost of attrition, but certainly lengthy, of ingesting the new footage (taken on C's still camera which had a movie function), then re-editing it into the old stuff and then checking for pace, arcs of change, and so on. J did a splendid job on this with n the editor at Deepend. I got very alarmed when the people who'd agreed to do the music said they'd not been told I was doing songs for the piece. I couldn't get hold of J for several days and my paranoia took hold, suspecting that my music was being edged out of the movie. This was intolerable for me: my vision of the piece was so strongly bound up with the songs that I could not envision it any other way. I worked out the production could be finished off in Canberra, where I'd located lots of skilled people. I also spoke to a top entertainment lawyer who is a personal friend. The result was me sending a nasty email, and then immediately regretting it. But once you've pressed that 'send' button! It upset J a lot - he'd had no intention of excluding my little songs. The reason I hadn't been able to contact him was that he'd been on a remote shoot - this info had been passed on to a producer but I was never told!

After several weeks a final visual cut was ready. With some scepticism and worry I logged into the production house's dropbox and watched it. I was delighted: it was all there now and the story was far clearer than before. Still no Yowie breasts, but on reflection I think that's OK - the gender of the beast is in doubt, and that sort of adds to the mystery. The Yowie looked suitably wild and chunky and capable of beating up the thugs. Its tail also took it away from a Chewbacca clone, which is important, as the face was still only seen fragmented and momentarily. My songs were there and added an original feel to the atmosphere. Credits look good, and I don't think we've left anyone out. My weird ska song goes well over these and gives a sort of funky energy to the end of the film.

Then another minor disaster: somehow the sound files had been buggered - I think it can only have been during the production house's ingestion originally. the poor editor will now have to synchronise sound from some other files for the whole movie (I don't understand the technical details). this will take two weeks or more. Then the whole thing goes somewhere else for colour grading and final audio striping. I'm going around trying to get quotes for DVD reproduction now.

A week or so ago I had another thought: what about Chewbacca? He is the property of Lucas film, and we haven't got permission! I had thought, in my vague way, that he had become a sort of generic part of popular culture and so anyone could use him. Well they can, but not for commercial gain - you can hire a Chewbacca suit from a licensed fancy dress place and go to a party, but you can't make a film showing him and then charge money for people to see it. So I wrote to them, explaining we were essentially an amateur and unpaid crew who'd made a little 15 minute film, and could we please get permission to use Chewie? No, came the reply, they wanted more details. I explained the story. Well, the upshot is that we now have an agreement from Lucas to use the film, but only for film festivals. This stymies any sale to TV and so on. Bad news for the investors, but it can't be helped. The possessor of intellectual rights, though they have millions and millions of dollars, have to be protected, I suppose, from penniless amateurs like us. I can see their point.. sort of. I am reading Michael Palin's wonderful diaries and he describes taking a food company on for using the Lumberjack song, so I can understand the feelings of the original artist in wanting their work protected, and not abused, either for banal and inappropriate use (such as breakfast cereal ads) or for direct commercial gain.

So where are we at? We have a final visual, with credits locked off. We have a balls-up in the sound, but that is getting fixed. we have a wonderful offer of free music, but the poor muso's will have to wait for the sound to get fixed. Now nearly five months after principal photography, I am a little impatient. Production houses, understandably, view our work as minor and so scheduling gets squeezed in between their bigger jobs. On the other hand, i can't wait. I've written two more short films and quarter of a novel since January - during my yearly manic phase, and will reconsider them and judge them as rubbish during my winter depression phase. With any luck, the highs and lows will cancel each other out to produce something reasoned and gutsy by next spring.

Not to bore you, but... we need Pickups!

I won't laboriously detail every aspect of the shoot. It went pretty well, but we ran out of time and money. Some sponsors didn't really come through for us and the resort wanted us out by Friday noon. So that put the kybosh on shooting there all Friday. Anyway we found a bracken-filled valley and did most of we had to on the last day. Plus an absolutely splendid golden rock shelf above a classic Blue Mountains vista - the hero rock! I suddenly conceived the idea that one of the characters needs to hold up a large grey fish at some point, so the runner went off to the nearest town with $50 to get a fish. She returned with a large mullet, but I never saw any change. Never saw her again either. Fair enough, though she did get a petrol voucher! Anyway, we shot until it was pretty dark, then scooted back up the fire trail to a stack of pizza boxes delivered by some intrepid pizza company. We all said our goodbyes and swore to meet again on the red carpet. My family stayed on overnight and packed up the paraphernalia - huge amounts of stuff/My trailer was almost as loaded for the trip back to Canberra as it had been going up! Then I think most of us went and had some sort of Xmas holiday. I took my family to NZ for 10 days and that was very nice. On returning I contacted J the director - yes the files had all been 'ingested' into the computer and the post-production house and the editor was about to start. two weeks later and nothing had happened. He was holiday, he was ill, he was in Fiji. I wasn't clear what the story was. Eventually he turned up and by some miracle got together with the very busy director (now back at his real job). They put together 12 minutes of footage. I was disappointed. Story points had not been nailed, in my opinion. I went up to Sydney and sat in on another editing session. Pace was variable - we cut a lot of stuff out. The rough cut looked OK but we were still lacking some vital shots. Pickups are needed! Groan. This means going back up to the mountains and shooting some more stuff. Luckily not much. But the costumes are badly damaged (the Yowie needs new nipples for one thing)and continuity might be a problem. Also we can't afford to get most of the actors back. Compromises are made and we're on for the first dry weekend we can find.

Tutti Fruitti and all that

I got up and carefully placed all the props that would be needed for the morning's shoot by the door. The crew were shooting at Tutti Fruitti, a little fruit shop cum cafe all on its own in a field of fruit trees and vines, just a little up the road from Madison's. (Kylie and I had scoped out this place over a year ago and got permission to film there). Hot and cold breakfast was well underway - I got the sense of a juggernaut having started rolling - nothing I could do to halt it or even control it from now on - and that's OK! I went into the kitchen: Neil and Shirley-Anne were hard at work. Shirley-Anne is our other marvelous NZ friend who agreed to cook. She let Neil go with me for the getting of the minivan.

We drove down the mountain and found Freeman's Reach, a typical little Hawkesbury town, and the garage, run by a cheerful Indian couple who confessed they watched Bollywood movies but turned the sound off when the songs came along - and they wanted to make movies in Australia too! The minivan was actually pretty big - a 14 seater. Neil and Rose drove my car back while I drove it back to Tutti Fruitti where shooting was well underway. The scenes were on different days in the script, which meant that the shop had to be completely redressed between takes. One scenario calls for an almost bare and gloomy shop pre-Yowie hoax - and the other has the shop filled with cheerful Yowie merchandise once the hoax has got underway. So the art department and I had to work overtime. Our art department were very professional and photographed everything beforehand so they could replace every thing when we left. A very chic journo turned up from The Hawkesbury Gazette and snapped away at everything. We gave her a press release - can't wait to read the article.

After lunch back at Madison's we started to film in the caravan; hauled to the site on a flatbed truck by Kylie's uncle. Its wheels were kaput - we could not move it at all. The windows were blacked out and 'Bill' got to reminisce in there with a bottle of whiskey (the director preferred the art department's fake bourbon to my bright red bottle of 'Get Younger' Nigerian scotch). Then we moved to a huge sloping area of rock out beyond the Boer goat paddock. Here we filmed scene one (the dream - not a flashback) where Bill 'sees' Marge. Marie had been dragooned into playing Marge and stood on the rock looking wistful. Then we had a scene where Kevin/Chewbacca screams in frustration at Bill. This went spectacularly well as a storm was brewing and the late afternoon golden light contrasted well with the darkening sky and low angle shots. With the last light I had to get into the Yowie suit and throw the Chewbacca head around as I leap up the rocks (final scene). I couldn't see a thing as the eyes fogged up. It was also the first time for years that I'd worn contact lenses! It was virtually dark, and the suit split every time I moved up the rock. I hoped it looked good on film cause it sure didn't feel good in there. The last of the packing up was done in complete darkness; the crew coming up through the bush to a little track where the cars were parked. I was parked up in the paddock beyond the gate and stayed there with my headlights shining into the back of the lighting truck as the boys packed it all up.

Dinner was a marvel of Italian and Greek dishes, salads and desserts (Shirley-Anne's husband is Greek). Everyone was tired but elated. Next day was going to be huge. I left, though many of the others stayed and partied; meantime I spent several hours repairing the Yowie and Chewbacca suits before bed. Marie, Neil and Shirley Anne cleaned up the common room and kitchen.

The gathering...

I woke at five and ate the rest of the airline biscuits in the little basket by the kettle. Probably I should have brought up some food! At 7.30 Callan the DOP came and got me. Back into the bush in the director's 4WD: we sorted out a few more locations. The heat and the general logistics of getting the cast and crew to some of these glades and slopes was starting to really worry me, but the director and AD were onto it: they had alternatives for everything, which is always a good idea. Film-making is contingent on so many things: weather, time, people's schedules (one of out main actors had to leave at 3.30pm every day as he was taking part in 'Taming of the Shrew' down in the Sydney Botanic gardens); the needs of various proprietors (the resort wanted us out on Thursday night; which meant shooting all Friday in their bush property was now out - playing havoc with the schedule) and the shop we were going to shoot in could only give us a few hours. And so on.

The bush is really quite dangerous: between the trees in the more wooded areas the sandy soil is covered is a deep litter of leaves, bark and sharp branches. Going through there in bare feet is completely out of the question. On the slopes there are small bluffs of sandstone about five metres high which run along the contour line, each separated from the next one below by a an intervening strip of steep bush. Everywhere you look - and you've got to look! - there are biting ants and other creepies, including snakes (we saw two). One thing is for sure, there is no way a real yowie would have long fur, as it's just impossible to push your way through thick NSW bush without it getting caught on everything and festooned with gum leaves, bits of bracken and stray bark. Then there are the pests that seem magnetically attracted to fur - ants, spiders and flies!

We popped out of the bush on one of the many tracks and went to find a good coffee. A little cafe place near Madison's resort run by a genial older man and his bevy of female helpers supplied this, as well as a large bottle of ice-cold local apple juice, which I took with us. We drove down to the pub and checked out the verandah. We returned to the cafe and got meat pies. People started to arrive in the afternoon. Neil (a friend from NZ who had agreed to be one half of the chef team) and Marie and the girls arrived late it the afternoon, with my trailer piled high with food and other goods. Neil had built a sort of wall round the trailer with bits of blue board and this created a deep box in which to pack things. He prepared a vast spread in the early evening while the actors, J and I did a read-through in the gazebo above the dam. This went well - the actors all gel together well. Later on in the big common room J gave a little speech - minimal, as it should be. I looked around: there were about 22 people there, most of whom I didn't know! Assistants to assistants, friends and hangers on maybe: I will discover their functions in the next day or so. They all seem very young. Filming starts at 0730 tomorrow!

Still very hot at 10 at night. Didn't dare open the gauze doors though for fear of mozzies. An anaemic fan stirred the air weakly (expect Peter Lorre behind the potted palm). Our cabin is scattered with bags and boxes of props - each labelled for scene numbers. Neil is crashing on the sofa bed. I set the alarm for early as i had to get down the hill to Freeman's Reach, a village near the Hawkesbury where I was due to pick up a minivan the next day at 0700.

The filming

On 5.12.2009 I was up at 0530. I had a helluva day ahead, and was planning to use my wife's small car so she could come up later with my bigger car and the trailer, jammed with food for cast and crew, children, chef and various props. Loaded to the roof, I finally left Canberra at around nine. I carefully covered the two crossbow props, as I had found out they were illegal (yes, even replica's with no function) in all of Australia except.. Queensland! I drove straight through to Castle Cove, with near disastrous effects on my bladder. Got there at 1pm. In Castle Cove is Mal Green Sound studio, a basement recording studio in the home of Mal Green, who was drummer for Split Enz for ten years. He'd just returned from the UK, with a heavy cold! We laid down the tracks in double quick time, and I got out of there at 3.30pm. I wanted to get over the bridge before the traffic started getting bad.

Got to R and K's home in Tamarama and had a few drinks with them before R walked me to his favourite hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant in Bondi beach. A pizza and a large bowl of mussels were washed down with a good red wine. I hardly slept that night and took off quite early to get back to Mal Green's, where he'd laid down the tracks onto 16-bit CD for me. From there I had to strike out across country to get to route 40 which was the road to Windsor and the Blue Mountains. The north shore's certainly got busier since I lived there more than a decade ago. I made it across to Lane Cove Road and then to route 40. Then I headed west, though no longer a young man.

Got to Madison's resort in the Blue Mountains quite early: a well-laid out series of cabins on long lawn, with a central common room and indoor pool. I found J the director in the cabin next door, frazzled from his busy job, and storyboarding like crazy into several large children's sketch pads. I left him to it, but not before showing him some props and playing the 2 songs to him. I checked out the alpaca herd and the rickety jetty into the dam. I phoned home: a dog had killed one of the chooks. I went round the cabins and met D the first AD, and C the DOP. We all went on a recce trip into the bush. The road was a 4WD track. I was sceptical: how much time were we going to take getting the big camera truck around these sites? It was nearly 40 degrees also - my mind was boggling thinking about the water needed to keep everyone hydrated. Spectacular country though. The film will look good.

Later we all went to the Kurrajong hotel. five of us: J, me, C, D and his partner N (script supervisor and continuity) all chose the Fisherman's Basket! A giant pile of batter and stuff that may once have come from the sea. Bed to a chorus of frogs and bright Orion overhead. Tomorrow things will really get going. Money's pouring out of my pockets like water. Not as if it's easy come, either! Still, 'the film's the thing, wherein to catch the conscience of the Yowie.' Take care of the art and the pennies will take wing of themselves. Note to self: stop mangling idioms.

Raising the steaks

Last day of work, so tonight (Friday) I'll have to pack like a maniac and get everything in my wife's tiny car. I leave tomorrow for Sydney, where I'll spend Saturday afternoon in a recording studio doing two songs for the production. My wife will follow later in the big car with the trailer full of food for the cast and crew, who now number about 30! Everyone, it seems, has an assistant or two - I think the Yowie should get an assistant, just a small one, who could attend to her wardrobe and catering needs ('I'll just have a banana, thanks - Oh, and did you get the carpet shampoo?'). Scheduling hiccups have been more or less ironed out, though one of the days will be 12 long hours on set. The cast did a read-through last night and it all seemed to go well - or at least so I'm told, because I haven't actually met any of them yet. My friend N from New Zealand is flying over tomorrow to help with catering. A small newspaper in the Blue Mountains has heard of the project and wants to do an article. We'll have to keep the Yowie away from them though, as we don't want to reveal her in her full glory. Except on this blog, of course, oh lucky readers. I think we have all the props. A couple of scenes may be a bit spartan; the art department asked if I had had a newspaper printed up, a faked, complete newspaper, so Bill can 'read it' on camera without copyright issues. I'd never thought of such a thing and anyway it would be far too expensive. I suggested a 1956 Illustrated London News instead - being more than 50 years old no-one can complain about copyright - blow me down when I opened the 1956 ILN I just happened to have and there was a full article on 'Candidates for the Yeti' with pictures and all: a bear, a langur, and so on. Bill reading this with interest would really fit well with the story. We have primed a few extras to turn up in the pub at 8am and pretend it's a jolly evening - they've got to have Yowie Tshirts, cameras.. and zinc on their noses. A wonderful friend of ours who owns a limo company has agreed to take people up and down the mountain - talk about arriving in style! Not me though, just the writer, folks, ignore me please and get on with your important business - realising the vision.

The skin of our teeth

We have been talking to some experts in the industry, and according to them we probably do not have to conform with the onerous demands of a big production because we are under 15 minutes. We had been told we needed all sorts of documentation and contracts and so on. Anyway, it now feels like a threshold has been crossed and the rest is a done deal. Though we still haven't cast our major Aboriginal Actress - she's a pivotal part so we're getting worried. I went up Red Hill with my daughter Rose today looking for a kangaroo carcase to pose the Yowie over for a new Youtube video. Saw live roo's but no dead ones. As we came off the hill a security guard gave us a hard look because we had parked at the back of Telstra - so we gave him a little wave. Made a fake bottle of Yowie oil ('the good oil') today for a funny new montage that J the director has come up with. At least the coffee cups, Tshirts, hats, costumes, crossbows, whiskey bottles, (and so on) are all done. I am exhausted. But of course I can't afford to be; nothing's happened yet! There are some creative tensions which are quite understandable. Naturally the visual people want the most spectacular golden vista's imaginable - the dramatic types want darkness and tension - the producers want everything set in concrete and time-limited - the director and writer are still tweaking the script - and so on. Watch this space.

UPDATE: We've cast our Geraldine character. This is a breakthrough. And everyone's now fixed up for insurances, we think. Accommodation is more or less arranged and food is allocated for a week. My friend N is flying over form NZ to help with the vittles. He'll be ably assisted by another NZ friend and by my wife and daughters. My daughters originally had speaking parts in the movie and were each going to be clutching a toy. That was several years ago, and the eldest is now a teenager. So much for toys and the passage of time!

Bigger than Ben who?

I started by trying to get a few good people together to make this movie. They in turn have attracted their friends, and suddenly there's a crack team to take this project to a very high level indeed. I'm not exactly sidelined but I've definitely been given my own little niche - which suits me fine - and let the knowledgeable people do their thing. For weeks it was: F900 or Red camera? do we have the budget for Red? probably not - OK, whose arm can we twist? leg can we pull? back can we scratch? (strange how these are all anatomic terms!) - to get the best deal on the best gear. Various favours and friends are called upon, and suddenly it's all done - we have the Red camera and the award winning team clustered around it. Super. Now what? Well, it's more production meetings and tying up of loose ends. Accommodation is arranged and sandwiches galore are planned, along with barbecues and salads. A beer sponsor is on the counter - yippee! and even a wine sponsor. Most people have waived their fees, which is great - all for the love of film and a week in the Blue mountains spinning yarns over a few red wines.

In the last few weeks I have made: two crossbows, about 15 Tshirts; ten coffee cups; three facial wounds; an orbital contusion (an early black eye), various envelopes, cards and photo's, and refined two monkey suits. Next week I'm going to get contact lenses - Yowies generally don't wear glasses. I saw a wonderful Yeti suit by Weta studios (check out 'NZ rescue yeti' on Youtube) and asked if I could hire it - a mere $15000 a week. I said thanks, I'll do my own. So far the Yowie suit's cost me about $1000.

Deejax voox, mes amis

Summer has rolled around again - we are promised thunderstorms this evening but it's absolutely cloudless right now in Canberra. Packed up my studio today - slight feelings of regret, but its purpose as far as Yowie goes is over - I've used it to do all of 'Kevin's artwork'. I was sent an art props spreadsheet by Kylie and looking at it I realise I still have a lot to get done - tomorrow I will go searching the Kingston markets from an old cricket bat and transistor radio. These are getting hard to find! Today the producer, production manager, DOP and Director are all going in a car together up the Blue Mountains to do location scouting. Hmm, hasn't this sort of thing happened before?? About a year ago!? Anyway, hope they don't fight! Marie paid the deposit on the accommodation today; a grand's worth, so the whole thing better not fall over again. Producers and directors seem to have radically different personalities. This evening I will go with my children up Red Hill and do another fake Yowie video - we'll see if we can find a kangaroo carcase and do a 'vicious Yowie eats innocent kangaroo' scenario - then put it on Youtube. I am afraid it will be extremely hot when we film; with me in a yowie suit now heavily padded with extra fur to make it look more convincing. Probably we'll do it early in the morning, and I think the yowie scenes can all be done in one day.

The script is now tighter and more inclusive - every character gets a payoff, including the poor female Yowie, and the whole thing is now 14 minutes. Considering it was once 47 minutes I think I've done pretty well, though the audience will have to pay attention to get every segue and nuance, whereas before it was quite leisurely. Too leisurely. A lot of people have rallied round and offered cheap deals or free work on the raw footage, which is very generous of them. Last week I met with the head of screen australia ACT division, and she suggested we may be able to get money from the government for post-production marketing. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath, having had no help from government ever, for anything. In fact you have to really successful before they give you any money - when in fact you don't need support any more. Still, she was very positive and energetic and something good might happen this time.

I had a brief look at their website. As an example take 'permission for shooting on location.' For this you need to approach three groups right off the bat: the land owner, the local council and the ACT government. Then of course there are fees, deposits, local council officer on the shoot, traffic management plan, waste management plan, health and safety plan, evidence of vast public liability insurance, etc, etc. This is before you actually get permission, which is always conditional. It's enough to drive you mad. This is why there are only two kinds of films: crappy short films (needing no permission 'cause they're filmed on a rainy afternoon in your granny's bedroom) and features, in which a vast army of people within your film company's structure can take on the vast army of bureaucrats opposing them. Nothing in between. Very sad. Mustn't harp on (I always say that after I've been harping on). But we're closer than ever now: actors, DOP, accommodation, some permissions, props and script. What more could a first-time filmmaker want? Footage in the can, that's what.

the knife edge

Today I think I finished the script. That is, I listened to the director's comments this morning on the phone and immediately made the suggested changes. I always do this - probably because I like to react to comments by changing the script before I forget my thoughts! Producer is upset because director has lagged behind with assessment and comment on the script. Fair enough. He's a busy bloke. I still regard this project as being on a knife edge, and I feel pretty awful for my faithful sponsors (shareholders!) because they've been waiting three years or more to see this thing done. If it's not done by end of 2009 I'm going to give the money back. I'm sick of being let down.

I've redone the headgear - doesn't actually look that different but it's a lot cooler to wear and fits more tightly. We are going to computer graphic (CG) in some eyes and maybe some other stuff to make the Yowie look better. I've finalised the Tshirt and the coffee cup designs: lots of work for me but every dollar saved means better production value on the digital stock itself. So I'm making a lot of the props myself. Now I have to make a convincing looking crossbow! We're ramping up every element; bad guys more badder; monkey more monkier; funky more funkier.

The author of the definitive book on Yowies, Tony Healy, is coming round tomorrow to check out the costume. Hope he's pleased. We have had to come clean on youtube and admit that our little video's are faked. There are heaps of fake Bigfoot, Yeti and Yowie vids on Youtube - some of them pretty convincing and others just plain laughable.

Meanwhile, as usual, I'm advancing on all fronts slowly. My third kids' book is in press and I'm thinking of pitching them as an animation series to producers.

yowie rising

I am cautiously optimistic - like a duck on the last day of the hunting season. I added two (natch) large breasts to the Yowie costume a few days ago. Splendid they look, if a little yellow. Nipples are of liquorice. Moreover, I found some wonderful furry foxtails in a leather shop in Bungendore and had to have one for the yowie costume. Mounted low down it gives the illusion of really short legs and a long back in true anthropoid fashion. Not happy with the head though. It still looks essentially like Chewbacca in overall shape and the flowing mullet hairdo (though the face is now truly terrifying). I might just ditch the hair and make a sort of gorilla crewcut instead in salty grey. This would look really authentic and unique. I am enjoying working with fur (Hmm, does that say something about me?). I am inspired to make other costumes and am getting the inklings of some interesting designs. I really was not looking forward to being the Yowie in the heat of December - but my wife suggested we get instead a young friend of ours (same height as me but about 30kg lighter!) who wants to break into movies. Ok, so ya' wanna' break into moviesh, eh? Well, put on the monkey suit and let's see whatya got, kid! And so it goes.

Not shaped for sportive tricks

Well, another disaster averted - or postponed. J the director wanted to recce in Sept and film in January 2010; which would make it eight years since writing the script. We wrote and said not acceptable - so the dates are now: filming in December (the hottest time of the year - exactly when I did not want to be prancing around in the bush wearing a Yowie costume) and pre and post production either side of that. Well it must be, then. Es muss sein. I found an interesting thing on the internet: Vincent Van Gogh's letter of July, 1890 (just before he shot himself - wonder why) mentions an Australian artist named Walpole Brooke with whom he would go out - whether painting or not Vincent doesn't say, though we can infer it was probably painting, as Walpole Brooke was an artist.

Vincent thinks he has potential and mentions that he was brought up in Japan. Intrigued, I google further. In Van Gogh's sketchbook no. 7 is found a visiting card: E Walpole Brooke. Aha. I google E W Brooke in Australian webpages only and come up with an entry saying that not much is known about him (they didn't know of the Vincent connection) but that he did exhibit in Yokohama and study in Europe. Also that he was the son of a minister of lands in the Victorian state government. More Aha. I googled the MP's in the government archive and found the father: John Henry Brooke, MP for Geelong in 1956, who went to Yokohama of all places in 1867 and set up the first foreign language newspaper there: the Japan Daily Herald. Further fascinating things on the internet from the Japan Daily Herald - which in its day was very influential. So I'm on the track on E Walpole Brown, another forgotten artist. On a personal note - I have resigned from the military doctor's post I held - this will leave me more time for creative work. The number of times I've tried this sort of thing before is upwards of five or six. And every time I've been driven back into the arms of general practice by the need to pay the bills. Sigh. I'm getting tired of this process. Still, in a week I'll be freer than I've been for years. Watch this space - but no breath-holding, you might just die... laughing.

This resonates with me...

Walter Pater wrote (The Renaissance):
"At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action. But when reflexion begins to play upon these objects they are dissipated under its influence; the cohesive force seems suspended like some trick of magic; each object is loosed into a group of impressions—colour, odour, texture—in the mind of the observer. And if we continue to dwell in thought on this world, not of objects in the solidity with which language invests them, but of impressions, unstable, flickering, inconsistent, which burn and are extinguished with our consciousness of them, it contracts still further: the whole scope of observation is dwarfed into the narrow chamber of the individual mind. Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of those impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world."

This is like the process of creativity: an impression from without or within leads to a time of reflection - without effort the whole entity is passed through the massive filter of the personality and a new being springs up. Then this new thing must come forth: I disagree with Pater's last sentence - the creation is not kept as a prisoner but displayed. Does it sing, is it both familiar and strange - does it augment the world? If yes, it might be worth something. Films, paintings, poems and other writing - they all fall into this category. I am gearing up for the final acceleration into the period of preproduction on this project. I will keep you posted...

And all the clouds...

Bad news then good news. J the director emailed to say he'd suddenly lost his job - probably a victim of the world economic downturn. Very abrupt. Companies treat their employees in such an inhuman fashion these days - clear your desk and bugger off - no notice needed 'cause you're a subcontractor (for which read: we've made sure you're not an employee so we will have absolutely no obligation towards you). I was devastated, for him as well as for me - he probably wouldn't want to do Yowie now. I facebooked him cautiously. After a couple of days there came a response - yes, I'm on for the Yowie, was a bit down - nothing that a beer wouldn't fix. I replied: Have one for me. Prosit.

I decided to tell J the new director absolutely nothing about the previous director, so that any ideas for the script that J came up with could not in any way be claimed by the previous director as being his ideas. He'd already claimed that he had put significant numbers of ideas into the old script - Kylie and I had then gone carefully through and expunged completely anything that could possibly have been contributed by him - in fact they were few and trivial. Anyway, we'll see what J comes up with in the new Yowie era.

The Winter of my content

Autumn in Canberra is spectacular. Crisp days and trees aflame with colour. Things finally seem set for the making of The Yowie in September. Yippee. I feel so tired of the whole process that it will be an anticlimax. At least that's how I feel now - probably when the camera finally rolls I'll feel great.

Was discussing the whole dreary voyage to realisation that most creatives have to go through with a friend yesterday: what we agreed on was this: in the old days (ah the good old days when everything was in fact pretty stinky) there was no barrier between creatives and the public - creatives did their thing and presented the result to the public - and got booed or cheered. These days the creative offers their pathetic scrap to a whole swag of middle-people: editors and script jockeys, government officials and various failed creatives turned bureaucrats. Look what happens next: the faceless comformists making up this middle earth then pull the work to pieces: is it politically correct? correctly formatted? recycled paper? tick the right boxes? does it offend any one of a huge number of aggrieved minorities? Etc. Assuming it gets the nod, the next step is called 'wearing down the artist.' After a depressing length of time a dismissive approach is made to the artist: Dear X, we have assessed your work "The pathetic scrap" and one of our junior editors would like to discuss it with you. She/He will shortly be writing at sometime in the future a 1000 page critique of your work and sending it to you. You then have fourteen seconds to reply with a new draft of your, ahem, work. Please bear in mind we receive 13 thousand similar such scraps every day and we may never actually proceed to the next stage, while reserving the right to plagiarise your work and, if not plagiarise, then bowlderize, homogenize, destroy, multilate, obfuscate, and other reduce your pathetic scrap to an even more pathetic scrap that may or may not ever get in front of an audience. Yrs, etc. PS, then there is the issue of funding. Ha Ha Ha.

And so it goes. Sigh. Nothing original about all this - I just had to have a rave.