This is a belated shout-out to my leading lady, Lisa Chappell, who took away the prize for Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Qantas Film & TV Awards for her excellent work on the prime-time TV drama, The Cult.
WELL DONE LISA!
And keep an eye out next week for an exciting announcement about a film festival accepting our short film “Be Careful…”
Stay tuned…
Here’s our entry, updated in the last few days – check it out!
Sigh… the road to hell is paved with good intentions about keeping this blog up-to-date… c’est la vie.
In news since December (date of my last post)
1. Eddie and I parted ways and the music was brilliantly done by Rhombus. They brought real creativity to the job and also an incredibly diligent, reliable and professional work ethic – thanks guys!
2. Lisa Chappell came in and post-synched some dialogue and recorded the vocals of our Paul Kelly song, Be careful what you pray for. Despite being knackered from a full-on theatre show (The Importance of Being Earnest) in which she played a leading role.
3. Matt Aickin, working out of Ant Nevison’s sound studio, did a truly awesome job of the sound design and sound mix. The whole project has been given a huge lift with the addition of music and sound FX, including foley, room background noise, etc, etc.
4. The titles and opening credits were finalised. Big ups to Brenton Cumberpatch for his work. Simple, but very effective titles!
5. The colour grade was done, tweaked, and tweaked again. Thanks to the invaulable input from Dan Wagner, DP, and of course to Paul Lear, the fantastic colourist working out of Images. Again, the often subtle work he did with colour, contrast, light, etc all added up. Taken together it really adds to the emotional impact of the film.
6. Having submitted ‘Be Careful…’ as a work-in-progress, I’ve officially missed out on being selected by the film festivals in Cannes, Edinburgh and London. (Including the Director’s Fortnight and the Critics Week in Cannes.) But I’ve been keeping busy stuffing envelopes and courier packs. I’m waiting to hear back from:
– Melbourne
– Dances with Films
– Palm Springs Short Film Fest
– DC Shorts
– The New Zealand International Film Fest (including the ‘Homegrown’ selections)
– Sidewalk Moving Picture Fest (Birmingham, Alabama)
– Hawaii International Film Fest
– Hollywood Film Fest
– St Louis International Film Fest
And will submit to more when I’ve run-off more of the locked-off copies of the film. Keeping fingers and toes crossed! 🙂
Next step is to lock down a date and venue for the cast, crew & friends screening!
Guess it’s ‘cuz of the busy time of year, but I’ve been spectacularly remiss with these updates.
In a nutshell:
1. Got the pick-up shot re-shot that I needed. It’s the opneing shot of a child (or is it…?) drawing a picture while the lead character speaks in V/O. Nic, the editor, felt it didn’t quite work as shot, and given it’s the very first image we see, we thought we’d have anoter crack at it. Big ups to Daryl Habraken and Peter Simpson who shot it and provided the RED camera respectively. Thanks, too, to Auckland University (whose camera it was, and whose studio and lights we used).
2. Got the drive back to the editor to do the final off-line pass with the new shot.
3. Eddie’s now got a music-free version of the cut so he can start putting some music on it – including some composed by our female lead, Lisa Chappell. Can’t wait to hear how it sounds!
4. Have locked-in our on-line edit facility: Images & Sound where we’ll be doing our grade, credits, etc. I’m really hoping to get in there before Xmas, but failing that, it’ll be first thing in the New Year.
Oh, and who knew credits took so long to finalise! 🙂
Lisa Chappell will showcase her impressive singing talents on the soundtrack of 'Be Careful...'
Lisa Chappell has kindly agreed to allow us to consider material from her debut solo album When Then Is Now for the soundtrack of ‘Be Careful…’
A copy of her CD is with the editor, Nic Smith, and we’ll try a few different tracks to see how they play under the images. I’m very excited about this idea as Lisa has an amazing voice and the idea of using one of her beautiful love songs as a sort of “siren song” (she plays a femme fatale, Fi) when she seduces our leading man is compelling.
But wait, there’s more!!
Now we’ve resolved the oustanding issues around the usage of Paul Kelly‘s song, Be Careful What You Pray For (see earlier post) I can announce that Lisa has agreed to perform lead vocals on this track, too!
This song was a major inspiration for the script. Getting our lead actress to sing it over the end credits would be truly awesome!
Watch for updates…
Paul Kelly’s original version is available on his Greatest Hits – Songs From the South Vol I & II, available at good stores everywhere (and even a few mediocre ones), including Amazon.com I can’t recommend this great double album highly enough.
Here’s a link where you can hear a sample of Be Careful What You Pray For – enjoy!
It’s in the can! Here are some shots from the 2nd weekend’s filming.
1000 bonus points for anyone who guesses who the Academy Award winner is in one of the stills below…
Next, it’s onto postproduction…
And the Oscar goes to…. (went to) MILTON JUSTICE!!! For producing the documentary “Down and Out in America” in 1986. See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090965/
And of course, where would I be without my fabulous leading man?
Craig has worked with Peter Jackson and Roger Donaldson.
 He’s starred opposite actors of the caliber of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Josh Hartnett, Dougray Scott, Saffron Burrows, Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement, Kerry Fox and Melanie Lynsky. (To name but a few.)
And he was brilliant. I’m constantly reminded how lucky I am to be able to work with people like Craig and Lisa (and Lynette Forday, Narelle Ahrens, Mike Edward) who’ll support “small” projects like this and give it the same energy and commitment that they give the big budget films and TV series that they regularly appear in. It’s a credit to their giving nature and their incredible professionalism and I salute and thank them for it.
Alan discusses an upcoming scene with Craig Hall
Can’t believe we’ve wrapped! What a feeling (to be dancing on the ceiling). It was a privilege to work with actors of the caliber of Lisa Chappell who has a reputation around the world after playing Claire McLeod for 70-something episodes of the popular Aussie drama McLeod’s Daughters. She was incredibly professional and it was a pleasure working with her.
The last time we worked together (apart from a brief cameo I did on a series where she was in the core cast, namely City Life) was when she played Portia and I played Shylock in a high school production of The Merchant of Venice!
I’d like to think we’ve both come a long way since then… 🙂
Alan (L) liaises with Lisa Chappell and 1st AD Tony Forster (R)
… to Celeste, our new make-up person, and Imogene, our new wardrobe person, and Bevin, our production assistant. PLEASE nobody offers these guys any work until after March 29th. 🙂
Final location scout with DP on Sunday. 1st rehearsal with Lisa and Craig (Fi and Mike) on Monday. Meeting with stunt coordinator same day to discuss killing off Corene (a.k.a. the lovely Narelle Ahrens). Possibly a meeting with the editor and the DP to discuss shot list one evening early next week; meeting Friday 13th (woooooo) with Matt Cunningham from DigiPost re Red camera workflow (also with Dan, DP; Gary, the editor). Sat 14th is camera tests with W/R fittings and make-up – got 3/4 of our cast there; in the afternoon, we’ll shoot a “pick-up” of the beach 1980 flashback – possibly with my wife, Shannon and myself playing Mum and Dad of Mike as a 7 year old (my nephew; playing alongside his older sister). Might also do tech recce of hospital location that day if we have time. Balance of tech recce will happen following day on Sunday.
And then it’s a week out from the main shoot! Still hoping for one more rehearsal and a final all crew production meeting that week.
Phew…..
Well, the new postings have been rather few and far between lately, but for anyone following this blog I wanted to make two special announcements:
1. Due to clashes with other work, we’ve been unable to get Sara Wiseman in the female lead role (Fi). After discussions with her, we both agreed the best path was to re-cast. I’m delighted to be able to announce that star of stage, TV and film (including McLeod’s Daughters) LISA CHAPPELL, has graciously agreed to come on board. Lisa and I go right back to high school and even performed together in The Merchant of Venice. So to be able to work together all these (too many!) years later is awesome. Welcome aboard, Lisa! 🙂
2. Thanks to the generosity of director/producer Peter McCully (owner of visual effects house, Albedo) we can now confirm we’ll be shooting on the coveted, top-of-the-range RED camera.
Two bits of awesome news I just had to share.
Here’s Lisa:
Lisa Chappell
Shoot First Productions 