CASTING AND STOMACH CRAMPS

My flatmate Matthew’s girlfriend Sharon Watson accepted the part of the Janus character. The fifth character was going to be a special effect, so real-life casting was complete and scripts were distributed.

To my knowledge none of these people had acted before, except perhaps for Tim who was captain of his grammar school rowing team and probably did some theatre.

Vanessa made her costume from a cloud of white lace, pearls and ribbons that floated around her like a rococo masterpiece. It was all very New Romantic.

Debra had a schedule that we stuck to in principle. She showed me some kind of list, but there were major pick-ups to be done after day one. Pick-ups are those scenes or shots which are not properly covered and “in the can” as they were scheduled, and need to be returned to for filming after primary shooting is complete.

THE ORIGINAL SEVEN DAY SHOOTING SCHEDULE, AND A REWRITE

It read a bit like this:

Mon 7: Equipment pickup and check.

Tues 8: Scenes 2, 6, 10. DAY - Gunnamatta Beach/Ext;

Wed 9: Scene 5. DAY - Morning - Red Bluff. NIGHT - Moorabin Air Museum/Int; DC3 cockpit – Corrine flies Dumaine and Franklin to the city.

Thu 10: Scene 2, 3. NIGHT - Fitzroy Gardens/Ext; forest path – the meeting between Dumaine and Franklin.

Fri 11: Scene 6. DAY - Glass shot Day.

Sat 12 - Sun 13: Break.

Mon 14: NIGHT - Anzac memorial and Labassa/Ext; Steps and door – Dumaine opens Franklin’s front door.

Tue 15: Scene 8. NIGHT - City, full cast and crew. Abandoned building on lower King Street, near Inflation Nightclub – the meeting with the Messenger, the shooting, Corrinne’s climax.

Wed 16: Scenes 1, 10 + Model aircraft. NIGHT - Ext. An interior for the Messenger.

Sweet as peaches. In retrospect, I wonder what was I thinking? Lots of night shoots, travelling great distances with lots of people, risky exterior locations in late winter and raiding derelict buildings to reach locations on inconvenient and unsafe upper floors. I couldn’t have made it more difficult.

We intended to cover heaps on the first day. The first scenes were to be shot on Gunnamatta Beach, driving hours away, like the ends of the earth. 

We intended to cover a lot on the seashore and in the sand dunes, with Vanessa walking along the beach to meet with Tim and Frank, drawing her magic circle, and Frank falling out of the sky on his chair. The prologue and epilogue with chair and falling keys, and Nessa rising out of the water to receive Tim’s letter.

We packed into Anthony Kitchener’s Chevrolet Impala and got to Gunnamatta Beach early. We made a flying rig from a lighting pole and fishing line, marched up sand dunes dressed in costume, built the dummy, hung it on the rig and prepared to shoot. The light changed, the rig bowed, the sun went down. 

We shot nothing useful, except Mariella Del Conte’s roll of 35 mm stills, a record of futility on a silvery grey day.