We stuck to the schedule and the next day went like a dream. Everybody got to Red Bluff on time and ready to work, finishing the shots with good light, sunset highlights on rolling lines of waves from the top of the bluff.
Tim and Frank delivered dialogue into the wind, making sound recording difficult until Tim said “The sea…” in the film's only planned close-up, his voice as clear as a bell. Sadly, some of their words disappear in the mush of surf and seagull cries.
Frank's approach to the cliff was at a rapid run, and he brakes to a halt and delivers dialogue wonderfully, then gives an instinctive kick of his cuban-heeled boot to emphasize his impatience and confusion.
At the moment that Frank receives the note (above), he performs what I think is a brilliant bit of "physical acting", and it's an outstanding bit of visual business. I intended to super in a close-up of a seagull's head (ala the parrot at the end of "Citizen Kane", as indicated in the storyboard) scaring him, but like many elements it was missed and then forgotten in the rush.
Everyone did a great job, and we got a wide low shot from the base of the cliff that makes the scene.
With the first successful coverage “in the can”, we moved to Moorabbin Air Museum to do the seaplane cockpit scene with Vanessa as the pilot. It was a long night shoot, working until about 3am. We had my mum Tena’s sandwiches and permission from my uncle to shoot there.
The set was very well lit considering the cramped quarters, with 2K pedestal lamps lashed outside the cockpit of a DC3 passenger plane that smelled like an old tractor, full of diesel, cobwebs and mildew.
Once again, two shots were inadvertently skipped, a dolly shot at the beginning to establish the interior of the plane, and a shot of Tim relaxing in a passenger seat to end the scene, both indicated by large frame renderings in the storyboard.
Vanessa's delivery and her whole manner of performance is brilliant. Her ability to personify my heroine was a natural extension of her actual character - strong, insightful and magnetic.
We spent the following night in the Treasury Gardens. Powered by generators, Paul lit two rows of elm trees with redheads, and in the course of the night we lost ten out of 16 globes due to a lack of sandbags and a strong breeze.
ONE OF THE TRULY MEMORABLE IMAGES FROM THE FILM, TIM SKERRITT STANDS IN THE LIGHT OF A REDHEAD IN THE TREASURY GARDENS
Above is another example of Frank's deft physical performance. It was edited in such as a way that this silent snarl finishes his dialogue.
It was another long night, with many shots under-exposed, leaving only a few good takes of two shots, and a flash frame that I step-printed to look like a zoom out.
I don’t know what happened on the glass shot day, but I spent the weekend with Chris Kennedy dealing with the interior set for Sharon’s scenes. Aside from his now well-recognized genius as one of Australia's great production designers, Chris is a brilliant screenwriter and I would follow him to the ends of the earth if he needed me there.
CHRIS KENNEDY & HUGH MARCHANT ON THE SWINBURNE PHOTOCOPIER
My lounge room became the studio where we would shoot Sharon Watson's scenes. We used what was at hand to create an interior dreamscape of found furniture overgrown by vines and trees. We stole lots of ivy and tree branches from surrounding gardens, and nailed it together with a desk and a bed growing out of a wardrobe.
On the second night we were joined by Frank and David, banging around out the back of the pharmacy, digging out an old swivel chair from a little shed, and finding a piece of a tall picket fence that was overgrown with dead creepers. We got it inside, up the spiral staircase and into the lounge, a jungle diorama with classical furniture and a typewriter like a zoo enclosure for an aristocratic chimpanzee.
On the mantelpiece I built an enormous pile of candles. With a superstructure of egg cartons, staples and plaster, all disguised with melted wax and candles, covering the walls with sheets of photographs screenprinted by Peter Becker, introducing the picket fence into the hallway of the set.
While helping Chris build the set, I snapped a few more 35mm still photographs and discovered that amphetamines cure sleep.
THE SET IN MY LOUNGE ROOM, LIT FOR SHOOTING, WITH SHARON WATSON APPEARING AS SYLVIA IN THE BOTTOM LEFT HAND CORNER
Chris, Dave, Frank and I went down to the shops to get some cigarettes and a bottle of coke. As we came out the back gate, a large uniformed policeman wearing his cap and an overcoat stood there, carrying a clipboard under his arm and aiming a 9mm Browning automatic in his outstretched fist.
We kept walking, very curious about why he was pointing the gun at us. He said, “Stop there - stand still.” We stopped.
He didn’t move, “Come out into the light.” We moved forward and the officer moved behind us.
As we walked onto the footpath, at least three divisional vans and other police cars arrived in the street. They split us up into three groups. The big guy with the gun and his partner talked to me, two others took on Frank and David, and several other cops suddenly pounced on Chris, bailing him up against a wall as I explained, “It’s OK. We’re film students…”
Apparently a telephone call from a concerned member of the public had alerted the police station (five minutes walk away) to the sounds of a break and enter coming from behind the pharmacy.
The police figured it was a serious burglary in progress, hence the gun.
As I explained that we were film students, I looked over as another divvy van pulled up and a young cop (not wearing his hat) walked over to Chris and casually bopped him on the head with his torch.
I really needed Chris on board to deal with the art direction issues, but I couldn't help him.
Thankfully he did not arc up and soon several cops were standing in my hallway, peering into the nature reserve that was my lounge room. They’d all taken their hats off by now, and they were obviously perplexed by the mess we’d made, and pretty much didn’t want to know what we intended to do in there.
No problem really.
All was well with the world, but the next day Debra Beattie quit because she had to prepare for her own film and mine was obviously going to be a protracted if not impossible thing, but not before she handed me a ten gallon drum filled with old keys which she had begged off a locksmith. They had to be returned intact, and apparently he'd counted them by weight.
That morning at college, Brian Robinson got a call from the authorities and then had a word with me about discretion, which is essential to guerrilla filmmaking.
We shot the scenes with Sharon coming down the hallway, past the picket fence and into the jungle room. We did stuff with her waking up and using the typewriter, then climbed outside onto the awning over the footpath and lit the window so she could throw notes into the lens - voila!
I was finished with the set in my home, and we cut and dragged the foliage out and dumped it all back in the gardens we got it from.
The jungle set had been stripped and composted and I needed to get started on the aeroplane that Corrine pilots, and I did a lot of drawings and got Tim to stay up late for a few nights.
AN IMAGE FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC OF A CATALINA SEAPLANE INSPIRED THE MODEL'S DESIGN AND THE MOOD OF THE FINAL SHOTS
CONCEPT DRAWINGS AND PLANS FOR THE SEAPLANE, COMPLETED IN PENCIL & INK PEN
TIM SKERRIT ON THE PHOTOCOPIER AT SWINBURNE
Tim Skerritt was a bloke I met doing graphic design, and we hit it off over drinks and cigarettes in the gutter of a Swinburne carpark. He was a talented, confident and outgoing fellow who would have done anything if he was asked. He was an instinctive and jubilant performer in front of the camera and always delivered great results on the first take.
I still rely on him when I want to weep or laugh - he is a rock, a true friend and a real survivor.
My lounge room became a workshop where Tim and I built the seaplane model, based on an armarture that my father Mick welded up using a knitting machine which I’d found on the hard junk. The model was large, about five feet long, and it was made of a sculpted styrofoam core, a kids toilet training seat, vacuum cleaner parts and lots of cardboard and latex.
Latex and paper mache’ were used to make nearly everything look a bit “surreal”, from Franklin's army coat to Adam’s geriatric face, and it burns really well.
TIM WORKING IN MY LOUNGE ROOM AT 764 GLENFERRIE ROAD, HAWTHORN
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