CRUSHED

High-res

Additional Dialogue Recording - 15 September 2014

Three countries, nine actors, plus almost a dozen voiceover artists and loop groupers and the Crushed Additional Dialogue Recording (ADR) has just been complete!

Although almost all of the voiceover for the film was recorded at our Sound Supervisor, Damian Del Borrello’s studio, we did have two actors that needed recording overseas – Patrick Connolly in London and Roxane Wilson in Los Angeles. Luckily I had already planned to visit both these places before Crushed was even shot, so it was a scramble to get the sessions locked in while I was travelling through.

I have had a little bit of experience with ADR on my previous film 50-50, but it was so miniscule compared to the ADR recorded on a feature that I knew I’d be in for a sharp learning curve. I was really grateful to have Damian onboard as ADR really is his forte and it was a real collaboration in the studio to get the performance (both technically and emotionally) needed to make the ADR shine.

Before going through this experience, I really didn’t appreciate the possibilities that ADR could bring to a film. I thought that ADR was simply about replacing dialogue that was recorded at the location with a crisp, isolated version in the studio. But what I came to find out was that you can strengthen a scene with ADR – you can play with the energy, the emotion, the subtext. In fact you can change whole performances with it. What a revelation! Rather than being fearful of ADR, directors and actors must learn to appreciate the art of it and learn how to best prepare to maximise it’s potential.

Of course the perfect post sound experience would be to have 100% clean production recording (which is near impossible on indie film style shoots) so that ADR is used as a purely creative measure. But in the meantime, I recommend for all those nervous filmmakers who find themselves in the ADR suite for technical reasons be sure to enjoy it and exploit it for all the creative opportunities it can offer.

Photos (clockwise from top) 1. Christopher Vernon & Damian Del Borrello 2. Roxane Wilson 3. Damian Del Borrello & Les Hill 4. Sarah Bishop 5. Millie Spencer-Brown 6. Patrick Connolly.

Octocopter Shoot – 11 June 2014

We finally captured the opening shot of Crushed with my old directing alumni Ash Fairfield from AFTRS – he is the chief operator of Kino Flight, (they specialise in aerial photography and aerial filming) and he was able to come on board to get us a really sexy octocopter shot of the vineyards from up high – the only catch was that we had to shoot it at a vineyard closer to his place on the Gold Coast. So I flew up to meet him, then we drove out with his camera operator Holger Goehr, to the Granite Belt Wine Region.

We found a vineyard at Ballandean Estate Wines that we knew could match the Burrundulla vineyards and we scheduled two shoot days - one late afternoon session and a backup early morning session the next day (just in case we didn’t get what we wanted). Thank god for the second day, the wind really picked up on the first and we struggled with the complexity of the shot against the strong winds. We went back the next morning to a much calmer setting, adjusted the shot and finally nailed it.

It was really important to get a strong opening image for Crushed. Being a mystery thriller, this shot must immediately convey the mood and tone of the film. By the time we scheduled the shoot, the vines were barren and the landscape quite intimidating. We chose to shoot at 50 frames per second to get a slow motion, almost mystical feel and a swooping camera move added further to the effect. I knew I wanted a dark and moody score to punctuate the shot and it came together nicely. Having a shot like this also helps to elevate the production values of the film – from the first frame the audience will know that this will be a cinematic event.

The shoot was a great learning curve. I have never worked with an octocopter before and the one thing that really stood out for me was time – you need time to get each element of the shot just right – the altitude, the camera move, the distance covered and this against the placement of the sun and the strength and direction of the wind. Even if you did a test shoot, the conditions will always be slightly different on the day.

I wish we could have afforded to have an octocopter on the main shoot – we could have gotten some beautiful scene transitions and landscapes and even used it for some of the chase sequences. But alas I will have to wait till the next film where (fingers crossed) we have more of a budget to play with. Till then, I will be content with the amazing opportunity of having my opening shot captured cinematically from the sky.

- Megan Riakos

Photo 2: Ashley Fairfield (Octocopter Pilot), Holger Goehr (Octocopter Camera Operator) & Megan Riakos (Director) at Ballandean Estate Wines

High-res

Test Screenings During The Edit - 13 May 2014

After months of sitting in a darkened room with my editor Anil Griffin, we have finally sent out our little baby to an audience. That’s right, last night was test screening time!

We had come to a point in the process where we really needed some fresh eyes on the film and to give us a chance to ask some questions - Do you empathise with the main character? Do you follow the plot? Do the clues make sense? Are there any boring bits? So many of these things are taken for granted when you are up to the 28^th draft of the edit. It becomes difficult to judge how much an audience interprets. Besides, putting on a screening is not just about having a living breathing audience to interrogate afterwards, it’s also the act of watching the film with an audience that forces you to see the film differently. All of a sudden I could feel the slow bits lagging when we had some story/pacing issues, while I could sense the energy soaring when the rhythm was hitting the mark. It was also the very first time that Anil and I had seen Crushed on the big screen. Normally we are just in the edit suite, but with both of us ex-students at AFTRS, the school generously allowed us to put Crushed up in their beautiful 150 seat theatre. This is also super important to do as an edit team - because a film’s edit feels different when you view it on a large format. Suddenly shots that felt good in the edit suite felt long and laggy, while other moments felt so good in the theatre that we wanted to extend the shot by a few more frames. If you plan to put your film on the big screen, it is vital to view it up there at some point during the edit. Little films like ours are lucky to get the one view, but without it you are missing a hugely important perspective.

After the screening we took some of our audience members out for pizza so we could pick their brains, while also sending them a link to an online survey so they could comment with anonymity. There have been some really interesting comments so far and most of the issues that have been brought up were on our radar, but it has been really helpful to pinpoint them. Some of the feedback came down to characters and how the audience perceive them – one thing that we’ll be doing is scouring through alternate takes to soften some characters and to harden up others. It’s such an amazing process when you are in the edit. There are an infinite amount of choices you can make. What shot/take do you use? What part of the take, do you cut away or stay with the one shot, do you mix up the takes you use for each character – every decision effects the perception of the character, the pacing of the scene and the overall emotional impact for the film. The edit really is the final draft of the script.

Seeing the film up there on the big screen made me smile – sure it was still rough and ready, the sound hadn’t been touched yet and there is still a lot of work to go, but it feels like a real film and I am hopeful for it’s future.

- Megan Riakos

High-res

Kickstarter Success! - 5 April 2014

It could have been a cruel April Fools Day, but it turned out pretty bloody well! Our kickstarter campaign finished on 1st April and we reached our goal of $35,000 with an hour to go! In fact we ended up raising an extra $1625 before the clock ran out, which was an amazing achievement.

I never understood how hard a campaign was. Everyone always warns you – it’s like a full time job, it’s incredible hard work, you need a team behind you – but until you actually run one yourself you really don’t understand the pressure that you are under. Of course a lot of it is the mental pressure, the public humiliation you believe you’ll face if you don’t make the goal let alone the massive black hole of debt you know you’ll be in without the cash injection. But physically and logistically: the constant social media outreach you are involved in, the press releases, the content creation. It’s such a massive undertaking.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Before Crushed, I was a little wary of crowdfunding, I didn’t really know what to make of it and I felt strange asking people for money. But now I understand that it’s about offering the community something for their support and that it isn’t just about raising the money either. It’s about building an audience and convincing people to become allies of the film, it helped get the Crushed name out into the film industry and it gave us the opportunity to get articles in reputable magazines and websites. It was the first real presentation of Crushed to the wider world. Crowdfunding isn’t just for indie films, I can see a reason why every film could have cause to use it – it’s about tapping into your audience early. Here’s hoping that the 290 supporters who came on board for our campaign will be cheering us on when it’s finally time to screen our Crushed premiere.

A Very Early Harvest - 24 Feb 2014

When you shoot a film about farming and the weather, you get a small taste of the stress that comes with the farming business, and vineyards are no different. When we wrapped the main shoot in January, Ted Cox (one of the owners of Burrundulla Wines) told us that they normally harvest their red grapes around the middle of March, give or take a week. We needed to come back to shoot some important harvesting and crushing shots of the ripe red grapes, so I pencilled in the middle of March with a week before or after as a buffer and put my crew on standby. However, on Sunday 8 February, I got the call – harvest is early! The exceptionally hot and dry summer had caused the grapes to ripen faster and it would start to rot if the harvest wasn’t completed soon. The entire town of Mudgee had been caught off guard with the super early harvest – anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change just needs to talk to a farmer.

Anyway, we were back into full blown production mode. We had to lock in a camera, insurance, crew, accommodation, get ourselves up there and then pray that it didn’t rain. After a stressful few days, we managed to pull it together, arriving on Wednesday evening and giving ourselves till Friday afternoon to get everything we needed. This harvest shoot was originally going to double as our pickup shoot, but with 3-4 weeks less prep time, my editor Anil and I hadn’t had a chance to go through the rough edit to make a comprehensive list of any missing shots. We trawled through as best as we could and wrote what we hope is the final shot list.

We had a beautiful day for shooting the early morning harvest and I felt privileged to be allowed to film it. This is one of the things I love about my job, I get to peak into completely different worlds and learn about how they live life. It’s almost like being a work experience kid where every film setting is another set of shoes to put on and try out. The next morning we were off to the winery at Robert Stein’s, it had rained earlier so their expected delivery of grapes was late. But it was worth the wait. Seeing the process from crushing the grapes to punching in the must and fermenting in the tanks was amazing. It was the final puzzle piece for Crushed. I truly believed that until we had these harvest shots, we didn’t have a film. Now as I watch the footage of the grapes violently tugged off the vines or watching them churn in the crusher, I could see they were the perfect imagery for the danger and despair in the film. Without these shots, Crushed just wouldn’t have that spark.

So we are safely back in the edit suite with a rough cut of about 133 minutes. There is still plenty of work to be done and at least 20 minutes of the film to shave off, but now I am sure that the heart and soul of the film is all there.

High-res

Back to the Land of the Living - 28 Jan 2014

The main shoot is over, we’ve unpacked the cars, returned the truck, caught up on sleep, got drunk at the wrap party and now it’s back to normal life. It’s such a strange thing to think the shoot is done (of course we still have pickups, the main ones being the harvest shoot) but I remember being sixteen years old and making my first film for media studies class– thinking that one day in the distant future it will be a feature I am making. Then I remember being twenty one, doing my communications media arts degree at UTS and thinking the aim is to make a feature by the time I’m twenty five years old. Twenty five came and went, I had written a few features by then so didn’t feel too disheartened by not making the goal of having shot one and promised myself that thirty would be the next date to fix my gaze on. Film school at AFTRS chewed up the final year of my twenties and although I learnt a whole lot, I didn’t have that elusive low budget script ready that could be my debut. So aged thirty to thirty one I made another two short films and wrote another two features – one of them being Crushed. Finally at thirty two we rolled cameras on my very first feature. I don’t regret the extra seven years it took to reach my goal, I wonder whether I would have had the emotional maturity to pull off a feature, to be able to relate to actors and to handle a big crew for a tough shoot at twenty five. It also took me the extra time to really get the confidence to stand up and say out loud ‘I can do this’.

Now with 95 percent of the film in the can, I have to be patient. Wait for my editor to finish the assembly edit and head back to my money job to pay the rent. I’m nervous about what we have and what we are missing. I’m nervous about coverage and I’m nervous about how well my instincts on set worked. It wont be much longer till I get to see it in it’s rawest form! Everyone says the first time a director sees the assembly is the worst day of the process – because it is so raw and will never be a true representation of the film – by it’s very nature an assembly edit is clunky and unwieldy. So until Anil my editor let’s me in the room, I’ll try and ignore the looming assembly viewing and get back into the world of film – I’ll go to the movies and see the Oscar nominated films, listen to thriller sound tracks and finally get some proper sleep.

High-res

The Final Day of the Main Shoot - 17 Jan 2014

What a night. Our final shoot day was of course a night shoot, they always are. Call time was 4.45pm. There were two exterior scenes to shoot – one was a flashback sequence that has it’s own unique look and feel (so we had a bit of creative fun with that) and then the final climax scene of the movie including some stunts, a lot of chasing sequences, SPFX makeup and blood.

We started off well but the flashback sequence took a little longer than expected. The idea was to get that finished so we had time in the daylight to rehearse the stunt sequence with our actors, get them comfortable with the physicality, so they just had to worry about the emotions when we were filming. But the prep time became compressed. As the sun began to set, we knew we had to get cracking. The daymakers* were fired up and we got ready to roll. (*actually, these were road work lights we got from the local Coates Hire – we couldn’t afford to hire and ship proper film daymakers out to Mudgee. Using construction lights means that the colour temperature of the light can be quite varied, so again it’s something we may need to correct in the colour grade. The main priority is for the camera to actually see our actors outside in the dark and we must put up with the colour problems in post. It’s about choosing where to spend the money).

We knew we were going to have a challenging night on our hands. We had the contingency of a pickup day up our sleeves with a heavily reduced crew so we decided to cut up the scene into three and then shoot them out of order. This meant we could knock over all of the technically complex segments of the scene as well as the emotional crux. The remaining stuff was still crucial but could be done with a limited crew and without having to put the actors back into the highly emotional parts of the scene. So we broke the scene up like so:

1. First up was the stunt sequence. We had an armourer and stunt coordinator on set – we knew we had to get every shot that required these guys in the can during the night – we couldn’t afford to hire them for pickups.
2. Final climax. This moment was crucial to get the emotional energy right for our actors. We needed to do this part of the scene in one whack – it would loose something if it were broken up over two nights. The armourer and SPFX makeup was also required for this one.
3. Finally, there was the chasing sequence to shoot. This stuff is all physical – and if the actors are completely exhausted it won’t matter as their characters would be feeling the same way. We didn’t need all the actors, the stunty or amourer present so if we didn’t finish it, we could move this stuff to a pickup day.

All I can say is thank god we made a plan B to deal with not getting the whole scene in the can. Stunt sequences always take longer than you think, but really it was the final climax that got us unstuck. This was the big emotional scene of the film, all of the characters are at their most vulnerable, therefore so are the actors. Everything that we had built along the way, character development, motivation, story arcs – they must all must align. It absolutely must click into place or the film will fail, I think the actors all knew the weight of this (as did I) and it meant that it was an incredibly tense set. No tempers flared or anything like that, it was the complete opposite. The focus was great, the silence on set in between takes was eerie, we all spoke in passionate whispers to each other about intentions and motivations. The rest of the crew worked quietly, focused on the job at hand.

We were getting great stuff in the can but it was taking a lot longer than anything else we had shot over the course of the twenty shoot days so far. This was because we had to be sure the scene was hitting the nail on the head and that the emotions were pure.

Next thing you know, it’s time to wrap – but the emotional climax was not yet complete. With permission from the cast & crew, we ran an hour and a half over. This was our final night and everyone could see what we had on our hands. Everyone wanted to make this happen. The final chase sequence had to be pushed to our pickup day and we focused on getting our final moments right.

Finally, with a beautiful high wide shot to complete the scene, we called it a day. The cast and crew were all relieved, elated. We had done it! Breaking the intensity of the previous hours we hugged and thanked each other for the ride. We joked around as we started to wrap the set.

How did I feel?? It was a real mixture of emotions to be honest. This crazy dream I had has just been realised, I was relieved that we managed to get so far, I was proud of what we had achieved, I was incredibly grateful for the talented bunch of people who had joined me on this adventure and were celebrating around me, many who are new friends. But I still have this weight in my chest – I was utterly exhausted and the film is still not finished. There is still a big chunk of the chase to film, harvest footage to come back to shoot in a few months time and other little shots that need to be captured to fill in holes in our coverage. And as any director will tell you, it’s not till you see your film in the edit suite do you really know what you have on your hands. There is still a giant mountain to climb before this film is ready.

We finished wrapping up and we congregated outside the Burrundulla Cellar Door for a celebratory beer. I pushed the weight of the film out of my mind and joined the others. It was like we had all been partying hard like teenagers for three weeks and now drunk on exhaustion, we joked and laughed with an intimacy rarely shared amongst ‘grown ups’.

The clear starry night started to fade. First light had just broken on the horizon and this incredible place called Mudgee revealed a beautiful dawn.

Photo by David Joshua Ford - The Crushed Cast and Crew after wrapping on the final day of the shoot.

High-res

Tricky Weather - 11 Jan 2014

So far we’ve been very lucky with the weather. There has only been two occasions during the shoot where rain threatened to wash out the day, but both times we managed to wait it out and then plough through the scenes (albeit with less time). Just as we started to set up for one scene in the first shooting block, it started to storm. Lightening and thunder lit up the sky and it rained for about 20 minutes. Once the lightening stopped, we decided to forge on – it was four of the characters out on a drought stricken, straw coloured field and the sky added this moody, threatening blue-grey backdrop. It gave a heightened sense of danger to the scene that would not have been there had it been blue skies, even if it meant we had to battle with umbrellas and tarps hovering above our actors, just out of the camera frame.

Today, the weather played a different kind of trick on us. We found this really barren and isolated road where a ditch on the side leads down to a dry creek bed. Because there was no water it meant that there was a one foot gap between the bottom of the fence and the dirt – the perfect place for Ellia (Sarah Bishop) to slip under during a chase scene. But of course the tiny bit of rain that we had experienced earlier in the week had all gathered in this little spot and when we showed up to shoot, our one foot gap was mostly water and the dry area at the edges was now only a couple of inches!! After humming and hahhing about whether we could still make it work, we decided we could ‘cheat’ the shot of Ellia escaping under the fence by recording her trying to slip under from one side (her arms fit easily into the gap) – then filming another shot of her, pretending to slip out the other side. As is turned out, on the final take, Sarah managed to actually fit through the gap and scramble out the other side. So we got our shot in the end and there was no performing required for the struggle under the fence – it was all real and Sarah had the scratched legs to prove it.

Although shooting on location always has the risk of bad weather and the associated problems of continuity in the film, there is something magical about how it can affect a scene. A thunderous sky or the added obstacle of a tiny gap in the fence added another layer to the drama in both these scenes. It doesn’t always benefit the film when the weather plays up, but as the old saying goes, you might as well make lemonade when the lemons start coming in…

Photo: David (Les Hill), Ivan (Jamie Irvine) and Jesse (Aaron Glenane) amongst the thunderous sky.

High-res

Cameras & Skeleton Shoots – 3 Jan 2014

It’s the 3rd day of the new year and we’ve already rolled cameras in 2014! We snuck in an extra day and a half worth of shooting with a skeleton crew. The opening of the film is set in the city, so we wanted concrete, glass, steel - all those visual elements that juxtapose against the Mudgee landscape. We also shot one other location as a mock up of Mudgee to help to eleviate the strain off our block two schedule.

Tomorrow we head back to Mudgee for the official start of Block 2. We have some new keen beans coming up as extra support, this is going to make a huge difference to the energy of the film. We’ve also arranged a second camera and team for the entire 2nd block – but there is a catch…for some strange reason Christmas has been a really busy time in the industry this year (normally it is dead!) so there was no second Sony F55 camera for us to hire to match our main camera. After some discussion and research we decided to take what was on offer – an Alexa. It’s a great camera (and a superior one to the F55) but it creates a different look. We decided to shoot the Alexa in log to give us a greater range of movement in the colour to help us match it with the Sony in the grade. It really really (really!) isn’t ideal but a mismatched second camera is better than no second camera at all, especially with no money and on a supertight schedule like ours…we just have to cross our fingers that the colourist can work some magic during the grade. But you know what? This is what low budget film making is about, getting every ounce of magic out of every single little opportunity, even if it seems like an obstacle at the time.

High-res

Block one complete! – 21 Dec 2013

We are back in Sydney, block one is complete! We already have a third of the film in the can, but to be honest, it was really bloody hard and we were lucky that nothing major derailed us.

The final day of the shoot went amazingly well, the tricky scene between Jamie Irvine (Ivan) and Sarah Bishop (Ellia) ran so smoothly. It was incredibly satisfying to see the hard work that the three of us had put in the night before pay off and the scene was something special. With both the actors pulling out great performers and the crew capturing it perfectly within the tricky ‘magic hour’ conditions, we were all running on empty, particularly the heads of department. Although our shoot days were very reasonable (we rarely went over ten hour days and when we did, it was only about fifteen minutes or so), the hot weather and the lack of supporting crew members from what really should have been a bigger crew, really affected us all. We were trying to cut down on the numbers of crew on the shoot, particularly production assistants because we were on an ‘away’ shoot and every extra body costs more money for food, accommodation and transport, even if they are interning for free. If we had shot the film in Sydney then we would have welcomed as many production assistants as we could with open arms, they could do all those little things that pop up but that are still time consuming. They are essential to the smooth running of the set. So without the support of these unsung heroes (having been a PA on many a set myself I can attest to this ☺), it meant that on top of the already overwhelming task of trying to make a million dollar feature on a fraction of the budget, the heads of department were spending a lot of time outside of working hours trying to tie off any loose ends so that their departments were creating the best results.

The production team had a pow wow at the end of the first block about the issue and we decided that we had to find money in the kitty to bring on more people for block two. Although we managed it with our smaller crew for six days, there is no way we could continue doing it for the second block. So we have decided to bring on extra PA’s for Art dept, camera, production and general runners. A couple were from Mudgee and the rest came up from Sydney. We also realised we needed a second camera for the duration of the entire shoot if we were going to get the film in the can the way we wanted it. We have got a second camera scheduled just for the final week for when we shoot the final climax sequence, but we are going to try and extend the hire to cover the earlier part of the block as well.

Although it’s only a few days before Christmas, there won’t be too much celebrating. We are locking in final cast members (We’ve just confirmed Helmut Bakaitis as Sergeant O’Reilly – aka ‘The Architect’ from the matrix movies!), finding new crew members, redrafting the script (again) and tinkering with the schedule. Christmas will be all about preparing for the block two shoot and of course catching up on some serious sleep!

Photo: Wrap time on block one of the Crushed shoot: Robbie Miles (Producer), Megan Riakos (Director/Producer), Nathaniel Watkins (Sound Recordist) & Michael Steel (Cinematographer).