If you’ve been thinking you haven’t had a 12:12 update for a while, you’d be right. If you’ve been thinking it’s probably because we haven’t been doing much over the holiday period, you would be very wrong.
We have in fact just shot two more films – taking the count to a giddying eleven.
But let’s take things one shoot at a time. Let’s talk about shoot number ten, The Room of Forgetting – easily the 12:12 film that’s taken the longest time to shoot. The Room of Forgetting was scheduled way back as the second short to go into production. By the time we were finally ready to shoot, eight others had snuck ahead of it.
There’s two reasons for this. The first is because for this one I wanted to try some of the techniques of director Mike Leigh. And he doesn’t just sit down and write a script. Typically he will develop his ‘script’ by workshopping the characters and storyline with his actors, often without a single word ever being written.
For The Room of Forgetting I cast Justin Smith and Melinda Dransfield in the two lead roles and the three of us caught up several times to work the rough idea I had for the short into something more concrete. After a few discussions and improvisation sessions, I went off and wrote a script based on the results.
The second reason this short took so long is simply because we needed to shoot part of the film at a funfair, and the funfair I had in mind is one that pops up occasionally at Bass Hill. Unfortunately we learned it wasn’t due back in Sydney until the very end of 2014. So, we waited.
The Room of Forgetting is a black comedy about a couple who go to a funfair and stumble across an attraction (“The Room of Forgetting”) where everything that goes on inside is forgotten when you leave. They decide to give it a go and end up telling each other all these things they’ve been keeping from each other throughout their relationship.
The shoot itself took two days. We shot on a Friday night at the Funfair in Bass Hill and the following day in the studio at MetroScreen in Paddington.
At Bass Hill we built the facade of the Room of Forgetting right on the edge of the funfair. Building this facade took most of a week, with the help of Dave Foley and Tony St Leger toiling away in the heat of my backyard. The result was so successful we had to keep turning away punters from the funfair who thought it was a real ride. Much to our amusement, one guy, who was there with his wife and kid even said, ‘Damn, we should have left the kid at home.’
The Friday night shoot went really well and we got some amazing footage of the fair itself. Our only hiccup was the very last shot of the film, which we were just about to shoot when they turned the generators off and all the lights went out. Rupert Brown, our DoP, still managed to light our actors and point the camera in a slightly different direction to get the crucial shot.
The following day we shot at MetroScreen which we dressed to look like the inside of the room using a ring of steel columns and a jumble of exposed electrical cables. Here is where all the couple’s secrets come out, and Justin and Melinda did a fantastic job as the couple who start to realise their relationship isn’t quite what they thought it was.
All in all a really successful shoot, though it was a very tough week and I was relieved when we had it all in the can. I was truly wrapped with the result. Big thanks to Justin and Melinda and Alan Flower who played the old carny who runs the ride.
Thanks also to Rupert Brown, Ant Ong, Dave Foley, Tony St Leger, Micheline Siou Cam San, Gareth Evans, Karl Jenner, Stephen Templer, Kat Low and Bass Hill Funfair’s Dodgem Donna. Thanks to Ant and Tony for taking these great shots of the shoot.