The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur. For some idiotic reason I decided to shoot Hyper-Real five days after wrapping the shoot for The Room of Forgetting.
It meant that while madly building sets for one film I was also casting, location hunting and finding crew for another. As someone said to me “you always knew this year would be crazy”.
Hyper-Real is quite different in tone to the other 12:12 films to date. It’s a pretty hard-hitting tale with a fair dose of violence. But for a reason. In a nutshell Hyper-Real is about the increasing realism of computer gaming violence, and where that might go as it becomes more and more realistic. 12:12 was always about experimenting with different kinds of stories, and this is definitely that.
The story revolves around two boys playing a futuristic Japanese computer game set in a quiet, friendly suburb and follows them as they make their way through it, reinterpreting the game in their own way.
The shoot was broken up over two days. The first was spent on the street itself. This we found in Warriewood with the help of friend Keith Cox. It’s a quiet little cul de sac, perfect for the Japanese setting of the game. The rest of the shoot featured interiors, both in Warriewood at Ali and Nick Munting’s lovely home and then in Northbridge at the home of one of our lead actor’s, Callum McManis – whose family kindly opened their doors to us.
The film was shot beautifully by Jonathan Tyler who employed a mix of steadicam and handheld camera-work, tracking the boys’ journey through the game. For the three fight sequences we engaged stunt co-ordinator legend Grant Page who helped to bring the scenes to life. It was a real highlight to watch these scenes unfold with all the impact and intensity I had been hoping for, but with no real idea how to achieve it.
Our two young leads James Fraser and Callum McManis did a spectacular job in roles demanding a range of both emotion and physicality.
Special mention should go to the rest of the cast, Akiya Fukui, Rocky Dean-Shoji and Lia Reutens who performed brilliantly in their very challenging roles.
Thanks also to Dan Loughnan, Vicki Nhieu, Charles Mori, Luke Whitmore, Sarah Hadley, Ben Dugard, Micheline Siou Cam San (once again!) and Kat Low.
I really look forward to sharing this one with you. Sadly we all forgot to take any good photos. We were all a bit caught up in it.
Now, it’s time for me to concentrate on the post production side of things. There is plenty to do.
There’s still one more to shoot, but I’m going to hold off on that one. I like the idea of keeping one right to the end. Who knows, the best idea yet might spring up at the last minute.
And when is the end? April 16th is twelve months to the day that I started this project. So if you’re in Sydney that night, please make sure you keep it free. More details to come.