Waiting by the phone

So to pick up where I left off, I made a call to Greg Van Borssum, Combat and Action Director of Mad Max 4, to enquire about using footage from his short film "Method of Entry" of military door breach teams, Special Forces in action. He was on set and after my brief speil about what I was trying to do he said "Can I call you back"

Now of course, I had just cold called a pro, who was on set, so my immediete concern was I'd just bugged him and had given no reason to actually follow up with me other than a bucket of enthusiasm down a phone line, and that can even be a deterrant, rather than an asset.

So I was greatly relieved when I got a call back that afternoon, and I found Greg open to hearing about what I was trying to do. I laid all the cards I had on the table, the footage from the Department of Defense, the backing of Eskimo Joe's song 'Foreign Land', that fact I'd been discussing the idea with John Fox.

In the end, and after a few more conversations over the next couple of days, Greg is sending me a digital version of his film, which he shot on 35mm film, with John Fox as the armourer, with professionals as his military actors, and I can splice the action shots into my 'concept trailer'. The threads are being drawn together for me to make a powerful concept trailer for my movie idea and present it in the best possible way to the people that can help me get it made.

I've pushed the string further along the road to making this film a reality...now I've just got to redraft the script from 120 pages to 96...and make sure it's the best 96 page script it can be!

Ex Pertinacia Victoria

Last shoot for the concept trailer

April 10 is going to be the last shoot for the concept trailer and it's going to be a doozy. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, first off being that Shane, my original casting for the role of the SAS soldier in the concept trailer has moved to Sydney and had to pull out.

That renders the footage I've shot with him useless, as the major sequences I have yet to complete are the main characterisation ones, so I've had to find a new SAS soldier.

Now things like this happen for a reason I believe, because it led to me putting out a plea on twitter if anyone knew of any actor suitable.

Jake Reedy, genre buff and director of the independent feature "Loyalty"



said there was only one person I should talk to. Kazuya Wright



And after seeing those trailers, I can only agree.

So I contacted him and after telling him a bit about what I've got planned, he's first words were "I'm in"

So now we have our SAS soldier, my brother in law Alec Doomadgee is coming up from Sydney, in around his filming schedule for a TV series he's working on.

Next up, I needed an XB Falcon for the shoot, and I've managed to secure one, and we're a go.

But there is something else in the wings...I was speaking to John Fox again, but about this concept trailer instead of my short film. I needed to get footage of two soldiers in urban assault gear doing room clearance and door breaches...expensive, complicated but critical to the visual punch of the film.

My options are to get John up to QLD, or me to Melbourne to film John and his associates in action...all expensive but necessary options to be looked at.

Until I realised, being the concept trailer, its purpose is to convey the idea of the film, I'm not shooting the film. Yet. So, I'm already utilising news footage of special forces, with the support of the department of defense (final trailer edit approval needed of course) why can't I find someone who has already filmed something similar with John and license the footage? I put it to him...

And got in contact with someone (who was part of an Oscar winning team and is Combat and Action Director of a huge franchise) who listened to my rambling, jilted, nervous phonecall and said "I'm on set at the moment, can I call you back?"...

To be continued...