The thought of making a film to enter Tropfest came each year when I sat down at the Melbourne Tropfest live site and watched the festival stream from Sydney. I would watch all the films and I grew envious of how many people were viewing these shorts, not even if we were accepted into a hundred short film festivals would we ever come close to having this big of an audience. So each year I would make a plan in my head to produce a film for next year’s Tropfest, it never happened, until now. After reading the ‘signature item’ for 2011 is ‘keys’ (if you’re not aware each year Tropfest has an item that must be included in your film as a way of proving that you made this film specifically for Tropfest –the whole point of the festival!), I went on to let my mind think of situations and stories that the item inspired. Originally, I hadn’t intended to actually make this film deciding that I didn’t have either the time or money to put into it, so the script would be a simple writing exercise. In my writer’s notes (every writer needs a notebook) there was a conversation that I had created that I hoped one day would fit into a script somewhere. It was pretty neurotic and kooky and a little nuts, so I started with that and built the idea and the use of the signature item around it. The script started with an exchange between John and Kelly, the two leads, about wearing sunglasses. That was when the idea on how to incorporate the item came to me, this was a breakup story, and every breakup features an awkward meeting where you have to return each other’s items, and in this instance it was house keys.  Part of the writing exercise I set myself was that if I was to produce the film then and there with no budget, how would I write something that would be cheaper and easier to do than my previous. It came down to writing something set in only 1 location, over 1 time frame, with just 1 scene.

The script took a couple of twists and turns until it was done and I sent it to a few people for their thoughts. One of those people was Rachel Jessica Tan, who was in LA at the time working on her acting career and who hoped to establish a small production company of her own when she returned. A couple of months after in November, Rachel phoned me randomly and declared she had to do something creative soon before she left again for LA. I agreed, but didn’t have time to create something from scratch or organise another film. That’s when she suggested my Tropfest script, and volunteered to produce it, thus relieving me of half the burden I carried when I produced and directed One Moment earlier in the year. I thought about it, and said yes and then cast her in the lead female role. The decision was made that we would have a cut off date, that we needed to have certain people and a location locked in by that date or else the film wouldn’t be able to go ahead. I was actually a little sceptical as to whether we could get it all done, but as the pieces fell into place so did my belief and I was well and truly on the road to directing my second short film.

Production

Some of the crew from One Moment returned, including David the DOP and Aleck the editor. A few other crew too like Vi, our makeup chick, and Olivia, who this time would be 1^st AD and set designer. Kent was also providing a musical track, although he wouldn’t have to compose anything original for this one, we would just use something he previously did. Time and budget were the two factors working against us on this shoot, we had very little of either of them. The Tropfest due date was fast approaching, Aleck was heading away for Christmas and NYE, and the sound studio who had offered to do our mix was closing for their end of year break, so the film had to be shot and edited by the 19^th of December. The sound mix would follow after that, and then we’d upload the film by the January 6^th due date.

Casting was a load of fun, we had met 6 great guys for the male lead of John, with one in particular who brought something to the table the others didn’t: comedy. And the kind of comedy I liked, dry, deadpan, and kooky. Luke was on board, the other roles were cast, the crew was locked in, and after a few stressful weeks of trying to find a location that would let us take over their courtyard for a day we found Lane’s Edge Cafe and Bar on Bourke St, Melbourne. Originally the shoot date was for a Monday, but Lane’s Edge was closed the day before on the Sunday and we would have full access to shoot in there. A few rehearsals and meetings later, we found ourselves on the shoot date. The funny thing I found was that for a smaller film, we had a larger crew than One Moment did! Everyone did great, the shoot was a success, and the images that David captured using film lenses on his digital camera looked awesome. The next day Aleck and I sat down to start the editing process and it was here that we realised something major was wrong…

Post Production

After examining the great images and even greater performances we realised we had some serious issues with the sound quality and level. Out of the two mics used on the day, only a very small amount sounded like something we could use for a professional production. I won’t go into too much detail, but it was going to be very difficult to rescue the sound track. This was devastating news, but was something we all had to deal with pretty quickly and continue on with the project. Once the edit was complete after only a few drafts, we sent it to our friends at Good Audio Sense in South Melbourne so they could have a go at cleaning up the sound. After two days the verdict was in; unsuccessful. Our only other option was to ADR the dialogue and re-create the entire soundtrack in studio, thankfully, and my appreciation goes out to Rory, Good Audio Sense agreed to do this for us, little did I know what kind of workload this actually meant. All up it’s taken about 4.5 days of studio time to do the ADR, record all the foley, and do the mix. Rory gave up several days of his holiday time to go into the studio and work with us on this and I really can’t thank him enough as Sandwich sounds great, he literally saved the film!

As I write this all that is left is the colour grade (by David) and the upload to Tropfest. I really hope that after all our work this film at least makes top 100. The aim is obviously to make the finals and be screened but at the end of the day we have made a great and funny little short that I think has enough legs to stand on its own in any festival should it not make it far in Tropfest. It’s been another steep learning curve, a good experience, and another great project to bear the substation media name.

**Update: Jan 19th 2011: Unfortunately Sandwich wasn’t selected for Tropfest, while its a bitter pill to swallow I’ve moved on and I’ll be submitting the film to various other festivals in hopes of securing a screening there. As always, any festival entires will be posted on the website here and on the Twitter and Facebook pages, so check back for updates.