Shooting

Once we'd half done with the script[^] and chosen the major locations it was time to think about the logistics. We'd thought about logistics as the script took shape but at that time it was more in the nature of 'can we shoot this?'. Now it was 'how can we shoot this?'.

I imagine if you're paying the big bucks to professional actors and film crews it's pretty simple to get them onto a location but since we hadn't the big bucks to spend it was a little more complicated. It wasn't that we had prima donnas to deal with. What we had to deal with was a bunch of friends who each had their own obligations to family.

Whilst, back in 1975, we might have been able to commit at a moments notice to a shoot things were somewhat different by 1990. The world might not have changed all that much but each individuals life had.

Thus much planning. If you've never worked on a movie you might imagine that it's shot in sequence. It isn't. All scenes at location A are shot the same day or week as required, no matter the order they appear in the final movie. A pretty obvious thing to point out I fear but it's amazing how many people don't realise it.

So Heino, Robin and I sat down and made some hard decisions. The first thing we needed was a firm committment from each actor and that meant we had to outline the worst possible case. There are insurance companies that make a good living by insuring film projects against actors who abandon a project half way through, or who die. Imagine the cost to the producers of 'The Lord of The Rings' if Elijah Wood had died halfway through!

We didn't have insurance but neither did we have many millions of dollars invested; nonetheless we wanted to be sure that if Dave played Festering Wound on the first day of shooting he'd be there to play the same role on the last day of the shoot.

The best way to ensure that was to fit in with his schedule. What holidays did he have planned for the next year? Then on to Annie, the girl who played the female lead; same considerations. By the time we'd factored everyone's schedules in (allowing for the Australian work year and public holidays) we had a pretty reasonable set of shooting dates. Not impossible by any means.

We had a few people drop out. My youngest sister Deb had wanted to play the female lead but she realised that she hadn't the time. As she said 'I thought it was going to be just like 1975' but it turned out not to be. She was pregnant with her daughter (the only child of my family in my generation). So if Deb couldn't be the female lead we found a role for her anyway; this movie was going to have as many of us from 1975 as we could accomodate. Deb did the studio introduction!

A Dave who had been in the original Scarless Movie[^] decided at the last minute that what he had been prepared to do in 1975 was no longer something he could do in 1990. A pity; he'd been a fun companion in 1975 but if he didn't want to then he didn't want to and that was the end of it.

We found new actors and the first shoot drew closer!