SUMMER CODA

Festival time! and a big 2011

2010-12-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

Pic 1# Ricky at Mad Max pub in Silverton (I became a member, don't ask how)

Pic #2 Ricky with mini inceptor. (Silverton's like 30mins out of Broken Hill)

Pic #3 Ricky in Bhutan! That's the Tigers Nest in the BG.

Hello friends,

Happy New Year! Well, almost. Love this time of year.

Had a fabulous last couple of months with trips to Bendigo, Broken Hill (see fun pics above), Perth and Sydney again. Not to mention BHUTAN! I filmed an episode of ABC series Cheese Slices there. Absolutely spectacular... and I can recommend the Yak's cheese. ...Kinda.

Screening at the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) was the bomb! Outdoor auditorium that holds 1,100 people. Something about watching Summer Coda in deck chairs with a brewski or bottle of vino really works! Funny that, probably because that's how the film was written!

Ricky also attended the Access Film Festival in Sydney, a beautiful event promoting access to cinema for all. Totally lovely to sit in a cinema with blind people experiencing the film. The festival had organised an audio track that describes the actions of the characters around the dialogue, so everyone gets the full experience. I was asked why a blind person would want to come to the cinema? Silly question when you've experienced it! Nothing really compares to the atmosphere of a cinema, whether you can see the screen or not. Ah, and lets not forget the popcorn and choc-tops (plus cider where available).

Don't get me started on Broken Hill! Film lovers paradise. Drink at the hotel were they filmed Priscilla AND THEN drink at the pub where Mad Max II, Razorback, A Town Like Alice and Dirty Deeds were filmed! Or maybe take a tour of the brand new Mad Max 4: Fury Road studios! Amazing. I can especially recommend "becoming a member" at the Silverton Pub. It involves sticking a large red funnel down your pants. Nuff said. Thanks very much to Lyndall Roberts for setting up such a fabulous tour!

Next stop PALM SPRINGS! Summer Coda has just been selected for the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). Very excited. We're heading over on Jan 5th. ...And so begins our international sales campaign. We've signed on with Entertainment One (E1) as our sales agent, whose recent Aussie films include Animal Kingdom, so we're in super duper hands. The next 6 months is all about getting seen in as many new territories as we can and hopefully Ricky can score a few freebie plane tix too! Nothing better than watching your film OS at a film festival. nothing better in the world!

What else is news? I've started a new production company with a bunch of other film crazed champions and we're basing ourselves in LA (just leased an office!) as well as Oz. We have a simple mantra, passed down by the king himself: The best thing young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all. ~ Stanley Kubrick

Sounds good doesn't it? We have a fabulous slate of brilliant screenplays and we're gonna do exactly what the great man suggests. Make films. Pronto. We're gonna do more for less.

I was very interested to read about and watch Ed Burn's new film Nice Guy Johnny. Made for $25k. 3 man crew, unknown actors (but for Ed himself). Everyone on profit share. Released straight to iTunes -- no cinema release. It's doing incredibly well and it's a distribution strategy that's looking more and more appetising for Indie filmmakers. Now Ricky is always gonna want to play at the cinema, and our next films are quite a bit bigger, but a great little flick like Nice Guy Johnny provides fantastic perspective. Write a great script, get out and make your movie!

Massive shout out to all you wonderful supporters. What a fabulous year. Onwards and upwards my friends!

If you're in or around LA we're screening at Palm Springs on the 13th and 15th of Jan. You can pick up tix through their website: http://www.psfilmfest.org/

We'll also be having an "Australians In Film" Summer Coda screening in LA on Feb 24th -- more info on that bad boy soon. Come along and say... Cider!

Lots of love,

Ricky

PS. For Summer Coda's Facebook site with all the info click here ...LIKE US! and you can follow Ricky on twitter here.

In Release!

2010-11-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends,

What a whirlwind! As I write this, Summer Coda is now playing in all Australian states and territories! Ah.... with the major exception of W.A. -- but don't you Westerners take any offence -- we have something extra special planned for you: We're OPENING the big ol' Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) on Nov 30! Followed by ample opportunities to come out and see us in season.

What an eye opening experience this whole Aussie release thing has been. Talk about ups and downs! I'm pleased to say there's been many more of the former. Thank god. We've had absolutely beautiful audience responses, but completely mixed reviews. Some amazing, others so-so and a couple poisonous. But the varied opinions on Summer Coda have been quite satisfying in an odd way. It provides something to talk about!

Of course I'd prefer EVERYONE just love it! (and "get it" mainly) But the weird thing is, differing opinions create a talking point, and film discussion is one of my fave nerdy past times. I also love sitting in the back of theatres and hearing the different reactions: The laughs at different moments and individuals having different fave characters and / or performances. As I've said before: It's all so subjective and completely fascinating.

What's fabulous is the online love we've received. Thanks champions! Right around the world. Not only online though, but at the dozens of local Q&A's and events in every state. I love getting the opportunity to introduce our film; providing a glimpse inside of what we set out to achieve and what we went through to get here today. It's a rare opportunity for us and I've really adored it. The only downer is the lack of popcorn I receive. Yes, the lack of popcorn. I think because I get looked after by the cinema manager or local town mayor I kinda get ushered into the cinema at the last minute -- We bypass the candy bar! It totally sux.

Maybe when I'm big and famous I'll be able to make rock star demands like: Ricky requires x1 Medium Popcorn x1 Boysenberry Choc Top and x2 Ciders for this evenings Q&A session. Bam!

In the last month we've visited (in no particular order); Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Nth Qld, Regional NSW, Regional VIC, Mildura, Tassie, Adelaide and next stop Perth! What a road trip! Dozens of fundraisers, special events, mini festivals and Q&A's. Love it!

18 months ago we didn't have a cent of our budget in the bank and had no real clue on how we'd make it happen. It's quite amazing really, to look back and think what might have been had we not taken the jump. Best decision of my life. You want something enough, you just have to do it! It will certainly never be handed to you. Very simple stuff I know. But it's the simple stuff that works.

Do you want to know a big secret? My fabulous team and I made Summer Coda for $680,000. Total. That's all in. Not a cent more. Finished with print. We didn't want anyone to know because we didn't want to be seen as just another low budget Aussie film. I'm so bored with that stigma. But now that we've been reviewed and judged and seen, I can let you know. Because we believe we've made something really beautiful, with an amazing cast that looks and sounds like FIVE TIMES more than we spent. And we're really proud of it. We can do MORE for LESS. You just have to insert the key words: CRAFT and PASSION.

Big shout out to our wonderful distributors and our beautiful cast who have been absolute troopers through this whole crazy fun ride! And to our marvellous Investors, Film Victoria and Screen Australia who have helped us so much in release. W.A. here we come! (not to mention Broken Hill, Bendigo, Rose Bud and Devonport!) That's how we roll!

Thanks for all the love,

Ricky : )

Week of release!

2010-10-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Been doing a looooot of talking about our movie this last month. Hmmm, does that read like loot or lot, was supposed to be lot, but a loooooot. Like lots of lot. Anyway, you get it.

Been on a mammoth Summer Coda campaign trail and man has it been a hoot! Ricky's in his element. So cool to travel with our actors and talk the talk and meet audiences and chat to press right around Oz at our advanced screenings and Q&A's. SO MUCH FUN. It's gotta be the best bit about making a film: Finally getting to sit back and see what people think.

The greatest thing about Q&A's is you get to reflect on things you've forgotten about: We're ideas for the screenplay were first born (the image of a girl hitchhiking home with a violin case), how we found Mildura (by googling citrus), and why it took six years to fund (I now have all the answers -- want to buy my book? : ). It's a lovely thing to sit in a cinema and have an audience genuinely interested in the process. I love it.

Something that is more difficult to grow comfortable with are reviews. Your pride and joy being critiqued by so many. You grow very close to a project and it's a surreal exercise reading opinions from all over the globe. It's both beautiful, humbling and gutting, depending on the outcome! I'm far too sensitive to not take things personally, which means I can hit the highest of highs and the lowest of lows with a simple mouse click! It's all so subjective and completely fascinating.

Almost forgot: We had a massive premiere in Mildura! Overwhelming fun. After 6 years of visiting the great town we finally had something to show off. The response was awesome and I'm happy to say Mildura will always be a 2nd home for Ricky. Big shout out to Film Victoria for making the event so special. ...Mildura Brewery had something to do with the successful night too.

As you can see from the pic up top, we have a Soundtrack! (you can order online here: www.liberation.com.au / OR pick it up from JB Hi Fi, Borders, Readings...etc). This baby is one of the things I'm MOST proud about. Since I was 18 I've been blasting movie soundtracks in my car (film nerd) -- and now we have one of our own! Glenn Richards (Augie March), Liam Finn, Dan Sultan, Amaya, Horse Stories, Custom Kings, Goodbye Motel, The Stems, Jim Keays -- just to name a few! Not to mention some of my fave score from our wonderful composer, Alies Sluiter. 15 Tracks. As Molly Meldrum would say... Do yourself a favour and go out and get it!

It's been an absolute whirlwind and tonight and tomorrow we have our lavish red carpet premieres in Sydney and Melbourne! Rach Taylor has returned from Russia (shooting big action US flick) and we can't wait to show her the film on the big screen. We caught up yesterday, and she's so pumped about the movie it gave me goosebumps. She's such a fab leading lady, can't wait for you all to see. And if you're more into leading men, just wait for Alex Dimitriades' performance! They were both such a treat to work with. Generous, smart and funny -- what more could you want?

Thank-you all for your incredibly support. The thought of writing this blog (and Twitter and FB) at first seemed a chore -- how quickly that changed! Love writing it and I'm not gonna stop anytime soon. Big shout out to all my new social networking buddies!

As I've previously penned, SO MUCH depends on our first weeks box office result. So much. So get along and see our baby, and let us know what you think! Summer Coda is playing at many, many fab cinemas right around Oz. Check out www.summercoda.com for all the cinemas. Book a ticket for our opening weekend and If you don't like it, I'll refund your ticket! *

What an exciting week!

Lots of love,

Ricky xo

* Ricky may not actually refund your ticket. : )

6 weeks until release!

2010-09-07T04:32:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Sitting at Bangkok airport I had a sudden heart pang about what an amazing year it's been. The best of my life. Funny that I haven't earned so little cash since I finished film school. Interesting. Money certainly can't buy happiness in our trade. ...Um, not that I'm against it or anything. Actually, scratch that, can you spare a dollar?

Summer Coda is complete, MIFF screening was an absolute blast and we're now revving up for our Australian cinema release on Oct 21st.

The last couple of months have been particularly eye opening. The cinemas (the exhibitors) hold so much power. I knew this of course, but I'd never experienced it first hand. Particularly on an Indy release. Your distributor works their butt off on your film's campaign, gets the press and as many exhibitors as possible to come see your pride and joy. Then exhibitors get back to the distributors on whether they'd like to play your film, and how many sessions. And then let the games begin! Seriously, exhibitors and the distributors have very, very difficult jobs. A phenomenal juggling act really.

I'm excited to say Summer Coda will be playing at 90% of the cinemas we wanted - which is just awesome. The size of screen and how many screenings you get a day are also crucial. So the bargaining begins. Fascinating to watch. You have to fight to give yourself the best chance to be seen, and hang around long enough for positive word-of-mouth to spread. Hopefully.

Being an Indy film (but hopefully commercial too), you wont be seeing Summer Coda at a lot of mega plexes, you will however be seeing it at all the best art houses in Oz as well as a few of the finer big boys. Perfect for us. I think we're looking at about 25 metro screens. We're also rolling out on a whole bundle of the best rural cinemas. We're thinking Summer Coda will go down well in the country, so l'll also be heading out on a massive road trip to visit as many of these cinemas as possible.

You hear a lot of talk about PER SCREEN AVERAGE. This is the average of how much cashola your film takes at each cinema you're playing in. You need this bad boy to be HIGH. High means that people are coming along to your sessions -- not a lot of spare seats -- which means the exhibitors are happy for you to keep all your sessions for the following week, because it's clear punters want to come for a looksey. This is why your first weekends box office is so important.

It's hard to get Aussies to go see our home grown films at the best of times, let alone needing them to watch your pride 'n joy in the first week! That's why your marketing strategy is so integral and why you live and die by your distributor. We're lucky enough to have two.

Two champions that have put it all on the line for Ricky (and more than a few others ; ). Big shout out to Natalie Miller @ Sharmill FIlms and Jamie Bialkower @ Jump Street Films.

I have loved being in the trenches with them. As well as marketing, media, print, booking cinemas, other deals like TV, DVD, NZ and airline sales have been intriguing.

Summer Coda was privately funded. 90% anyway, 10% from the champs at Film Victoria (who have been backing Ricky for so long it's lovely to finally have something to show them). "Privately funded" means we have a bunch of investors that have taken the punt on Summer Coda. Beautiful people, because as you can imagine, backing a film is not the most

blue chip of investments! This brings massive responsibility to the production, to scrutinise every penny spent. Which doesn't mean we don't want to spend money -- because you certainly have to to market your film, but it just means you gotta get bang for your buck. You must know what type of film you have, who your key audience is, and what films in the past have worked. Not to mention what you can learn from the ones that didn't.

Your $14-18 ticket at the box office gets split many ways. The exhibitor and the distributor take a big piece (as they should), and the rest flows back to the production company -- who pay the investors. However, the production company doesn't see a cent until the P&A is paid back. P&A is the costs of the film's Prints and all Advertising that the distributor has forked out for. The distributor (who's taken a large financial risk) must recoup their costs, AND THEN money flows to the investors, while continuing to be split with exhibitor and distributor.

Summer Coda is in an amazing position where we have already paid for our P&A before a single ticket is sold. Which is due to the hard work and selling of our distributors. This is extremely rare in our country. This means from the very first ticket sold on Oct 21st, our investors are beginning to recoup their investment. This might not sound like anything too special, but let Ricky assure you, it is amazing. And it's taken some bloody hard work.

Many Australian films aren't able to pay off their P&A by the END of their cinema run, let alone before the movie screens for the first time. The above is usually confidential, but we're working on a very different model to the vast majority of Oz films, so i think info sharing is constructive. I certainly would have liked to learn this stuff at film school.

Often we celebrate Aussie films that make over a $1m at the local box office, without looking at important things like - P&A spend and the film's actual budget. It seems like millions of dollars in losses are acceptable in our business. And maybe they have to be? Because If more than $3m is spent on an Australian film, it is virtually impossible to make your money back through local box office. As I've illustrated above, after all the splits, your film would need to make over $10m at the box office. That's if it was made for just $3m.

As you know, many films are made for a lot more, and so those numbers compound terribly. And how many Aussie films made in the last 10 years have grossed more than $10m at the box office? And when they did, were they also made for a lot more than $3m? When you do the maths, it's not a pretty picture. But does it matter? Who cares? The general public heading to the movies don't. They just want a to see a good film. I have no problem with that.

However, it matters when you're trying to protect your investors so that they'll invest AGAIN. It matters if you want to think of our industry as a business. I've been told many times just to worry about the creative: "You're the filmmaker". However, if this filmmaker wants to make another film, he needs to look after his investors. Not a bad thing to do because:

If Summer Coda's investors make their money back, they'll invest again. Meaning more privately funded Aussie films. Meaning other like-minded producers can sell this as a model and more investors will gain confidence in investing in Aussie films, when they are set up correctly.

And so, with every ticket sold to Summer Coda -- from the very first ticket -- cashola flows back to the people that made it happen. Awesome. This is why our first week, starting Oct 21st is so crucial.

We are very fortunate to have a film industry largely funded by our government. But we should respect that money, like we would if it was our own 2 cents.

And that was mine.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

PS. By "liking" our Summer Coda facebook page you help us broaden our social network. Wink wink. Nudge, nudge.... Same goes for Twitter

Week 25 Trailer, MIFF and Premiere countdowns begin!

2010-07-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

I'm excited to announce Summer Coda is complete! Seeing it in a cinema for the first time was TOP 10 moments of my life. It was only a test screening at Digital Pictures, but emotions hit me like a ton of bricks... and I'm not talking soft mud brick -- I'm talkin big bluestone bad boys! Totally knocked me for 6. Not because I hadn't seen it before, or didn't know what to expect, but because it's finally finished after 6 years of dreaming about it. Beautiful feeling! And now she heads out into the wide world. Wooot!

No rest for the wicked though, it's now festival, sales agent, exhibitor / media screenings and world premiere time! Very important phase. Perhaps the most important, as building awareness is so crucial. We have a soundtrack to release too. Mushroom and Liberation Records have come onboard and it's an absolute cracker album -- as well as our original score, we have music from Liam Finn, Dan Sultan, Glenn Richards, The Stems, Goodbye Motel, Amaya, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros -- just to name a few!

I'd always dreamed of releasing a Summer Coda soundtrack (2nd dream mention - brain clearly still mush from Inception). I spent much of my youth listening to them. From the moment I got my drivers license I've been blasting John Williams, James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer and Jon Brion in my car. Not so cool when you're 18... actually, not so cool now but who cares!

Summer Coda is playing at MIFF on August 4th. Very pumped about that. I've been going to MIFF for years and years. When I was at film school, I remember sitting in the Forum (drinking a lot of Stellas) looking up at that ceiling, thinking how much I'd love to play at the festival. Last weekend I was sitting in the forum (drinking lots of Magners) and it's FINALLY HAPPENING! Perhaps my switch to cider played a part. Yes, that must be it.

The pic of Alex above is one of my absolute faves. He's introducing the film at MIFF -- hope you can be there! If not, we'll be doing a mountain of Q&A's in the lead up to our Oz release (Oct 21st). Come along and mention the blog and let's have a spritzer or two after the show. So keen to hear all your thoughts.

Finally, thanks for all your fab feedback on our trailer. If you haven't seen it yet, you can find it here. To think that 12 months ago we didn't have a dollar in the piggy bank for this movie. Desire is a powerful thing!

Much love,

Ricky : )

Week 22 Poster time!

2010-06-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

How exciting. There it is! Man does it feel like a movie now. So happy we were able to make use of my fave production still. It's a key romantic scene in the movie too, so all good things. Was the most perfect sunset and we got about 40mins our of magic hour filming -- just perfect.

So much time and effort goes into movie posters, and I'm proud to say ours conveys the type of story we're trying trying to tell. Should feel warm, beautiful and romantic, and should also hint at a new world that our characters are discovering. Love having our fab cast up in the clouds too.

More than anything, the poster should feel inviting and make you wanna go check it out! Hope you think so.

Next step trailer! It's all happening.

Come and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Clicky clicky!

Website's been updated with production stills of Rachael and Alex too: www.summercoda.com

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

Week 18 Mixy Mixy

2010-05-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Ricky's had more time on his hands lately -- It was easy for me to pretend to have a great deal of input in the grade, but it's a lot tougher in the sound mix. Truth is I'm just sitting back and listening to everything sounding better and better. I might occasionally say "I'd like to hear a magpie there" or... "would it be cool if we had some water sprinkler fx there"... but that's me just trying to earn my keep... and my toasted sandwich.

Truth is I've been spending much more time thinking about distribution. There's a couple of new considerations that have come to light: The fabulous AFI Awards have an Oct 6th deadline (if you wanna make 2010 awards), which means Summer Coda would need to be released before Sept 30th to be eligible (that's the last Thurs before the 6th). Now, you certainly don't wanna set your release date around an awards deadline, but you do stop to think about the fact that your film might be forgotten about 13 months later at the 2011 awards -- that said, there's no guarantee we wont be forgotten in 2010! -- but you gotta be in it to win it!

There's also a bunch of other fab Aussie flicks set to release around Sept. At this stage i think Matching Jack, Blame, Kin and a couple others too. This is interesting cause you don't wanna hurt each-others box office potential. In my humble opinion people that see Aussie films are largely a lovely loyal crowd, but they might not venture out 3 times in the same month. So that's more food for thought. The other issue with Sept is school holidays -- makes it harder to get screens for Aussie content when all the kids flicks are on.

So why all this talk of Sept you ask? Well, Summer Coda will be completed in June and you wanna give yourself 3 months for long lead reviews and publicity so Sept sits about right, but so does Oct which is why the AFI dilemma is an interesting one. Hmmm... much thinking to be done. Thankfully, smarter people than Ricky are working on it.

In other news: We finished the trailer last week! Woot! We're now in a holding patten for the appropriate time to release it. I HOPE SOON! POSTER TOO!

Anyway, back to the sound mix. "How bout a bit more wind in that night scene on the river?"
..."Um, I don't think so Ricky, could you keep it down mate?".

Much Love,

Ricky : )

Week 16 Darkness Falls...

2010-04-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Sitting in a dark room again. It seems to me that windows would make a nice addition to post houses. You know, stop my skin from turning grey. Yes, yes, yes I know: It has to be dark so you can fully appreciate the pictures and yes, the room has to be sound proof and cinema-like to appreciate the sound -- buuuuuttt, surely a couple windows wouldn't kill anyone, or even some art on the walls -- heck I'd settle for some retro wallpaper!

Shouldn't whinge though, and it's not like my irish skin is ever anything but pale anyway. Truth is, this stage of post production is FUN. Everything's pretty. Pretty pictures, pretty sound FX and pretty bloody good toasted sandwiches! I don't know what it is, but there's just something about having a toasted sandwich made for you. It's such a simple pleasure and it takes me back to when my Momma used to make me jaffles (or Brevilles as we called them on account of the brand name of our jaffle maker). I'd come home from school and be served up a piping hot Breville. Yum, yum yum. You could fill those bad boys with anything! Cheese and tomato, pizza toppings, baked beams... Hmmm, I'm clearly a man that enjoys simple pleasures (or just a simple man).

But I'm guessing if you're reading this you're not doing so for my love of toasties. HOWEVER, I can inform you that it was my love of COOKING and a movie called Julie & Julia that got me started on this whole blog thing. So I happy I did. I look back on my first blogs and although I may not have shown it, I was pretty bloody nervous: First feature, privately financed, away shoot, new crew, untried cast members -- but I gotta tell you: it couldn't have gone better! ..and this bloggy thing has been very therapeutic.

Was Ricky's bday on the weekend! Anzac day. The big 30. Was always my major goal after finishing VCA that'd I'd make a film before turning 30. Have done that. But is it any good? Proof will be in the pudding -- Mmmmm pudding. Am hungry now... think I'll order another Breville.

Much Love,

Ricky : )

Week 15 Picture Lock

2010-04-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

This week has been super stressful for Ricky (as u can tell from the pic), but man has it been rewarding.

You begin to scrutinise every frame when it's time to sign off on an edit. You begin to worry about scenes and shots you never had before, only to change them, only to change them back because it was gold and you where messin with it! But after much tossing and turning and watching and re-watching I can happily announce: we have PICTURE LOCK! AND I'M SUPER PUMPED ABOUT IT.

7 years of love and effort comes in at round 110 mins. It's been a long time, but now more than ever I know it was worth it. Never been broker, never been happier. That's filmmaking in Oz!

Now we can start to think about release date. Another tricky subject. our distributors have this well under control, but picking a date is bloody hard. There's so many factors: time of year, season, school holidays, what else is being released, proximity to other Aussie flicks. And before all that; which international film festival to premiere at? What's the wish list and what might fit best to coincide with potential OS sales. Oh, the list goes far deeper than that -- Ricky's musings are merely chicken scratchings on a dusty road map at the best of times. Case studies can only take you so far too. So many great films don't make an impact at the cinema. This distribution caper is a hard one.

Any ho, it's gonna be exciting and I wouldn't miss it for the world. We'll be releasing our poster shortly, and then our trailer... can't wait to hear all your opinions.

Big shout out to my bud Jamie who's distributing Eclipse which opened in Oz this week. Go and see it if you can -- It's a cracker.

Much Love,

Ricky : )

Week 14 Post Production

2010-04-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

Pic #1 Ricky, Virginia (prod manager), Greg (DOP), Pacharo (plays Monty in Summer Coda), Nathan (plays Joey).

Hello Friends,

Summer Coda picture lock is upon us! Ahhhh! Time to make those final edit decisions. Time to weigh up which test audience results you want to agree with. Tricky, but exciting.

Once we lock pictures the sound boys take over. We spend as much time on sound as the picture edit, which is awesome cause it provides new pangs of excitement when you first hear a scene properly mixed with our original score. It's those elements that make test screenings (of unfinished films) so hard to gauge.

After sound comes the GRADE! Finally get to see all our pretty pictures in full resolution. In my petty world, watching Summer Coda in shitty low res has been like watching Godfather on YouTube! Well kinda. Well, no not really but you get the point. Either way, can not wait to sit down in a theatre and see our finished pictures with a 5.1 mix. Ace.

Had an awesome time in Hollywood -- as if there was ever any doubt! So cool to be living in a city that lives and breaths film. Oh, and it's way cheaper to see films there -- so there's a BIG bonus.

Which fool thought it was a good idea to start charging $18 a ticket to see a movie in Oz?

We wonder why it's hard to get peeps to go see Aussie flicks. I completely understand: I reckon a lot of folks that fork out $18 want a BIG experience, like Dragon or Robin Hood or even Avatarded. So how bout this for an idea: $1 from each ticket sale for box office smash hits goes towards subsidising the cost of an Australian film ticket? So you could go and see your Aussie films for $10. Even if it was 50 cents it would still work out, and who would mind paying $18.50 for a ticket to a block buster if it meant you could see any local flick for $10. Sure you'd make less profit from each Aussie ticket sale, but you'd sell soooooo many more tickets and develop a culture of supporting our local product.

I reckon that would be gold. Of course it'll never happen... until Ricky gets a few more runs on the board and then it's WHAM, SMACK, POW movie ticket revolution baby!

And if you don't like that, how bout just 50cents from each non-Aussie movie ticket goes into a fund to produce more local flicks. That's millions of dollars in the kitty. We MUST make more films -- and preferably from varied funding sources.

Anyway, enough dreaming. Onto more thirst quenching things: We took a tour through the vineyards where Sideways was shot. Just beautiful. About an hour out of Santa Barbara, near a place called Buellton. Turns out the winery where Sandra Oh worked is owned by an Aussie. He hooked us up with a reservation at the Hitching Post. Just awesome. And no, we didn't drink any f*cking Merlot! Pics below.

Much love,

Ricky : )

Pic #2 The road to Santa Barbara. Pretty. Those yellow bad boys are mustard flowers.

Pic #3 Little Aussie vineyard making delicious Zinfandel.

Pic #4 The cellar door where Sandra Oh worked. Check out the Aussie flag on the roof. Wall to wall indigenous art and a Sideways poster too.

Pic #5 The Hitching Post bar. Ohhhhhhhh, their own red wine is divine!

Pic #6 Ricky with mini bottle of '05 Highliner. stunning. the right size for drinking in the car on the way home!

Week 12 Post Production

2010-03-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Pic #1 Filming in the desert is fun.

Pic #2 Rocks are cool.

Pic #4 Our motley U.S. crew.

Pic #5 Our cowboy DOP relaxing outside the church from KILL BILL.

Hello Friends,

We FINALLY wrapped the principle photography of Summer Coda! And what a place to do it. Weather was perfect, locations spectacular, performances... well 2 out of 3 ain't bad! ; )

We put together a cracking local crew and headed out into the desert. Great to make new friends, and awesome to film in a country where we'd like to do A LOT more. Big shout out to TJ and our U.S. production arm at Dilated Pixels.

The coolest thing about shooting here is that everyone, and I mean everyone, knows a little something about film. You could be 3 hours out of the city in the middle of the desert and the person selling you a burrito will have acted in a movie way back, or her cousin is a producer, or she'll ask questions like "what are you shooting on?". You just don't get that in Oz, and I adore it! Surrounded by peeps that actually have an understanding of what we do for a living (or attempt to earn a living from anyway!). LOVE IT.

So now we just need to get this gold footage back to Gaz in the edit suite. Then we can finally insert our U.S. scenes and make the final few calls before picture lock. Hmmmm, PICTURE LOCK, there's two scary words. No turning back after that... We'd best get it right!

We've become increasingly confident with the edit, but it's always hard to know what an audience will respond to -- particularly in Australia. So the best we can do is concentrate on story and performance, and then market the hell out of this baby!

Can't wait to show y'all!

Now onto more important things... DISNEYLAND! and then tickets to a ROLLER DERBY! http://derbydolls.com/la/ (OMG).

Ricky xo

Pic #7 That's a wrap! Greg (DOP), Virginia (Prod Manager), Ricky (Slacker), Johnny (Producer)

Week 10 post production...

2010-03-11T18:26:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Well, it turns out I'm not as powerful as I remember from my primary school days. Apparently posting pics of Rachael Taylor in a bath to coincide with the storyboards I posted last week is NOT a good publicity idea. I've been told this is for 3 reasons:

1. Not one pic of Rachael from Summer Coda has been released yet. These are the "hot items" of our long lead marketing campaign (snore).
2. Rachael in the bath MAY attract the wrong kind of dudes (ah, if they pay for a ticket they ain't wrong to Ricky).
3. No one reads my blog (hmmm, can't argue there).

So instead, here's something EVEN BETTER:

I think the little rubber duckies really cap it off nicely.

Believe it or not, the marketing of Summer Coda is something we take super seriously. We only get one crack at it. We had a super duper Unit Publicist in Tanja Nedel and now we have the all-conquering Chris Chamberlin (fresh from Samson & Delilah) taking on our release publicity. So crucial we get it right and the hero shots of Rachael and Alex Dimitriades are kinda like our ace-in-the-hole. People wanna see what they look like in the movie, they wanna see what chemistry is going on and we think we have something very special here.

Ricky enjoyed the Oscars this week, however I will say that if they really needed to politicise and drum up a David vs Goliath battle, they should have pitted Avatarded (thx Miss Lomas - LOVE that word) vs Up In The Air. I adored Up In The Air and believe it was kinda left behind when all that Hurt propaganda started building. For me, its story and screenplay was on a much higher level. Kinda reminded of when Crash won the oscar. But i know a lot of people loved that too, so i should just pipe down.

Anyway, the set looked fab and I'm a tragic Baldwin and Martin fan, so was still much fun and laughs to be had. Like the dancing -- that gets me every time!

Had awesome news this week: Looking very much like a Summer Coda soundtrack will be released! ACE, because we've been we've been working with Mushroom Records on the music in the film for a very long time and we reckon we've got some killer tracks! Love a good movie soundtrack and don't get many Aussie entries, so fingers crossed.

Heading to the U.S. on SUNDAY! WOOT! Finally filming the closing scenes of the picture with Alex Dimitriades. I can highly recommend the months of pain and bags of cash it takes to get someone a work Visa. Thank God that's over!

...Did I mention I'm going to Disneyland? Expect photos. Expect MANY photos. Might even try to get Mickey in a bath with me for a pic. ...Vomit.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

PS. Summer Coda twitters here. Ricky twitters here. Facebook is here.

Week 9 post production...

2010-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Thought it might be cool to show some Summer Coda storyboards and then follow up next week with the actual shots from the film.

I'm a massive fan of pre-visualization. I don't dig just rocking up on the day and "feeling out" a scene. That's kinda lazy. When you storyboard you force yourself into closely examining what might work best for a scene. You can always improve those images on the day -- and often do, but you'll never walk away with a scene that wasn't AT LEAST as well composed as you'd originally imagined. It's a director and DP's homework, but man does it feel good to nail.

I hear a lot of talk about letting the scene play out in front of you and then designing camera moves to suit, which is fine, but only to a point. Even that handheld / doco-feel (when it's done well) doesn't just evolve naturally. Intricate planning is required to pull off the photography of films like The Insider, Amores Perros, City of God, Eternal Sunshine, Constant Gardener, Children of Men. They are some of my absolute fav films .

I think that's were most crappy handheld films go wrong -- thinking that you can just use handheld to create immediacy and forget about the planning -- cover things "organically". It's BS and annoys Ricky when he's watching shaky, funky-junky cam in the cinema, getting nauseas for no good reason.

Anyhoo, Ricky ain't here to preach and certainly doesn't have the runs to teach. Was just wanting to make the point that it doesn't cost anything to plan. You don't need a big budget to visualise every frame, and after the YEARS it's taken to get your baby up, it's not like you haven't had the time! You'd might as well create with craft.

For me, it was growing up with Scorsese, Coen Bros, PTA and Wes Anderson flicks that really highlighted the importance of choice and composition. Flicking through their DVDs frame by frame is all the film schooling you'll ever need.

Here's a fav quote: "...the language of film is our own interpretation of reality. You have to select what is important from the jumble of images we see in our everyday lives. You can speak without using words by the decisions you make about movement and composition." THAT'S GOLD.

Being in the edit suite day after day is really hammering that message home. Many lines of dialogue that were necessary at script stage (to tell our story) become obsolete when we nail our visuals. The cinema audience is REAL SMART too, don't need nearly as much exposition as we'd planned. If you can see it, really see it, you don't need to say it. Okay, that quote above might be a little flowery for some, but flowers are given to people for a reason. They're beautiful.

Now isn't that pretty, more soon.

Ricky : )

P.S. Follow Ricky on TWITTER http://twitter.com/Ricky_Hollywood

Week 8 post production...

2010-02-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends,

Summer Coda is really smoking now. We're into our 4th draft edit and it's looking great! Starting to get a few expert opinions and we'll soon be playing for our distributors and potential sales agent, so very exciting indeed.

As I've mentioned before it's inevitable that Ricky will like the looonnngggeer version of the edit. What's also inevitable is that Ricky will need to bow to popular opinion -- I'm a tad too close to the production to be entirely objective. So test screenings are the key. But not to friends and fam unfortunately. Hardcore Aussie film haters me thinks. That's the audience I'd love to attract, but then again, that ain't ever gonna happen, so we'll turn to the demographics we think might like to see the film if properly marketed.

It's a delicate subject, but I'm not sure we market our Aussie pride and joy properly. I'm certainly rarely bowled over and hanging out to see a local pic. Maybe you're different? I do love when we have a good year though. I remember seeing The Proposition, Wolf Creek, Look Both Ways and Little Fish all in 2005. Now i didn't love them all, but what a year! Something for everyone and some real quality. I'm hoping 2010 can be the same, and wishin' and a prayin' Summer Coda will be a part of the quality list. I think it can be!

Been having a fab week making final selections on the music in Summer Coda (and hopefully for release on our soundtrack too!). Don't get to hear many Aussie film soundtracks these days, so really pushing for a CD release cause I think we have some super cool tracks. Love a good movie soundtrack. Big shout out to Julie Hodges at Mushroom Music who's been helping me with this for just the last FIVE YEARS! Better late than never.

So we're finally off to the U.S. on March 14th to complete the filming of the final scene in the movie. It feels funny to still be shooting, but it's actually a blessing as we've been able to tinker with the script and ending now that we've seen the film. Ace. It also means I can head to LA with an almost finished DVD, so we've set up sales agent meetings which is a bonus.

Heading to LA of course has other major bonuses: Disneyland and Universal Studios. I am a MASSIVE TOURIST when it comes to those places. Look out for Ricky in front of Hollywood Hills pics too! It's what the fans have been calling out for. Well, me and my Momma anyway.

Lots of love people,

Ricky xo

Week 7 post production...

2010-02-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

So that's where I've been spending my days, weeks, months! In the edit suite with Gaz.

It's getting tough now, really tough. Having to make major decisions on the flow and length. It's difficult because some scenes have to go, a necessary evil for the overall betterment of the film. Of course this is nothing new, you always have to cut things down and even great scenes don't make it sometimes, but that's what DVD Special Features are all about!

It sounds wanky, but the audience's journey through your story is the only thing that matters. So pace is unbelievably important. Of course as the writer / director I tend to HANG ON TIGHT to every little moment, which makes my relationship with Gaz somewhat tumultuous. HOWEVER, it's that good kind of tumultuous because it leads to better results.

We both have the same goal, we just come at it from different angles -- hopefully meeting in the middle. Soooo.... what's it gonna be? 90, 100, 110, 120, 130mins?? TIME WILL TELL. Oh god, that was a shockingly bad pun. As my lovely wife would say "Father humour" -- you know, those bad jokes your Dad once told you... or still does? You know when you start telling Dad jokes that you're almost ready to be a father yourself. It's all a part of no longer being cool to the younger generation. If you stayed cool what else would kids have to cringe about. It's Lion King again... The circle of life. I still got a little cool left in me though, just gotta keep telling myself.

Speaking of cool... check out the co-stars of SUMMER CODA below.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

PS. Join our FB fan page for heaps more pics and news.

Week 5 post production...

2010-02-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

Pic 1) This was one of my fav shoot days. Orange picking with the full cast during the day and then a spectacular sunset from a shed rooftop, just in time for a cracker romantic scene.

Pic 2) I usually get in trouble from publicity for posting cast pics, but if you can't really see them you can't really get in trouble right?

Hello friends,

Well it's been hot as a fire cracker in Melbourne town, and looking out the edit suite windows onto Port Melbourne beaches has been like a slap in the face. Hmmm, let me re-think that. Port Melbourne doesn't really have beaches does it? More like sand and water. I can never really get that excited about our bay, but hey, it's better than nothing. I'm just saying Ricky wont be swimming in it anytime soon. But I digress, BIG TIME, or BT as our "Behind The Scenes" Producer likes to say.

Any-ho, in the air conditioned loveliness of our editing abode we've begun fine-tuning scenes, adding music, and recutting sequences to explore different takes and performances. It's not until we watched the first rough cut that we were able to gain perspective on how the characters where working together, and now it's time to hone in on the smaller details.

I'm loving it, and now more than ever feel so freakin lucky to have cast such fine actors. It ain't hard to find a good take when you're watching Susie Porter or Jacki Weaver I can assure you. I think people are gonna be blown away by Rachael Taylor too. She's in almost every scene and man can she carry a movie. Gold.

I've been cutting a few draft trailers for Summer Coda too. I shouldn't say "cutting" actually, I should say fiddling as I'm a real "hunt and peck" final cut pretender when it comes to editing. But I get by. FIDDLING WITH A TRAILER IS HARD. Man, it is SO hard. The trailer is the single biggest way to sell your film to the public and you've got 2 MINUTES and 30 SECONDS. Hard core. You can't show too much, but you musn't show too little. Gotta be cool and emotive, but not too cool or hammy.

Gotta sell an audience on coming to see your baby. Cause you gotta see the baby! But if the trailer sux, why would you want to see the baby? Like when your friends have had an ugly baby and you wonder what you're gonna say to them. Who are you going to tell them the baby looks like? Or are you going to go with the "Oh, he/she has soooo much character" OR "What an old soul". That's the movie review equivalent of "Wait for the DVD". So your trailer, like your new born, must be pretty special otherwise people are going to feel awkward about going to see it. And we can't have that!

Well, I've managed to rabbit on for a whole page without actually saying anything. Is that a skill? I used to try it with book reports back at school. I'd be lazy and not finish the book, but pretend that I had, and then waffle on with analogies and points of view without ever really tackling the issues or the ending -- because I hadn't read it! Well, if it's a skill now it wasn't then, cause my marks were NOT flash. Lets pray that's not the case for the TRAILER!

Booking flights for U.S. shoot tomorrow. BT FUN.

Lots of love,

Ricky

Note from distributors: Ricky is not actually responsible for editing Summer Coda's trailer. A quality UK company is producing that for us. Ricky just likes to "Fiddle", as being the writer/director/producer he struggles with delegation. As well as other things. ; )

Week 4 post production...

2010-01-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

Pic #1 Back at the airport -- this time LEGALLY.

Pic #2 Airport Security weren't happy with the size of Greg's lens. I can understand why. Told him it was a compliment. They were worried about punters thinking it was a Bazooka I think.

Hello friends,

Just watched the first complete rough cut of Summer Coda! OMG! We have a film and with a bit of fine tuning I believe a great one! So very exciting to see all the scenes come together. Probably the most surreal and rewarding moment so far. Watching all the characters come to life, for the first time I forget I was watching multiple scenes and sequences and just sat back and enjoyed. BLISS.

Julie Hodges from Mushroom Music has been helping me with the Summer Coda soundtrack for 5 years!! Was so happy to finally be able to show her some scenes. Music is a MAJOR component of our film and she's gathering some absolute CRACKER tracks.

Speaking of music, just about to catch up with our composer Alies and watch the film with her too. Her hard work starts now. Our score is just so crucial. Alies like so many others has been listening to me (at nauseam) rabbit on about Summer Coda (and her doing the score) for YEARS. So happy to finally hand it over.

We've had to delay our final shoot in the U.S. till March, but it's been a blessing as I couldn't have hacked leaving the edit suite at this stage. It's the best part!

Big shout out to VIRGIN for getting us on the tarmac at Melbourne Airport to film some awesome planes landing LEGITAMATELY. I remember way back to "17 days till shoot!" when we were sneaking around a back airport paddock to film some planes landing, standing amongst cows! Now we roll in style. Thank-you Mr Branson.

Thinking back to October last year amazes me. I was so excited, but equally scared. 4 months later I'm watching the film. UNBELIEVABLE.

Right-E-O, I'd best get back to it.

Much Love,

Ricky : )

Week 2 post production...

2010-01-15T15:01:00.000-08:00

...Ahhhh, the memories. These were the best fruit pickers a director could have ever dreamed for.

Hello friends,

Yep, I've been slack. Where's Week 1 post production? Well on top of being slack I've been too busy getting fat. After 8 weeks in the hell fire heat of Mildura, Christmas and New Years was a sight for sore eyes! Ooops, pardon the pun, Jo. (Jo, our EPK producer almost lost an eye to a flaming cigarette on NYE! Seriously).

Now we're back in the saddle. Organising a few last shooting days here in Melbs: Close up tarmac shots of Heidi's plane landing (Rachael Taylor), which our lovely major sponsor VIRGIN have kindly helped us with. Heidi in a Taxi through Melbourne CBD. Helicopter shots for Mildura and the great Murray River, and of course, the BIGGIE: Michael's (Alex Dimitriades') scenes in the CALIFORNIAN DESERT!

So we're off the States to shoot the last scenes of Summer Coda and I gotta tell you, I'm rather PUMPED about that one!

Meanwhile, our main man Gaz (our editor) has been CUTTY CUTTY CUTTY and it's been awesome hanging in the edit suite with him. Having done so much short form, reality and doco over the last 4 years it's so bloody refreshing to sink my teeth into a long form drama. We just don't make many films in this country, so it kinda feels like a privilege to be doing what we're doing.

Gaz has of course been working from the day after we started shooting. Much to do: First you gotta SYNC all the footage, day by day. That's 2 hours of footage a day, shot by shot. Then you gotta lay it all down on the timeline and start blocking out all the scenes. There's 157 scenes in Summer Coda. AND THEN you can finally start to take a look at your best takes and start piecing your pride-and-joy together. And that's when lazy Ricky hops into the edit suite! And then let the good times roll!

Quite surreal seeing all the footage in front of you. Such a lot of hard work, but so much fun as well. Beautiful seeing all the actors again. I had forgotten just how much we'd done.

Next week, while the cutty cutty continues we head to our friends at Soundfirm to do some ADR. Meaning we gotta replace some slightly noisy dialogue we recorded on the Highway at high speeds with the window down, with some crystal clear dialogue recorded in a studio.

Memo to self: Never EVER write 5 pages of meaningful dialogue to be performed in an old truck, on a bumpy road, with the windows down. This may lead to average sound. Instead, pull the truck over, and have one actor to say to the other: "Let's go do this meaningful dialogue scene over there -- on the bench, in the quiet park near the lake, where the film crew can stand in the shade".

Oh well, next time for sure! Truth is 99.9% of our sound is bloody brilliant (BIG SHOUT OUT to our awesome soundo Deano!) and replacing a few lines was bound to happen regardless, so it's a blessing -- cause I get to hang with our two lead actors again. Ace.

...I wonder if they'd like to try my new Jelly Shot recipe: Lime Jelly with Tequila in a little plastic shot cup of goodness. It's very refreshing and is going down a treat with Gaz in the edit suite. It could make this ADR business that much more pleasurable.

More soon champions,

Ricky xo : )

PS. Join us on facebook, tweet and our Summer Coda website mailing list. U know u want to. Just click those lovely coloured words and I promise to reveal another refreshing Jelly Shot recipe in my next bloggy.

Shoot Day 31

2009-12-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Here's some fab pics from shoot and the inaugural "Carn Cup" wrap party. The cup consisted of about 15 special events: From pool volley ball, to "the unridable ride" to musical statues to "how low can you go Limbo". A massive success!!!!

Pic #1. Greg and Steve shooting on a Saturday AGAIN for me. Love em.

Pic #2. These are the ladies of the Carn Cup. Fancy dress pool wrap party to die for. Flamingo had best seat in house. Poolside baby.

Pic #3. The prize table at the Carn Cup. May not seem like much, but look closer and you will discover some collectable gold! Critics say they were the best prizes ever awarded at a wrap party.

Pic #4. A closer look at the Carn Cup bounty.

Pic #5. The dress code was "Retro Pool Party". But anything stupid was allowed in.

Pic #6. Unit leader & MC Tony doing his best Bill Murray "The Life Aquatic" impersonation.

Pic #7. DJ Wi-Fee and that girl from Wolf Creek dance up a storm!

We partied hard for 2 days and sent Mildura off in style, but now we're back in Melbourne for one last shoot day. Then we're off to Nevada after a short Christmas break. Yah!

Thank-you so much for all your happy kind thoughts and wishes. I'll keep the blog going right through post all the way to premiere!

Love you guys,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 30

2009-12-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

LAST DAY OF SHOOT IN MILDURA!!!!!

Can't believe it's coming to an end -- but it's really just the beginning for our little baby. So many beautiful contributors, so little time to thank -- although I'll be doin my darn best to thank everyone at our 3 separate wrap parties! The first is TONIGHT -- then we have a retro pool party tomorrow called "The Carn Cup" (Melrose HQ is actually a superb little serviced apartment complex called The Carn Court). AND THEN perhaps a few spritzers and wine coolers in Melbourne too on Monday night.

That's not to say the crew and I like a drink -- Actually, it is to say the crew and I like a drink, because we do!

The weather has tested us, but the crew's commitment and awesome performances have never wavered.

Today we say goodbye to Alex Dimitriades. We have a further shoot with him in Nevada, but that's not for a little while. He's been a standout and a professional. Writing this film when I was 23 I couldn't of imagined a better actor in the role. He's a champion. Thx Mate.

Much love to all and much more soon,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 28

2009-12-16T13:39:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Well just 3 days left of shooting before we head to Nevada in late Jan. It's scorching here again! 44 degrees at the sand hills just outside of Wentworth yesterday. My shoes melted again. Dang. Man, Dunlop volleys look cool, but I perhaps should have selected substance over style today.

Somehow my pale Irish skin has managed to stay un-burnt throughout entire shoot. Long sleeve shirts and ridiculous hats have proven crucial. Hurts me in the respect stakes (the wide brimmed hats), but I was never gonna be able to maintain that for 7 weeks anyway (respect that is).

As the shoot in Mildura winds down my thoughts begin to move to post production. CANNOT WAIT to get into that edit suite. My man Gary has been cutting up a storm already, but there's just nothing like air conditioning and toasted sandwiches when you've been sweating your ass off in the sweltering sun for two months. Not to say that Gaz has a cushy job - FAR FROM IT -- I'm just saying the working conditions down at Tide in Port Melbourne are a little more relaxed. Pimms and lemonade anyone?

We basically have 4 months to cut, sound mix and finish the picture to film. Can not wait. And can't wait to show you all -- Could not be prouder of what we've achieved. I've said it before, but working with this fab crew and brilliant cast is a dream come true.

Off to Stefano's restaurant now to film the key romantic scene in the film. Rachael and Alex have been preparing for this one for quite a while now -- and I've been thinking about it for 6 years! Wish us luck.

Btw champions: join our mailing list on Summer Coda official website -- As we head into post, it'll be the best place to get info. Our Summer Coda Facebook page is up and running too.

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 25

2009-12-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Heading out filming again today. 6 day week, but we're soooo close to finishing it seems crazy not to push on through the weekend. Well, I think it seems crazy, but the crew think I'M CRAZY, so they'll just be a few of us today. We're so close to the finish line it's quite surreal. Rach and Alex are coming out this arvo for some cool car shots we've been planning, which will be fun I think. Again, crew and my own definition of "fun" is VERY different, especially when it comes to filming on the weekend!

We completed our last day at our key location yesterday. Very sad to see it go. Michael's house. Phenomenal 3rd generation farming property set on oranges and vines. Looks like a fairy tail actually, or a location from a Robert Redford film. Both things I'm over-the-moon about.

Next week we're filming with Jacki Weaver. Another dream come true. My fam arrives tomorrow in time for a major rushes screening tomorrow night. Melrose HQ will be buzzing with last week excitement and overflowing with Mildura Brewery beer. Oh god, that's one sponsor I never get sick of plugging.

Had a good few brews with our fab sound dept last night. Love working with these guys. Dean and Andy are awesome -- particularly when they call upon a farmer's shotgun to frighten away an owl that wouldn't stop hooting during takes! Seriously. Special mention to local boom Tone too, who we couldn't have done without.

Massive shout out to our Production Manager Virginia, who's been working 7 day weeks for the last 8 weeks. She's not alone either. Such tremendous support from such a dedicated team. The proof will be in the pudding.

I'm now hungry. Mmmmmm, pudding.

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 23

2009-12-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Today's a biggie. Some major romantic sequences and Heidi (Rachael Taylor) plays the violin for Michael (Alex Dimitriades) too. Rach has been in lessons for months now -- bloody hard work. But she can play for real now, and her progress has been outstanding. Our composer has come back from the UK for the scene too, so we're set to go.

With just 8 shooting days left I'm already missing the film. So many sequences and even a whole act in the can now. Feels fantastic, but also sad to see scenes that we've planning for so many years come and go. Couldn't be happier with them though. Wouldn't change a thing. Marvellous performances and a stellar crew working so hard to make it happen.

As exhausting as the process is, it's the best thing I've ever done in my life. Everyday there's some new little miracle to make me smile. Loving it.

Pic 1. Michele and our cuz Jo Davis (Behind-the-scenes producer and stuntie for a day)

Pic 2. Our Unit King, Tony. The ultimate on-set barometer.

Pic 3. Our motley crew in red gum city. From the look of things, the boyz have just asked me to go jump in the river.

Pic 4. A Mildura rooftop in all it's glory. LOVE IT here.

Much love,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 20

2009-12-04T23:14:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Last night we said goodbye to our fabulous supporting cast: Cassandra Magrath, Angus Sampson, Nathan Phillips, Daniel Fredriksen and Pacharo Mzembe. What a brilliant 2 weeks of scenes we had with them: Picking oranges, lunching under avocado trees, parties and swimming in the Murray river. Will miss them so much.

We've had a move to our key location "Michael's House" (Michael played by Alex Dimitriades) and it'll both be rejuvenating and rewarding to shoot at the same location for the next 7 days. Multiple location moves on hot, hot days takes it out of everyone, and Michael's House is a stunning oasis amongst vineyards and citrus, so we just can't wait.

Rachael and Alex have some major scenes next week, as we head into pivotal drama sequences. The pair have real chemistry and it's been exciting to watch their relationship unfold on camera.

Can't wait to show you all.

Big shout out to our UNIT GODS Tony and Pat who give us sooooo much and bring such a quality vibe. Not to mention the General Magee and 2nd AD James Short: On time and on schedule. And to our Safety Supervisor and Stunt Coordinator champion Reg Roordink. These are his pics. The man has a heart the size of Mildura and it's been an absolute pleasure.

Pic 1. That's our courageous steadicam man AJ with our man-of-steel key grip Craig Dusting.

Pic 2. That's our river setting down at Apex Beach (if you squint you can see our fab cast).

Pic 3. That's Kanga Lou (Art Director) and my darling wife Michele (Script Editor, Dramaturge)

Pic 4. Our FEARLESS CREW!!!! (and a couple of stars too) Champions all. Honourable mention to absentees: Emma Fletcher (Production Designer goddess) and Virginia Kay (our all conquering Production Manager), King Pin Producer (Marc Goldenfein) Natalie Miller, James Hoppe and wiz-kid Jamie Bialkower.

Pic 4. That's twilight with Gregoire Devore (DOP) and focus puller Steve "I'll get sharps wide open with no rehearsal at sunset" Bailey.

Pic 5. And that's the man himself: Reg "lets stop talkin' about it and shoot it" Roordink.

Much love,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 18

2009-12-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Well our time at the orange grove came to an end. Here's some pics of the fun we had. An amazing week.

More soon! Big party scenes tonight and tomorrow. Can't wait.

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 15

2009-11-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

We're HALFWAY already. Unbelievable. Very tough week this one. Drought breaking rains when we needed hot Summer days. Can't complain though, we need the rain.

Memo to self: Flash floods and electrical thunderstorms make filming in an orange grove and on a steel shed roof very difficult. But we survived. Some nifty re-scheduling kept us shooting and after 3 weeks we're probably only half a day down.

Our fab crew are doing a spectacular job in such trying conditions. All departments are shining. Makeup have amazed me (Nadia pictured above). From 46 degrees to torrential rain, keeping faces and hair in-check must be a nightmare! They're over delivering everyday.

Rachael Taylor continues to amaze. Such a professional at such a young age. Absolute pleasure to work with, and as we move further into the screenplay watching her character develop is wonderful. Rushes screenings are a pleasure and the crew seem to be having a ball. ...but for the times they're standing in the rain, holding metal objects and wondering about lightning i guess.

Our investors arrived yesterday for a tour of a few locations and sets. Stefano cooked up a storm for us last night, and I think everyone's feeling great. Our distributors Natalie and Jamie are here too. It's a very special feeling because we've been talking about the film for so many years. It's a dream come true.

Massive shout out to our Art Dept who've worked like hound dogs this week (and every other week), including constructing, painting and delivering a fifteen metre tourist attraction. The attraction was assembled at a roadhouse in a tiny town called Yamba, that's in South Australia. It's a funny little border town where your vehicle gets searched for fruit before you cross the border. You can be carrying as many illegal immigrants as you want, but one orange or ripe banana and you're in a lot of trouble!

Today I'm heading out with my trusty camera dept: Greg, Steve and Pete to nail some "Second Unit" action. "Second Unit" is the term I use to fool myself into thinking we're not working 7 days a week. It's supposed to imply that there's another small crew that come in and shoot the landscape shots and cutaways while we rest on the weekend. But it's us. Just us. And that's how we roll. Thx boyz. Let's hit the road. I gotta wake them first though. Heard quite a few champion crew roll into Melrose HQ at 4am this morning (Friday nights are big at O'Malley's). So I'm hoping I can lure them out of bed with some coffee, eggs and bacon. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!".

Thank-you for all your love and support,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 10

2009-11-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

We've come to the end of week 2, and I've already had a few heart pangs as great actors come and go. My main man Nick Farnell, Reef Ireland and then the lovely Susie Porter. Oh god it's been such a great week.

Here are some pics:

Our lead supporting actors arrived last night and we had a fab BBQ at Melrose HQ. Cassandra Magrath, Angus Sampson, Nathan Phillips, Daniel Frederikson and Pacharo Mzembe. I feel blessed. Off to rehearsals now -- gonna be a BIG week. It's fruit picking time!!!

Lots of love,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 8

2009-11-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Just got time for some new pics. Shoot's going great! Working with Susie Porter is a dream. Weather still as a hot as a fire cracker on Chinese New Year, but we're finally adjusting to it and learning to embrace... Having a pool and a beer sponsor helps too. WE LOVE YOU MILDURA BREWERY!

More soon champions. BTW, check out our official website and join the mailing list for all Summer Coda news. http://www.summercoda.com/

Cheers,

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 5

2009-11-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

Hello friends!

One week down and 5 to go! Amazing week. Beautiful shots and great performances, but so very very hot. Up to 55 degrees in our hero car! Cast and crew have been super troopers and we're right on schedule which is great for piece of mind.

Our departments our gelling incredibly well, which is encouraging particularly because it was a tricky week of day night shoots and action stuff.

Susie Porter arrives tomorrow and we get stuck into some good stretches of dialogue, which will be lovely. Can't wait for that actually!

Here's a few pics:

More soon!

Ricky : )

Shoot Day 1

2009-11-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Yesterday was amazing. To be finally shooting after all these years was very special. Thank-you for all your support and best wishes. Getting home to a message crammed phone and inbox was lovely. Weather was perfect -- extremely hot -- but beautiful. Endless blue skies with those little white clouds, giving the impression the sky is endless. Great for depth when you're shooting, and a quick glance at rushes last night filled us with confidence. We got some very cool stuff.

Oh god, Rachael is good. Her commitment is phenomenal. She had to do some difficult scenes yesterday and she nailed it. Can't give away too much, but she's a champion.

In the scorching heat everyone worked incredibly well. We have a super makeup team led by Nadia Cowell and I imagine keeping our actors looking relatively fresh in the sun is bloody tricky. They nailed it yesterday. Forecast for tomorrow is 43! OUCH. Oh man, I'm gonna need a little spritzer bottle to carry around. After each good take I can reward the relevant parties with a quick spritz. I'll be like: "Hey, well done, sweet scene. Spritzy spritzy!" -- and then squirty squirty! I'll soon be Mr Popular on set. Hmmmm, that's what's been missing.

To watch the individual departments working in sync was a real highlight. Gripping dept rigging car after car, camera dept swinging lens and switching cards (I'm still not used to the thought of our footage being on hard drive), Art dept dressing and propping everything within eyesight and wardrobe checking everything worn is looking just perfect. I gotta say, I'm in heaven! We have such a high spirited, talented bunch.

Today we do some major sequences at a country pub. Big setup day. Alex's first shooting scenes, and some really cool stuff. It's a Day / Night shoot so wont be in till late.

Promise lots of stills next time I'm on.

Ricky : )

1 day till shoot!!!

2009-11-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

That's Melrose HQ -- and that's a few of our champion crew.

Tomorrow it starts. Unbelievable. I feel ready and raring to go. Everyone's here and there's a real sense of occasion. Away shoots create a unique atmosphere: The crew's away from home, and it's kind of an adventure because the majority have never been to Mildura. There's something special about living all together as it enhances the experience.

On our final day of preparation I'm heading off to our first week locations with Greg (DOP) this morning. Calms me to walk through the shots several times. Our preferred style is to not to shoot a lot of coverage (extra shots to help cover scene). We've made cinematic choices that best suit our story. This can be difficult to stick to once you're on set, but it's so crucial we do. We want everything about Summer Coda to be special, so that there's a reason to go see it at the cinema. Our uniqueness will come down to our choices on set. We're fans of films that look and feel different to what you can see any other night on TV. Summer Coda has been designed for the cinema screen.

Speaking of which, our distributors Sharmill Films and Jump Street Films have been phenomenal. So fortunate to be shooting with our distribution plan in mind. I love to talk about festivals and release dates -- and I've enjoyed being educated on all things publicity. Big shout out to Natalie, Jamie and our tireless Unit Publicist Tanja too.

After scouting locations one final time I'm going to spend the afternoon with Rachael and Alex. Speaking of tireless, these guys have been working HARD. Their eagerness and energy is intoxicating and it has made the last week just so enjoyable for me.

Thank-you very much for reading my little pre-production diaries. Tomorrow we'll be filming! It's an absolute dream come true. I may not be able to keep up the dailies, but I'll certainly be letting you know regularly what's going down on set. CAN NOT WAIT!

Much love,

Ricky : )

2 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-06T12:25:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Doesn't that look pleasant? It's a key location throughout the shoot. 3rd generation farming home. Just beautiful. I believe we'd have a whole new perspective on family if we were born in the house our grandparents bought. Now sleep in their bedroom, and run their property (which is now yours). Imagine seeing your granddad plant a Jacaranda tree when you were 5, and then getting to enjoy it's flowers and shade 60 years on. Imagine cooking dinner for your grandchildren in the same house you had your own first birthday party. Really special. I love it.

Melrose Place HQ is looking like the real deal now. Dozens of cars, Make-up / Wardrobe trucks, and just a few empty beer bottles from last nights welcoming drinks. Everyone's here and It finally dawned on me just what a big deal this is. Very humbling actually. 40 talented people all here for the one reason. Can not wait to get shooting now. We feel ready. Big shout out to my Couz Jo Davis, who arrived last night from the UK. Has come all the way here to produce our EPK, AKA our "Behind The Scenes" video and press related interviews with cast & crew. Awesome to have him here.

Next week is a biggie, hit the ground running and it's go, go, go. About 11 locations . Filming multiple sequences that will form part of the First Act. Forecast is for 40 degrees, so it's going to be hot as a fire cracker on the road. Got to embrace it though. I think we'll see it on screen and that's a very good thing. I remember noticing just how steamy it looked in The Proposition. Really complimented the film. Love that movie actually.

Rachael and Alex are working their butts off in workshops and reads -- their commitment has been outstanding. A few more lessons and rehearsals this weekend and we're ready to go!

If you haven't joined already, come on down: Facebook & Twitter... Summer Coda website coming very soon too.

Ricky : )

3 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Crew arrive today! About 25 champions and our shooting team will almost be complete. The weather's starting to scorch again, just in time for our road sequences on Monday. Ouch. Thank God there's a pool here at Melrose Place HQ.

Today we go through schedule with our main man Magee (1st Assistant Director). Make sure week 1 is properly prepared and double check the timings. So crucial we start well, and from what I can see the schedule is a cracker. Trying our best to shoot as chronologically as we can. Makes it easier to gauge the overall character arc, but also much better for performance I think. Also great to see the relationship of our two leads evolve and not jump around all over the place. It can only benefit the film.

Had a magical day yesterday exploring locations with Rachael and Alex. Alex had some tractor training and as you can see, he's a natural. That tractor's over 50 years old, and we chose it over newer models. It will certainly be talked about in the Farmer's shed tonight...

Shiny new John Deere tractor will be like: "Hey, you hear Dimitriades was riding old Massey?" New fork lift would have grumbled back: "What he want with such an old tractor? We da ones with the moves." John Deere would shrug jealously as Fork Lift sulked and shifted the dirt at his feet. ...All the while old Massey would sit proudly in the dark at the back of the shed. She hadn't been used in years, but deep down she new she was special. And now she'll be a key prop on a feature film set. She still got it. Never lost it.

Ricky : )

4 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Rachael Taylor arrived in Mildura yesterday and we got straight down to business. Fresh off a flight from LA (not sure how) we dived into wardrobe and then hooked up with Alex to begin running scenes. And now I'm in heaven. Working with these guys is what I've been waiting for. Hearing some lines that were written 5 years ago -- and hearing that they WORK was just magical. The new stuff works pretty darn well too.

And so the days are extremely hectic now, every hour spoken for. Fittings, rehearsals, locations, prop selection... everyone's working around the clock. Big shout out to our production team, lead by our Prod Manager Virginia whose doing a wondrous job, and always with a SMILE, which is very important to me. Nick too, our Prod Co-ordinator, a sterling effort and awesome attitude. How ever hard, we just gotta enjoy this.

And I reckon that is the KEY. Film making once stressed me out incredibly, but I remember the moment that changed me: I was shooting a short film, filming on Super 35mm, and it was costing me a fortune. It was a big set-up day (cranes, sets, and studio time) and we were running behind time and I was worrying my head off. Greg (my then camera operator, and now DOP) came up to me with a smile and said: "Hey Richie, look around mate. Look at these sets, look at these actors. You're shooting 35mm. If you can't enjoy this then you shouldn't be doing it bro".

SNAP. That was it. I've been smiling ever since. Not because it's not ridiculously hard anymore and not because things don't occasionally go wrong. But because we are simply very, very lucky to be doing what we're doing, and I LOVE it.

Almost six years exactly since I made that short film we're making a feature. And whatever happens, life very is good.

Ricky : )

5 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Um. I won't comment on those photos. I didn't even know they were being taken.

Worked on script yesterday. I never would have imagined we'd do so many passes on it. Working closely with my script editor and lady friend Michele has been so important. Now that we're standing in each location, little things change, moments can be improved and the script needs adjusting. Characters shift as well, actors bring lots to the table and opinions change. I really love the collaboration. Although I desperately wanted to make this film a few years back, it quite simply would not have been as good. The screenplay is now ready. And it's gonna rock!

Rachael Taylor arrives today and I need to find a new phrase other than "I'm excited". But I am. That's what I am and how else could I describe it? Maybe: Rachael arrives today and "I'm pumped" (too physical), Rach arrives today and "I'm stoked" (too surfy), RT arrives and I'm "ready to rock n roll" (tosser). I'm going to stick with EXCITED.

RT goes straight into more violin lessons (she must be hating me), wardrobe fittings and script reads. With just FIVE DAYS till we shoot, it's full steam ahead! Speaking of Full Steam, have you heard that new David Gray song with the same title? The one with Annie Lennox. L O V E I T!
I've been cruising through the citrus blocks in my little Fiat with the volume up LOUD. Locals shout: "Hey! There's that (insert sexual reference) guy with the stupid car and the tosser music!".

Speaking of wardrobe, got to see Alex's entire line up yesterday. Oh god is that a good feeling. Seeing the character evolve through their costumes. Those visuals have been stuck in my head for so many years, to finally see them for real has been a little surreal. Loving it!

Ricky : )

6 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

So it took Dimitriades like 30 seconds to win over Lady Lemon. When I said we were going to Orange World to pick up some fruit, I didn't mean literally! And Avocado doesn't even look that jealous anymore. He's into it! That's Star power and that's what happens. And now I'm just a shrinking violet. I let her know though: "Hey! I'm standing right here Lemon!". But she didn't answer. Too busy devouring Alex's hand-peeled pieces of the most succulent orange you've ever tasted. Although to me, it was bitter sweet.

I digress... Alex jumped head first into all things citrus, and it's awesome to see the commitment. Great to finally be hanging with our actors. Today, Melbourne Cup Day, we're off to do a script read, followed by a piano lesson, followed by the blocking of a few key scenes.

Greg's graded camera tests arrive today, so tonight we'll scrutinise what worked best and determine the exact time-of-day we need to shoot to nail Day-for-Night shots too.

Just a shorty today as I'm still a bit cut up over the Lemon. My lovely wife arrives tomorrow though, so I'm gonna head back to Orange World and feed Michele grapes RIGHT IN FRONT of the Loose Lemon. Screw citrus, I've turned to the vines.

Ricky : (

7 days till shoot!!!

2009-11-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

So we're looking at just ONE WEEK till we shoot. This time next week we'll be on set! The dream came true and now we just gotta make it special. More crew arrive everyday and quickly our little Melrose Place is filling. Loving it here.

Alex arrived and it feels great to have our leading man in town. A nice dinner, a few laughs and we're right on track. Today I'll take him to meet some rather extraordinary 3rd generation citrus farmers. They're keen to teach him a thing or too and Alex is keen to learn: The history of irrigation in the region, what gets farmed and when, costs and sale price, what's changed over the years, and how the drought has effected the price of water.

Might not sound riveting, but in order to develop character you gotta have a knowledge base. May never be used, but you're gonna feel a whole lot more comfortable in someone else's skin.

So today it's TRACTOR TIME. Oh yeah. Alex needs to look pro at driving a tractor that hauls the oranges as well as a Transformer-like tractor that has a fork lift on the end of it! The forklift picks up the orange bins (400 kg) from the fruit pickers, takes them to a trailer where the other tractor returns the fruit back to the sheds for packing. I'm feeling so country I'm gonna have to plant some seeds in my little concrete courtyard in Fitzroy! Yeeeehaaaa!

Did you know that wine grapes up here were once sold for almost $4,000 a ton. Now many producers are struggling to sell for $200 a ton, even though the cost to produce a ton is around $400. They're selling their grapes at a $200 a ton loss. Unbelievable and very sad. There's just such a glut in the region.

In happier news, we're doing our best to consume lots of local wine. Just doing our bit.

Ricky : )

8 days till shoot!

2009-10-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

40 degrees yesterday and 42 degrees today! Yikes. Good thing our trusty producer John is such a wilderness pro. Almost stepped on a Brown snake! By "stepped on" I mean: he was clearing the way for our crew, while initiating the appropriate safety plan. ; )

Johnny-boy kicked some serious butt at a poker tournament the other night. 2nd Prize = A bottle of scotch for the trophy cabinet aka crew reward cabinet. When one cannot afford to pay people as one would like to, one has found that alcohol sponsors keeps one's crew happy. And so Johnny and my other main man Marc will be pokering it up for the good of the crew, in the hope of filling our war chest. If this weather continues we're gonna need all the bribes (sorry leverage) we can get!

Marc, Greg and I had a sweet day yesterday. Blocked out a crucial pub pool-table scene that had been stressing us out. Sometimes you just have to get a camera out and film the sequence. I'm usually pretty good with visualising the shots, but when all else fails you just gotta get out the handycam and presto! Now feeling great about it. Marc's a gun at billiards, whereas Greg and I are more into ping pong, together (like Voltron) we made it work.

Alex Dimitriades arrives this arvo. Can't wait. There's nothing better than having your leading actors in town a good week before you start. We can really apply some process. Farming school is gonna be hard core in this heat, but as they said in The NeverEnding Story: It has to hurt if it's to heal!

Ricky : )

9 days till shoot!

2009-10-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Single digits till we shoot!

Above is the wonderful Mildura Cemetery. We have some major sequences there and other than it being as HOT as a fire cracker in the sun, it's a stunning location. Can't beat the red earth and European trees. Very much looking forward to shooting there.

Our Art Dept have been working like hound dogs, scouring the region for props and vehicles of all shapes and sizes. I'm talkin: arm chairs, picking ladders, pick-up trucks, paintings, fake pot, tents, orange crates, fork lifts, semi-trailers, beds, pianos... The list goes on. Emma (Production Designer) and Kanga-Lou (Art Director), you are CHAMPIONS.

Meanwhile our wardrobe department are kicking some serious ass. I've certainly made it tough with like a million characters! Fair few Extras too. Tia-Maria (Costume Designer) and Sarah (Costume Supervisor) have been trucking all over Melbourne. Dozens of fittings, hundreds of shops. Even more returns. When the budget is tight it increases the workload TEN FOLD, as you can't just buy up lots of options to try out. You have to be specific and accurate and when you can't see all your actors in person (because they're still OS!) it makes things very tricky. But they're killing it and we LOVE them!

Just so pumped about our team. Great vibe. Great people. I'm feeling very privileged.

Ricky : )

10 days till shoot!

2009-10-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Is that the coolest tractor you've ever seen? Oh yeah. That's Alex Dimitriades' rig for the movie. Oh man, what I wouldn't give to cruise down Gertrude Street in that.

In other news: Big Willy's in town! Our main man gaffer Colin Williams trucked into Mildura yesterday. Really important that all locations are properly scouted for power supply and of course for us to discuss lighting. ...And our lack of generators. Good thing is, most properties here are on 3-phase power, so we're cherry ripe in MOST situations. Can't believe I just said "cherry ripe". Haven't even started shooting and I'm already talking like crew. I have a habit of becoming all Australian on set. You know, like the days of the week become: Sundee, Mondee, Tuesdee, Wednesdee... etc. Not sure if it's being out in the country, or my feeble attempt to "man up", but it's very funny none-the-less.

So where does one find the coin for a soundproof generator? It's sponsor time again! We'll fling on our capes and sell like superheroes for a sponsor today. We've been so incredibly fortunate to receive such generous support over the last 3 months. Greg (DOP) and I often joke about how many times our wages have been spent, for example: Greg says "We really need this lens", and I say, "We can't afford it", and he says "Don't worry, take it out of my pay"... to which I respond "Your pay has already been exhausted three times!". It has to hurt if it's to heal. And how else could we fantasise about affording helicopter aerials, if they weren't coming out of our fictional pay packets.

Spent a good few hours on the schedule with Mr Magee. Magee (1st AD), other than his obvious duties, has wrangled some amazing crew members. Coming off a big TV production in Melbourne, he's brought on a lot of top dogs and it's quite harrowing to look down our crew list. We have the best of the best. Smartest move I ever made was telling Magee about my friendship with Stefano De Pieri. You can't keep an addicted foodie away from Mildura -- the produce here is just too good. I guess you can say Magee followed his nose and like the Pied Piper along came some crew. He certainly must be piping some hypnotic tunes, but I'm very glad he is. Champion.

But enough slaps on the back, it's song and dance time! Anyone got a spare generator floating around??

Ricky : )

PS. Big shout out to Anita. If she's reading, just wanted to let her know that she's AWESOME.

11 days till shoot!

2009-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Lady Lemon and I had a sexy date at Stefano's restaurant last night. I'm waiting on my lovely wife to arrive in Mildura, so I thought it best to lay a few jealousy traps -- you know, keep the Mrs keen on her slightly deranged hubby. Time will tell. Not sure this blog is helping.

Any who, had a JAM PACKED day of scheduling shot timings. Very hard really. Got to know exactly what you want and really visualise every frame of the film, so you can best utilise the available time on set. After storyboarding the entire film, you need to make those shots a reality.

It's a fine art really (if you can nail it) because the camera coverage in a feature film is one of the most important tools in telling your story. How many shots do you need to most effectively convey the scene? How do you frame the individual characters in relation to their personality? Does the camera lead the character, or does the character push the frame? So many crucial decisions. The majority of your audience might not think they can pick up on the intricacies, but they will sub-consciencely. My fav films have such distinctive styles, but that doesn't mean the camera work needs to be showy. But however simple, it must enhance the story.

And so each day we'll film between 2.5 and 6 pages of screenplay. Maybe 7 to 10 scenes a day. We develop and determine an overall camera aesthetic and then break it down into 157 scenes. Other than the performance of the actors, it's my most important responsibility. And it's what I look for in a good film. Ace it, along with performance and a great screenplay and you're watching something very special.

That's the goal!

Ricky : )

12 days till shoot!

2009-10-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Meet Loose Lemon and Jealous Avocado. They're my new fruity friends at Orange World, a cracker of a tourist destination let me assure you. The owners Maria and Mario have been a tremendous help to team Summer Coda. They're training our actors on the art of picking fast, and basically educating us on all things citrus. You haven't tried orange juice until you've drunk it at Orange World -- forget that supermarket junk, this stuff is a flavour sensation. A party in your mouth and everyone's invited -- just not Jealous Avocado... but his Lemon can come.

But enough funny stuff, or attempted funny anyway. I wanted to talk further regarding how you go about privately funding a feature film. It's bloody tricky, and it takes some time, but the rewards are obvious: You get to make your movie!

I believe it starts with setting some major goals. Shoot date for example. And then you need to work like you've never worked before. You must believe you're shooting, you must follow through, and you MUST have a story that lots of great people want to see get made.

You need to set an accurate budget that reflects the commercial potential of your project -- that one's hard, but CRUCIAL, because you're working with private investors. You must respect that and start thinking like a business.

The screenplay must be in amazing shape. You can't put off getting a quality script editor and making some hard calls. Then you gotta sell it. Sell it like Lady Lemon's selling it! But it will only sell if your TEAM is gold. You need respected and experienced cats behind you. You'll need lots of help, but the majority you'll need to do yourself. Most importantly, you need to believe you're going to do it. And then shake that tin baby! Find your first investor. Your key investor. If you can find one, you can find two. Believe me. And then you enter the circle of life. Not like the Lion King. Your project's alive and kicking, but you need to make it happen.

If you've been rejected for government funding, you can either whinge about it, start on a new project, or you can step up. The later options help evolve our little industry.

Ricky : )

13 days till shoot!

2009-10-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

The weather is warming up. It'll get to 35 degrees in Mildura this week and that's gonna be HOT on the road (hitchhiking sequences), in the grove (orange picking sequences) and in our crew accommo too. I have a solution though. Cowboy hats. Cast and crew cowboy hats. Went out shopping for some new vintage summer clothes -- so I can look cool on set (my wife is moulding my fashion-sense beautifully) and found a store with DOZENS of cowboy hats. Now, they are a bit cheap -- they're made of some kind of paper I think, and spray painted a browny-colour -- but boy do they look good on!

I've been pondering whether the scorching sun and 35-45 degree heat, hitting the paper and sprayed paint might just cause the hats to COMBUST! Ouch. Like the crew are all out on the highway, wearing my hats and then suddenly EVERYONE'S HEAD IS ON FIRE!

Hmmmm, H&S I hear you you scream! I must look into to it. So, as of today I'm wearing my cowboy hat EVERYWHERE. It's the type of director I am. I'll take one for the team. ...At least I don't have a lot of hair to lose.

I'm off to pick up a keyboard now, Alies (composer) and I are working through the score. As a lot of music is to be used in-scene, it needs to be perfect and actually needs to be recorded prior to filming commencing, which is tricky, but gives us something very cool to work with on set.

Man, I wish i could play a musical instrument. Had years of piano lessons growing up, but was too lazy to learn how to read music properly, so just learnt by ear -- which although fun, stunted my progress. I can still play Sounds of Silence though, and the first bit of Stairway to Heaven. So after 6 years of lessons as a kid, I feel pretty good about myself.

Alex Dimitriades arrives this Sunday! Very exciting. He'll be whisked off to farmer school. Actually, Alex already knows a thing or two about the land and is gonna teach me how to ride a motorbike, which I'm pumped (and scared) about too. There goes our insurance! (again).

"Director takes spill on motorbike. His cowboy hat combusted as he fell. Has suffered bruised ego and scorched scalp."

Publicist is going to kill me.

Ricky : )

14 days till shoot!

2009-10-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Stopped by multiple locations yesterday. FUN. Quite amazing views out there. My little car got to see them all. Have been back dozens of times, but we always manage to find some little special spot that we somehow missed last time round. Love it. One minute you're in an irrigated oasis, the next you're in the desert. Makes me think that maybe oranges, rice and cotton weren't the best things for us Aussies to grow... Easy to say in retrospect though.

Not sure if you can make out the colour of the Jacaranda tree in that top photo, but its flowers are bright purple to the eye. We've timed filming beautifully (total fluke) as Jacarandas all over the region have just started to bloom.

Producers Marc and John arrived with our Production Manager Virginia, and it feels amazing to be on the ground and into it. Finalising funding, insurance and contracts have stressed me a bit in recent weeks, but now that we're on location I've been set free (knock on wood). With just TWO WEEKS LEFT TILL SHOOT I feel like we're in a really healthy position. Cast locked, crew locked, locations locked. Please don't let that be famous last words!

Our Composer Alies arrives today. Haven't seen her in about 2 years, so very pumped to catch up. Over the years Alies has had to put up with me telling her: "It's happening" (like 4 times) only for me to make the dreaded call months later and conclude: "I don't know what happened, but it's not happening". Well, as she's flown in from China to visit locations and work on the score with me, she can finally take my word with some confidence! It's happening. As well as being a composer, Alies is a solo violinist, so she'll take Rachael Taylor for some pretty serious lessons when she arrives on the weekend. Rachael will play the violin live in three scenes and is dead keen on looking convincing. Tough work the violin, but she'll nail it.

Am off now to a breakfast meeting at Stefano's Cafe. Very lucky to be buddies with one of the best cooks in Australia. I think Mildura's one of the only in-land places in Australia where the food and coffee (at selected outlets) is as good as the food in the city. That said, a sausage from the BBQ by the pool tends to taste the same the world over.

Ricky : )

15 days till shoot!

2009-10-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Arrived in Mildura safe and sound. I usually dread the 6.5 hour drive, but my mind was buzzing with thoughts -- so it went quickly. Singing along to The Boss always helps too (if you're driving solo anyway).

Zipped into town in my trusty Fiat 500 and had enough time to do a quick location scout, which included (and always seems to), our major Pub location in a small town called Merbein (see pics above). Quite a brilliant place, hasn't changed much since the 60s I imagine. The Publicans are lovely people who have only been leasing the pub for 8 months. Back then they were selling just THREE KEGS a week. They're now doing eight, so things are looking up. They've been nice enough to shut down the bar for us over the three day / nights we're shooting. We've assured them their keg count will double after a few healthy crew nights.

Also drove out to the Peri sand dunes, which are just beyond Wentworth on the way out to Broken Hill. Magical place. Was there for sunset and the sandy ground glowed red, combined with the bright purple flowers of Patterson's Curse, it was spectacular. I love it out here.

Our Art Department (Emma and Lou) arrive tomorrow. THEY'VE DRIVEN FROM PERTH. If you think you've been on a long drive before, then google map: Perth to Mildura! OMG. They have been loving the trip though, have been swagging it under the stars. I'm more a hotel / metro man myself, but I can at least appreciate the attraction. Four day drive, what an adventure. Three different states, not many showers.

In Mildura our crew is staying in an attached bunch of serviced apartments. Living all together. It kinda has a broken down Melrose Place-type of vibe. Pool in the middle, big BBQ. Old school, but super clean. Amazingly gracious owners have allowed us the book out the entire establishment... Bring on the camaraderie!

Ricky

16 days till shoot!

2009-10-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Today is a BIG day. Lots of ins and outs, ups and downs. Our hero car (pick which one) is travelling to Shepparton (another far away place) to be fitted out for it's custom caged A-frame. A very special rig that will allow for some cool angles. Our stuntman friend with the cool name "Clint" has now completed it. Meanwhile, I'm driving up to Mildura in my little Fiat 500 (yep, that funny one), which in retrospect is the most impractical thing I've ever bought. It was however used for a cooking series we produced recently, so I can't take all the blame. Probably just 99.5%. Makes me smile though.

In other news, It appears all my talks of cider sponsorship have paid off! But not in amber gold... IN AIR TRAVEL! Our new best friends at VIRGIN have committed to support our production. And we just LOVE them. Big thanks to our EP James for that one. Making a privately funded film is bloody hard and we've been blown away by the support we've received. Really amazing.

It's been such a long road and earlier this year we had given up. Seriously. Wasn't going to happen. Had so much going for us, but after 5 years and 3 semi-rejections (don't bother asking) from the funding bodies we were ready to pack it in. AND THEN AN AMAZING THING HAPPENED. My wife Michele and I watched Revolutionary Road. If you haven't seen it I wont ruin it for you, but needless to say it prompted me to make a life changing decision and just GO FOR IT. Little over 5 months later and I'm heading up to Mildura -- less than 3 weeks away from making my first feature! Completely impossible without the kindness of strangers... and that one night on the coach watching a DVD. I think I'll write Sam Mendes a letter.

So cheers to our investors, Virgin and all our supporters... Now for those ciders. Come on Magners!

Ricky

PS. Here's our new facebook site, and here's our tweets. it's follow time. : )

17 days till shoot!

2009-10-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

What you're seeing here might just be the filming of the first shot in Summer Coda. Not the first shot in the movie, but the first shot of official photography!

We snuck back out to the airport at dusk last night, and continued our "camera tests", where we just happened to peel off some TOP SHOTS of planes whistling in over our heads -- an important shot in the opening sequence of movie.

The smiling man in the top photo is our DOP Greg DeMarigny. He's smiling because we were VERY excited with what we were getting, and even more excited to be stealing a shot 17 days before production starts! That camera you see with him is the RED, as we've chatted about previously.

We also got to test for some important DAY FOR NIGHT shots: We're establishing exactly how dark it can be (through the lens) before it's too dark. Excuse me? For example, can we shoot night shots of a truck traveling down a highway at 5pm, and grade it dark enough to be convinced it looks like midnight? Why do we even bother with that? Because in the country when it's dark, it's jet black: There are no street lamps, buildings or many houses around, so the camera will see nothing but the truck's headlights coming through the night. If we shoot at 5pm and grade it dark, we'll still see the outline of the truck and the silhouettes of the trees on the horizon, which is far more pleasing to the eye. It's very simple of course, but you've gotta get it just right. So we must test how early we can start shooting for our DAY FOR NIGHT shots to appear at their best.

Tonight I must pack my bags for Mildura! Very exciting. Wont be home till almost Christmas. production team are moving up over the weekend. It's a 6.5 hour drive from Melbourne, but I got the mixed CDs all sorted High Fidelity style. I do love a road trip with good music. Allows my mind to switch off and onto the really important things: Performance, my shot list, cider. I gotta say, I can't remember being happier. ...With the exception of the day I got married of course!

Ricky : )

18 days till shoot...

2009-10-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Well, I met with Jacki Weaver who's gotta be one of the loveliest people I've ever met. Travelled out to Frankston (long way) to have a cider with her. She's currently performing in an acclaimed stage production of Steel Magnolias. Well in truth, I had the cider, she had a nice glass of white. But she did try my cider and enjoy it, so I feel comfortable in saying "we" had cider. I love cider, I got attached to it in the UK, so I'm over the moon that bars are now serving Bulmers and Magners on tap in Oz! Over the moon. Not that I like a drink or anything.

But back to Jacki. As I mentioned yesterday, she's got a top little part to play (one of my fav characters) and she's ALL OVER IT. Costume, makeup, delivery --- she's sorted. What a pro. We chatted and chatted about where the character comes from in my psyche (actually a combination of an Aunt and a neighbour I used to have), how I came to write the story, and the process of getting it up and running. It took more than one cider. It made my heart pang (in a good way) discussing these things with Jacki, and Summer Coda has never felt more real.

We're shooting in 18 days! I'm going to have to start adding exclamation points to the title.

Ricky

PS. Magners are not currently sponsors of Summer Coda. However by mentioning them continuously over the next 17 days, I hope to remedy that. Below is our new production calendar that I'll be enforcing. Local cider product will also be supported by the gracious team at Summer Coda.

19 days till shoot...

2009-10-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,

Just had a brilliant night with some of our cast, so cool to talk to these guys about their characters.

Gave me a chance to catch up further with two of my absolute fav actors: Cassandra Magrath and Nick Farnell. Lovely people and so VERY talented. I've known Cassandra since my Momma was her on-set tutor on a TV series called Ocean Girl -- 15 years ago! (we later went to high school together) And Nick is like Australia's answer to John C Reilly and I've been lucky enough to work with him on several projects. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than writing lines for these type of actors.

I got the chance to speak to a whole room of fab talent, let them know the backstory behind their roles and then sit back and watch as their wardrobe was fitted and adjusted. A very cool process watching their characters come alive.

Today I'm off to spend time with Jacki Weaver. She's got a fab part to play; A real sassy, cougar-type role, that I'm hoping she's really going to enjoy.

I have another pass to do on the ye ol' screenplay too. Must be the 700th, but well worth it. Working with the actors always provides a few more ideas. I'm starting to add those pretty coloured amendment pages now -- and if there's one thing that lets you know you're REALLY going to be making a movie -- IT'S THOSE AWESOME COLOURED PAGES! Hooray for them.

Ricky

20 days till shoot...

2009-10-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Had a fairly comprehensive budget meeting last night. Right on track, although I got knocked back on my Unit request for Natural Confectionary Company Wild Forest Fruit lollies. ...It seems our crew lollies will be coming from ALDI. : ( Translation for international audience: A supermarket one goes to when one's budget is tight. Dang. Shouldn't complain though, got a cracker wine and beer sponsor, so at least night times will be sweeter. And by "night" I mean 5 mins past whenever we wrap!

But budget meetings aren't just about catering, Ricky.

Yes, there's also the small matter of how we intend to finish the film. A hot topic at the minute with digital projection finally advancing all around. The fact is, that first film print you produce is V expensive. V worthwhile mind you, and that's what we'll have, but finishing on a digital medium is now a very real option for many Independent features, and of course many very non-indy, expensive films too. Because it just looks so good.

THAT SAID, being a romantic I can't imagine ever not pushing to shoot and finish on film. I'm seeing so much RED footage lately, and man it just looks so much better when it's projected on 35mm. There's just a warmth and slight imperfection that comes from a film print that I would hate to lose. I know we can add grain and even projector movement and scratches to recreate a "film look", but if that's what you want (and I do), why not just finish on film? I guess cost is why. Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes:

Floyd Gondolli: This here's the future. Videotape tells the truth.

Jack: Wait a minute. You come into my house, my party, to tell me about the future? That the future is tape, videotape, and not film? That it's amateurs and not professionals? I'm a filmmaker, which is why I will never make a movie on tape.

I'm getting predictable now. Boogie Nights. Classic. But in all honesty, I do prefer the look of Heat to Public Enemies. Sure, sure, sure, it's deliberate. But which do you prefer? Video tape may tell the truth, but is it the whole truth you're searching for at the cinema?

Ricky

21 days till shoot

2009-10-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

That's the Murray river about 5 minutes after sunset. There's a burst of red that's tricky to capture, but it ripples through the sky. Just beautiful. The water's warm too, and it really does feel like a beach with all that white sand. Perfect place to hang in the Summer.

Launched our Summer Coda FB site yesterday, earlier days, but there'll be some v cool stuff up there in the not too distant future. Become a friend and follow us, the team will be offering a really unique experience by tracking alongside the production with plenty of videos from set when we get started. I've learnt so much from DVD extras and commentaries over the years. You just can't beat hearing and watching the making of your fav films. Boogie Nights commentary is an absolute cracker, as is American Beauty and Brokeback Mountain. You can go to film school on the extras of a good Godfather box-set alone.

Tomorrow we block a fight sequence which I gotta say I'm pretty excited about. It's not a biggie, but it's crucial to the story and so critical we get it right. Will be working with our Stunt Co-ordinator to nail the realism in the hope of recreating something quite harrowing, without being overly graphic. It's a top little scene where in the shadows of a dusty pub car park, lined with trucks and semi-trailers, Heidi and Michael (lead characters) find themselves in trouble. The sequence and preceding scenes are being designed to carry a real Film Noir quality -- stripped of colour, with some nasty characters appearing. They're highly charged scenes and I can't wait to shoot them.

Don't get me wrong, at its heart Summer Coda is an emotive Romantic Drama, however there are powerful genre elements that make the film unique (we hope!). In the end it's the chemistry between our characters that will make or break this particular story. ...I'd best read some books on directing... Thank God we've cast such great actors!

Ricky

22 days till shoot

2009-10-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Fantastic day yesterday. Whole crew got to mingle, drink, laugh and talk about the imminent trip to Mildura. We watched location stills and got to see the beginnings of our lead actor's wardrobe (Rachael Taylor, Alex Dimitriades). Everything just seems so tangible now, very exciting. In between violin lessons, Rachael's begun billiards training -- Cause she kinda has to kick ass at pool in a major sequence. Between becoming a classically trained violinist and knocking down the eight-ball to win big bucks, she's gonna be one well rounded leading lady!

Natalie Miller and Jamie Bialkower (our distributors) were at crew day, so we had a good chance to talk about media coverage, release dates and stills too. Poster shot talk is never far away and although it's too soon to think about it, that one image is soooo important it always creeps into my mind. We've been very lucky to have such great distribution support over the years. Roadshow backed the film for a long time, which helped us a great deal and now we have a tremendous commitment from Sharmill and Jump Street Films, which is obviously crucial when it comes to the release.

I love Mildura, let me say that load and clear. Beautiful place. It's on the north-western tip of Victoria. Cross the giant Murray river and you're in New South Wales. Head further inland for an hour and you're in South Australia. You're halfway to anywhere in Mildura and I think that's why the town's so special. It's so soooo much easier to film in the country than the city. Everyone is super keen to help out and be involved and their first questions are never "How much will you pay?" or "Have you got a permit to film there?" INSTEAD, it's "I know someone that can help you with that", or "Can I be an extra?". LOVE IT.

We've found some great crew in Mildura too. Would you believe, an amazing Standby Props from the UK was backpacking in the area when we were up location scouting. Perfect. Locked her in quick smart. We have a lot of Mildura expats too, now living in Melbourne that have put up their hands. Nothing like local knowledge and hoping it'll get us invited to a few family BBQs too.

I'm off to look for an old pinball machine now, and a juke box that still plays vinyl. Not really my department, but I love hunting for key props and what a nice way to spend a Sunday. Coffee first though. And eggs and bacon. Mmmmm. My head's a little foggy from all that crew camaraderie!

Ricky

23 days till shoot

2009-10-16T01:58:00.001-07:00

Hello friends,

Yep, I forgot The English Patient. My bad. But what would I delete to fit it in? Braveheart you say? Hmmm, our Costume Designer's father won an Oscar for that blue makeup, so I don't think it would be kosher. Probably not cool to say the word "kosher" when talking about Mel anyway. So we'll just stop talking about it.

Now, today (Saturday) is CREW DAY. All our loverly camera, sound, gaffer, grip, wardrobe, makeup, producers, production, art dept, safety, post and fluffers gather and talk about the film, and our forthcoming trip to Mildura. It's a time for everyone to meet everyone else and have a drink and determine whether they're actually going to get paid at some point. We serve more alcohol and soon all fears are forgotten.

Most importantly it's a time to say thank-you to all these awesome people for coming onboard, and I'll get a chance to provide a creative overview. Also an opportunity to show off our location stills, as well as some key props -- LIKE THE ONE ABOVE. How cool? '74 Ford LTD called "Woody". Wood Trim that's actually vinyl! So uncool it's gone full circle and become utterly cool again. Love it. We needed a U.S. 70s - 80s wagon for scenes in Australia as well as scenes in Reno, Nevada. So we were pumped to find this one in Mildura of all places. Can't wait to go cruising in that!

The attached vid is an extract from the first episode of Project Greenlight. It proved a massive help in getting Summer Coda up. Man, I was skinny then. Dressed better too. Oh well, still got the same passion. Not long till shoot now!

Ricky

24 days till shoot

2009-10-15T14:11:00.001-07:00

Hello friends,

It turns out Melbourne Airport has a spectacular place to watch planes land... Well, maybe it's not official... but let's just say there's a paddock with cows in it and every ten minutes or so the cows start acting crazy and jumbo jets fly over VERY CLOSE. Perfect for me. Not the crazy cows, but the proximity between us and the the plane. Wow.

Onto Top 10's. Thanks for the massive response. One lousy top ten. Not a bad one actually, but come on. I know for a fact you followers aren't all pseudonyms now. So get on it.

In the meantime, due to popular demand, here's an EPIC MOVIE Top 10 list -- no particular order. (Allows me to be sneaky and mention films I couldn't squeeze into Top 10)

1. Lawrence of Arabia

2. Ben-Hur

3. Braveheart

4. Spartacus

5. Gone With The Wind

6. Schindler's List

7. The Ten Commandments

8. Doctor Zhivago

9. Gladiator

10. Titanic

Back to making a movie: The DOP and I head off to Mildura next week. We have the last two weeks before shoot to test locations. Direction of the sun VS our shooting schedule is of major importance on this film, as we have loads of exterior scenes, and many dawn and dusks shots (writer needs to be sacked). We obviously can't shoot all the scenes planned for dawn and dusk at those times, so we have to be clever with the morning and afternoon light, and complete our camera tests accordingly. Boring to read maybe, but of major importance when it comes to the overall look & feel of the film. We'll basically be choosing orange groves that run North to South (and not East to West) to give ourselves the best opportunity to "cheat" the time of day. The orange trees are VERY TALL in Mildura (see the ladders in the above pic), which gives us a good chance. Lots of shade early and late in the day.

Speaking of oranges, did you know:

A big blue bin holds 400 kilos.

A picker's bag holds 20 kilos.

A picker gets paid just $26 per BIG BLUE BIN.

A pro picker can fill 6-8 bins a day.

Ricky filled 1.5 bins in one full day.

Earning $39.

Ricky shall never pick again.

Ricky

PS. Illegal paddock with crazy cows does not exist. Do not go there if you find it.

25 days till shoot

2009-10-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

That is not me. But it's good the word is getting out on the street. Actually, and embarrassingly, I'm getting told that there's some other Ricky Hollywood out there. Like some guy that slept with Sarah Palin's daughter. Ouch. That's not me and nor is that photo, but thanks for sending it in. I think.

Full crew day this weekend, and then cast read next week, which I'm super pumped about. Was talking wardrobe and colour in general today. Great book called If it's Purple Someone's Gonna Die. It's a cracker. If you like studying movies, you're gonna love it. We've been talking about costume / character / colour, and without sounding like a tosser (oops, too late), it reminded me of how serious I took this filmmaking caper at film school. I lived in a share house in Richmond, with four other cool VCA peeps, and we just talked film and drank wine. LIKE ANYTHING'S CHANGED. But it has, and reading books like that are cool for focusing. It's just good to be living film again.

Back then PTA was my king. Boogie Nights is probably the reason I'm making films today. Perfect blend of heart and wit. Love it. My number 1 film.

Here's a top ten to poke fun at. No particular order after No 1. What's yours?

1) Boogie Nights

2) Goodfellas

3) Heat

4) Magnolia

5) Fargo

6) Godfather 1

7) The Graduate

8) Eternal Sunshine

9) Being There

10) The Big Lebowski

If I was to be stranded by myself on an island and could take only 10 DVDs... With those I'd be a happy camper.

Ricky

PS. Happiness pending the availability of an island DVD player and flat-screen TV.

26 days till shoot

2009-10-13T05:39:00.001-07:00

Hi friends,

Well, I had a Jesus joke all worked out for when I got to 12 followers, but as we've JUMPED up to 14 (with a bullet), it will no longer be funny. Probably less offensive this way anyway.

Speaking of the Lord, I took a lunch meeting with the Sheriff yesterday -- Mr Bryce Menzies. The Mayor of film legals in Australia, one of our Executive Producers and a major reason we're getting to make this bad boy. We sent the screenplay to Bryce about 5 years back, and after a fair few months of pestering him, he read it, loved it (he probably said "liked") and came onboard to help. ...Hmmm, Just realised he's gonna hate me saying this. I can already hear the screenplays stacking up on his desk! Never-mind, he's a good bloke. Bryce has been up and back to Mildura with our team and generally just giving us some legitimacy around the traps, which counts for a lot when the director gets about calling himself Ricky Hollywood.

Rumor has it Ricky Hollywood is in fact my SELF-appointed nickname. HOWEVER, I do seem to remember being called it by my fellow popcorn makers at Nova Cinema way back in the day... I worked at a fair few cinemas growing up. Nothing better for a film nerd. Used to love sitting up with the projectionist. Dying art that is.

Any who, camera tests went super swell and we head off to have a look at the results projected next week. Production Office is in full swing and Art Dept have been sourcing some fabulous props, including a Felix the cat clock with a ticking tail! OMG. Awesome. And more practical things likes chairs and cars and dogs and what-have-you -- I'm less interested, but I'm told "Just as important, Ricky".

Tomorrow we'll finalise a week of orange picking for our actors, in the lead up to the shoot. Very important they get acclimatised to the ins and outs of picking and just how crazy hot it can be in Mildura. We've got some very generous citrus farmers training our actors and also giving us rows upon rows of fruit to pick for the movie. We're also spending time in the most HILARIOUS place in Mildura: ORANGE WORLD. It's a must. If you do visit, say hello to the life-size lemon out the front. She's a real flirt. Seriously.

BTW, here's a link to our fab cast and crew. IMDB's taking it's sweet time to add Rachael Taylor's name. Maybe they don't believe me. Could be something to do with this self-appointed nickname. I'll look into it.

Ricky

27 days till shoot

2009-10-12T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

You'll be happy to know I avoided accommo madness by sending a few fake emails and generally "looking" busy. Works everytime. Not sure anyone bought it though, and they definitely won't now. Although at this stage my followers are mostly my own pseudonyms, so not too much harm there. My god, pseudonym is a hard word to spell. Thank god for that little red spelling line, although when it comes to words that sound like they start with an 's' and in fact start with a 'p'... Little red is really kidding himself.

Rachael Taylor (our lead actress) had a lengthy violin lesson yesterday, which sounds like hard work in every sense. Her character plays the violin throughout the film, so she's training up with a top teacher at UCLA. Our composer (Alies Sluiter), who's currently performing in China, has been sending through draft tracks and listening to the eventual score of the movie makes me very, very happy indeed. It's all happening.

Alies and I went to Uni together -- kinda -- she was at music school, I was at film, and we had this one class where the music students played their individual instruments (live in the theatre) to film scenes of our choice. Westerns, comedies, action, romance. Was awesome. Alies brought her violin and began playing to scenes from Elizabeth. I was hooked, not only by her talent, but also on the image of a woman playing the violin. Mesmerising. Loved it, and that's why you'll see it in Summer Coda. I really adore when score is done well in films. Have been collecting soundtracks since Dances with Wolves -- okay, you may think uncool, but it was my first and John Barry's a GOD. Don't even get me started on Chaplin or Out Of Africa for that matter. Man I love, Chaplin, if you haven't seen it for a while - go get it. Robert Downey Jnr. Enough said.

Camera tests tomorrow, shooting the film on the RED ONE which will certainly prove interesting. The more I see it projected, the more I love it. Don't get me wrong, budget-wise I held out for Super 35mm for as long as I could, but as far as compromises go -- it's a great one. I'm not going to make an ass of myself by talking tech, but if it's good enough

for Soderbergh and Peter Jackson, the end of this sentence doesn't need to be said.

Speaking of the man, HOW GOOD does the Lovely Bones trailer look. That's gonna be my xmas treat when we wrap. But back to these tests; We're filming in some seriously stunning locations, so the key is to know what your camera and lens can and can't do. It's gonna be cloudless, and bloody sunny and the difference between the dense black shade of an orange tree and the bluey-white hot Mildura sky is a tricky one. So we gotta test test test. Fun though, as long as I don't have to pick oranges again. These city boy hands were made for typing. More about the $26 I earnt from a full day picking later.

Heading to the airport to get some dusk plane landing shots tomorrow too. Hope we have a Pushing Tin experience!

I'll let you know,

Ricky

PS. I'll get back to the story of the Sheriff and the generous people of the land ASAP.

28 days till shoot

2009-10-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Today is accommodation day. The day film crew and cast accommo is finally sorted. 42 days, 32 crew, 3 hotels, 9 apartments...blah, blah, blah. Sounds boring doesn't it? Yep, that's what I think, so I'm staying clear of it.

What's more exciting is how this film came to be: I wrote Summer Coda (formerly Heidi, then When She Gets There) almost six years ago, and entered the screenplay into a competition called Project Greenlight. Did well, came second. No prizes for second though, although it is fun to tell people on a blog, and did secure me help with script development (oh god, so many drafts), and did indirectly land me some cool TV work, so mustn't grumble.

Any who, after getting so far in the comp we had real hope, so my producing pal Marc and I and our team of merry bandits (fund raising producers) set out to raise the budget, secure a distributor, sales agent, and start thinking about a wish-list cast. Two years went by and we'd finally landed a distributor, sales agent and a cool cast... But alas, the bandits and I did not receive the gold we required from government agencies (many mouths to feed in Mordor*), so we set about funding the picture another way...

The bandits and I (should just say the bandits, because I'm one too) took our shaking tins to the people of the land. The people enjoyed the screenplay, and slowly we began to raise the gold, but that's when we met the Sheriff!

...But more on that another day, because I have to escape an "urgent accommo meeting". Yikes.

Just quickly: What is also more exciting than accommo meetings is putting together storyboards with an application called Hitchcock. Life changing, because I CAN NOT draw. Not at all. My pictures look like the scratchings of a chicken's claw. Seriously. Chicken scratchings = no good. NG.

Ricky

* Mordor = Australia (but only in reference to filmmaking)

29 days till shoot

2009-10-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

So I'm making a feature film, and a lot of crazy / fun stuff is going on, and the journey's a bloody exciting one. Thought it might be interesting to document / poke fun at along the way...

Wanted to start this blog with a month left till shoot, but like most things on this film, we're running a little late, but 2 days ain't bad.

Today was good. Finished shot list. 49 pages of shots that've been brewing for such a long time now. Lovely to imagine the camera moving at all the actual locations. Even lovelier to think of the actors performing the lines within those shots. "Lovely" is quite a feminine word, but I'm sticking with it.

Am thinking I should have made this film a long time ago. Know more now though, film will hopefully benefit. Have to keep pinching myself though -- Very very exited. Modest budget, but absolute cracker cast and crew. Important and beautiful story to tell, I think it could be great.

We're shooting in Mildura (Victoria, Australia) and Nevada both very lovely (there I go again) locations to film. Have grown to love the former in particular. Shooting there for 6 weeks will be bliss... He says not knowing what lay ahead.

Greg (DOP) went and met with Clint (stuntman) to start rigging our hero vehicle yesterday. Found a beautiful burnt orange F100 and they're designing an appropriate cage so we can film on some cool angles while we tow the vehicle. Their meet took place on a country highway halfway between Melbourne and Shepparton. That's the middle of nowhere. Tumble weeds and what have you. What a great place to meet a stuntman called CLINT to talk trucks. I like it.

More soon, in every sense.

Ricky