Michael Bond spends over three weeks in LA traffic for 'Passengers'
Karthyn Dart asks WA ex-pat Writer/Director Michael Bond six questions about his recently completed low budget feature, Passengers.
How would you describe your film 'Passengers'?
For me it's always been an Australian film set in the US --- and a kind of inner city Road Movie. We take two journeys - the literal, across the city in real time during gridlock, and the more metaphoric journey through this couple's relationship. It's an intense excursion where essentially we view this relationship unravel, moment by moment, before our very eyes. It's confronting, unrelenting. Claustrophobic. And brutally honest.
Who else was involved in making the film?
The crew is a lovely mixture of Americans and Australians. My old mate Laszlo Baranyai (Noise, True Love and Chaos, Soft Fruit) flew over from Melbourne to shoot it - we met at the FTI actually, through one of Edwin Lynch's short films some years ago - and Laz went on to shoot my first short straight out of Curtin Film School so it was great to work with him again. Cast-wise I had hooked up with Cameron Daddo in LA in 2005, I think it was. I wanted to talk to him about another film I have up my sleeve and we both hit it off right away and wanted to work on something as soon as we could. I'd just finished first draft of Passengers and handed it to him and he loved it, said we can make this right now with the people and resources we can bring together. So we made ourselves a promise to never let the movie out of our control and press on and pull it together. So Daddo plays the lead and we co-Produced, which was a great experience and we intend to do more. I think it's a partnership that will last for many years. I also cast Angie Milliken as his wife and we were fortunate enough to get Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner Bruce Davison (X-Men, Longtime Companion) in one of the supporting roles. Having him on board was a real gift.
We cut the film in Sydney. An old friend of mine from school days in Bunbury actually, has an editing company called Guillotine in Surrey Hills, so I spent seven weeks with him working and finessing. Good times actually. And then we did sound post in LA and graded the movie at a great facility called Keep Me Posted in Burbank. The grader - color timer they call them over there - had just finished grading the director's cut to Terrence Malick's The New World - one of my favourites - so that was a bit of a personal buzz for me.
What was the Production process like?
The other day someone asked me that. I was thinking about it and thought - shit - were we crazy?! The film takes place during peak hour traffic in LA. The couple drive from their home in Santa Monica to Hollywood, supposedly for dinner with friends. By the time they arrive, their marriage is over. That's the premise. That drive takes about 20 minutes during non-traffic hours. Rush hour though - it's at least 90 minutes. And I was determined that this film be as honest as possible in every way. One of our American co-Producers has a studio and offered it to us, to re-create the appearance of traffic using rear projection, but I wouldn't have it. To me the shooting of the film had to be as honest as what the actors were going through - as what I was to be asking the audience to commit to. So I was determined to shoot in real traffic, no process-trailer, with the lead actor, Cameron, driving. We had six of us in the car for 12 hours a day, 6 day weeks, three and a half weeks. Support crew in a follow vehicle - wardrobe, make up, 1st AD and lighting guys. There's a great picture of Laszlo and myself jammed into the very back of the SUV on our site - hilarious! The Script Supervisor and Sound Guy in the back seats, hunched down. Looking back, it's not only nuts but quite an achievement. I'm glad we did it that way though there was a thousand ways it could have gone wrong - continuity of traffic from night to night, seeing people in shot without realizing it on the day - so on and so forth - but I'm glad we did it that way because it gives the film an immediacy that absolutely could not be recreated. And for the characters' journey - and the audience's journey with them - that immediacy is one of the most important things.
What's next on the cards for you and member's of the team?
Daddo and I have a slate of projects we want to get up. In that slate there's some feature projects and a couple of TV series' too. In LA it's all about contacts and fortunately he has some and over the last few years I'm building up some too. I have a TV show on which I have a writing partner and Michael and I sold that to Sy-Fy/Universal a year or so ago and now contracting is done we're belting out the script to that. It's a big deal that one, actually. Bryan Singer's company Bad Hat Harry (Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, Superman Returns, House MD) is on board so we have a pretty good chance of going all the way with this one and getting it up. Dealing with Network and Studio people is a different animal than guerilla filmmaking though, I can assure you. There's a feature project I want to come back and do in Fremantle. I think getting the money together for that one will be a long road so it's awhile off - I wish it wasn't.
What advice would you give to someone about to make their first feature film?
When I was conceiving Passengers I thought to myself - who is going to sit down and watch a movie with two people in a car for an hour and a half. No flashbacks, at least 70 minutes of just them. Who's going to sit through that? But I figured that your first film - for me anyway - is about taking risks and showing your particular vision of the world. I think you have to be single-minded about it. No compromise. With a low budget indie - which most first features are - you can do that. You can say - this is how I see the world, take it or leave it. We didn't spend much money on the movie because we didn't have much to spend - so that's restricting in one way but also allows a lot more creative freedom - a lot more room for expression. I think that's important especially on your first. Show the world you've got a voice - they don't have to like it - but hopefully you'll make something they haven't seen. I've had that comment too - from a lot of people. It's a vision of a relationship they haven't seen before. When I hear that, I get a warm fuzzy inside. It's not about awards or box-office this one - it's about getting to the heart of a relationship - and when I hear those comments I guess we did it. Stick to your vision. Have something to say and go for it.
Why Adelaide?
We finished the movie middle of last year, had our premiere in Mill Valley, one of the top film festivals in the US. We're playing some more festivals in the States this year but we're also looking to get distribution - our Sales Agent is in Berlin at the film market at the moment but with Daddo's name and it being home for both of us we wanted to do something more personal with Passengers in Australia. So we wanted to piggy-back on something happening around this time. Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe - in its 50th year actually - happened to be running and The Fringe seems to me a good match for the movie. The same kind of audience that goes to Festival events would embrace independent film so there's an in-built audience and infra-structure we can lean on that can really help Passengers. We're seeing Adelaide as a chance to get some Distributors and film exec types to see the movie alongside regular film-goers - in the environment it's supposed to be seen in - the movie theatre. It's important for us to build this kind of momentum, use the screenings to get press, some reviews, build audience awareness, increase the fan base on Facebook etc, and on the back of that hopefully nail an Aussie distributor. At this point it's all about momentum.
Kathryn Dart is a writer and budding producer from Perth. She works as a mentor for the WA Screen Academy script supervisor students. Kathryn is currently working with John McGuckin of Bluestone Films and Intersight. More
How would you describe your film 'Passengers'?
For me it's always been an Australian film set in the US --- and a kind of inner city Road Movie. We take two journeys - the literal, across the city in real time during gridlock, and the more metaphoric journey through this couple's relationship. It's an intense excursion where essentially we view this relationship unravel, moment by moment, before our very eyes. It's confronting, unrelenting. Claustrophobic. And brutally honest.
Michael Bond
Who else was involved in making the film?
The crew is a lovely mixture of Americans and Australians. My old mate Laszlo Baranyai (Noise, True Love and Chaos, Soft Fruit) flew over from Melbourne to shoot it - we met at the FTI actually, through one of Edwin Lynch's short films some years ago - and Laz went on to shoot my first short straight out of Curtin Film School so it was great to work with him again. Cast-wise I had hooked up with Cameron Daddo in LA in 2005, I think it was. I wanted to talk to him about another film I have up my sleeve and we both hit it off right away and wanted to work on something as soon as we could. I'd just finished first draft of Passengers and handed it to him and he loved it, said we can make this right now with the people and resources we can bring together. So we made ourselves a promise to never let the movie out of our control and press on and pull it together. So Daddo plays the lead and we co-Produced, which was a great experience and we intend to do more. I think it's a partnership that will last for many years. I also cast Angie Milliken as his wife and we were fortunate enough to get Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner Bruce Davison (X-Men, Longtime Companion) in one of the supporting roles. Having him on board was a real gift.
We cut the film in Sydney. An old friend of mine from school days in Bunbury actually, has an editing company called Guillotine in Surrey Hills, so I spent seven weeks with him working and finessing. Good times actually. And then we did sound post in LA and graded the movie at a great facility called Keep Me Posted in Burbank. The grader - color timer they call them over there - had just finished grading the director's cut to Terrence Malick's The New World - one of my favourites - so that was a bit of a personal buzz for me.
What was the Production process like?The other day someone asked me that. I was thinking about it and thought - shit - were we crazy?! The film takes place during peak hour traffic in LA. The couple drive from their home in Santa Monica to Hollywood, supposedly for dinner with friends. By the time they arrive, their marriage is over. That's the premise. That drive takes about 20 minutes during non-traffic hours. Rush hour though - it's at least 90 minutes. And I was determined that this film be as honest as possible in every way. One of our American co-Producers has a studio and offered it to us, to re-create the appearance of traffic using rear projection, but I wouldn't have it. To me the shooting of the film had to be as honest as what the actors were going through - as what I was to be asking the audience to commit to. So I was determined to shoot in real traffic, no process-trailer, with the lead actor, Cameron, driving. We had six of us in the car for 12 hours a day, 6 day weeks, three and a half weeks. Support crew in a follow vehicle - wardrobe, make up, 1st AD and lighting guys. There's a great picture of Laszlo and myself jammed into the very back of the SUV on our site - hilarious! The Script Supervisor and Sound Guy in the back seats, hunched down. Looking back, it's not only nuts but quite an achievement. I'm glad we did it that way though there was a thousand ways it could have gone wrong - continuity of traffic from night to night, seeing people in shot without realizing it on the day - so on and so forth - but I'm glad we did it that way because it gives the film an immediacy that absolutely could not be recreated. And for the characters' journey - and the audience's journey with them - that immediacy is one of the most important things.
What's next on the cards for you and member's of the team?
Daddo and I have a slate of projects we want to get up. In that slate there's some feature projects and a couple of TV series' too. In LA it's all about contacts and fortunately he has some and over the last few years I'm building up some too. I have a TV show on which I have a writing partner and Michael and I sold that to Sy-Fy/Universal a year or so ago and now contracting is done we're belting out the script to that. It's a big deal that one, actually. Bryan Singer's company Bad Hat Harry (Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, Superman Returns, House MD) is on board so we have a pretty good chance of going all the way with this one and getting it up. Dealing with Network and Studio people is a different animal than guerilla filmmaking though, I can assure you. There's a feature project I want to come back and do in Fremantle. I think getting the money together for that one will be a long road so it's awhile off - I wish it wasn't.
What advice would you give to someone about to make their first feature film?
When I was conceiving Passengers I thought to myself - who is going to sit down and watch a movie with two people in a car for an hour and a half. No flashbacks, at least 70 minutes of just them. Who's going to sit through that? But I figured that your first film - for me anyway - is about taking risks and showing your particular vision of the world. I think you have to be single-minded about it. No compromise. With a low budget indie - which most first features are - you can do that. You can say - this is how I see the world, take it or leave it. We didn't spend much money on the movie because we didn't have much to spend - so that's restricting in one way but also allows a lot more creative freedom - a lot more room for expression. I think that's important especially on your first. Show the world you've got a voice - they don't have to like it - but hopefully you'll make something they haven't seen. I've had that comment too - from a lot of people. It's a vision of a relationship they haven't seen before. When I hear that, I get a warm fuzzy inside. It's not about awards or box-office this one - it's about getting to the heart of a relationship - and when I hear those comments I guess we did it. Stick to your vision. Have something to say and go for it.
Cameron Daddo and Angie Milliken
Why Adelaide?
We finished the movie middle of last year, had our premiere in Mill Valley, one of the top film festivals in the US. We're playing some more festivals in the States this year but we're also looking to get distribution - our Sales Agent is in Berlin at the film market at the moment but with Daddo's name and it being home for both of us we wanted to do something more personal with Passengers in Australia. So we wanted to piggy-back on something happening around this time. Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe - in its 50th year actually - happened to be running and The Fringe seems to me a good match for the movie. The same kind of audience that goes to Festival events would embrace independent film so there's an in-built audience and infra-structure we can lean on that can really help Passengers. We're seeing Adelaide as a chance to get some Distributors and film exec types to see the movie alongside regular film-goers - in the environment it's supposed to be seen in - the movie theatre. It's important for us to build this kind of momentum, use the screenings to get press, some reviews, build audience awareness, increase the fan base on Facebook etc, and on the back of that hopefully nail an Aussie distributor. At this point it's all about momentum.
Kathryn Dart is a writer and budding producer from Perth. She works as a mentor for the WA Screen Academy script supervisor students. Kathryn is currently working with John McGuckin of Bluestone Films and Intersight. More
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