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It's festival season! The Wasting is in the thick of it. Expect short, hastily written blurts of festival info from me - I want to tell festival stories because they are often awesome, but going to festivals is a time-consuming enterprise (totally worth the time, mind you), so please forgive me if I juggle too much and drop a blog ball here and there.
For today, let me tell you that we are headed to the Austrian Film Festival in May. In Vienna. Probably don't need to say much more than May in Vienna. We are very excited and honoured to be part of this fab festival. More later...must go practice my pastry-eating skills.
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We finished post-production three weeks ago. A half hour later, when it was at last safe to, I got sick. Sprawl-on-the-couch-for-weeks, hack-up-a-lung sick. The doctor called it a bacterial sinus infection. I call it giving everything you have to a film for years, so there’s nothing left to hold you up when it’s over.  On set, blissfully unaware of looming illness Some people like to talk about having skin in the game. I have skin in this game. And bones. And other assorted body parts, or their metaphorical equivalents. That’s how important it was for me to make The Wasting.  courting illness in the West Midlands chill with DOP Michal Wisniowski Back a few Septembers ago, when I decided to stop waiting for permission to make my film, and just make it, I wasn’t even sure why I’d waited so long, except that it was The Way Things Are Done. Suddenly, that seemed dumb. The Way Things Are Done isn’t a good model for a lot of people – filmmakers or otherwise - and it definitely wasn’t working for me. People, including the permission-givers, liked my script. But between the hemming and the hawing over this being my first crack at directing a feature (despite all the related stuff I’d done) it looked like it might take 400 years to get the cameras rolling. Who has 400 years? Not me. I’d already put in the time upfront to create a solid script with the principles of low-budget filmmaking in mind. It was time to pull the trigger. So I did. I’m happy I did, because now I have a finished film, and it’s quite beautiful and we are all very proud of it. But I’ll tell you, I had to put so much skin in this game that I’m holding myself together with binder twine and tight dresses.  Look ma! A finished film. I sold half my worldly goods to pay to shoot a trailer that helped to raise private financing. I can’t say enough good things about those investors/exec producers. I ran a crowdfunding campaign, a job that consumed four months of my life. I can’t say enough good things about our supporters, but man, I hope I never have to crowdfund again. What a tough slog! I spent two years giving 18-hour days to this film. If you do the maths, you’ll know that left six hours for sleep. I gave up other work to focus on this, I gave up my house, I slept on couches for months, all to make this work.  Professor Paws, nursing me back to health This isn’t particularly unusual, by the way. This is how indie films get made. (Useful knowledge to have if you are right now 20 years old and trying to choose between film school and accounting.) I wasn’t alone. I had two super producing partners who are still working hard so that you, gentle reader, can see The Wasting on the big screen. I had a crew that went to the wall for this film, an editor that dug in and dug in and dug in till we had it right, an online post team that worked overtime to make it look and sound gorgeous. Without them, I might be dead, rather than just skinless. And you know what? I would do it all again. And when you see The Wasting, you’ll know why. It was worth every scraped-away dermal layer. And I can’t wait to start my next film. Somebody hand me the potato peeler.
 …she ends up with a film that looks awesome. The End. That's right. The film is finished. I just spent two weeks at Rev 13 Films with our rather amazing colourist Tony Manolikakis, throwing in my two cents as he created the last piece of the beautiful puzzle that’s consumed my life for three years. We screened the final version last Friday, and I’m over-the-moon happy. The colour enhances everything. It takes us on the emotional journey through the film. It defines the story in all its stages. It is integral and stunning. It isn’t just about Tony’s technical skill, it’s about his understanding of the film, his creativity and his collaboration with me and our DOP, Michal Wisniowksi. I’m so pleased with the whole experience, I made a dorky little journal of what my those lazy crazy colour-grading days in Montreal looked like:
 • DOP weighs in. He’s in Poland, but his ideas carry weight all the way across the wide Sargasso Sea.
• VFX guy Nick Fodor does a cool thing for a scene with Sophie and Liam that makes us want to stand up and cheer. • DOP says “hey, about the final scene! Do this!” • We do. It is good. No, great. • Screen final version. High five Tony. • Take exactly four seconds to think “wow, we did it!” • Go back to House of Rosé and sprawl on the couch, too overwhelmingly exhausted from this journey to move, speak or comprehend the enormity of what we’ve done, let alone drink wine. • Get over it. Drink wine. Who knew sound mattered so much? Okay, probably anyone who saw Valhalla Rising, but really, I’ve been bowled over by the latest development from the murky and mysterious land of post-production. Our sound mix is done! And it’s brilliant!
When we sat in playback last week and I got to hear what they’d done, I realized that all this time, half my movie had been missing. Jam Post found it, and everything is elevated. Whole scenes have taken on a deeper meaning because of Mark Shnuriwsky’s clever sound design and Steph Carrier’s delicate hand on the mix. (I’m talking to you, anorexic girl dancing scene)  Lauren McQueen in the anorexic girl dancing scene Sound effects, dialogue, music, and foley have solidified the tone of the film and given an immutable shape to this thing that once only existed as an amorphous blob of words on my laptop screen. Along with Steph and co-owners Janice Ierulli (supervising sound editor) and the aforementioned Mark, there’s a whole big crew that had a hand in our post audio and it looks like this: Nadya Hanlon ... sound effects editor Heather Kirby ... dialogue and music editor Vladimir Borissov ... sound effects editor Matthew Hussey ... dialogue editor Dave Johnson ... dialogue editor John Sievert ... foley artist Clive Turner ... sound effects editor Brandon Bak ... foley mixer/recordist Thank you, gang. We are most pleased.  Producer Alan Hausegger and dialogue editor Heather Kirby watch ADR from the safety of the booth  Gray O'Brien and Shabana Smith So here we are, deep in the heart of post-production. So much to tell, but so little time because…post-production. Everybody keeps asking “when is that movie of yours going to be done?” It’s like when you’re nine months pregnant and everybody keeps asking when that baby’s going to pop. The answer is “Pass me a sandwich, and one of those nice pickles. Oh, and a bucket of coffee, please. Because I haven’t had time to eat or sleep this week." Been busy looking at stuff like this (eyes right) So here’s what you need to know about how we're doing...
 Cast. Crew. Lunch. Much miracles.
Yes, post-production takes long time. So do babies. But in the end, they’re both worth it. And unlike babies, The Wasting won’t throw up on you. I love my crew. I keep saying it, and everybody wants to know why. So I’ll tell you, one blog at a time.
Anna’s Greatest Challenge: That time she arrived by train and there was a problem with the car picking her up and she sat for an hour in the dark at a tiny deserted station in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around except probably whatever bit the American Werewolf in London and turned him into a werewolf, lo, those many years ago. Like everything, Anna took it all in stride. Anna’s Hidden Talent: Taking pictures. She took the most gorgeous behind-the-scenes photos, and we didn’t even know she was doing it. What Anna is Always Game For: Pretty much anything. Fishing props out of a river in the rain. Scary things in scary cellars. Getting her hands dirty. And my favourite - Zombie attack on the director’s car.  I love my crew. I keep saying it, and everybody wants to know why. So I’ll tell you, one blog at a time.
The Thing That Made Tom Mean: A series of unfortunate events, on a day that pushed nearly everyone to the brink.
Tom’s Biggest Regret: That he didn’t get to go in the camera boat on the last day. He really wanted to, and he deserved to, but it wasn’t big enough and the water was choppy. Sorry, Tom. My next film will have water in it too. You can go in the boat then. An Important Thing An Anonymous Crew Member Said About Tom: That it’s good he wasn’t like that drill sergeant. That his pleasant personality helped us. The crew worked hard, and this was not a big budget film. If somebody was yelling at them all the time, they might not have stayed. But they did stay, because Tom helped to make it a nice set to be on. I love it when niceness wins. I love my crew. I keep saying it, and everybody wants to know why. So I’ll tell you, one blog at a time. Today, it’s all about makeup. Which ought to be called make-down, because that was the challenge for department head Sian Leigh – to transform the very healthy-looking, rosy-cheeked, porcelain-skinned dropdead beauty that is Lauren McQueen into a young woman devastated by anorexia. Yikes! Taming Donald Trump’s hair (and mouth) would be easier. What challenge would you rather face? Make her ugly Make him pretty Here’s why I love Sian. The first time we spoke, with just a few days to prepare for that initial conversation, she’d clearly stayed up nights thinking about the challenges, and she had a plan. It was multi-faceted, but part of it involved ordering some kind of makeup called a death palette. Oy.
Luckily, Sian had Alice Harman assisting her, and Alice was talented and unflappable. We had a full-speed-ahead schedule – for football fans, the equivalent of a hurry-up offence. There was no time for panic and less time for mistakes. Alice was a calming force for all of us, coolly getting the job done while tornadoes raged around her. Movie sets need more Alices.  Sian and Alice did a phenomenal job in demanding circumstances. Equally important, they were just nice people, fun to have around, easy to love. And we do. She came in like a cockroach, bold as hell, icky as a wad of somebody else’s gum on your theatre seat, unapologetic about trying to co-opt our movie and turn it into her movie. And, like a roach, she was nearly impossible to kill. They called her… Bambolina!  A seemingly harmless porcelain doll that surely brought some little girl great joy back in the blessed pre-Barbie world. Rescued from a bin of her mates in a provincial French charity shop. Chosen, like so many women, for her blonde hair and innocent blue eyes. She was meant to be a companion and a comfort to Lauren McQueen’s Sophie. Alas, Bambolina had other plans.
 Not happy about that doll She did the rest of the film with her head balanced revoltingly on her broken neck, attached only by a few threads of her disgusting hair, staring accusingly – unforgiving - at all of us. Lauren didn’t say it, because she’s a trooper, but I know she cringed every time she had to hug that smelly creepfest close. At least it was for a purpose. The Wasting isn’t a creepy doll movie, as much as Bambolina tried to make it one. But her role is important. Best Supporting Actress important. Not going to say more, because I want you to watch the movie.
We threw the body in a sack and left it in a field. Our gaffer, Bryan “McGyver” Gavigan, took her head as a trophy. Fool!  Bryan shows Anna his rash plan The next day, everybody went home. I went to the crew house to see them off. Bryan had hung Bambolina’s head from his rearview mirror like a pair of fuzzy dice, or a pine tree air freshener. (She smelled as rank as those air fresheners.) We all questioned the wisdom of tempting doom this way, but Bryan laughed it off. Just like they do in scary movies right before the doll/clown/amusement park ride kills them. As he drove away, we noticed it, sitting in the boot of his car: Bambolina’s headless body. Waiting.
Nobody has seen Bryan since. If you find him, please let us know. But don’t touch the doll.
Everywhere we went in Upton, people wanted to know if we were making a movie about the notorious Captain. Or if we’d seen any sign of him. We heard his name so much I feel like he’s one of us, and so it behooves me to write about him. I’ll try to find something good to say, but really, Captain Thomas Bound sounds like he was most unpleasant.
In time, Captain Bound committed suicide, drowning himself. Maybe guilt caught up with him, but death didn’t let him off that easy, as he’s still seen galloping around Upton, possibly looking for another Mary. If he was looking for a Jenny, he could stop galloping, as every second person I met in Upton was called Jenny. No Marys though. Maybe Upton's parents caught on - don't call your daughter Mary. We were hoping that, what with all that bounding about, we’d have seen him. We shot on Rectory Road, where he lived, and where his ghost is often spotted. We shot on The Ham, the riverside meadow that’s another of his haunts. Didn’t see him, but we did see a lot of really nice Labradors.  No galloping ghosts here, just the marginally spectral Gray O'Brien And then - on Friday the 13th - we shot in Old Hall, on Rectory Road, in a flat that one of the poor murdered Marys is said to haunt. Our makeup artist Sian and I were minding our own business, sitting near the window where her ghost is sometimes seen standing, when something suddenly moved behind us. (Sidenote to Gray O’Brien: It was not a cat!) I thought Sian did it and she thought I did it, and when we compared notes, we realized neither of us did it. But it definitely moved, and made a noise, and freaked us out. And that was it. It was good enough. Really, I’m not that keen to see a ghost, especially a misogynistic one, despite my many years of writing about them. And we did have other brushes with Upton’s ghostly mythology, but I’ll save those for another post.
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AuthorI'm the writer-director and more or less the mother of this film. Archives
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