The Wasting Movie
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The Wasting Movie

News and other stuff

our new trailer just rolled into town

2/2/2018

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That's it. That's all I've got to say. Our North American distributor, the fabulous Indiecan Entertainment, made an amazing new trailer for us to herald our arrival in Canadian cinemas...we'll be announcing our premiere date very very soon, so don't stray too far.

Hope you love the trailer as much as I do. Please feel free to share and share and then share some more.

​If you didn't notice it on our Home page, you can also find it right HERE.

Have fun!
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Coming Soon to North America

8/9/2017

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I know, I'm like a Golden retriever - I was all focused on festival blogging when suddenly the ball of North American distribution is dangled in my face. Irresistible! I am doing a sharp left turn, top speed, to talk about that, but I promise to come back to the long overdue Tales from the Festival Circuit. 
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As you may have noted in the clickable headline over <<<<<<<thataway <<<<<<
Indiecan Entertainment has acquired The Wasting. That means Avi Federgreen's great company will be working hard to make sure you get to see the film in Canada and the U.S. 

I'm really pleased to have Avi handling us for North America. He and I go back a loooong way, to when I was a mere child of two, and he hired me to find film locations in Saskatchewan that could double for Las Vegas. (Important to note here that Saskatchewan is the Canadian version of Kansas.) 
PictureVinnie Jones gives me the Saskatchewan stinkeye

​Avi was running a Vinnie Jones film called Hollywood Flies, and once I'd found him all the Vegas/Mojave Desert stand-ins the prairies could give me, he gave me another job, as his assistant Production Manager, despite the fact that I was only four years old.

I learned a ton from Avi on that set, skills that I carried all the way to The Wasting.

I also made a great friend in Avi, and it's absolutely awesome to have him in our corner. 

Avi works diligently for every movie he distributes, because he's a true believer in indie film - he loves indie film - and he backs up his words with actions. 

We could not ask for a better person or company to come on board.

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Festivalapalooza

3/17/2017

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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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i've got no skin left, because it's all in the game

8/23/2016

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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. 
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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. 
Picturecourting 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.
PictureLook 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.  

PictureProfessor 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.
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director goes to montreal to colour grade her film, you won’t believe what happens next…

8/2/2016

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​…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:
                   MY DORKY JOURNAL​
•    Wake up every morning in home of childhood friend, who has seemingly endless supply of rosé
•    Pat the sweet, goofy dog who lives there
•    Get on the Metro. Marvel at how clean it is, compared to Toronto’s subway system.
•    Arrive at giant old building housing Rev 13 Films.
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Sweet goofy dog gazes at stuff
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•    Walk up many many many many flights of stairs. Probably a hundred.
•    Pause to appreciate the beauty of the heritage building I’m in. Also to catch my breath. 
•    Walk up more stairs. 
•    Arrive at Rev 13 Films, setting off the door alert. 
  • Tony emerges from his dark and mysterious edit suite, exudes equal parts creativity and technical genius. He has something new and cool to show me and to discuss.
  • One of us says something about how stinking hot it is.
  • Drink coffee. No milk. Doesn’t matter.
  • Eat broken pieces of biscotti from a jar. Reflect on how it’s all fun and games till somebody gets fat.
  • Trip on imaginary step in very dark edit suite.
  • Much discussion, about tones and moods and colours and what we’re trying to achieve, and how to highlight this bit without highlighting that bit and how we want to use colour to define the three different states within the story. And so on…
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•    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. 
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jammy stuff

6/29/2016

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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!
I don’t know how we managed to be lucky enough to get Toronto’s Jam Post in our corner, but well done, us. The team there is incredibly talented, committed and so lovely and easy to work with, thus allowing me to stick with my mandate to never work with jerks. (Granted, “jerks” isn’t the word I usually use, but my mom might be reading this)
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Brendan Flynn in ADR at Jam Post

​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) 
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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.
Picture
Producer Alan Hausegger and dialogue editor Heather Kirby watch ADR from the safety of the booth
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notes from the basement 

4/12/2016

1 Comment

 
PictureGray 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...
​


  • It looks beautiful. Stunning. We are wildly happy.
  • The performances are outstanding. We expected a lot, but this is beyond the beyond of the beyond. And don’t even get me started on the chemistry of our two young leads, Lauren McQueen and Sean Stevenson. You can’t tear your eyes off them.
  • While we’re on about chemistry, Alexz Johnson and Brendan Flynn are a riot to watch together. 
  • Our editor is a superhero.
  • Our composers have started their work on the score and every day is a beautiful revelation. They are innovative, talented and they really understand the deep connection between the story and the music.
  • Every time I sit in front of the screen (and so far it’s been hundreds of times) and see all our hard work coming together so perfectly, I’m newly grateful for the miracle that is my cast and my crew.
Picture
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. 
​
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kind of like a superhero woman

1/1/2016

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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 TOMBACZ

​2nd AD

How Anna Got the Gig: Chutzpah. She didn’t have a pile of experience coming in, but she told me she’s very clever and she can learn anything quickly. I loved that she knows she’s clever, and mostly, I love that she isn’t afraid to say it. (Women don’t say that enough and spend way too much time apologising for being clever) It meant she wouldn’t be afraid of anything. On a low-budget film set, there is no room for fear.
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Braving the river for the cause


​Anna’s Greatest Asset: Exactly as advertised. She’s very clever and can master anything quickly. I never worried about the things Anna was responsible for. I never had to check twice to make sure the job was done. I could count on her.And if things got stressful, she never panicked. She just put her head down and carried on. I love that.
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.
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the two faces of tom

12/24/2015

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I love my crew. I keep saying it, and everybody wants to know why. So I’ll tell you, one blog at a time.
 
TOM PRATT, 1ST AD

​Tom’s Greatest Challenge: Being mean. This was his first crack at being a 1st and he did an admirable job with logistics and organizing and making sure the cast was happy and the director was never caught carrying stuff. 

But being a 1st also means that sometimes you have to be mean like that drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket  to make sure the set runs smoothly. And Tom is nice. Oh, how hard he tried to be mean. Sometimes he scowled. But he’s not a mean guy.


Look below, for a time Tom was mean. He gives us what-for at 19 seconds.
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Pensive, yes. Mean, no.
The Thing That Made Tom Mean: A series of unfortunate events, on a day that pushed nearly everyone to the brink.
  • Our lead actress ran out a gate that was supposed to slam behind her, and it did. But then it got stuck, and she was trapped on the other side. In the rain. With no umbrella. Tom always took the actors’ safety and comfort very seriously. We got the gate open in about 30 seconds, but it was probably the longest 30 seconds of Tom’s life, and it set him up for Unfortunate Event #2.
  • ​That time we got Lauren to rattle the gate. This time, Tom wasn't worried about the actress, he was worried about the gate. It was old. And the more she rattled it, the more worried he got. Until he snapped. Or got very very stern. There would be no more gate rattling. But it's ok. We got the shot.​
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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.
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make me up, make me down

12/11/2015

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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.

​
​Sian was fully committed. She cared so much about the film and so much about how the actors appeared. I think she felt actual physical pain if Lauren didn’t look perfectly ravaged in the monitor.  
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Sian with Lauren McQueen and Shelagh McLeod
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The anorexia in the story progressed, but we shot scenes out of order, so Sian had to know at all times exactly how destroyed Lauren should appear. She had to be ready to wipe off or punch up makeup at any moment.  And because we shot in a lot of rain, she had to keep her face from melting.


And there was more. This is, after all, a ghost story. There was special effects makeup. There was hair – especially harnessing the unruly curls of Brendan and Sean.  There was catching Brendan and pinning him down to do his hair​.
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.
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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.
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    I'm the writer-director and more or less the mother of this film.

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