Tim R. Lea: The story was driven by my passion for healthily controversial thrillers; looking towards exploring sometimes difficult and challenging issues especially with moral dilemmas that none of us would want to face. When your own survival being at stake, it is the most primal instinct, and we wanted to explore what would we do as human beings to survive. This form of dilemma is so interesting on a number of different levels.
Tim R. Lea: Personally, I have been screen writing for 12 years, and have had two scripts optioned for production, with one generating funding from one of the Public Bodies here in Australia. Frankly I got so "cheesed off" that nothing was happening after all the effort that goes into writing and developing a script I thought I need to produce movies as well using all my corporate finance and project management skills.
So in late 2013 as a team we made an award nominated short for a time-fused Short film competition in Sydney the WD Sci-fi project. In the competition we had 28 days to complete a 10 minute movie after being given a topic; ours was post apocalypse.
We got such positive feedback from the audience and industry professionals alike that we decided that we simply HAD to make the short into a micro-budget feature.
So in late 2013 as a team we made an award nominated short for a time-fused Short film competition in Sydney the WD Sci-fi project. In the competition we had 28 days to complete a 10 minute movie after being given a topic; ours was post apocalypse.
We got such positive feedback from the audience and industry professionals alike that we decided that we simply HAD to make the short into a micro-budget feature.
Tim R. Lea: It was myself that wrote the screenplay, based upon the success of the short as a proof of concept. However the script was designed in such a way as to accommodate flexibility. As part of the development process for 54 Days, we rehearsed the actors for four months prior to the actual shoot, with that rehearsal process leading to many improvised moments, which ultimately made their way into the script and ultimately finished up on screen. Equally as part of the development process, as the writer, I wrote 16 different endings to ensure we werent just taking the easy way out and replicating the short film, letting the natural forces of the characters and the actors craft working together to determine which ending they naturally gravitated towards.
Tim R. Lea: 54 Days is a contained thriller that explores the core themes of
Survival, Loyalty Betrayal Truth
And how true character is tested and gradually shows itself as it seeps its way to the surface when survival itself is at stake.
Survival, Loyalty Betrayal Truth
And how true character is tested and gradually shows itself as it seeps its way to the surface when survival itself is at stake.
Tim R. Lea: Survival brings out the best and the worst in people; the best when we focus on things that are truly important to us, and the worst fighting for our own survival, when all bets are off, and it becomes about survival of the individual rather than the community.
Tim R. Lea: Our production budget was $54,000. With post production and direct marketing expenses the overall expenditure will be around $75,000. Of course this excludes all the thousands of man-hours so many of the passionate team have put into this project.
Tim R. Lea: We crowdfunded the project - $54,000, with a 54 day campaign for the movie titled 54 Days yeah it had a marketing ring to it BS but hey marketing works!!. You can check out our original crowd funding video by going to our website at www.54daysthemovie.com
Tim R.Lea: It was the hardest $54,000 I have ever raised in my WHOLE previous professional life as a Corporate Financier. Somebody summarised it really well when they said it was a tax on friendship. If people dont support you what does that say about your friendship? I must admit I did have the arrogance of many of my peers in Corporate Finance thinking it would be easy to leverage all my contacts for finance and get the movie financed. Was I wrong or what? That was my biggest wake-up call. I can safely say that 90% of all my finance contacts did not even know what crowd funding was ! So not only do you have to get them on side but you have to explain how the whole process works and then when they said and what is my return on investment I thought "Wha the heck" am I doing talking to you guys. We got the money though through family, friends, contacts of friends and ultimately through people that were hearing about the project. Man it was hard work so much so that I wrote an article on the experience called 10 Tips to make Crowd Funding Easy Yeah Right!! you can read that article in our website www.54daysthemovie.com.
In fairness, the power of crowdfunding is the ability to prove a concept and to get awareness. It got us out there talking to people and our tentacles spread far and wide, which has helped us with the ultimate marketing of 54 Days, post production.
But if anyone reading this is thinking about crowdfunding just be aware it takes an inordinate amount of time and is hard work. Would I do it again ? For the right project in a heartbeat!!
In fairness, the power of crowdfunding is the ability to prove a concept and to get awareness. It got us out there talking to people and our tentacles spread far and wide, which has helped us with the ultimate marketing of 54 Days, post production.
But if anyone reading this is thinking about crowdfunding just be aware it takes an inordinate amount of time and is hard work. Would I do it again ? For the right project in a heartbeat!!
Tim R. Lea: We researched the cannon of survival movies Alive, The Cube, Open water, Saw, the Donner Party, Lifeboat (Hitchcock), The Divide etc etc, and whilst comparisons will always be drawn, 54 Days is designed as a character piece exploring deeper emotional challenges associated with the secrets the characters hold that ease their way to the surface as the pressure builds on the individual characters to survive, and as they are forced to look at their own lives an what is really important with deathly consequences.
Tim R. Lea: Low budget mean limited locations and limited opportunities for high end production values see my article The Top Ten Tips For Writing A Microbudget Script - available in our website. From the get-go we knew we had to develop a script, where the plot twisted and turned; that provided emotional highs and emotional lows, all sticking within core screenwriting principles and yes that horrible word structure. Equally, we knew that visually we had to make the journey interesting, to mirror the emotional beats the actors were hitting. So in tandem with Nathaniel C.T. Jackson, our awesome Director Of Photography, we looked at varying the visual styles of shots, using all Nathaniels adept skills from his time working with Television Commercials.
In the end, we used a variety of different shots: jib shots, crane shots, hand-held and my personal favourite tight close-up shots to get deep inside what was going on inside the characters heads using platforms strapped to the actors chests
All of these were constructed to get emotional variety; emotional resonance otherwise it could appear as if we were shooting a play.
In the end, we used a variety of different shots: jib shots, crane shots, hand-held and my personal favourite tight close-up shots to get deep inside what was going on inside the characters heads using platforms strapped to the actors chests
All of these were constructed to get emotional variety; emotional resonance otherwise it could appear as if we were shooting a play.
Tim R. Lea: Because of the tight budgets, locations were very limited (4 in all) and the overall shoot was 13 days (excluding subsequent pickups). We deliberately shot over the 2014 Easter break to :
minimise the time our crew, who primarily work in the TV Commercials industry, had to forego core income to be involved in the shoot.
enable us to rent the studio for very low rental the studio we rented was part of a church complex, which was normally used to shoot the religious leaders sermons. So because Easter was their busiest period in the Church itself, it meant the studio space wasnt being used so we rented the studio very cheaply. (It also meant the language on set had to be kept clean luckily the studio space was heavily sound proofed!)
We shot 54 Days in Sydney in four locations: a rooftop penthouse in the centre of Sydney, which we found on airbnb.com the fire escape of one of the actors apartment building a carpark The Church complex studio
We shot 54 Days in Sydney in four locations: a rooftop penthouse in the centre of Sydney, which we found on airbnb.com the fire escape of one of the actors apartment building a carpark The Church complex studio
Tim R. Lea: When I look back at the quality of the end result on screen I just dont know how our wonderful Production Designer, Skye Mclennan got the end result she did with the near zero budget we had. Between us all we spent several rainsoaked weekends and weeknights slowly creating the bunker from the core base of reject plywood 4mx3m slats purchased from local timber yard, applying coats of grey paint and render, and then painting again leaving them to dry in my patio overnight all under the expert guidance of Nicholas Andrew Halls our wonderfully talented producer. Skye an her team also traipsed through the charity shops and junk to find 1960s artefacts to bring the shelter to life in tandem with using the services of prop hire companies. When I look back at everything I think wow! How did we actually achieve what we achieved?! One word immediately springs to mind TEAMWORK. We had 116 people working on our project altogether and everyone has been an absolute pleasure to work with.
Tim R.Lea: One of the most important things for us was to make the feature very different to the short film, which is readily available to see on Youtube. We had to ensure we had an answer for the question why would I go and see the feature if I can see the short online?
With the feature, we had more time to spend on character and plot development; to build in richness and depth to plot and character alike. I was so paranoid about making the feature so different to the short that I finished up writing 16 different endings, without telling the actors the endings and let the characters themselves bring the ending to life through improvisation.
With the feature, we had more time to spend on character and plot development; to build in richness and depth to plot and character alike. I was so paranoid about making the feature so different to the short that I finished up writing 16 different endings, without telling the actors the endings and let the characters themselves bring the ending to life through improvisation.
Tim R. Lea: It was an absolute pleasure working with the actors on 54 Days. Three had extensive theatre experience, which means they were used to holding character for long periods of time essential when it comes to us having a 13 day shoot. It also had the down side of some of the performances were sometimes too loud almost as if they were shouting to the back of the auditorium; but all were incredibly professional to work with. We spent 4 months rehearsing the script before we even put a foot on set, to give the actors a complete feel of who the characters were. As a writer I am a great believer in character bibles and character webs to show the actors who the characters are; their background, their physicality, their psychology and how their relationships with each other. We even went out one night in the main entertainment area of Sydney with each of the actors going out in character remaining in character to anyone they spoke to. Hard work but a true devotion to their craft.
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