It's All In A Name

I have spent the day phoning around to find an adventurous soul to Executive Produce the film. The EP is the one who opens the doors for the money to flow, so they are very important cogs in the risky business of filmmaking. I am constantly amazed and delighted by how accessible and generous film people are.

After a fruitful and exciting day I need to wind down, not that it was particularly stressful as days go. Have you ever seen the Foxtel show Relocation, Relocation? That's the story of my life today. Having psyched myself up to leave the delights of sleepy Golden Beach and relocate down here, I find myself following my intuition and saying yes to moving to Brisbane next week instead, both for family and film reasons. Adapt, adapt, adapt.

So I take myself across the road to the Fountain Cafe. Sam's side of the road is upmarket Elizabeth Bay. The other side is Kings Cross. Instead of my daily walk, I will sit and enjoy the El Alamein Fountain. I'm hooked on all things water, as you may have noticed.

This is daylight saving at its best. I remember to breathe and slowly sip a chilled white wine and watch the passing parade. In the last month I have eaten at least two distinctly trendy cafes buzzing with life and beautiful people. Enough to know the customers here are not the trendy type. Rather they are simply locals enjoying a fine evening outdoors.

As we walked past the fountain recently, Sam reminded me of some family history I'd conveniently forgotten. Miss Four was seriously miffed because we adults did not take any notice when she likened the iconic fountain to a dandylion. And that is exactly what it looks like. A dandylion. A beautiful, watery dandylion.

The fountain was built to commemorate the battle of El Alamein in the Middle East in World War II. Pa, Sam's delightful grandfather, fought at El Alamein, and tonight he unexpectedly feels very close. He would be chuffed with today's decision. My father-in-law and I were great mates. As we worked outdoors on the farm he would tell me stories about the Middle East, before he met and married the beautiful Joan. He confided about war in the Western Desert, both the ugly and the funny, and his love life in occupied Syria. “Don't tell your mother,” he'd conclude. And I never did.

Does it ever strike you as odd that there are few monuments to our equally brave Aboriginees who were massacred by the European boat people? This is a sore point with some of my Indigenous acquaintances, and who can blame them.

Since my last visit I have read the hilarious Aunts Up The Cross by Robyn Dalton. Before her decrepit family home was demolished sometime after WW II, it stood on the very spot where the fountain is today. When my friends heard how much I enjoyed her book, they lent me Angel Puss by Colleen McCulloch, another good read about life here.

As I took a short cut along Kellett Street a couple of weeks ago I witnessed a very well dressed, forty-something man on his mobile phone, “If you don't pay me by tonight you will be in hospital tomorrow, with so many breaks in both your arms and legs you'd wish you were dead.” And he wasn't kidding. Needless to say I tried to make myself instantly invisible. Phew! I don't do Kellett Street any more.

Though it's obvious that the area has all been gentrified since Sam was a four year old, there's still enough local colour to show its underbelly occasionally.

Last Saturday the farmers' market took place beside the fountain in gale force, freezing winds which whipped little bits of “hair” of the huge old trees. The air was full of it. Personal experience has taught me that if you get ones of these little suckers in your throat it causes choking, like a severe asthma attack. Not pleasant. Much to my amusement, an enterprising young man from the local pharmacy was doing a roaring trade selling disposable face masks. So people went about their regular weekend activities adorned with masks. Strangely un-Australian it looked too.

This magnificent evening I enjoy the sense of place and nibble my way through a plate of nachos. The unexpectedly Asian take on the dish tickles my sense of humour. All the staff are of Asian cultural heritage which probably explains the lack of Mexican-ness. I wonder what their pizzas taste like.

But then so many things in Kings Cross are a little on the weird side. This is not good for real estate values it seems. From a real estate point of view it doesn't exist. The apartments for sale are in Potts Point, not Kings Cross, even though my Sydney guide book says Kings Cross and the railway station says Kings Cross.

It's all in a name.

Barbara Carseldine
watertools@gmail.com
www.knowingwater.com

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FILMMAKER

Sometime after 3am the tenant upstairs arrives home. He is quiet enough. The challenge is that the floorboards in his Art Deco apartment creak, though they are not as noisy as the possums in the roof back home. Sleep evades me for hours it seems. Just when I am blissfully out to it, my mobile beeps a text message from No One daughter in Paris. It is exactly 6 am. Just as well Sam texted, because I'd forgotten to turn on the alarm. Phew! Then we chat for an hour on Skype. Bless technology.

The email I have been waiting for is in the inbox. Great. I train train to North Sydney, meet with Alan Harkness, our script editor and consultant, and train back to the city in search of the simplest piece of the film jigsaw. A suitable presentation folder for the screenplay. You wouldn't believe the variety of folders, but none as good as the one I have been shown. The challenge is that Alan can't recall where he bought it. I explore the stationery shops of Sydney CBD and find a couple of folders almost as good. Success at last. Back at Elizabeth Bay the sun is out at last as I work my way down my To Do list.

I decide to attend an evening art show in nearby Paddington. I daren't take Mr Skittles, Sam's Smart car, because parking here and there is such a challenge. The walk will do me good and has the added benefit of being sustainable.

Just as I arrive at the gallery Alan phones with bad news. He's discovered an error in our scene numbering. Bizarrely, we have two scene thirties. The dodgy, ancient TAFE-invented software beloved of impoverished writers has bitten me on the proverbial. What is adequate for a rainmaker is not for a filmmaker. I will have to delay meetings till I can renumber the scenes manually, a time consuming occupation, and print off the correct version. What a blow. Thank goodness Alan found the error. Wouldn't want to look unprofessional and all that.

I remind myself of my favourite Winston Churchill speech. “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.” And for some obscure reason I remember the wisdom of Shogun. Patience. The mindset of an Olympic athlete and the organisational ability of a wedding planner are definitely at the top of the list of requirements of film producers.

The art is very intellectual. The subject matter is “Adaptation” from novel to film. I am interested because, like Steven Speilberg, movies were the literature of my youth. Some pieces are witty, many are incomprehensible to me. None move me the way most Indigenous art does. Conversation is impossible because of the decibel level. Judging by the noise, the event is a success. I leave before the official opening.

The highlight of my oh so quiet journey home is finding a lemon myrtle tree near Trumper Oval. Gubbi Gubbi elder, Bev Hand, says that lemon myrtle makes a great tea and also an antiseptic good for sore throats. So my journey is not in vain.

Oh so quiet, that is until I reach Kings Cross. I eye off the pie shop and pizza places, but simply cannot make up my mind. Comfort food is definitely calling. To my joy back at Sam's apartment I find a tin of Heinz baked beans. Baked beans on good rye toast, sprinkled with tasty grated cheese. Sophisticated it ain't. Yum. Food fit for the gods.

I am so grateful that the elders asked me to co-produce Liquid Assets. What a journey!

The Healing Power of Indigenous Art

What a long weekend of Indigenous art! While I haven't seen the new Indigenous galleries in Canberra, I did dive wholeheartedly into art + soul at the Art Gallery of New South Wales www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

One of the joys of living at Elizabeth Bay, albeit temporarily, is being able to walk to the Art Gallery in fifteen minutes and enjoy Sydney Harbour on the way, so I literally celebrated Aboriginal art and culture. There were artists and performers from all over the country and my biggest challenge was deciding which venue to attend. And it was all free.

Hetti Perkins, the curator of Indigenous art, is to be congratulated. What joy, what energy reverberated around the complex. It was also a privilege to attend a preview of ABC's new three part documentary series art + soul which goes to air in Australia on Thursday October 7th at 8.30pm. This was introduced by producer Bridget Ikin of Hibiscus Films and Warwick Thornton of Samson & Delilah fame. He is the director and cinematographer and Hetti Perkins the writer and presenter.

The DVD and book of the series are both on my immediate wish list. Awesome storytelling. Great documentary making. As a filmmaker I am in awe of www.hibiscusfilms.com.au

One of the things I value about Indigenous art is its mystical ability to transport me to country and the magic it has brought into my life. The screenplay Liquid Assets encapsulates this beautifully, if I do say so myself, as does the my co-producer Suzanne Thompton's prize winning art, which will be used in the film.

So I was absolutely delighted to hear Ngathi Gulumbu Yunupingu, an internationally recognised artist and elder, speak so powerfully of the healing power of Indigenous art. “When you look at it you are healed.” Wow!

This is my wish for Liquid Assets. When you look at it you are not only entertained, you are healed. I can feel the film unfolding as I write.

And yes, I did “eat clouds” each day, and miraculously the showers held off just when I wanted to walk over and again when I walked home. An added source of amusement, an added bonus.