The Film Maker
I was told when I started this project, that is impossible, there is no way anybody could do what you are trying to do, it would take a miracle.
In 2001, I wrote, The Crop. A light hearted, tongue in cheek look at a larrikin nightclub owner, Ronald ‘Blade’ Gillette, who realizes after random breath testing has been introduced that he is going broke. He is still getting plenty of customers to gawk at the girls and listen to the band, but afraid of drink driving, they’re not buying his alcohol. They are going out into the car park, smoking marijuana, then coming back in for a glass of water and free entertainment.
Now like any good businessman with loans to pay, debts mounting and crooked cops demanding their protection money, Blade decides he needs to tailor his business to suit his customer demands. Diversify and expand. Excellent, one of those things that seemed like a really good idea at the time.
After recruiting his best mate David ‘Wack’ Kowakski and his girlfriend Geraldine to assist him in the grand scheme of his business saving plan will have you on the edge of your seat and rolling in the aisles with laughter. In fact, you’ll laugh your heads off.
I then surrounded myself with the best people I could possibly find. I figured, well, if it’s going to take a miracle, I need a company that makes miracles. I formed my production company and called it, Miracle Productions.
And in August 2004, The Crop opened in one hundred multi plex cinemas across Australia with me playing the lead role alongside Holly Brisley, Rhys Muldoon and a whole cast of some of Australia’s finest actors.
In April 2005 The Crop was entered into competition in the biggest independent film festival in the world. The New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
Two thousand films from twenty-eight countries around the world were entered, out of those, three hundred were accepted for screening and we were notified that The Crop was one of them.
I was in the theatre in New York when our film was screened and watched the audience, who were even sitting in the aisles, give a standing ovation when the film ended.
One month later when I was attending the Caanes Film Festival in France, I was notified that an international panel of judges in New York had awarded The Crop, Best International Feature Film 2005.