• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Tuesday, April 1, 1997

FILM:

Croghan takes initiative to create, fund an independent successBy Aimee Phan

Daily Bruin Contributor

Most ambitious young filmmakers fresh out of film school face the same problem getting started ­ finding money. Because they are inexperienced and unproven, filmmakers often encounter difficulties while trying to convince producers and financiers to back their projects.

Emma-Kate Croghan realized this obstacle quite early on after graduating from the VCA Film and Television School in her native Australia. So she did what many young independent filmmakers have done after trying unsuccessfully to break into the studio system ­ she scraped up money from friends and family and made her own film.

But she never expected her low-budget film to receive so much attention. "Love and Other Catastrophes," an offbeat comedy surrounding the lives of five university students, struck a chord with the critics and Australian audiences, who rewarded the film's charm with box-office success. The film's positive buzz eventually made its way into America, where Fox Searchlight Pictures soon bought the film for American distribution. Croghan admits the success of her directorial debut has been a whirlwind.

"I was very surprised at the response (to this film) and I've had a little time to get used to it now," Croghan says. "You want people to like your movie but you're never really sure of the response."

Sitting alongside some of the cast members of the film, Croghan, 25, is just as young and pretty as the actors and actresses she directed in her movie. Already with one successful film under her belt, Croghan maintains a serious demeanor when discussing her film, but still radiates youth.

It all started when Croghan and several of her film colleagues, frustrated with their unemployed status, decided that they should stop waiting for other people to finance their projects and make a film on their own. Croghan, along with her boyfriend, Stavros Andonis Efthymiou, and three friends they met from film school, collaborated to finance and make a film with the monetary help of their friends and families.

"We were all unemployed and had nothing to do other than trying to get films off the ground," Croghan recalls. "Then Stavros said 'Why can't we do what Kevin Smith and Spike Lee did and just make the film?' We were just busting to make a film. You get out of film school and all of a sudden you just can't make films anymore. But we were just dying to make one."

After drafting a script in just two weeks, Croghan and friends quickly cast the film with relatively unknown Australian actors. The story of the film was something that the cast and crew could easily relate to: the daily joys and struggles of college life. While Croghan admits the story has some autobiographical elements, she insists the characters and storylines are completely fictional.

"It's hard as a writer because you don't know how much real experience to use in your story. People and experiences you have in your life will always end up in your work somehow," Croghan says. "I think this confusion arises for people because we are the same age as the characters in the film. We wear the same clothes, we listen to the same music, we hang out at the same places. And people will think 'Oh it's your life.' Well, no, it's not."

Although they gathered the cast mostly from talent agencies, Croghan called upon her friend Alice Garner to play one of the leading roles. Croghan had known Garner from a student film she had made before and offered Garner any role she wanted in the film. Garner eventually chose the role of Alice, her namesake, suspecting that the character's name was an obvious hint from Croghan. Once she accepted the role, the real work began. She remembers the intense shooting schedule to be hectic but also enjoyable.

"The actual shooting of the film was a bit like doing a student film in that it was all on the run with very little money and no money for me until much later," Garner says. "I guess it was different in that I had a lot of faith in Emma and Stavros and I liked the script a lot."

Since this was the first time for most of the young cast and crew to be working on a feature film, the shooting production proved to be a close experience. Surrounded by familiar friends who were either producers or actors, Croghan relished her directorial debut despite the constant anxiety over having enough stock for filming and everyone working on deferred payment.

"I think we were lucky in some ways that we had no money, because there were also no restrictions," Croghan says. "We could do anything we wanted. In some ways, we had more freedom because if we wanted to go back to shoot something, there were only twelve people to call. We could pick up the camera and just shoot the scene. If we had a big catering truck or a grip truck to worry about, the logistics of moving around takes so much time. The bigger the machine you're servicing, the more time it could take."

After the film was finished, Croghan and the producers showed the rough cut to the Australian Film Commission, who granted them the money to finish filming and post-production editing. While Croghan and friends were impressed by the finished product, they were surprised by the critical and commercial response of their beloved pet project.

"When our Australian distributor first saw the film, he thought it would probably open 10-15 screens," Croghan remembers. "But then it opened on 42 screens and did exceptionally well for what I thought was a little, low-budget film. It made No. 7 at the box office for a good couple of months."

The film's accurate portrayal of young college students and Croghan's directorial talent was soon realized by the American film industry as well. Since the film's purchase by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Croghan is now enjoying newfound fame as one of the most promising young Australian directors today. While Croghan has enjoyed her experience with Hollywood with the success of "Love," she has no desire to move to the States to further her career. She prefers to continue making films in her native country, even if the budgets are miniscule in comparison to America's.

"The (Australian film) industry just doesn't have the financial capacity to make big-budget films there," Croghan explains. "It's not like I had this desire to come to America, (but) this is where the work is. What I want to do is make films for the rest of my life."

FILM: "Love and Other Catastrophes" opens this Friday.

Twentieth Century Fox

(l. to r.) Matt Day portrays Michael, Frances O'Connor portrays Mia, Radha Mitchell portrays Danni, Matthew Dyktynski portrays Ari, and Alice Gardner portrays Alice in Emma-Kate Croghan's "Love and Other Catastrophes."

Comments

Post a comment