Recently, a gathering took place at one of Melbourne’s best laneway bars, Bard’s Apothecary.
Bard’s has a basement that can adapt from live comedy to a poetry stage, a book club, mini concert venue and many things besides. On this day, it was set up for a screening, celebrating 21 years since a short film, The Cook was launched on an unsuspecting world.
As well as the screen and a projector, there was a side table featuring a magnificent mountain of lamingtons, which remain central to the plot.
The Cook was a very special project for me, and I found myself reflecting on that period, two decades ago, as I walked down Crossley Street, towards Bard’s.
The film had been my first attempt at writing a short film narrative, after much journalism, articles, and also some stints as a comedy writer, with dubious success in television then more happily for a sport satirical website, The Bladder, that we had established at my then-company, the always ironically named Media Giants.
It was an amazing time in my creative life, as I had only recently had the magical experience of hearing a publisher, Rosalind Price at Allen & Unwin, confirm that yes, she did intend to publish my first completed novel manuscript, The Kazillion Wish.
That was my Olympic Medal, to see a book of fiction published, with my name on the cover. It hadn’t occurred to me that such a book would be a whacky children’s comedy, with a deep heart, but life circumstances led me down that road.
The Kazillion Wish was not only published, but it got picked up overseas and even had Aardman Animation – the genius crew behind Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Shaun the Sheep, and Chicken Run, among other hits – give it a long look as a potential feature film. I was floating.
In the middle of all of this, and me getting to work on what would become a sequel, Thanks A Kazillion, I was approached by Carmel, wife of my lifelong friend, Shaun. She, her actor brother Matt, and a friend, the very business savvy and creative Ros Willett, were looking to make a short film, based on a true-life story of a shearers’ cook who had been something of a sociopath. He cooked scones at the start of the week and served them, no matter how stale and hard, for the rest of the week.
I wrote the script, with a working title ‘Rock Scone’, and a cast was assembled, along with director Tony Rogers who was coming off the success of his short film, the hilarious Wilfred’ a finalist at Tropfest and the spark for an international TV series, among other things.
We shot our film over a weekend near Ararat, which is Moloney country, in a century-old wool shed. Bert Labonte, who has gone on to have a stellar career on stage and screen, played the hapless Barry, the kid sent by the shearers to confront the monstrous cook.
My aim, in writing, was to pen the most inspirational, sniff-the-guernsey, we-will-not-bend speech that turns out to be completely ineffective in cinematic history, and I think I achieved that goal, especially thanks to Bert who nailed it.
We had a good run with The Cook, winning the audience award at the St Kilda Short Film Festival, and even heading to the opening night of the Cape Cod International Film Festival at a converted porn theatre in Providence, Rhode Island, screening right before a finally completed Salvador Dali-Walt Disney animation. You can’t say the creative life doesn’t take you down some twisty, unexpected roads.
We printed postcards explaining how to make lamingtons and placed them on every seat before the opening night gala, for the benefit of the somewhat confused US audience.
The lessons in all this?
Have a crack at writing a short film, even if you don’t know quite how. It’s a good format to flex those muscles, before you consider the mountain of writing a feature film, or even a novel. And it can be quite the ride, if you get one finished and filmed!
And secondly, celebrate your wins in the writing game, because they are rare and precious.
Seeing everybody in that basement at Bard’s, so many of whom I met at that shoot or during that project, who have continued to be great friends for 21 years since, made me so happy.
We really should get our shit together and make another film, hey?
The Cook …
https://www.youtube.com/embed/auduh13G5ls?si=vA58Gkz2Wxf6Jgu0
(Warning to ex Wesley College students: the film features a former teacher in a minor role, who may raise issues for you)
Nick Place: creative 