How Grandma Kept Her Cool.

This film was made a few years ago for the Newcastle Shootout - a 24 hour in camera edit film making competition. It was the central part of a larger film called CHOOK, CHOOK, CHOOK! I trimmed off both ends because "GRANDMA" was always the joke. My film was about her and the other parts of the film contained shootout reference locations that I had to include to be legal in that competition- which I no longer needed.

The film featured Nancy Tarren, who plays Mrs Ada Wilson and does the voice over in the 'air conditioner' scene. Nancy has had a long career in rep theatre and commercials and T.V. drama. Her performance was spot on- especially when you consider it was all shot under in camera conditions( meaning at the end of the day I only had one take of each scene available...) Gerry Mason plays the radio jock on the street talkin 'chooks!' He's very bubbly and compliments Nancy's performance nicely. Gerry also appears in THE HAMMERS, which I'll be posting eventually.

'Young Ada' is played by Angie Fall. Angie's timing with Lucy ( the chook) was critical to the selling of our joke and I think she handles it very well. Lucy ( the chook ) is my pet silky hen. She was always a very friendly and approachable bird. Amazingly, she did her section in only one take! And I can assure you we were all holding our breath! Plus her flapping looks terrific and could plausibly have a very cooling effect...

The costumes were by Wilma Reynolds and Angie's outfit looked especially good in sepia. The drawings featured are by Steve Ezzy - a talented artist friend of mine. The music is basically chop stix and was created by Jason Paris - a huge talent who has collaborated with me on a number of my films. It added just the right tone to our film with Jason's screwball vocals. Music is so important to a film...

Our sound edit was done by Nigel Kentish - a good man to have on your side if you're in the middle of a hectic 24 hour film making competition!

Our crew were Carolyn Starr, Renee Mondy and Danny Diagostino

I just think it's a crazy idea to turn a chicken into an air conditioner!