The Reckoning of Christian Spencer
Shot on the long weekend of 29 September to 1 October 2018 on location at Victor Harbor, The Reckoning of Christian Spencer is a 15 minute psychological thriller.
Written by Peter Hanlon, the film also has a full-length feature film script presenting a significant opportunity for Living Not Beige Films as it establishes its position in the film industry.
Featuring Tiffany Knight in the dual roles of Mary and Marie, Rob MacPherson as Chris/Christian and Craig Behenna as David, Naomi Crosby, renowned artist David Driden and Careen Furner provide cameo appearances to complete the cast.
Under the watchful eye of Producer Nicholas Hope , 1st AD Brad Lanyon and DOP Miles Rowland provided Tania Nehme with the footage to produce this film. Mike Bakaloff and Mylene Ludgagte provided sound, David Tang pulled focus, Robertto Garas and Hugh Freytag gaffer and grip and Chris Daniels provided the data and live review capacity of his QTake system.
Of course, the visuals only work if the design, costume and make-up are up to scratch and Living Not Beige Films is grateful to have had the services of Beverly Freeman, Tim Nichols and Cole Larsen.
With Joel Byrne and Wade Keighran providing the music, Andrew Gaue and the team at Anomaly completed the final mix and grade in February 2019.
Living Not Beige Films has now commenced submitting the film to domestic and international film festivals.
Synopsis
Men, in particular, like to get in touch with friends from their youth – as middle-age starts to get greyer. A chance contact with a friend from his past leads to a weekend invite half-way across the world.
They were very different back in their youth. They were student teachers, surfies, and druggies (recreational only of course). Now David was a semi-retired successful lawyer, married and living on a sprawling property in Australia’s south. Chris was an internationally famous yoga teacher (or so he told David).
But Chris had a past, a very long past. David knew about Chris’s past but had conveniently forgotten it. David’s wife, Mary, knew it as well. But she didn’t know why. Should be a good weekend.
Photo gallery
Meet the cast and crew:
Director's statement
Peter Hanlon
Growing up, my two brothers and I used to spend quite a bit of time watching the midday movies on TV. Both of our parents worked and so we often used to lounge around the house during school holidays sleeping and watching TV. I think I saw a film (or maybe I just imagined I did) about a British army commando unit that took shelter from a storm in a cave. They’d been out on manoeuvres in the Scottish Highlands. When they emerged from the cave, they found themselves in the middle of a 17th century battle between the English and the Scots. Being a Scottish-named commando unit, the soldiers joined the Scots and…………
It was the memory of this film (or did I make it up?) that I used when my friend Cole Larsen convinced me to write a story about “something” that could be used as a film script. As I was thinking about it, I also remembered a film I’d seen on SBS. I couldn’t remember the name of it or much about it other than a woman who was acting in a TV commercial (for shampoo) became a part of the “TV family” and didn’t know how she got there.
A bit later on I did some research and found out about the idea of a “time slip”. I now knew the core of my story. It had a name; a time slip. I based it in the Fleurieu Peninsula, where we live, and built the story about old friends reconnecting and things not working out that well. In September 2015, I finally started to write the story.
As the idea developed, the concept of paying for one’s past sins came into mind. Not only a person’s own sins, but those of one’s ancestors. In Australia, we have an epidemic of domestic and family violence. Some 100 women a year are murdered by their partners or a family member and yet our governments still don’t seem to understand that more needs to be done to curb this shocking behaviour by men towards women. Although I have no direct experience of domestic or family violence, and I’m unaware of anybody near to me who has been subjected to it (although I’m sure they’re there), I believe it’s not only survivors (or perpetrators) who should voice their concerns. We should all speak up. This is my effort.
In October 2017, I discussed the film with a friend, the actor Nicholas Hope. I asked Nicholas whether he would be interested in producing the film. After a bit of thought, Nicholas took on the challenge. We didn't do much until after New Year but over 2018 we started refining the script and thinking through a time to shoot the film. Nicholas got to work thinking through the crew. And what a great job he did in putting together a very high-quality crew mostly from Adelaide. Finally, over the long weekend at the end of September/beginning of November, we filmed The Reckoning of Christian Spencer.
We finished the film February 2019 and plan to enter it into Festivals around the world. Ideally, we’d like to seek funding to turn this short film into a full-length feature. The 90 page script is almost finished.
NB: I searched and searched for the film about the actor in the shampoo commercial film, but with no success. I mentioned the film idea to the then CEO of the Adelaide Film Festival, Amanda Duthie. She said she’d ask her husband, writer and producer Richard Kuipers. Just a few days later Richard had solved my mystery. It was the Turkish film, Aaahh Belinda. I’d been looking for a South American (or Spanish or Portuguese) film. No wonder I couldn’t find it.
I still haven’t found the film about the commandos.