Troy the Mighty*

Yesterday was a sweltering hot day – 28 degrees (which is 86 for those living in Fahrenheit) – we were shooting outside for most of the day, so many hats and umbrellas were required; and in their absence, invoked with strong language…Mick Innes, as I noted yesterday, had to do some of the most challenging acting I’ve seen; Rawiri Paratene and Ian Mune supported him – literally – to very moving effect.  And all the while, moving things around, making sure other people were moving things around too, and looking resplendent in his magnificent cowboy hat was the amazing Troy, whose presence on set is just one of many reasons the crew for the ‘Moon’ deserve to have a film made about themselves.  (Got that one sorted – there’s a documentary crew on set and you should be able to see the intricate workings of this merry band on the DVD.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…)

I asked Troy what he thought were the best three things about working on the film; it was only fair to follow this up with the inverted version of that question:

Troy’s faves? Working with nice people, the film itself is fascinating, and there’s something new every day.

Troy’s thumbs-down? Sometimes people can also be demanding as well as nice, sometimes being on a film set’s a bit boring, and, most of all, on a day like yesterday, the sun’ll kill ya.

Troy’s fashion sense is definitely one of my favourite things about being on the set.  If anyone ever wants to make a film about the secret love child of Elvis and Johnny Cash, Troy’s your man.

Meanwhile, it seems our extras-filled day on Tuesday has inspired some good folk to blog about the ‘Moon’ – Paul Fromont from Cambridge had the following to say on his blog – (you can read the whole post here):

“I had a great day on the set of The Insatiable Moon yesterday, and my first chance to sit in on the blocking, rehearsing, and filming of one of the most evocative scenes in the movie. More on that in a moment.

One of the really lovely things about this film has been it’s magic, magic of the “deep” kind that C.S. Lewis breathes life into, particularly in the text of his The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. But it’s also the kind of special magic that the actors and crew on this movie have been able to wrap around them and this simultaneously New Zealand and yet universal human story.

This is story-telling and movie-making of that kind which requires a lot of what psychiatrist Rollo May has described as “creative courage”. This is not just the courage to journey through uncharted territory, nor is it simply the courage to stretch beyond ones personal comfort zone – which of course actors, directors etc must do on a regular basis. No! This is the kind of creative courage to which McLuhan ascribes the role of a “dew” line. This script and these artists, in this movie, give us, in my humble opinion, a “distant early warning of what is happening to our culture. In the [culture] of our day we see symbols galore of alienation and anxiety. But at the same time [we see that] there is [also] form among discord, beauty amid ugliness, [and] some human love in the midst of hatred – a love that temporarily triumphs over death but always loses out in the long run.” These artists, whether crew or actors, are thus expressing, what May calls “the spiritual meaning of their culture”.

I think we can assume that Mr Fromont is a fan (full disclosure: he’s also a mate of mine) – but the suggestion that ‘The Insatiable Moon’ is about the spirituality of everyday life is dead on.  It’s not a religious spirituality, mind you, at least not in the way people often think of religion – as rules, as politics, as formality.  This is about the very life force of what it means to be human erupting onto the streets of Ponsonby (it could be any urban setting where consuming goods has become a substitute for loving) in the form of people who live with the same crap and mud as you or I, and hope to discover in their midst, diamonds that really do last forever.

And with that in mind, we’re off to the next location: the Citizen’s Advice Bureau…

*Photo above by Stephen Hardy, Ponsonby-based documentary photographer.

Posted in Crew, Production process, The Meaning of the Film?