Last week I sat down with Kyle Goldfinch, a filmmaker working largely in the queer screen space of Sydney, who has extensive knowledge of festivals as they have served on many local festival selection committees. Now turning their attention fully to film production they have quickly acquired a couple of notches on their belt such as being the producer on the short film Paper Daisies which premiered at the Taiwanese Film Festival in Australia. As well as being the writer-producer on their film Neuromance which premiered at the Mardi Gras Film Festival and showed in a handful of other fests including the Korea Queer Film Festival. In our chat, we go into the process of how they got these films made and how the films got into festivals.
Billy Newberry: So I’ll start with the beginning. When you produce any of these films such as Neuromance or Paper Daisies, how do you go about getting the funding? Where do you start? How do you bring people and money in?
Kyle Goldfinch: It’s different within the projects that we create. Paper Daisies was an AFTRS grad film, so that was a very different process. With Neuromance, it was my first big production outside of AFTRS. We had to crew that film in a very different way. My director brought in people, I brought in people, we started bringing in people that we knew and we trusted and who we really liked working with, because that’s different to crewing through a university production. [University Productions] are a bit more fast-paced. It’s more like everyone just throws themselves to different productions.
For both productions in terms of fundraising, we used ACF so with Paper Daisies we crowdfunded for $5,000 and then for Neuromance, we had both a combined ACF campaign and an angel investor come on board which was really exciting. Paper Daisies was I think about $5,000 and a half grand and Neuromance was just over $15,000. So it was a really big thing. In terms of crowdfunding, you know your friends and family are going to be the ones that are going to be donating. It’s doing a lot of social media, media marketing and talking to people. That’s what we had to do for both.
BN: With Neuromance you were a writer and producer, how does that work? Did you have a lot of creative control or would you stick to just producing on set?
KG: With Neuromance because it’s very much, loosely, based on my life, I chose the director, and because of the fact the story [is] about disability, it’s one of those really important things where I am having to tell our director, Brodie a lot about what is working. The great thing about being a writer-producer is that I never really realised the writer’s relationship with the director until after I’d finished uni. Where the writer is sometimes going to be on set talking to the director.. To just get those sort of subtle hints where I wanted the film to be positioned in this very particular way and I think Brodie as a director was really much like. Oh, I really love that, because I love knowing and hearing about Kyle’s experiences and this particular thing, [which] was really good. It’s sometimes a thing where as a producer, I have to step away, and be a hands-off side producer but I think for Neuromance, because of what Neuromance was and how personal it was to me I actually had to be a very hands-on producer.
BN: The film’s got quite a lot of locations. How did you go about getting so many locations for such a small short film?
KG: Great question. I like to think that the films that I write, I throw the kitchen sink into it, and then I throw my body on the kitchen sink, and then I throw everyone else on my body, on the kitchen sink. So yes, it was just essentially reaching out to councils and people. It’s that love of when you have something and you’re really inspired and you want to have good people around, it’s just the idea that, it’s research, development, problem-solving, and then hopefully you’ll be able to do it.
One [apartment] was mine, one [apartment] was my friend’s, who was our makeup artist. We shot in her apartment, then we shot on a bus. Then we shot in two parks. Great story about the other park, because we actually got told that we couldn’t shoot in the other parks. We had to do a bit of chasing at the last moment, which was a bit scary. It’s essentially, like whatever you write, you just kind of do, and then you just help make it happen. I will have to say I will never shoot in an apartment that I live in because that is the most stressful time. Never do it. Anyone reading, do not do it. It’s stressful. It’s terrifying, and I hated it.
BN: How long did you have to shoot in your apartment?
KG: We shot over two days. It was a little bit scary, I was like, Oh my God! I just hated talking to my real estate agent being like, “Hey, can I shoot in my own apartment?” That was a bit stressful.
KG: That’s a great question. I mean, it’s totally based on the film’s output. Coming from festivals, I have a knowledge of what types of films are going to be programmed at specific festivals. So I know a little bit more about how to engage in that space.
For me, with Neuromance, it was all about finding a good festival opportunity. We were excited about the possibility of doing Flickerfest first, especially given the timing. However, Flickerfest ultimately decided not to pick it up. Then, Mardi Gras came into the picture, and it became really important for me to screen there first because that’s where the idea had found its feet.
You tend to find where the film does best and it’s a bit of trial and error. So with Neuromance, it’s picked up later. Queer Film Festivals played it. Indie film festivals have played it, and it’s been really great in terms of just finding the audience.
Paper Daisies is a little bit harder because the film is a little bit more niche, and it’s a little bit more experimental. I find experimental films a bit harder to program because sometimes people are going to get it or people are not going to get it. I’ve just finished a film recently, which is an iPhone film just going to screen at the Smartphone Film Festival in November, and I was a producer on that, and that was a very hands-off producer thing.
I tell filmmakers, you know, 15 minutes is really important, just keep within that don’t be longer than 15 minutes, because then you start to take time away from another film, and then your film becomes really hard to program in a festival environment.
BN: Once you get that festival that you want, do you then start to find other smaller ones?
KG: We’ll just start thinking about other festivals we wanted to get into and then there are other film festivals we’ve gotten emails [from], people reach out to us to say, “Oh my God, we’ve heard about your film screening at blank festival, can you please consider us?” And sometimes you have to watch out for those emails, because you don’t really know if they’re like, a really legit festival and of course, that kind of comes with research and looking at the reviews.
BN: So, last question what are the films that made an impact on you when you were younger?
KG: It’s so weird to me that question because it’s one of those things where this could go and spur another complete conversation. I really didn’t fall in love with film until later in life, and that’s because I was growing up with autism and the idea is that I found cinemas to be incredibly overstimulating.
But just in terms of your question, I’m trying to think of a film that really made me go “Oh my god”, Maybe a film like The Devil Wears Prada. It’s so perfect in so many ways, and I just feel like it’s so timeless, and the dialogue is so brilliant. I’m actually going to go back at some point and read the book because it is so well put together, it’s just perfect. Every character is so much of a dick but you just can’t help but love it. I love that film with so much of a love and connection not just as a filmmaker, but also as a person. It’s helped foreshadow some of the work that I want to do that explores cities and cosmopolitan issues and things like that. You know, it is kind of like the Sex and the City type thing. So yeah, the film that really has helped me is probably something like The Devil Wears Prada, which I probably watched like 100 times now.
BN: Alright, great, fantastic. Well, that’s us for the time Kyle. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.
KG: No worries!