BEHIND THE SCENES

Shane Abbess - Director, Co-Writer, Editor, Co-Producer
'To hell and back, from light to dark, for right and wrong, Aiden would ride us the whole damn way'

AUGUST - DECEMBER 1999
THE STORY
The story for Aiden's Fable evolved from the idea of a thriller about a used car salesman and the hidden stories behind each vehicle. Obviously being a half hour short we needed to pick one story and one vehicle and focus on that.
As the first few Jam sessions evolved the car salesman became a grandfather and the car yard became a garage. I'd always loved the way a Grandparent tells a story to a child and the way the child perceives that tale to be gospel, and as most stories over time are usually embellished to make the tale more intriguing, we would apply the reverse theory this time round. We'd take an intense experience and then let the Grandfather tell a fairly mundane and simple story but one that the Grandson would still find interesting, helping the grandfather to ignite the passion of his own memories whilst still satisfying the curiosity of the child.

Around the same time, I was working fulltime at a Television Network and had met Andrew White. My first impressions were of a very detached and reserved character but as I got to know him, his true self came through, revealing a highly intelligent and warm man. Seeing this, I realized that Andrew had a lot of the qualities and range of expression that Aiden required and we discussed the idea for the film and over the following weeks, moulded the ideas to make the rough draft of the story. I never actually asked Andrew to be Aiden but through the process of working on the story, he just slipped into Aiden's skin and before long, the first signs of the beast began to appear. I approached screenwriter, Paul Forrest, in September and we spent the last few months of the year getting the script together.

JANUARY - MAY 2000
PREPRODUCTION
As the script evolved, I began to hunt around for actors to play the boys. I had a fairly clear picture of who I wanted as I'd worked with some of the guys previously.
Jim Quinn was always a first choice to play Mick. Jim has very strong physicality and his grasp of 'Aussie' dialogue is second to none. He seemed the obvious owner of the car as his chiseled look and presence seemed to match the personality of the vehicle.
The role of Ryan went to Michael Henry because he has always had the natural ability to play the cool kat and his look fits well with the seventies theme. Jim and Mick had a great chemistry from the first time they met which was nice because they were to be the 2 closest friends out of the group in the car.
I knew that Warrick would be a slightly sarcastic sort of guy and always wanted him to have long hair. He would be the guy who could find the fun in any situation and at the same time, aggravate everyone around him. Reggie has a great sense of humour and the ability to make those around him shine so I knew that he'd be great because audiences would be entertained by him as the antagonist and at the same time become attached to him so that when they had to lose him, it'd be harder to deal with.
Throughout this, I also had to remember that the film was only a half hour long and that no-one could truly get deeply into any particular character so in the casting, I wanted to try and give each character the 'look' of their personality to hopefully speed this process up.
The last character to be cast was Adrian Amato as Dean. Dean always had the hardest part out of the four guys because he'd have to carry us through to the end and experience the loss of his friends. To Adrian's credit, he did this very well and I'm pleased with how all four of the guys turn out on screen.

Rehearsals took place at Reggie's house and the first few weeks were more of a giggle fest than anything else. All four guys bonded really well as Andrew stayed on the outer.
The initial introduction to the characters was hard for the actors because the script was still evolving at a great rate and Paul Forrest would quite often sit in on rehearsals and rewrite scenes based on what was happening each night. As it was Adrian's first time acting, I think he especially found it hard to get into character but toward the end of rehearsals, had spent a lot of time working with Andrew White and had found his place in each scene. As time went by, rehearsals became more and more intense and it was in early May that we knew the actors were ready.

About 2 months out of shooting, Producer Sean O'Reilly had the idea of a Shop Assistant at the Petrol station that would be Aiden's offsider and we played round with the idea of a character that never reveals his face. We pitched the idea to Paul, and Arthur was born.
At this stage, we never wanted people to know what part Arthur played in Aiden's scheme but by the time shooting came we'd all convinced ourselves of his guilt so I think we went into Arthur's scenes swaying heavily in that direction. The part had not been cast by the time shooting began so we gave it to Sean, since it was he who had bought Arthur to us in the first place and seemed to understand him the best.

Crewing the film was a fairly brief process as we used crew with whom we'd worked before, with the exception of Director of Photography, Kylie Apps and Continuity, Brooke Flint. I'd spoken with Kylie in the early stages of the script about shooting the film and she'd loved the story since day one. By the time the shoot was nearing the ready stage though, she was working intensely on Water Rats so our time together in pre-production was very short meaning we went into the shoot not as prepared as we should be, which was the cause of some creative conflict on the set.

The location for the majority of the 70's scenes were to be shot in and around Bathurst except for the petrol station which was about an hour and a half away at Ilford and was perfect for the remote setting required. Sean and I sourced all the locations and we were now less than a month away from shooting.

Producer Carly Benedet arranged everything from there on for our time in Bathurst and there were only 3 more short rehersals with the actors before we were making the early morning voyage to begin the shoot.

JUNE - THE SHOOT
DAY 1 - FRIDAY
We all arrived at the McDonalds M4 around 5am and had a quick gear check before heading together in convoy to Bathurst. Spirits were high with the usual mix of jitters and excitement that accompany the first day of any shoot. We arrived in Bathurst around 7:30 am and checked our gear into the 'Family Inn' hotel before heading off to the first location. We were shooting the scene with the four guys mucking around in the car and for this, the car had to be put up onto a trailer so the actors could do the scene without having to worry about actually driving the vehicle. It was here that we encountered our first problem. The Camaro was so low on the trailer that once mounted, we couldn't open the doors so everyone had to enter and exit the vehicle via the front window.
During rehersals, the four guys had always practiced their lines together and had established a really relaxed rhythm and were a little disheartened to learn that we could only fit one at a time in the vehicle to do their dialogue due to crew taking up the other seats. This meant that it took a lot longer for them to get into their performance zone and I also think that I rushed them a bit too hard due the fact that we kept losing our natural sunlight behind a fairly cloudy sky. By the time we got the scene shot, we were already about 3 hours behind schedule so we stopped for very late lunch break and proceeded to shoot the Car Breakdown sequence before we lost the light. Being Winter, the sun was setting fairly early and again, time was heavily against us as the lighting changed dramatically from shot to shot. It was during these last few hours that the first real sign of creative tension surfaced between Kylie and myself. As mentioned earlier, this was due to our lack of time in Pre-production and resulted in compromise on both our behalves in order to get the scene wrapped. We finished the shoot as the sun set around 5:30pm and headed back to Bathurst. I was frustrated by our first day of shooting but after a great meal and some sound advice from Michael Henry, I was pumped and ready to tackle the next day.
That night, Matt Todd, whom was filming the 'Making of' arrived by train and I was privileged to be sharing the room with Andrew, Adrian, Michael, Matt and quite honestly the loudest snorer I had ever heard, Reggie. We had a lot of laughs and the atmosphere was not unlike that of a school camp.

DAY 2 - SATURDAY
After a few hours of solid sleep, we awoke to freezing temperatures and sleet covered roads and windscreens. We grabbed a quick breakfast and headed through the fog for about an hour till we were back at our location in the middle of nowhere. Carly advised me that we were 2 scenes behind schedule but I promised her that we'd make up for lost time today. We began by shooting Dean and Aiden's scene where they are alone in the car and after a brief delay because of sound problems, got the scene finished within the scheduled time. We then did the scene where Aiden fixes the broken down Camaro, which went by without a hitch. Kylie and I seemed to have found our rhythm together and I was confident that the afternoons filming would be great. The shooting style was very different to that of which I'd done in the past in that it was very raw and just sat back a lot and let the situations just play out the way they needed to be. I think this was the major source of creative conflict on the shoot because I generally like to shoot with fairly precise angles at a fast pace whereas Kylie believed the style needed to be more relaxed and free forming. This was largely due to her influences from working on 'Water Rats' and in retrospect, helped give the film a lot of it's flavour.
By Midday, we were on our way to The Ilford roadhouse to shoot the Garage scenes. Whilst we were setting up, Matt took Jim down to a back road and filmed him walking back to the Garage which was a shot we'd missed the previous day. Matt was a great help in sourcing some desired shots that couldn't be achieved by the Main Unit and earned himself the 2nd Unit Credit for that. Thanks Matt. The Garage scenes were heavily delayed by debate over the changing natural light source and its impact on my storyboarded shots. We eventually had to just shoot a fairly basic coverage of the scenes which was again, very frustrating, considering that we could have wrapped the scene earlier by going directly from the storyboards instead of using up all our time talking about it. By now the sun had set and we were in two minds about shooting the interiors of the garage. Kylie assured, then amazed me, in her ability to replicate the natural light using a few 2K's and a redhead kit and after a brief setup, the interiors of the garage were ready to be shot. The shop's owners, Chris and Jo, were more than obliging in letting us shoot past the agreed time and waited patiently for around two hours for us to finish. The shoot went well and by 10pm, we were back in Bathurst for Dinner. I had broken my promise to Carly in that we were still 2 scenes behind schedule but hoped that we'd finish on the following day. After watching the rushes with Kylie, Carly & Brooke, we were all excited by the energy of the performances and a feeling of goodwill began to spread through the cast and crew again. Upon returning to my room, I noticed that we were missing Reggie and Matt and after a lengthy search, found them indulging in a few cleansing ales up at the local pub. With Andrew's help, we managed to coax them back to their room at around 3am in the morning.

DAY 3 - SUNDAY
After a solid 1 hour sleep. We were all up again and out on the road to location. We were filming the confrontational scene between Warrick, Dean & Aiden which was originally intended to be shot in a field but after arriving at our chosen destination, I really felt that the field wasn't visually strong enough for this part of the film. I then remembered seeing an old quarry on our way to the Garage and figured that we could be there in around 20 minutes. 2 HOURS later we arrived at the quarry. It turned out that it was further than I'd originally thought and I had now put the whole shoot way behind. Even though the sky was blue, the temperature was still down around 8-10 degrees Celsius and I knew that the actors would have a hard time wearing summer gear in these conditions. To add insult to injury, Reggie would have to take a dive in the gravel which was originally supposed to be a grassy field. The actors realized though, how much the environment improved the scenes and thankfully were more than ready to tackle them. We shot for the whole day with the only conflict arising when I was told that we wouldn't have time to set up my 'Bullet cam' shot. Frustrated by my compromise the previous day, I wasn't ready to budge on the issue and I'm very pleased that the shot made it into the film. Makeup artist, Kristy English, worked extremely well under pressure and actually managed to buy us some time by finishing her effects earlier than scheduled. Reggie took a huge dive on the gravel for the sake of art and Grub almost had frostbite on his feet from walking around barefoot in the cold stones all day long. Around an hour before Sunset, we really pushed into overtime and got the entire Singalong section of the film shot. Literally a great note to end on and we all said goodbye a tired and battleworn cast and crew before heading back to Syndey. We were still 2 scenes behind from the first day and would have to arrange another time to come back to Bathurst.

JULY 2000 - DECEMBER 2001
THE SAD FAREWELL

I spent the next month editing the footage that we'd already shot and was excited to have a preview screening for the key crew members. Feedback was great and everyone was excited about finishing the film. I knew from the footage that we had, that we would do Aiden's Fable justice and realised that with a few tweaks on the next shoot we could really finish off strong. Kylie was heading off to Adelaide to get her truck license and we decided to book a date upon her return. I'd taken some casual paid work and was sitting at my desk when I received a call from Kylie telling that she was back. I was excited and spoke about getting the next shoot underway when she stopped me and told me she had some bad news. Expecting to hear that she was going away for another fortnight or something simple like that, I was shell shocked and stunned when she told me she had just been diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 24. Instantly, everything else waned in comparison and the primary focus would be on her recovery. We postponed the shoot and I kept in regular contact with Kylie as she underwent Chemotherapy and waited for a compatible Bone Marrow doner. Sean and I visited Kylie early in 2001 and were shocked to see how ill our friend had become. In true Kylie nature, she hadn't let on to us at how sick she was and was doing her utmost to keep a brave face and fight the battle. We talked about Aiden's and she said that she loved what she'd seen and was looking forward to finishing the film when she was released from hospital. We kept in contact and I was always amazed at her positive strength. It was heading toward mid year when I received an SMS from her, telling me that they had found a compatible bone marrow doner and she was to undergo surgery that night. We were overly excited to hear this but were horrifically crushed two days later when a friend phoned to tell me that Kylie had passed away. It's always sad when someone passes whom has lived out their life but at her age of 24 it was a total tragedy that was felt through a lot of the filmmaking community that surrounded Kylie.
After attending the funeral and saying a sad farewell to our friend, Sean, Carly and I put Aiden's on the shelf indefinitely and moved on to other projects. It wouldn't be until January the following year that we would revisit the film.

JANUARY 2002 - FEBRUARY 2002
AIDEN'S FABLE REWORKED
Late 2001, Andrew and I had spoken about getting Aiden's back up off the ground and during January and Febraury we had another Pre-production period where Andrew and I rewrote the end scenes of the film and cast Tom Dufficy as Aiden's grandson. By this stage, I'd established a great relationship with designer Scott James Smith and Composer Brian Cachia and they were already jamming on ideas for Post production. I'd recently finished working on a clip with DOP, Greg Jowett and he came aboard to finish the film off with some of his style whilst still giving recognition to the great work that Kylie had already done. We sourced a location at Pitt Town which was a lot closer than Bathurst, to shoot the end scenes and went out with about half of the original crew to finally listen to Aiden 'Just one more time'

MARCH 2002 - AIDEN'S FABLE NEW SHOOT
DAY 1 - SATURDAY
We shot the Grandfather/Grandson scenes in Carly's garage with fairly minimal, orange lighting to create a rustic look to the environment. Makeup artist, Kristy English, was responsible for aging Aiden 30 years, which she did very convincingly, although some of the finer detail is lost through the sparse lighting. The shoot was fairly a fairly simple one so we started fairly late in the day and managed to wrap about an hour past our scheduled time. The grandson, Tom Dufficy, did well for his first time on the screen and it was nice to see Andrew slipping back into Aiden's skin. We hoped that the following days shooting out at Pitt Town would go as smoothly.

DAY 2
We began early and got all the pickup shots done for the scenes we'd already shot and by midday were ready to film the final battle sequence. After the quarry scene, I knew that I didn't want to film the final scene using the same shooting style so I opted to really try and take the audience that one step closer to the situation by doing a lot of it from Dean's POV. I was fairly confident that this would work and decided not to back up the shots with much other coverage except the couple of Mid shot grabs to let people know where we were in the scene. I dressed up in Dean's clothing to do the scene as I knew it would take quite a few goes to get the POV sequence and didn't want Adrian to have go through that. For the first time during the shoot, we finished right on time and had even managed to get a few new shots in that weren't storyboarded. The cast and crew were amazing and it was very satisfying to finish the shoot with such a great day. We all went to the local pub and enjoyed the sunset and a good meal before returning to Sydney to begin Post-Production.

APRIL 2002 - NOVEMBER 2002
AIDEN'S FABLE TOLD
The edit lasted for around 2 months on and off and several scenes were cut out due to timing and story flow. By the time FX, Sound & Score received the vision, the film was running a very comfortable 28 minutes. Sound Designer & Co-Producer, Sean O’Reilly had informed me earlier in the year that we'd lost the majority of location sound for the Quarry scene due to a faulty DAT machine and that we'd have to ADR those scenes. ADR is when the actors watch the edit of the film and rerecord their lines, giving a much clearer and more detailed sound to work with. After doing ADR for the quarry scene, we decided to go through and redo a lot of the scenes to give us a greater scope to play with in the design. There was always the fear though, that by doing this, we'd lose performances or the reality of the scenes but to see the final result, I'm more than impressed with the quality of the recording and performance that we achieved. Once the rough sound had been placed, we took the film across to Composer, Brian Cachia, to finalise the score. Brian had been showing me pieces of music throughout the past few months, all of which were suitable and unique to the picture but to see it all laid out to the picture was a very special experience. Brian had really captured the essence of the story through his music and knew when to sit back and when to be at the forefront of every scene. There was really very little we had to change before Brian recorded the string sections and guitar pieces. On a personal note, my favourite piece in the film is the section where Mick goes to the garage after the car has broken down and Aiden decides to help him, I think the music really found the vein of that scene and was the part of the film where I sense the audience begins to realise that something's not right.
The film then sat in the highly skilled hands of designer Scott James Smith which resulted in one of the best closing credit sequences I've ever seen. I didn't have any particular focus for the end credits and left an open palette for Scott and after a few different drafts the Road Map sequence had come to light. It's a real fitting end to the film and helped myself, and I think many others, to really appreciate the importance of good titles. Scott also worked on the opening dreamy titles sequence and composited all the effects for the film, which no-ones seemed to notice, which meant he'd done a great job.
The film was now 6 weeks away from its premiere at REDFEST02 and it was now in Sean's hands to do the final mix for the sound. As the weeks got closer, I could see the strain on Sean but he performed extremely well and managed to record and mix all foley, atmos, ADR and location Dialogue, music & Fx within the fairly unrealistic time period to produce a great sound design and mix for the film which we were all very proud of.
I brought in Producer, Theo Stephens toward the end of this schedule to help oversee the final processes and help organise the resources to ensure the film was ready for its premiere. About a week before the premiere, Brian recorded the final part for the end sequence where Aiden is reminiscing whilst looking at various items of specific interest in his garage. This idea came from Scott as I was never particulary happy with the shots I had for the closing sequence of the film. I didn't feel they were a strong enough depiction of a 'trophy' wall but I think that Brian's closing 'terror' atmos. really helps bring the scene up a notch. We finished the final render of the film on the morning of the premiere and got there with literally minutes to spare but the film was received well and we look forward to seeing where it goes next. It was never intended to be anything but a good independant Aussie Thriller and I feel we achieved some of the fear and story elements that we were hoping for. It was a very intense and steep learning curve for all involved and a huge thankyou goes out to the cast, crew and audiences for being a part of 'Aiden's Fable'.


Carly Benedet - Producer
Aiden's Fable: Short film with grandiose ideas, crazy impossible action sequences, notorious cool car, hard-core acting, exotic (freezing) locations, bloody hard work, great fun, awe-inspiring crew - short film 3 years on.

I came on board Aiden's half way through rehearsals. Shane needed some help organising the shoot and I was more than happy to get involved.

I met all the guys at Reggie's house. Jim told us all his Mum had crabs for dinner and that was my introduction to the cast. They knew their characters and the script really well, and jumped into rehearsals with ease. I started pretty much straight away after that night.

Shane was thinking Bathurst as a good location to shoot. So I booked 'The Family Hotel' right in the heart of Bathurst, and the ball started rolling from there.

FRIDAY - Freezing cold day in June

4am: leave Sydney
5am: all meet M4 McDonalds
5:15am: on our way

We shot all day Friday on the out skirts of Bathurst and got back to the Hotel 9pm that night. Not on time and behind schedule. We had a massive dinner waiting for us on our arrival - a huge bowl of pumpkin soup and an enormous steak, with veggies. It felt like we hadn't eaten for days.

The days shooting had gone really well and the Camaro looked especially perfect through the viewfinder. It was absolutely freezing, but nevertheless a sunny day. The 'walky talkies' came in handier than we all thought, we used them pretty much all day for communicating.

SATURDAY - More freezing

5am wake-up
5:30am Continental breakfast
6am sleet on every ones windscreens
7am on our way (already behind schedule)

This day was extremely trying. One reason being, a location change at the last minute putting us behind schedule by even more time and the DAT stuffing up and us losing a day worth of sound.

Lunchtime saw our plastic spoons melt into our hot soup and our hot soup burn our freezing mouths. Although the location at Ilford (service station) was really great and the people who owned it were absolutely amazing. We shot there all day and the sun ended up coming out for the afternoon.

Got back to the Hotel about 10pm. Again, a huge bowl of pumpkin soup and another enormous steak with veggies for dinner.

SUNDAY - Last day

6am wake-up
6:30am Continental breakfast
7am on our way (still behind schedule)

Sunday was the last chance to get all we had to get. We needed to get pickups back at Ilford and some more shooting at the Quarry. Everyone was a little worse for wear due to staying up for a few drinkies the night before. But after the crapiness and crabbiness subsided it was onward and upward.

We shot as much as we could Sunday but could not finish all of our shots we were just too far behind. It was decided we would re-shoot the 2 missing scenes back in Sydney somewhere, and decide that later on.

We all left Ilford at 8.30pm. The trip home was mainly quiet, except for the faint DV sound of 3 days worth of rushes being watched. Getting home was one of the best feelings ever, I could barely walk to the front door I was so tired and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was fast asleep.

RE-SHOOT - 2 missing scenes

We spent 2 weekends shooting what we had missed. We ended up shooting the Grandson scene in my garage. It actually looked quite good with a few props. And Tom who played the Grandson was awesome.

Andrew and Adrian's scene was a little harder as we needed to match the look of Bathurst but in Sydney. So it ended up being shot at Pitt Town, out Windsor way. We were told they used to shoot 'A Country Practice' out there. It was a boiling hot day, very different from Bathurst weather, I found it hard to decide which was worse.

So 3 years on all the meticulous cutting, detailed effects, painful ADR, time consuming sound design and eclectic score makes, with much relief, our 'Aiden's Fable'.

Hope you enjoy!


Theo Stephens - Producer
A lot of films have asked what lurks beneath the surface of an isolated building standing in the middle of nowhere. With Aiden's Fable we discover the evil very quickly as it bubbles to the surface.

I have now watched Aiden's countless times and it continues to haunt me. This is due to it’s strong style of story telling and to Shane's unique directing style. I feel the film works extremely well on a lot of levels, in particular the way the layers of the story slowly peel away and leaves you slowly on a one-to-one with the protagonist.

Sound and vision come together perfectly. Sean O'Reilly has done a wonderful job on the sound, keeping the tension there for the whole journey. As too, Brian Cachia's magnificent score as one of the strong points of the film. The first time I heard the complete score I said to Brian that this has to be recorded on CD.
Since the initial screening I have had endless requests for a copy of the soundtrack.

As a Producer it's always exciting for me throughout a film project to watch it develop - being in the studio as Sean recorded ADR - sitting with Brian at the keyboard as he composed and improvised - watching rushes and the first rough cut of the film - this is what makes filmmaking exciting. This film was certainly a challenge for everyone involved.

Scott James Smith has completed what must be the best beginning and end title sequence I have seen - a very original concept. I also applaud the make-up designer Kristy English, whose talent astounded me.

The first public screening of Aiden's was at Redfest 02 at the Valhalla Cinema. The reaction to the film was terrific. It certainly wasn't to everyones liking but appreciated by all for its cinematic intencity.

Now that the film is completed, my role is to get the largest exposure I possibly can via the film festival route. I have a good feeling that Aiden's will be well accepted...only time will tell!


Paul Forrest - Co-Writer & Executive Producer
I was first approached by Shane Abbess to write the screenplay for "Aiden's Fable" in September 1999. Prior to this I had written a short story, a short film and was at the time writing and co-producing another independent short film; "Befell".

Shane and some of the Redliners had a basic idea for an isolated character who becomes totally and completely fixated on a car that is driven into his garage early one morning in the early 1970's. Aiden's love of a certain type of car was a trait I could relate too because at the time I was researching and aiming to buy a 1970's Porsche 911. I used my love of Porsches and wrote it into the character of Aiden and then took it to the point where love became a deadly obsession.

During rehearsals I would work and sometimes act with the actors to see what was working and what was not. Shane and I would converse at the end of the nights rehearsals and decide what I should work on for the next draft. I would go home and write another draft based the previous rehearsal and then the process would start over again. We write to re-write!

For a while we didn't have a name for our central character until I started dealing with a particular service advisor for a major car company. This man wasn't at all pleasant and we constantly disagreed on various issues. So instead of getting angry I decided to name our central character after him - Aiden.

The character of Arthur was named after my father who is an accountant. In the early drafts Arthur was intellectually challenged and in one scene gives Mick the wrong change. The character of Arthur was later changed and took on a more sinister and important presence in the film. My father is now in several minds about this character!

After months and months of writing and rehearsing the bulk of Aiden's Fable was shot in June 2000. Andrew White (who played Aiden) and Shane made changes to the script during shooting and in early 2002 the remaining scenes were shot.

I finally acquired a 1978 Porsche 911 SC (without homicidal incident!) also in June 2000 and have almost finished restoring it.

"Aiden's Fable" has taken over three years to complete. I hope you will see the vision myself, Shane and the cast & crew had in mind when we decided to create it.


Andrew White - (Aiden) Actor
I'd have to say that doing Aiden's Fable was 'all in all' a good experience, with lots of laughs along the way. It has taken a long time and that, I found frustrating.
Being Aiden was great. He's the bad guy and yet still wins, what more could you want? It's the first time for me doing anything like this, and I find it hard to watch myself without groaning, but so far the feedback has been positive. Everybody who spent time working on the film did so with such enthusiasm that we all got along like life-long mates, and as a result, the shoots were more of a holiday environment. So I'd just like to thank the entire team for such a good time and I can definitely say that I won't miss Shane's constant chant "one more time".
See ya


Adrian Amato - (Dean) Actor
Well it seems to have started all so long ago, a different time and definitely a different chapter in my life. I was asked to join the Redline team for Aiden's Fable and jumped at the chance, I had always wanted to be a part of the scene, lets face it, a bit of attention goes along way, so I started to rehearse the part of Dean. The reality hit me during rehearsals and found it tough to find the character within myself as at that time as I had no acting training and battled with the role.

The first part of the movie was shot in Bathurst and I remember the iced filled gutters with minus zero degree temperatures. We were all wearing our thermal underwear, but walking around in sandals gave me the shits, my feet would turn yellow after five minutes!!! I went to Bathurst with the expectations of having some fun and by the end of three days had had enough. I could see it in all of us, the lethargic attitude, the somber moods. One thing I'll never forget would be Shane taking hours and hours for one little shot and then saying "one last time". The amount of times I heard him say those three words...

I think after Bathurst the excitement for Aidens Fable was gone, and it was put on the backburner for a while.
Over a year later, maybe two, the film was to be finished and the excitement was back. I had gotten over my experience in Bathurst and was ready to do my Job. We filmed the rest of the outdoor scenes in Windsor. This time the day was a long one but it just seemed the flow the right way. We all had fun and went home with smiles on our faces. We ended the day with dinner and a beer at one of the pubs. Oh yeah it was a forty degree day and the heat was making me a little delirious, but my feet weren't turning yellow so I didn't mind.

I was living in Melbourne when I had word that we were going to complete the sound. I was sent a rough draft of the movie and was blown away. I would watch the movie every day for over a week, there was not one time when the ending would not give me chills up my spine. I flew to Sydney for a weekend and completed my voices for the scenes.

I'm glad to have been a part of Aidens Fable and hope the viewer response is a good one.


Reggie Matson - (Warrick) Actor
This was definitely my favourite film that I've worked on to date. I love the story and I thought that Andrew White (Aiden) was great, both on and off the set. I had a lot of fun working with the other actors as well.
Rehersals were a laugh, every Tuesday and Thursday, I had the cast around my place, 2 hours a night - 1 hour for rehersal and 1 hour for giggling. After about 4 months of rehersals and preparation we headed off to Bathurst to shoot the film and do a lot more giggling.
We stayed in this nice old hotel called the Family Inn where the staff were fantastic.
6 of us slept in the same room, Matt, Andrew, Shane, Adrian, Michael and myself.
And when the lights went out - It was giggletown. (After all we'd rehearsed this for months)
The first morning we were up and out and ready to go at 5 AM and I don't think I've ever been so cold in my whole life. The location for the film was about an hour and a half out of Bathurst in a place called Nowheresville which was 5 minutes from 'Where the hell are we?'
It was a very long and extremely cold day but a lot of fun. Did I mention it was cold?
After about 12 hours, we headed back to the hotel where Matt and I had a few drinks and stayed up chatting and drinking until Shane and Andrew led us home by the ear at 3AM. After a mere 2 hours sleep we were ready to go for the next days shoot. At breakfast I thought to myself, why is everyone looking at me until Shane piped up and said something along the lines of 'Did you inhale a chainsaw last night mate?'
At one stage I vaguely remembered him kicking me in the leg and shouting profanity but thought it must have been a dream.
The next day was the Quarry scene. We were all cold and tired but everything went pretty much according to plan... till I had to do my scene where I was supposed to run, get shot and fall in a soft grassy field or paddock but plans changed and I now had to fall across a field of rocks, again and again and again. I often still wake up in a cold sweat from the nightmare of Shane yelling 'That was great! Just one more time!' But counselling's been great and I'm back on the mend.
Once the quarry scene was done, we headed off to the petrol station and did the remaining scenes. After roughly 3 hours of 'Yep, good, just one more time' I was getting a bit whingy (Sorry Shane) and the sound of 'Wrap' had never sounded better.
Overall I had a blast and I'd like to thank all the crew for doing a great job and I'm very proud of Aiden's Fable.


Matt Hylton Todd - 2nd Unit Camera
Before leaving for almost six months in Canada, L.A, London and parts of Western Europe, Director Shane Abbess, introduced me to the idea of 'Aiden's Fable'. It was a very exciting idea and I was tempted to stay and audition for a part but I opted to travel and remained involved via e-mail. The final draft of the script was sent to me whilst in Edmonton, Alberta and after a few reads I was looking forward to the shoot.

When I got back to Sydney I met with Shane to discuss a few ideas on the script and was shown the revised final draft with Andrew White's input. The rehearsals had been going strong and I attended a couple prior to the shoot.

The first 3 days of the shoot were organised for locations in and around Bathurst. As I had just started a new job, I was not able to attend the first days shooting and arrived in Bathurst for dinner on the Friday evening. I found that the cast and crew had had a very cold and exhausting day. I had a brief meeting with Shane and found that he had found it hard to work with some of the crew who had been working in television production for a few years. They had their own opinion on what is right and wrong with regards to the shots in the film. This helped define one of my roles on the shoot, back up and re-enforcement for the Director's decisions.

Creative vision is not always structured straight from textbooks, it quite often has to be original and sometimes comes from breaking the rules and stepping out of the norm. The disagreements I witnessed on set, added to the learning experience that was 'Aiden's Fable'. Due to the unfaithful reaction to some of the shots he was after, Shane asked me to get some covering shots with the second camera I was using to shoot some behind the scenes footage. This is how I was able to achieve the 2nd Unit Camera credit on the film.

My other role was to help motivate the actors and to pass on the promise that tomorrow would not be as cold and that we would make sure that there were more cars to relax in between shoots. By lunchtime on day two, the storm had settled and the shoot was starting to proceed at the pace it needed to for completion.

We relaxed and had a great meal that night and had a few beers to prepare us for the following day, which in hindsight was probably not the greatest thing for preparation. The final day was quite smooth but as always we knew we would have to reschedule to get the missing end scene.

Holding Lights and helping set up the Grandad Aiden's Garage was a fun day and the shoot out in cook town was an especially awesome day in the sun. After the shoot was finally complete the lads in the sound and vision departments had their work cut out for them. Sean did a great job with the ADR that was required after problems with location sound. Scott created some of the greatest titles I have ever seen and Brian composed a piece of magic with the score.
Carly held it all together throughout each day in each location of the shoot as Production Manager and Theo did a great job as Producer regarding promotions and post-production organisation. The cast performed well under the pressure of the situation and considering that some had never acted before, really captured their characters and Shane once again showed his natural talent as a Director and Editor in piecing together the largest production we had accomplished to date.

I am very glad to have been involved in this project and also glad to have had the opportunity to meet and work with Kylie. This film is made from the footage she took and some of the shots she suggested. She played an integral part in making this film and we thank her greatly and know that she was living her dream all the way.