EVIE

Evie follows a 13 year old girl who is forced to venture out alone into a world decimated by the aftermath of Nuclear disaster, where supplies are dwindling, desperate men have become dangerous ravagers, and dinosaurs, set free from an abandoned park, are roaming the land, once again apex predators.

Set in the Wheatbelt, the film places the natural beauty of that golden, sun bleached landscape against a man-built world in decay. The film is a suspenseful ride that leads up to a climactic showdown between Evie and the vengeful dinosaur that has followed her home, but at its heart is a coming of age story. Evie represents a new hope for the future as she navigates a deadly world, avoiding violence, searching for healing and longing for community. Her strength is that she refuses to live in a world alone and without hope of better times ahead, despite all that she has seen.

It is this strength in the protagonist that drew me to this project in the first place. I have already worked with Luke Martin and Kate Separovich a number of times and I respect them greatly as filmmakers, but the script had to speak to me personally, and it does. I have two feature projects in the works, Locked In and The Feed, that both feature female leads who find themselves thrust into dangerous worlds, and both are in the horror / suspense genre. So the themes and lessons in suspense and tension that will be learnt in Evie are important to the direction my filmmaking career is taking. This also signals my first time working as a director on a film that I didn’t write, which is an important step for me, and was a drawcard for coming on board this project.

The themes that are clear in Evie, and that attracted me to the project, are: It is a story of survival against extreme odds; it centres around a daughter and father relationship; it’s a coming of age / into independance story; it embodies the classic elements of the hero’s journey; and it speaks to the decline of the world at the hands of man, through his greed and pride (a them I have explored a bit in my shorts and feature scripts).

Like many great genre films, it has suspense and a monster, but it is also ripe with subtext and social commentary. This is the reason I love genre films. Evie has a wonderful subtext that holds up the acts of God against the acts of man. In this world we see that man greedily went too far - they delved too deeply into genetic modification, bringing back dinosaurs that were long extinct. Then men destroyed the paradise they inherited by degrees, and finally their society through Nuclear war. In doing so, they made room for the dinosaurs, apex predators, to once again rule the land. It is no accident that Evie is the only female in the film, and that when she holds up the picture of the school kids we see a world where boys and girls have a future in peace, filled with potential. A future that Evie longs for. The film ends with Evie still in trouble, but clearly prepared to fight for this precarious vision of a better future.

Kate, Luke and I have talked at length about the feature film based on the same concept and world as this short, so we have strived to make the short both a strong stand-alone piece and a compelling example for what the feature could be.
The aesthetic I worked to deliver in Evie is very much inspired by the golden, hot, severe beauty of the Australian wheatbelt in summertime. The wheatfields, firebreaks and barb wire fences, big pale blue skies, the worn and blisteringly hot bitumen. The road signs, weatherboard and corrugated iron. The film is set against a post apocalyptic world with shades of Mad Max and The Walking Dead- a juxtaposition of wild nature and humankind’s failed attempts to dominate it.

Another important aspect of a genre film like Evie, is the approach to tension and suspense. I worked really hard to make the monster reveal and action sequence in the second half of the film, where Evie narrowly escapes her pursuers and the dinosaur very suspenseful and atmospheric, knowing this is central to any good monster film. The film I referenced often throughout is Alien, for its portrayal of a dangerous world, rising tension, creeping suspense, and perfect handling of what is essentially a creature feature. This is the standard we held ourselves to.

And of course, the biggest challenge was always going to be in making the VFX to such a high standard that the audience would be thrilled to finally see the dinosaur, after all the built up suspense and tension leading up to that moment. So from the outset I planned the film to minimise visual effects to a a couple sequences that would be achievable and deliver maximum impact in a handful of great shots each. Alien was a reference again for minimalist but beautifully effective suspense. Jurassic Park and World franchises were examples of quality for our dinosaur. It had to live up to that standard. And with the work of a couple very talented people we have got there. I am very proud of this dinosaur and the tension, suspense and pay off built around it. That good work from the team makes the film pay off so beautifully in the end.