AACTA Spotlight Featuring PINCH ME
We chat to Michael McLennan about PINCH ME.
Pinch Me was inspired by the void we all looked into in 2020. Passports became marks of death, our economic futures were suddenly exposed as empty, and it became quite apparent that it might not work out well for all of us. Our time deserves new attempts at Decameron, and the stories people tell should expose the insecurities of our time.
Christoper Nolan's TENET inspired the film also. 'Don't try to understand it, try to feel it', Clémence Poésy said. We set it upon ourselves to make a film that might truly work this way.
But above all, the film was inspired by its four actors. The purpose of the film was to build a story around them. Hopefully the film honours the trust Declan, Maddie, Henry, Anjelica and Mark and Lotte at Excelsia placed in our team.
Making any film in 2020 was a challenge. Although Sydney had exited its lockdown, finding a library in which to stage this film took us on a long journey of no after no. Ultimately the challenge became turning a very different library to the one we were looking for into the right one. Emily and Rasmus outdid themselves here. Kerrie, who managed the library, was such a support in a difficult year.
Perhaps the greatest personal challenge was making a film under social distancing protocols. Many of the team have worked together before, and understand each other's shorthand. Deprived of our visible mouths, our misunderstandings surged and I found we had to learn to work together again.
Sound post was also a great challenge. To say why is to reveal too much, but I've never been more proud of a soundscape than I am of this one, given the location hurdles to sound.
Nothing is more inspiring than the potential of the edit to link gestures, ideas and moments across space and time. Except perhaps the ability of sound and music to reshape those spaces, travel between them, and render them with novel strangeness.
Final Thoughts?
Our muses included Roeg, Marker, Bergman, Bunuel, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Resnais, Wong Kar Wai. We don't profess to match any of them - who would dare? - but we're grateful for their legacy.
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