The Falling

A news story that will leaf you speechless.

Back in 2007, right when I had decided I was ready to try making films, a friend of mine told me about a competition to make a one minute short film on a mobile phone. It was part of that year’s Sydney Film Festival and was sponsored by Telstra, one of Australia’s big telcos. It was perfect timing, I just happened to have an idea perfectly suited to a one minute film.

Before I knew it I was lying on the footpath on my stomach with a phone in one hand and a leaf in the other. The leaf had a little wire rigged onto the back of it that I could wiggle with my finger to make its mouth move.

I hit record on the phone and recited my lines of dialogue as a steady stream of pedestrians wandered by giving me looks I knew I was going to have to get used to.

But it paid off. I won the competition and that win really set me going on my film-making career.