The agony and the ecstasy: How to make a DIY movie in Brisbane
Stephen Vagg swore he would never make a film of his recent play All My Friends Are Returning to Brisbane, but then he went and did it anyway.
When I produced my stage play All My Friends Are Returning to Brisbane there was one thing I knew with complete certainty – I would not be making a movie out of it. So, yeah, anyway – I just finished making a movie out of it.
I should explain that statement. The play was a sequel to a 2007 film, All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, so it was natural people would ask me if the sequel would become a movie, too. “Absolutely not,” I replied. And I meant it.
Filmmaking is great, but also terrible, especially when you’re personally footing the bill. Costs blow out easily – there’s always a good reason to spend money on a movie. And the chance of getting anything back is very minimal. Indeed, the sum total of my earnings on two feature films I wrote and helped produce, All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane and Jucy was less than zero. Both cost me money. I don’t regret either experience – they were amazing – but I didn’t care to repeat the process, either.
My partner Louise Alston, who directed the original All My Friends movie, came to see its stage sequel in 2023. Afterwards, she said: “I know you don’t want to turn that into a film that we could green light ourselves, but for what it’s worth I think it would make a great film that we could green light ourselves.”
But I didn’t want to. The thought of doing another DIY movie was too overwhelming. Then a series of events happened towards the end of last year that made me change my mind.
First was the relentlessly grim political situation – both internationally (Gaza, Ukraine, Trump, etc) and domestically, notably the federal government’s decision to table its promised quotas for local drama production on streaming services, thereby threatening the destruction of an entire industry.
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Second was a series of projects that didn’t happen – films/TV series I worked on that got optioned but couldn’t get that final bit of finance, plus the axing of Neighbours, which was my regular gig for over a decade (all in part because of the aforementioned lack of quotas).
Third was watching a 2011 movie by Ed Burns called Newlyweds, a comedy-drama about a married couple and the bride’s hot-mess sister, made for $9000. The number one rule of investing in a movie is to not spend money you ever want to see again, but maybe I could afford nine grand. I had two more Neighbours scripts booked before the show was cancelled. Maybe my fees from those could pay for a movie?
I revisited the play, discussed it with Louise and realised that if I cut out a few sequences, All My Friends Are Returning to Brisbane could be made for a cash budget of $10,000. (That’s with deferred fees as, if everyone was paid, the budget would be about $250,000.)
the Movie Gods are tempestuous and whimsical, with a fondness for ruining your life unless you behave with appropriate humility (plus the odd sacrifice)
Louise was keen. She’d been waiting for months for a green light on two other features that always seemed “about to go” but could never take off. So we decided to green light our own movie. It wasn’t ideal but it was better than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. And if we were going to have to give it all up and get real jobs (the perennial fear of all creatives) then at least we could go down swinging.
Louise asked for some changes to the story and title (it’s now All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane), I wrote the script, we arranged cast, crew and locations and picked a start date.
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Over the years we had learned various tricks to keep the budget down: minimise locations, no crowd scenes, no effects, no stunts, no extras, no kids, no night shoots, no props, no choreography, two-hander scenes wherever possible, minimal crew, nine-day shoot with one day for contingency, 10-hour days, scheduled breaks.
We also knew what not to stint on: insurance, catering, data storage, post-production. By and large we kept to the above rules, although there were some exceptions and the budget did creep up. Like I said, there’s always something to spend money on making a movie.
There were dramas, but there always are. Just like their forebears in Ancient Greece, the Movie Gods are tempestuous and whimsical, with a fondness for ruining your life unless you behave with appropriate humility (plus the odd sacrifice).
Rain fell, locations vanished, cast and crew became unavailable, my laptop was destroyed. And, of course, there was Tommy Tuba, the name I give to that random person who decides to make a loud noise right next to wherever you’re filming at the exact moment you’re about to do a take. (Tommy Tuba visits every film set – on ours he came in the form of a guy mowing his lawn).
Still, planning helps, as does experience, paranoia and going in with pure intentions (good karma isn’t just for vibes, it’s so people are forgiving when you inevitably stuff up).
Most of all we were joined by a marvellous cast and crew who brought their own enthusiasm, contacts, talent, skill, recommendations, gear and locations. One of the great things about being a circus person is that when you decide to put on a show you can always find others to help you raise the tent and wrangle the trapeze artists.
And for every private schoolboy who rode through the background of a scene during a take on a scooter giving us the finger (and on this production there were two, neither wearing helmets, I might add), there were far more people who wanted to help out – cafe owners, law firms, theatre companies, Brisbane City Council. We even had set visits from our local state and federal MPs.
All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane is now in post-production, with an intended release date in 2026. How it will be received, I have no idea. That, too, is up to the Movie Gods. The only thing I am totally sure of is this … no more self-funded films for me. Ever. Unless I change my mind.
Stephen Vagg is a Brisbane-based writer and the writer and producer of All My Friends Are Back in Brisbane.