Author: Roy

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MUG SHOTS – CAPTURING CROOKS

It hasn’t been lost on us how evocative the scenes of Vendetta 19 are, and we have been so lucky to have two professional photographers on set, documenting the making of V19 with us!! Our first amazing photographer is none other than Tim Henshall.

In the interview, Tim explains that he loves movies but especially ones that have incredible lighting! “That’s the thing I see when I watch them, and now getting to see how Stuart does it, it’s just so good. He and I discussed this yesterday. He has a film bug, mine is stills, but the lighting is very similar in many respects. I’m learning from him just watching, it’s so good. I knew this would be something I would love, which is why I asked you if I could get on board. Timing is everything, and when I was camping and sharing tunes with mates at Framlingham, I played them the black dog song, and straight up Simon mentioned you and Vendetta 19 and here we are.”

Tim spent 5 years at PSC and graduated with a Bachelor of Photography, giving him his unique understanding of the art form.

Please make sure to comment on and like the photos below and let us know which is your favourite!!

From Tim “Just in case anyone is up for a listen to a track, the backstory here is that while on a camp out with some likeminded musician songwriters, I played a song called “Black Dog” . My friend Simon Mac Mccullough said I should send it to a guy who was making a film as he thought it was a perfect fit. Unfortunately, it was a bit late on the scene to make the cut for the trailer but you never know what can happen down the line.”

https://timhenshall.bandcamp.com/track/black-dog

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VENDETTA CREWZING

Today we’d like to give a shout out to our amazing crew!! Although what we will see in the finished product is the actors, the crew are the people who have made this into a reality with us. Thank you to all of you!

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Combo George

In 1908, the Aboriginal prisoner population was an over represented group in our prison system. Sadly, not much has changed to this day. Playing the part of Combo George, a showman, rough rider, fighter and strong man, Matty Chilly does enormous justice to the role.

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The Infamous Dolly Gray

Is infamy as powerful as fame? Or is fear a better weapon? Playing the role of Dolly Gray, Shylie Arzouan has stepped into the role with a combination of charm and terrifying charisma as the wife of one of Australia’s most iconic organised criminals of all time, it should perhaps be said that Squizzy Taylor was the husband of this truly formidable woman.

Vendetta 19 hits selected cinemas this October.

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VENDETTA 19 – IN SELECT CINEMAS

Since the start of this exciting project, it has been astounding just how many stars have aligned to bring us to this incredible place! And the next announcement is even more exciting and will bring a slice of the action closer to so many of you! We can now confirm that the pilot episode of Vendetta 19 will screen in a number of cinemas across Melbourne this summer! Kicking off with the premier launch event at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville on Wednesday 2 October, it will also be screened at the Geelong Gaol Museum, the Pivotonian Cinema, and we are in discussions with three further venues including one in Adelaide.

At present we are also still keen to find a way to present Vendetta 19 at Pentridge Cinema, as most of the narrative is set there. However, after a dozen emails and phone calls we haven’t been able to begin that conversation. If you know anyone at Palace Cinemas, we would LOVE to be able to chat about presenting V19 there too!

Exact dates and ticket links will be posted over the coming weeks. In the meantime, please keep sharing, liking and commenting on the Vendetta 19 posts and help us find a way to get its full production funded through the likes of Netflix, STARTV, Binge TV, Hulu, Apple TV, SBS On Demand and ABC Australia.

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THE ALL SEEING EYE

Yesterday was an epic day of chasing the clock, and trying to move the mountain to Mohammed as we worked like maniacs to try and film what would usually be a week’s worth of filming in a single day.

It has to be said that on any project like this, that without the leadership of amazing people we would have nothing. One particular person needs to be called out publicly for not only his incredible skills with a camera, but also for his saint like patience, his beautiful, warm and funny personality, and for the f as t that through all 11.5 hours of work, he was masterfully in control of the project from start to finish.

Stuart Jaymes is an outstanding person, who has without question formed one of the integral key ingredients that have made this project as potent and significant as it has become. On any normal project, a man of his calibre would have a single job. They would film and then go back to their trailer. Yet Stu has graciously brought to this set his willingness to offer his skills as executive director, stage and special expertise, sound, colour and lighting (and trust me the lighting side of this project has been massive).

We are so grateful to all of our cast and crew, and in particular to Stu for his amazing gifts and leadership.

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JOHN CLARKE

The casting of the characters in Vendetta 19 has been extremely important to us. Wherever possible we have tried to find actors who have similar personal attributes to the people they are playing, along with the ability to act in a high level, demanding role like this.

One of the characters we were able to include in this screenplay is a fascinating person. He was featured quite prominently in the biography of his wife, “7246 Minnie”.

John was a country boy from a tragic home. The death of his father impacted him, though he never seemed to lose his boyish charm and had a charisma about him throughout his life. A dock worker, he and Minnie paired up when she was in her late teens and still married to her first husband. We see John get involved in a number of amazing adventures that broke the law, including stealing and reselling baled of expensive wool from the docks where he worked, breaking into jewellery shops, and working for his wife as an endorser and standover man.

Minnie would become the enemy of Squizzy throughout the 1919 Vendetta, with the first and last bullets shot in the Vendetta show inside two of her brothels with Minnie being present, and the last bullet shot into her face by Squizzy Taylor (spoiler – she lived).

By the 1930’s, while trying to prosecute John, the Police also arrested and charged Minnie for making and selling sly grog. It was something she’d done for decades, and the police were either paid off or just didn’t bother to really pursue her beyond a fine here or there. However, when her husband John was suspected of being involved in a series of nearly 30 bomb blasts that rocked Melbourne inthe late 1920’s and early 30’s, they also came to suspect that Minnie may have been involved too. As someone who has been constructing alcohol making equipment such as copper stills and bathtub vats for decades, Minnie would have almost certainly had the ability and knowledge to construct pipe bombs. The outcome resulted in Minnie being sentenced to prison, leaving her youngest of two daughters and her husband to fend for themselves while she was inside.

As a measure to protect their 7-year-old daughter Patricia, John opted to send her to Methodist Ladies College as a border for the duration of Minnie’s prison sentence. Yet the photo below also has a fascinating detail that needs to be pointed out. As a career criminal, dock-worker, standover man and gunman, John Clark had a number of old enemies who would no doubt have loved to take a shot at him if an opportunity presented itself. And there would have been no place better to find someone you’re trying to shoot than at a place they regularly attend, like school visits on a Sunday. As a result, in this picture, we see a picture of John Clark, walking with 7-year-old Patricia, dropping her off at MLC, with what his surviving family believe is a small, automatic pistol on his trouser pocket with his fingers inches from its trigger. The outline of the gun can just be made out, and it gives us a clear view of the kind of lifestyles the organised criminals of the 1920’s and 30’s lived and the dangers that surrounded them at all times.

The actor we have selected to play John is an accomplished professional athlete named Tyson Popplestone. His charisma and charm are a perfect fit for the real John Clark, while his strength and endurance as a runner makes him an equally amazing fit for the intense fight scenes he will be acting out in Vendetta 19.

Vendetta 19 drops October 2024.

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DID SOMEONE MENTION 4am?

Did we mention that shooting for Vendetta 19 starts each day at 4am? And while you would be right to assume that this would be enough to make anyone grumpy, we have been blessed with some amazingly generous, upbeat and talented actors, and the smiles on their faces tell it all!! Unlike the actual misery that went down in Edwardian prisons, our cast are a jolly bunch and we are thrilled by what they each bring!

Vendetta 19 drops in October 2024. You can contribute to the making of this exciting project boy donating to the GoFundMe at: Donate to Vendetta 19 – The Screenplay Pilot (gofundme.com)

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WRITING FOR GEENA DAVIS

(Written by Roy Maloy)

This has been a long journey. So long, in fact, that it feels like a lifetime ago since I began. I began this project as a reaction to a conversation I had. One of my closest friends is a fierce protector of women’s spaces in all areas of life, and she told me something that actually shocked me. I was discussing my work with her, and that I am proud that I have been able to re-include a number of women into the collective memory of Australian crime history and emphasise the power they possessed at that time. And then my friend asked if I had come across The Bechdel Test.

If you are unfamiliar with it, the Bechdel Test is a measure for gauging the representation of women and their roles in cinema. A number of very impressive female movie makers and actors had pushed for some time to be able to fill roles or at least see roles developed in film and television that didn’t simply require the woman to stand by and be saved by a man. I had never come across this before, and it had never occurred to me.

As I googled different aspects of this, I came across the work that Geena Davis (of Thelma & Louise fame) was doing. Geena has set up a foundation to support movies and writers who create pieces that position women in screenplays to have main roles, equal dialogue and not be represented as flimsy, desperate and pathetic humans, as Hollywood has a habit of portraying them as.

On somewhat of a whim, I reached out to the foundation, not even expecting a response, but I sent them an email telling them about a few people that they may like to look into as options for creating film content. These included the people I had researched such as the Madam of Melbourne, Dolly Gray, the sly grog baroness Bridget Mahoney and the most prolific bordello madam in Australian history Minnie Clark. I don’t think I actually even expected a response. But when I did receive a response, it was not only a massive surprise, but it also challenged me in a way I had never been challenged before. The response was not only personable and supportive, but it put to me the question I should’ve been able to ask myself. The person who wrote to me asked why I hadn’t already written a piece like the one I was telling them to write. If I had all the information, what was stopping me from writing a screenplay myself, with these kinds of characters represented the way they should be?

Their response begins a chain of events that invest me completely in the goal of writing this piece. For those of you who are new to my work, I have a very prolific output. I try to write between 2000 to 3000 words every day, which has resulted in me publishing between three and four books every year for many years now. Being able to move from research, non-fiction, and fiction was also an incredibly rewarding challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Skip forward three years, and the screenplay had been sitting in my Google Docs for a long time. It was something I thoroughly enjoyed writing, as nine full seasons, but it remained something I didn’t have any idea what to do with next. It turned out that it was one thing to write the piece, but entirely another to understand how it goes from being written into an actual screenplay production. I’ve begun the process of applying for grants over a two-year period, but again and again was rejected by 17 of them. All of them told me that I didn’t have the ability to produce a screenplay. It was only when I met producer Gracie Kay and cinematographer Stuart Jaymes that this project fully fell into place.

This Saturday we will go into filming for the third time, and we will try and capture more of the scenes that I have written as a part of this screenplay. This Saturday we will be filming scenes that depict the power of one of the key players from Vendetta 19, and showing a very authentic style of underworld activity run by Dolly Gray. The scenes show her in a position of power over men, seeking retribution and making a particular man pay for his wrongs. This scene is also extremely likely to be on point for its authenticity, historically and socially.

I want to finish this piece by again, thanking everybody who has contributed to the crowdfunding side of this project. The costs from project has been funded by myself out of my own pocket from the money I make in my day job. I have included below a link for the GoFundMe that was set up sometime ago in the hopes that some of you might have the ability to contribute towards the costs of this incredible project. I’m committed to seeing this across the line at my pocket, but anything you can also contribute to will help enormously at this time.

Donate to Vendetta 19 – The Screenplay Pilot (gofundme.com)

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AND ACTION! MEET THE CREW!

Making a screenplay is a massive exercise. Preparing a single shot with one person saying only one line can take up to half an hour before the director can call for action. In our team we have been blessed with a powerhouse of highly trained people who each bring incredible skills to the project, and without them we would have nothing. In amongst the numerous people who have made this incredible project come to life are Producer Gracie Kay, and head of Cinematography, Editor and Colourist Stuart Jaymes. With their teams of makeup, hair, props, gaffs, stagehands and wardrobe people to name a few, we have been able to bring the mountain to Mohammed and make something that will truly do justice to this amazing story!

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