In 2001, the world was introduced to the iPod and Australia had its first taste of digital television.
It’s fair to say the year left its mark in more ways than one, but for Cameron McCulloch, not everything went to plan.
At the time, the then film student was on the verge of completing his feature debut, Scam, starring Kestie Morassi, only for a large portion of the footage to be destroyed in a housefire at a crew member’s place.
Twenty years on and the film is set to have its world premiere at next month’s Monster Fest after being resurrected by cast member and editor Nathan Hill during the 2020 lockdown.
McCulloch, who wrote and then filmed the project on a MiniDV in 12 days for $5,000, said he was “in awe” that it was finally seeing the light of day.
“During lockdown last year, Nathan was prepping another feature but he was putting together a documentary and he wanted some footage from the film. I gave him the box of tapes and then I went back to my parents’ house, and I found the camera logs with all the takes I’d notated,” he said.
“I gave him everything I had because I didn’t know where his exact scenes were.
“His first cut was 1 hr 50 minutes but then we got it down to 83 or 84 minutes, so now it moves along at a pretty brisk pace.”
In Scam, Morassi plays Kim, a small-time scam artist, who is desperate to move up the ranks of Melbourne’s seedy criminal underworld but faces stiff competition from Ben (Stuart Orr), her crime boss father’s newly appointed apprentice.
The role was one of the first in a feature film career that has since gone on to include Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek, as well as upcoming horror The Surrogate from David Willing.
Morassi has also made regular appearances in series such as Underbelly, Offspring, and Home and Away.
Having only found out about the recut version of the film a couple of months ago, the actor told IF the 20-year process was a testament to the “heart and dedication” it took to get a feature film made.
“The fact this footage has been found and [McCulloch] managed to piece it together after 20 years and is now going to have it shown at a film festival shows what it takes to be a filmmaker,” she said.
“He’s just persisted and I think that is a feat in itself.”
Morassi will join Hill and McCulloch at a Q&A event during Monster Fest.
In order to prepare the audience for the experience, McCulloch has added introductory titles detailing the film’s journey, mirroring a technique often seen in the found footage genre.
McCulloch said he wanted audiences to be under no illusions when it came to nature of the filmmaking process.
“Everybody in the crew was either a film student or just out of film school,” he said.
“The levels of acting ability in the film range from really good to some quite cheesy performances, including myself.
“An actor quit the day before who was supposed to have a penis-shaped bruise on his face. He was hired to work Neighbours for two days and didn’t want to be the penis-shaped bruise guy, so I took on the role.
“The film is the best version of the film we could make because we can’t really reshoot anything and I can’t really do deepfake technology.”
While no distribution had been secured for the film, McCulloch was hoping there would be interest from its festival run, adding that if there wasn’t, they would start “kicking down doors” to try and sell it.
Scam premieres at Monster Fest Thursday, December 9.