About us
If memory serves me correctly the idea to make a movie was seriously talked about in early 2007. Jared had worked for us as an actor for a few years, the office staff were getting bonuses and I asked Jared if he wanted a bonus or to make a movie. Prior to this, Peter Pezzutti and I had been going to the Queer Screen film festival for many years and in the early days of the festival I would often turn to Peter as we were leaving and say
"I could make a better movie than that".
"Well why don't you?"
"I will one day".
As the years passed the films kept getting better and I kept getting older, I figured if I was ever going to...
The script for Damaged Goods was first shown to Peter who sat quietly reading it and finally responded "It's not bad". I wanted to kill him. Not Bad! Tell me it's crap, tell me you hate it, but NOT BAD. Ahhhhhh. Our friend Les McCrimmon read it in Feb/March 2008 and was much more positive.
Peter Oldham (Camera/Editor) was next to read it and was keen to come on board.
Jared Morgan and Ben Coombs I think were next to read it and even though we made them screen test, they were always going to play the two lead characters. Jared brought Jade Alexander and Cathy Martin to the project. After screen testing ourselves Peter Pezzutti and I decide we were not going to play the David and John characters so I phoned an old friend Les Asmussen who agreed to play David and I left it to him to approach one of his many actor friends to play John, which he never did.
So Les got his way and he and I played David and John. Rohan Smyth along with Jared and Ben, was employed with us as an actor and as we were always going to film in their breaks. Rohan was cast as Rowan.
BJ (Virginia Weule) was the last to be cast. Although I had been suggesting her for the role of Michelle all along, Peter (cameraman) kept saying he just couldn't see it. With one week before we were scheduled to start shooting in the Blue Mountains, only minutes away from where BJ lives, we still had no Michelle. So I convinced Peter to screen test her on that first night of shooting. She was only a few lines into the prepared script and Peter looked across with this surprised look that said "you were right all along".
Having shot our first feature and short film we were all keen to do it again which we did the following year 2009. 'Older n Last Time' picked up where Damaged Goods ended. In 2010 we have decided to produce a short film 'Dead Cat Porn' that we have (all but) finished shooting and we will enter into Sydney Queer Screen's My Queer Career competition, deadline 29th Oct 2010. It's almost finished !!!!
The photo (circa 1929)? The name Myrtle Boys? The older of the three girls in the photo is Myrtle Boys. All three girls are now deceased. Myrtle was my mother and Hilda Boys and Eileen Boys were my aunties.
Greg Howard