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The Film From Lot 15

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The Film From Lot 15[edit]

The Film From Lot 15[1] is a 2018 Australian adult comedy film written, produced and directed by Max Coultan, and starring Keiran Whitehead, Jyoti Jakovickis, Ky Brutnell, Maddie Coultan, Maia Bradley, Bella Webb and Stuart Sutton. The film was produced by Countdown Studios, and was distributed by Coultan&Co Productions, and tells the story of Dan (Whitehead), an amateur filmmaker, assembling a group of actors and producers to write, shoot and edit a feature length film in the space of 10 days, in order to meet a film festival's deadline.

The film had a limited release in South East Queensland in Australia, and grossed $1000 (AUD) against a $1500 budget. It also received generally positive reviews, with many praising first time actor Ky Brutnell's portrayal of the confusing and contradictory character 'Stuntman'. The film was mostly improvised, and Coultan stated that if the script had have been followed, the film probably wouldn't be as liked as it is.

In July of 2018, a sequel, entitled The Play From Stage 2 was announced, with all of the original cast reprising their roles.

Plot[edit]

Dan is out shopping one day when he receives a call from a representative of a film editing house, telling him that the film that he gave to them (The Hunt) had been completed and was ready to pick up. He quickly races to the office, where he is greeted by the editor of his film. After a small discussion, Dan finally asks the editor to give him his film, at which point the editor asks him what he plans to do with it. After finding out that he plans to submit it to a film festival, the editor tries to convince Dan out of submitting the film, telling him that he'll be laughed at, and that it is truly awful.

After hearing this news, Dan takes the film to his best friend/producer, John (Jakovickis), and shows it to him. He assumes that John will tell him that his film is brilliant, however once John is finished with the film, he echoes the sentiments of the editor. Dan is crushed, and reminds John that the deadline for the film festival is in 10 days. John explains to Dan that there really is no hurry, and that there is always next year, however Dan argues with John and tells him that they need to submit this film. At this point, Lisa (Maddie Coultan), who has been listening in off screen, tells Dan that 10 days is plenty of time to make a movie from start to finish. Dan agrees, however John doesn't, but Dan talks him into it by agreeing to assemble a cast of 'professionals'. John activates snapchat, and finds the location of a cinematographer and sound engineer in their general vicinity.

They go in search of the crew, and find them in a park, where they convince the cinematographer Petal (Talya Bolge), and sound engineer, Jane (Mahima Verma), to join the production. After that, they assemble the entire crew in a board room, with May (Webb), an old friend of Dan's, as the screenwriter. After tossing around ideas for an extended period of time, they settle on Dan's idea, which is to make a movie starring two male actors, which would follow one of them getting trapped beneath boxes. The fake movie was to be called The Five Box Fright, which Dan would direct, John would produce, May would write, Petal would film, Jane would record and Lisa would cast. Finally, John is tasked with finding a location. After searching, he finds a warehouse available at the Mammoth Industrial Park, and books lot 15.

That night, Dan gets drunk to calm his nerves, and he reveals through narration that his only goal in life has been to create an awesome film. This causes insomnia and depression, which makes him late the next morning, where the entire cast, except May is awaiting his arrival. Upon arrival, Dan is greeted by a random man who is a friend of Lisa's, who claims to have the legal name Stuntman. He performs a stunt show for Dan and the cast, in order to convince them to let him be apart of the production. Dan agrees to let him be apart, and he announces the beginning of production. However, production is halted, because of the two actors that Lisa hired, one of them hasn't showed. Sam (Sutton), the actor that showed, tells Dan this in the middle of a take.

In light of an actor no-showing, Dan sits the cast down to try and change the film idea. At this point, Grace (Bradley), Dan's sister, shows up, so she can oversee production on behalf of his parents. She is no help at all, and doesn't contribute any ideas to the production. After a lengthy brainstorming session, Dan decides that they're going to stick to original idea, and that Stuntman will take the place of the actor that didn't show.

After an acting audition for Stuntman, they finally begin filming the movie. However, this proves difficult, as they only have a skeleton of a script so far, which tests Dan's patience to the fullest extent, which ends up making him berate the entire cast for their lack of effort. John steps in and tells Dan to calm down, however this only turns Dan against John. After more filming, the tension escalates to the point where Dan cannot take it anymore, and he pours water over John's head in an effort to shut him up. John then walks away, and Dan tells him that he's fine with him leaving, and that he regrets him anyways. This causes John to violently attack Dan, as he essentially threw their 10 year friendship down the drain over one afternoon. During the confrontation, John knocks Dan using a wooden plank, and walks off, and leaves the production.

After the confrontation, Stuntman tells Dan that he can help him with his anger problem, and teaches him a form of martial-art that can help him relieve his anger. After a small montage, Dan and Stuntman fight, using the new found skills. Dan wins the fight, and Stuntman bows down to accept his defeat. He then walks off towards the door, but instead of walking out the door, he evaporates.

Following the commotion, Dan gives up film making and retires to a life of chicken farming. May pays him a visit and attempts to patch things up between him and John, and succeeds. Dan calls John, and arranges to meet him. At the meeting, Dan reveals to John that he edited The Five Box Fright, but it was awful. When John asks to see the film, Dan throws the USB stick away, destroying the only copy of the film in existence, and tells John that his friendship was more important than any film. The friends patch things up, and Dan works to deflate his ego for future productions.

Cast[edit]

  • Keiran Whitehead[2] as Dan
  • Jyoti Jakovickis as John
  • Ky Brutnell as Stuntman
  • Maddie Coultan as Lisa
  • Maia Bradley as Grace
  • Talya Bolge as Petal
  • Mahima Verma as Jane
  • Bella Webb as May
  • Stuart Sutton as Sam
  • Max Coultan as the editor

Production[edit]

Concept[edit]

The concept of the film was developed by Max Coultan, after watching the raw footage from his last film, Tag (2017). Coultan had berated the cast of this film several times while on set for not remembering lines and being on their phone while on set, and some of it was caught on video. After watching this, Coultan developed a treatment based on that, in which an inexperienced film maker sets out to make a movie with no real thought or care put into it. The main character was based on Coultan at the time of filming his last movie, and would go through a similar transformation that he did.

The single location aspect of the movie was thought of by Brutnell and Coultan, as they both worked at the Mammoth Industrial Park, which is where the film is set. They were tasked to clear out lot 15 on a Saturday, and they mutually agreed that it would be cool to shoot a movie in the lot, given it's large size and controlled environment.

Writing[edit]

The film was written over the space of 4 months, and was originally titled Dan's Terrible Idea. This title didn't resonate with Coultan however, and he decided to name the film after the location in which the movie would be shot, and so, The Film From Lot 15[3] was born. The film's initial first draft was 200 pages long, however Coultan decided that he wasn't quite ready to make a film that long, and so the best parts were taken out and reworked into a simpler 89 page script. The final draft was read and edited by Bella Webb, who not only acted, but served as a producer. It was revealed 2 months after the film's release, that the script had been finalised and sent out to the cast even before Coultan had received permission to film at the Mammoth Industrial park.

Casting[edit]

Whitehead and Coultan had been attempting to work together for two years prior to the making of The Film From Lot 15, and so Coultan wrote the character of Dan specifically for Whitehead. Frequent collaborator and Max's sister, was the first actress cast in the project, and was initially in the role of Liz, however later on, Max decided that Maddie's quirky acting style meant that she'd be suited better to Lisa. Liam Robson was initially cast in the role of John, however dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Jakovickis was initially cast to perform a cameo in the film, reprising his role from one of Coultan's earlier films: The Hunt (2016). After Robson dropped out however, Jakovickis was cast in the role of John, and the cameo was written out of the film.

Other than Whitehead, Brutnell and Bradley, all of the actors and actresses had collaborated on previous projects with Coultan.

Filming[edit]

The film was shot over the course of 5 days, with 3 of them being in lot 15. The opening scene was filmed first, at Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore. The entire film was filmed without the appropriate permits required, and as a result, the crew were kicked out of Sunshine Plaza. There is a brief moment in the opening scene in which Dan is slow motion running away from the camera, where an employee of the Coles that they were shooting in is standing in the background. This employee would later kick them out.

Production was troubled after this as well, as two of the actors did not show up for filming on days 2-4. Frequent collaborators Morgan Ashton and Aisling Gibney were both cast in the roles of Peter and Liz. Peter was to be Sam's best friend and co-actor in The Five Box Fright, and Liz was to be Dan's best friend, who was also blind. Due to these factors, the script was essentially thrown out, and the rest of the movie was improvised. Several key plot points such as Dan becoming a chicken farmer, Stuntman teaching Dan martial arts and all of the interviews in the film, are entirely improvised by the cast.

Post-production[edit]

After completion of the film, the film was edited using Adobe Premiere Pro CC, the sound was engineered and converted into 7.1 surround using Adobe Audition CC and the effects were composited using Adobe After Effects CC. The film's narration was scripted after filming, and was used to piece together certain aspects of the film that didn't fit together, due to the improvised nature of the entire production. The film's colour effects were performed in Adobe Photoshop CC, and were used in order to give the film a more cinematic look. This was employed due to the fact that the film was shot using a Canon EOS 60D DSLR camera and Samsung Galaxy s7 mobile phone.

The film never received an official classification by the Australian Classification Board, due to budget restrictions, Coultan estimated that the film would be rated MA15+, due to strong course language, sexual references and violence. Coultan never intended the film to have a large amount of swear words in it, however, because most of the film was improvised, the cast swore prolifically during production, and most of the swears ended up in the final cut. In the end, shit was used 28 times, fuck was used 68 times and cunt was mentioned once in the film.

Music[edit]

Coultan has always stressed that a film's soundtrack can make or break the film, and as a result, the film employs a diverse soundtrack. Using all types of genres and styles of music, the film's soundtrack appears to be spasmodic, which is exactly how Coultan intended.

  1. Daydream Believer - The Monkees
  2. This One's For You - Felix Nicholls and Max Coultan
  3. I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) - Meatloaf
  4. Ca Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand
  5. Express Yourself - N.W.A
  6. Lazybones - Leon Redbone
  7. Don't Bring Me Down - Electric Light Orchestra
  8. Chain Reaction - Diana Ross
  9. Livin' Thing - Electric Light Orchestra
  10. S.O.S - ABBA
  11. Seinfeld - Johnathon Wolf
  12. Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels) - Jim Croce
  13. Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglass
  14. Bonanza Theme - Nelson Riddle
  15. Caravan Of Love - The Housemartins
  16. Bonfire - Knife Party
  17. You're My Best Friend - Queen
  18. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head - B.J. Thomas

The film does not have an original score, due to time and budget restrictions.

Release[edit]

Theatrical Release[edit]

The film premiered on February 2nd, 2018 to an audience of 100 people, including the cast, crew and their families. Promotion was light upon the film's release, due to cinema restrictions. Event Cinemas did not allow promotion of a film unless the film had a classification certificate, due to this, one trailer was edited by Coultan and released on YouTube, however, the link was private. After the film's release however, Coultan promoted it heavily in local media[4], appearing in The Sunshine Coast Daily [5]and on Hot 91.1 FM[6] talking about the film. The film was noteworthy, because at the time of the film's release, Coultan was just 17.[7]

Reception[edit]

The film premiered to positive reviews from audiences. It was praised for it's meta-humour, pop-culture references and interesting characters. The film currently scores an 8.8/10 rating on IMDB.

Sequel[edit]

In July of 2018, Coultan confirmed via his Instagram that he was currently working on a sequel to the film. According to Coultan, 2 versions of a sequel had been written, and one spinoff based around the Stuntman character. The title of the sequel was confirmed on the 20th of July to be The Play From Stage 2[8]. The plot of the film, according to IMDB is:

"Dan recruits his old unit to produce a play in order to impress his girlfriend's father"

All of the original cast are confirmed to be reprising their roles, with more cast members yet to be confirmed. The film is currently slated for a 2019 release.

See also[edit]

The Film From Lot 15 is an Australian independent film, written and directed by Max Coultan. Cited is the IMDB and a few news articles about the film[edit]


This article "The Film From Lot 15" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:The Film From Lot 15. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

  1. "Behance". www.behance.net. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  2. "Keiran Whitehead". IMDb. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  3. Coultan, Max (2018-02-02), The Film From Lot 15, Keiran Whitehead, Jyoti Jakovickis, Talya Bolge, retrieved 2018-07-20
  4. "PressReader.com - Connecting People Through News". www.pressreader.com. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
  5. Coultan, Thomas (2018-07-07). "Max is focused on a bright future". Sunshine Coast Daily. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
  6. Coultan, Rod (2018-10-20). "Hot 91.1". Hot 91.1. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
  7. Coultan, Thomas (2018-07-07). "Max is focused on a bright future". Queensland Times. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
  8. Coultan, Max, The Play From Stage 2, Max Coultan, Ky Brutnell, Maddie Coultan, retrieved 2018-07-20