“I knew them when…” You know the expression. It’s what you say when people you know are on the brink of something great and I have a feeling we’ll be saying it about Daniel and Jared Daperis in the not-so-distant future.
Daniel and Jared, brothers and both experienced actors, were the winner of Raw Nerve Production Initiative 2011 and recently “wrapped” and debuted their neo-noir film, Phone Call, a 12 minute short about a phone call between two characters, Jack and Stanley. Daniel wrote the script and both Daniel & Jared directed the film, produced by Angela Lee.
Image courtesy of facebook.com/phonecallfilm
As friends of Daniel and Jared’s mum and step-dad, we helped make and serve a banquet lunch to the cast and crew on one of the filming days. We also got a quick tour of the official movie set, of which pictures are displayed on the film’s Facebook page.
One of the “perks” of knowing the Directors is getting to see a preview screening of the film. In our earnest and subjective opinion, the film was smart and intense. There’s a lot there in the first few minutes to grab a hold of but the tension is palpable from the very beginning. The set and music were just the “right amount of dark” and there were nuances in the camera angles and lighting to make you forget you were watching a film by first-time Directors. This was suspense, at its best, which I imagine is ten times harder to create in a short film.
Mark Leonard Winter and Lewis Fitz-Gerald were brilliant in their roles of Jack and Stanley, respectively. The film really called for actors of this calibre to pull off the range of emotion demanded of these two characters in the script.
It’s been a team effort, like any project of this quality, and Jared and Daniel are always quick to acknowledge the heaps of support they received from well-known and established individuals (cast and crew) in Australian films. As an outsider, it really says a lot about the Australian film industry to see so many people come together on this project.
The hard work is over for this “labor of love” and now it’s just a waiting game to see whether or not the film will get accepted into festivals and what the critics have to say. We, as critics, give it two big thumbs up…and we’re sure Ebert and Roeper would do the same.
