Jessica Giacco

Who will Waldo Swobota choose -- his fiance, or her one-eyed sister?
How did Lena Prewne's eyes end up inside a glass jar?
What does Doctor Schlessighesstfahlen have to do with all this?
And will the sad pigmongress point the sick painter in the direction of true love?

Find out the answers to these questions in The Man Who Was Ill, a love letter to films of the silent era.

WALDO SWOBOTA, a young painter, suddenly finds himself afflicted by an illness which renders him nauseous at the very thought of even drawing a sketch. Shunned by his wife, Waldo embarks on a surreal quest through the harsh world outside his studio to find the one remedy for his condition.

For something a little different in a world of colour and synchronised sound, The Man Who Was Ill will take you on a voyage of emotion without dialogue as Waldo loses his artistic sensibility and goes on a journey to find it and his true love. We are making a film using the techniques of silent cinema: black and white, no sound effects, the story told through action and title cards. You're probably aware this is not a common choice amongst modern filmmakers. That seems like a great reason to do it, and for you to support something... different.

We're going to make a visually striking, surreal fable, told through human faces and some really great experiemental music from our very talented young composer, which is going to reach into the past and bring an old media back to life.

We as filmmakers are passionate about the beauty of the strange and hilarious which is just what we want to give you in 
The Man Who Was Ill. It's a little funny, a little sad, a little beautiful, and also, we're sorry yet not sorry to say, a little disgusting.


Lena Prewne
https://www.facebook.com/manwhowasill

What are we here for? For art, for beauty, for changing the world? No, friends. No.

We're here for cash.

We have a small budget of approximately $3300. That's not a lot of money for a film like this. Shooting with our own camera and doing most of the postproduction work in the dank caves otherwise known as our own houses saves us some money, and we're going to pay for most of the essentials -- props, lights, costumes -- ourselves. Your donations will supplement our budget so we can take the film to a higher level than we can afford alone. We have set a goal of $1000, and while we would of course love to exceed that if we can, that's enough to get us over the line. With the lovely money donated by you wonderful humans, we will accomplish the following:

Production Design ($500)
The world we are creating in "The Man Who Was Ill" is highly theatrical, so we need a significant amount so Jimmy Hills, our Production Designer, can go nuts.

Costumes ($500)
The stylised nature of this film requires a highly creative costume designer, Zora Milevski, who needs money to put together fabulous costumes.

Makeup ($600)
As this is a silent film, we need a professional, creative makeup artist to create the look of the silent film era. 

A pig ($600)
Yes, a pig. A crucial scene in the film involves a large pig and we need to be able to rent one for a few hours. As this would need to be done in an extremely humane manner following strict animal welfare guidelines, we need someone to take care of this pig, to bring the pig to and from set and this all costs lovely money. 

Lighting ($240)
We need to hire lights to create the style of the silent films of the 1920's. 

Locations ($250)
We are lucky to have the use of a private home with nice old wallpaper for most of the shoot, but some of the scenes are elsewhere and require location permits and petrol, which cost money. 

Insurance ($292.50)
Necessary. In case that swine goes on a rampage.

Food ($300)
A well fed cast and crew is a happy cast and crew. 

With your wonderful money, you can acquire a number of incredible perks. Our Writer / Director, Luke Marsden, is an exceptionally good artist. It's how he makes a living. The especially great thing is he loves it too! He has offered to draw a variety of works for perks including pineapples, pigs and portraits. Check out our perks to find out more!

If we don't reach our goal, the film will just be slightly less of everything, and might not feature a beautiful pig, which would be a sad loss to world cinema indeed. You can't argue with that, friends! We all want it to be the most of everything - including you! Our lovely donors!

We realise that not everyone can afford to donate even $10 to our campaign so instead you could LIKE and SHARE our Pozible and Facebook pages on your various outlets - https://www.facebook.com/manwhowasill

We want this to look as authentic to the era of silent film as possible. Production design, costume and makeup are integral to achieving this, and doing this with no money will be next to impossible. Making it authentic to this period while keeping it modern and somewhat timeless is our goal.

Our main location is being pulled down in September so we not only want to shoot as soon as possible we actually HAVE to shoot as soon as possible. Due to these time constraints we are having plenty of challenging fun scheduling and organising everyone and will be shooting around that at night time and on the weekend to make it work with everyones' super busy lifestyles.

Our biggest, or at least most bizarre challenge will be locating a pig and shooting with that pig on an old abandoned road. We don't want to lose said pig so will need a wrangler to look after it. Hence some of the lovely pennies given to us by you will go towards a pig and a wrangler. 

Filmmaking is one great challenge all round so honestly no challenge is too great, and on previous projects we have all worked on together and apart we are all keenly aware and excited to realise that nothing is impossible.