Topher Field

The Hustle is a short film written and directed by Topher Field and produced by Ben Whimpey.

The Hustle was selected as a finalist in Tropfest 2013!  Now, with your help, we want to enter The Hustle into many more film festivals world wide!

Click the 'play' button above to see a video which explains who we are and what we're doing, or read on for more info!

An incredible team of talented people came together to make The Hustle possible.  All together the team numbered more than 40 people including techies, actors and extras, support staff and admin.  These amazing people are the reason The Hustle is such a great short film, and their work and creativity deserves to be seen all over the world. 

We hope that by getting everyone's work showcased in festivals all over the world we may be able to create opportunities and help them take the next step in their careers, us included of course!

So what's in it for you?  Well we have a strictly limited edition run of 250 DVDs to offer as gifts to everyone who donates $50 or more.  These DVDs will NEVER be available to the public.  No Tropfest DVD was made this year and we had to get special permission from Tropfest themselves just to be allowed to give these ones away as our thankyou gifts.

What's on the DVD?  First and foremost you'll find 'The Hustle' itself.  It's a beautiful short film about a pool hustler plying his trade.  It was shot on a RED Scarlet by our incredibly talented DOP Josh Mitchell-Frey with the lead character 'Troy' beautifully brought to life by Nikolai Nikolaeff.  Tropfest deemed it good enough to be one of their 16 finalists out of a field of 650 entrants.

You'll also find a short and fun 'behind the scenes' video created by Nick Matthews and Nathan Field, along with interviews with cast and crew and some thoughts from the Producer and Director on how to get started in short films for first-timers.

We've made a film to be proud of, but it does us no good sitting on the shelf.  We need to get it out to as many film festivals as possible... and that costs money.

Every festival is different but the majority of them have entry fees as well as technical requirements which must be met.  For example Tropfest required a copy of the film on Digibeta tape, at a cost of $150+ per tape.  These sorts of fees and costs add up very quickly when you are entering dozens of festivals in a short period of time.  Entering 50 festivals can quickly run up costs well into the thousands of dollars.  We are hoping to be able to enter well over 100 festivals and really give The Hustle the exposure it deserves.

We spent all our money MAKING the film [actually we spent all of the PRODUCERS money - Ben] which brings us to why we are here.  We need your help.  By supporting this fundraiser you are helping to get The Hustle out into festivals world wide and potentially helping to kick start the careers of Australian film makers, actors and technicians as well.  Not to mention that if you support us with $50 or more you'll get a beautiful DVD as your permanent reminder of the support you gave.

Read through the options on the right of your screen and please, help us make the most of The Hustle.  Our $5,000 target is just a starting point.  The more we get, the more festivals we can enter and the more we can make the most of what we've created.

Thanks so much,

Topher Field, writer / director.
Ben Whimpey, producer.