If Jordon Prince-Wright thinks a project is impossible, he’ll “give it a crack”.
The philosophy guided the director and producer in making ANZAC war epic Before Dawn, which hits cinemas this week, more than two years after filming wrapped in regional WA.
Written by Jarrad Russell and inspired by the real-life diary entries of local ANZACs, the film details the untold story of some of Australia’s greatest military victories and stars Levi Miller, Stephen Peacocke, Travis Jeffery, Ed Oxenbould, Tim Franklin, and Myles Pollard.
Initially slated to commence production in 2020, the filmmaking team decided to delay filming for 12 months due to the pandemic.
After a two-month shoot that took place predominantly in Esperance, while also spanning Cue and Bunbury, during the wettest winter on record for parts of Southern WA in 2021, the film headed into post-production. The more than year-long process encompassed nearly 300 people across more than 10 companies, led by Soundbyte and Soundbox, and included multiple international partners.
Prince-Wright said while the film was “ready to go” midway through last year, the filmmaking team wanted a release nearer to ANZAC Day, going on to attribute the lengthy post-production to a desire for what was on screen “to be as close to the diary entries as possible”.
“We wanted audiences to really experience this,” he said.
“The sound design had to be state of the art; it had to really push the audiences into that screen
“It’s been an incredible process from start to finish but after filming, there has been so much work.”
Prince-Wright is one of six executive producers on Before Dawn alongside Mandy Chen, Daniel Chen, Jeffrey Prince-Wright, Brad Hammond, and Ian Hale.
Other key creatives included DOP Daniel Quinn, production designers Greta Mewhor and Savannah Fletcher, composer Sean Tinion, and editor Saxon Wright.
According to Prince-Wright, the independent production features the contribution of more than 1000 people, including 300 extras, and had a budget of about $10 million, with the project receiving sponsorship from local councils, RSL, and businesses.
“It was exciting to see communities that came and got behind this production,” he said.
“In saying that, the flip side was that it was challenging because if a generator blew up on set for whatever reason, or went down, we couldn’t spend another $10,000 to hire another one because these generators were sponsored on set. We’d always be forward thinking so if we need three 200kVA generators, we’d ask for seven so we had backups.”
The production’s finances were brought into focus last year when the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Prince-Wright and his associated companies were being pursued for a debt of more than $500,000 by Melbourne special effects company Sharp FX relating to a truck fire that destroyed 19 silicone and foam bodies. According to the report, Sharp FX claims that Prince-Wright failed to maintain insurance of the gear he loaned, which was a breach of their agreement.
Speaking about the incident, Prince-Wright said the lawsuit hadn’t impacted production, noting it “was between the insurance companies”, and described the article as “clutching at straws”.
“Just because the freight company has a truck go up, which happens all the time for those companies, it was almost like, ‘Oh, we can take two dots together here and get an article out of it?'” he said.
“At first I was quite taken aback about it but the next day I spoke to the veterans in the industry and they said don’t worry about it; take the article, frame it, and put it on your wall, and keep doing what you’re doing. That’s exactly what I set out to do.”
Having premiered at Belmont last week, Before Dawn will be released nationally in cinemas from today via Umbrella Entertainment, which is distributing the film in New Zealand. Blue Finch Films is handling international sales, with cinematic releases across the US, Asia, and Europe, as well as a potential SVOD release being planned, according to Prince-Wright.