Trading his wheels for a crazy dream

Auckland filmmaker Michael Thorp tells NICK SMITH how he traded in his beloved Porsche to bankroll his first movie.

The story of Michael Thorp making his debut feature is a tale almost as strange and heart-warming as the film that resulted, The Lunatics' Ball.

The 34-year-old Aucklander had dreamed all his life of being a filmmaker but when he finally wrote a script nobody would finance the movie.

Thorp worked for a bank, assisting traders on the dealing floor, and had no filmmaking experience.

So he financed it himself by selling his beloved 1987 Porsche 911 Turbo, providing him with a meagre $50,000 budget to realise his dream. To put that in perspective, an average Hollywood film costs about $40 million, while a low-budget movie usually comes in around $1-2 million.

Remarkably, The Lunatics' Ball works well as a feature, despite its obvious fiscal limitations. It tells the story of mental health worker, Charles Duron, whose unorthodox treatment of his patients provokes the ire of the establishment.

It was selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival Forum last year and won a special jury prize when it was shown at the Shanghai Film Festival.

The film's genesis came in 1985 after his return from London, where he worked for merchant bankers J.P. Morgan.

Thorp has always loved movies, an obsession nurtured by many bus trips from Papatoetoe to town to see the big flicks like Jaws. He had already attended a low-budget filmmaking course and another on scriptwriting in London, so back home, Thorp set to work.

He realised that with no budget, the script would have to carry the movie and he recalled his pharmacist father's numerous complaints about doctors overprescribing drugs for their patients.

"It had to be an emotive story to attract an audience. Mental illness in New Zealand is quite an issue. I had this notion of one person reaching out to another. Sure, you have self-doubt, waking up in a cold sweat, but you have to keep moving forward otherwise you curl up and die. I realised it was up to me to make it happen."

Finally he had a script but no one wanted to know. Thorp sold his car and started planning the shoot.

"I knew absolutely nobody in the film and television industry, so I approached On Film magazine [about placing an advertisement for crew and cast]. I approached the [acting] agencies. The first people I contacted were cinematographers; they found the idea amusing but I finally found one guy, Neil Cervin."

Success. Sort of. Thorp had only one week of auditions to find his cast of 50 speaking parts and 20 featured extras, and a crew of 25. He had promised cash and equity in the film to acquire a 16mm camera and other equipment.

During this time, he also managed to scout Auckland locations for filming. He then had to allow a generous week's rehearsal before starting the shoot, an exhaustive 22-day effort in 25 different locations.

He survived on three hours' sleep each night during this month: "On one hand, it was incredibly stressful and on the other hand, everybody was behind it."

Next came nine months of editing the film in his parent's lounge, with no assurance of postproduction funding. But he had shown some rushes to Peter Jackson, who put in a word with the New Zealand Film Commission.

"Ruth Harley phoned me up and said, 'is there anyway we can help?'" There was.

The commission provided $400,000 for postproduction, including blowing it up from 16mm to 35mm and providing a proper sound mix that featured Peter Scholes and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The rest, as they say, is history. And just like Charles Duron in The Lunatics' Ball, Thorp is the little guy who took on the big guys and won.

Not deterred by the do-it-yourself experience of his debut, Thorp is now working on a script involving the politics of East Timor as a backdrop.

"You learn so much from doing it that it's crazy not to carry on."

* The Lunatics' Ball screens on May 18 and 19 as part of the World Cinema Showcase 2000 at the Force Cinema on Queen St.