During the past 10 years, composer Robert Woods and writer Tyler Jacob Jones have received rave reviews at Perth Fringe World for their musical and theatre shows, but film was always their first love.
“We always said we were going to do a movie, then we got another theatre offer so we kept putting it off,” Woods said.
“The only way we got it done was because we went scouting for locations for a farmhouse and we found one that belonged to a friend of mine from high school who said it was available in six months, so that’s what gave us a hard deadline.”
The result is An Ideal Host — filmed in Harvey over just 13 days — a horror, comedy sci-fi mash up about protagonist Liz’s quest to host the perfect dinner party with her partner at their newly purchased rural property.
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READ NOW“My parents hate horror, so we wanted to make something that, by the time it got to the horror, it was too late for them to turn off; they were already invested,” Woods said.
“We wanted a gradual change between the three acts from comedy into weird sci-fi thriller and then just all-out schlock grindhouse.”
“Tyler and I have a particular kind of dark manic comedy to all of our shows and it was fun to try translate that on to the screen.”
While the two worked on the concept together, Jones took on the role of scriptwriter and Woods used his extensive experience in post-production and VFX as director and cinematographer.
“I expected this film mainly to be a showreel piece, our chance to dive in and get something made no matter what the quality because getting your foot in the door — even with me working in this industry for a decade — is incredibly hard,” Woods said.
“It’s really silly, it’s really schlocky, but we ended up making something that I’m quite proud of.
“It’s a testament to our actors — the majority of them are improv artists — and they are so professional and they just all got the tone and sold it really well.”
An Ideal Host is screening online as part of the 2020 Revelation Perth International Film Festival: Couched from July 9–19.