Valla resident Simon Portus has recently finished the shooting on his short film TOMORROW (aka LITTLE THINGS) in Dorrigo, Raleigh and Coffs Harbour.The Screen Australia funded short film tells the story of fourteen year old Kirsten who is picked up hitchhiking at night by Laura, a successful middle aged woman.  Over the course of the car journey assumptions are challenged and trust is found. TOMORROW stars award winning actress Leah Purcell as Laura and new-comer Laura Davies as Kirsten. TOMORROW will premiere in late 2008.

This is Simon's second professional short film. His short film ADRIFT, starring Chris Haywood and shot around Valla, was funded by the NSW Film and Television Office's Young Filmmakers Fund in 2005. ADRIFT won several awards and screened at a variety of prominent festivals in Australia and overseas.It sold to ABC television and has worldwide distribution with Ouat Media in Canada. He is currently developing several feature screenplays with David Curzon, the producer/editor of ADRIFT and TOMORROW.

Where do you get your inspiration from to develop your script ideas and how difficult is the process?
I constantly get ideas but I usually let my ideas settle before I act on them. For example, with TOMORROW, I had the image of a young girl hitching at night in my head for a while - maybe six months. I was doing some teaching work out west and one of the fourteen year old girls in my class found out she was pregnant and that really solidified the meaning of this young girl hitching at night image. The story grew from that. The main difficulty was working out how overt or subtle I had to be in my writing for the script to work. How much does the audience need to know? You hear of a lot of writer/directors who hate writing but in that regard I'm lucky because I love the process of writing.

Tell us about the making of TOMORROW
TOMORROW was ultimately a lot harder to shoot than ADRIFT. Think highway - night - travelling car scenes - new young actors. The technicalities were a little overwhelming at times. 

Overall I was incredibly lucky with the cast. Leah Purcell was amazing to work with. The main girl, Laura Davies, was also brilliant, she really makes the film. The support cast were also great. Coffs resident Belinda Lemair played Kirsten's mother and Jetty High girl Tania Rodianov played Kirsten's friend Mia. They both did an amazing job. We also had other locals working on the crew including Ali Buckley - production manager,
Tony Allison - production coordinator/ stills photographer, Tim Strom - Art deptment runner, and Tony Wickert - directing mentor.

The biggest difficulty was trying to fit it all into our schedule. In retrospect it was scheduled too tightly so we ended up doing overtime on most days which runs the risk of upsetting the crew. We crew with people who have the same approach to film making as we do -professional but personal. So in the event that we do need to put more in, most people are more than happy. Plus everyone was getting paid - that always makes a difference!

We shot on a red camera (4K) and I'm really excited with the results.  We shot ADRIFT on 16mm film and so we basically did the whole film blind, with no rushes, because it cost too much to send them to Sydney. With the red camera we were able to watch the rushes 5 minutes after we shot the scene. Goodbye to the days of  film, hello digital !!!

You were a Sydney based filmmaker. How has living and working on the Mid North Coast affected your style of writing and approach to filmmaking?
Moving out of the city was a decision purely based on lifestyle. With three kids I just couldn't afford to live there and approach film making the way I want to. I love the city and I find it inspirational and great for people watching but I'm happy not living there.  Having said that, finding meaningful work is probably the biggest challenge for anyone moving to the country. In that regard I've be lucky so far.

I'm attracted to stories about people who live on the periphery and I find that being in the country sets up that opposition geographically. I also think it's important that regional stories are told by people that live regionally, not by people in the city who view what it is to live in the country in a fairly romantic sort of way. I'm more interested in digging a little deeper into what it is to live in a regional area. The good bits but also the difficult bits, the darker side of rural life. I'm not solely focused on telling just regional stories but they do make up a large part of the stories I want to tell.

Thanks Simon!  Visit www.simonportus.com.au for more information