ABOUT THE CAST

LAURA WHEELWRIGHT  (Josie)

Laura Wheelwright is a dual AACTA-award nominee.

She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Animal Kingdom in 2010, and went on to receive her second nomination in the same category for Underground: The Julian Assange Story in 2013.

She has since performed in several television series, including Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and in Bec Kingma’s multi-award-winning short film Silent Night.

She won Best Female Actor at Tropfest 2013 for her lead role in the competition-winning short film We’ve All Been There.

Underground: The Julian Assange Story saw her playing a central role as Julian Assange’s girlfriend, and her co-stars included Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to a rousing reception and additional screenings were scheduled to meet demand.

 

FABIANA WEINER  (Samantha)

Fabiana Weiner won Best Supporting Actress at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival for her portrayal of Samantha in Wakey Wakey.

She is a recent graduate of the acclaimed 16^th Street Actors Studio and has featured in several short films including Clint Cure’s award-winning animation/live-action mash-up, Retribution.

Fabiana recently played Edie Segwick in the play Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame, directed by Noel Anderson.

Wakey Wakey marks her feature film acting debut.

 

ABOUT THE WRITER-DIRECTOR

ADRIAN GOODMAN

Adrian Goodman is best known as the writer-director of the feature film Wakey Wakey, which received an Australian Directors’ Guild Award, and was showcased at NewFilmmakers New York, among other accolades.

Released worldwide by Bounty Films, the psychological drama stars dual AACTA Award Nominee Laura Wheelwright (Animal Kingdom, Wolf Creek) and Fabiana Weiner (Lazy Bones, No Pink Cowboys), and features the music of The Birthday Party (with Nick Cave), Simon Eddy and Martin Jones.

Warped Perspective and Film Bizarro each included it in their ‘Top Films of the Year’ lists.

Adrian has also written and directed a number of acclaimed short films, including Migraine and Michael: A Love Story and The Happy High Laughter Club, which have each been awarded in the US and Australia and have screened at festivals around the world.

He has been profiled in IndieNYC, Melbourne Weekly, Undercoat Magazine, Couturing and Film Bizarro and has been a featured guest of various Australian radio shows including Movie Metropolis on 3NRG FM, Movies at Dusk on 3WBC FM, JOY FM’s Sci-Fi & Squeam, and more.

Working with a number of production companies, Adrian has created video content for Universal Studios, ME Bank, Metropolitan Fire Brigade, State Library Victoria, Melbourne Football Club, Melbourne Museum, University of Melbourne, Axiell Group, Dermatology Institute of Victoria, Chemist Warehouse, Script Skincare, Facecoach, McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park, Gallerysmith, and many more.

Adrian has completed a Master of Film & Television (Narrative) at the Victorian College of the Arts, and a Graduate Certificate of Screen Drama (Screenwriting and Directing) at AFTRS. Previously, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne.

Adrian directs, shoots and edits videos in a freelance capacity, helping all kinds of people and companies to reach their audience. He also has several feature film projects in development. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss working together.

 

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

SIMON EDDY

Simon Eddy is responsible for the lion’s share of the music on Wakey Wakey.

He is a prolific Melbourne musician whose work appears under a range of pseudonyms across the gamut of musical genres, from doom metal to ambient electronica.

For Wakey Wakey, music was incorporated from his prog-doom-rock outfit Julius Quasar, and his electronica and Spaghetti Western-inspired series Woodland Creature, among others.

Simon Eddy is a 2010 graduate of the JMC Academy, having earned a Bachelor of Audio Engineering. Simon works as a freelance audio engineer, while also doing casual stints at studios including Melbourne’s renowned Sing Sing.

 

ALSO FEATURING,

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

The Birthday Party were one of the wildest and most challenging post-punk groups to emerge in the early 80s, creating raw and pulsating soundscapes that provided the perfect setting for vocalist Nick Cave’s stories of violence, religion and perversity. As the Birthday Party’s career progressed, Cave’s vision got darker and the band’s songs alternated between dirges to blistering sonic assaults.

Originally, the Australian band was called the Boys Next Door, comprising Cave, lead guitarist and fellow bandleader Rowland S. Howard, Mick Harvey (guitar, drums, organ, piano), bassist Tracy Pew, and drummer Phill Calvert. After the Door Door album and Hee Haw EP under that name, the band moved to London and switched its name to the deceptively benign Birthday Party. Once they arrived in Britain, their demented, knotty post-punk began to gel. They released their first international album, Prayers on Fire, in 1981, earning critical praise in the UK and US.

After the release of 1982’s Junkyard, the Birthday Party moved to Germany, where they began collaborating with experimental post-punk acts like Lydia Lunch and Einstürzende Neubauten.

 

AND,

MARTIN JONES

Martin Jones is an English concert pianist. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Guido Agosti, Guy Jonson, and Gordon Green. He has been highly regarded since debuting in the international arena when he won the Dame Myra Hess award in 1968.

His London debut was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1968. His New York debut was at Carnegie Hall, also in 1968. Jones has performed with various orchestras throughout the world, including the London Festival Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Welsh Orchestra. Besides many standard concertos, he has played the Ferruccio Busoni concerto and the Samuel Barber concerto, as well as concertos by William Mathias, John McCabe, Constant Lambert, and Xaver Scharwenka. He toured Canada with the BBC Welsh Orchestra and has given recitals in Florida, Tennessee, and California, a Brahms recital at Wigmore Hall in 1993, and radio broadcasts in Britain, Ireland, and the United States. He was pianist-in-residence at University College, Cardiff, from 1971 to 1983.

Jones performed the piano part in the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack to Howards End, performing Percy Grainger’s Bridal Lullaby and Mock Morris. The score was by Richard Robbins.

 

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

BRENDAN KROTZ

Brendon Krotz has worked for several years as a director, editor, and DOP for a variety of production houses in Melbourne, Australia. Initially a director, he has expanded his work to include editing and camera work for television, short films, documentaries, and commercials.

“Wakey Wakey was definitely an intense journey. A feature shot on a very tight and hectic schedule with an interesting location and a director with a strong visual sense.  I was a big fan of the script and of director Adrian Goodman’s previous work and knew that he had a particular vision to make something unique. Once we were off and running it all seemed to fit pretty well between us. I was particularly impressed with his gutsy decision to shoot the film with Tri-X reversal – a high contrast black and white film stock. The colour correction filter we used for exteriors brought out skin tones and blue skies and the results are some amazingly beautiful and punchy raw images!

We shot in various locations, including a huge, stark-looking quarry near coastal Geelong, Victoria. One of the climactic scenes of the film shot here required backwards running for extended periods with a hand-held camera. Despite the difficulty of the shot, it turned out well and suited the intensity required for the scene.

The magnificent Gottlieb House was also a privilege to shoot at. Its harsh concrete exterior and high polished concrete ceilings allowed for an enormous amount of experimentation. I’m now a few years into my career and I’m absolutely loving shooting all these diverse interesting projects. Wakey Wakey is something I’m enormously proud of. It’s truly like nothing I’ve ever made before,” writes Brendan.

Wakey Wakey is Brendon’s first feature film in the DOP role since graduating through the VCA School of Film & Television in 2009.

 

SUPERVISING PRODUCER 

SANDRA SCIBERRAS

Sandra Sciberras graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts/Faculty of VCA and MCM in Film and Television in 1996. Only one year out of film school, Sandra moved into directing commercials and music film clips.

While working on several commissioned screenplays, Sandra began to raise finance for her first feature film, Deeper Than Blue, which she also directed. The independent drama was one of the first feature films to shoot on HD in Australia at the time.

Sandra’s second feature film, The Caterpillar Wish, which she wrote and directed, was released in 2006. Nominated at the Film Critic’s Awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, it went on to win an AFI award for Best Supporting Actress Suzi Porter and an IF award for Best Art Direction.

Sandra is currently enrolled in a Masters by Research and has been teaching at Film and Television as a Post Graduate Lecturer in Narrative since 2007. With a passion for the Australian film industry, teaching the up and coming film practitioners at one of the finest film schools in the world, gives her great pleasure. Sandra has also recently completed her third feature film Surviving Georgia, which she wrote and co-directed. The film was released theatrically in 2011, and stars Shane Jacobson, Pia Miranda, Holly Valance, Spencer McLaren and Caroline O’Conner.

 

PRODUCER

SHAUN McALPINE

Being surrounded by those shaping New Zealand’s film and TV industry in the 1990s (McAlpine’s father having founded New Zealand’s first private television production company, Communicado, which went on to produce the film Once Were Warriors (1994)), McAlpine was interested in a variety of media roles from an early age.

He also has a musical background and recorded, financed, and released his own record, The Northern Lights (1999) when he was 19.

After graduating from the University of Auckland with a double major in Film, TV & Media Studies and History, McAlpine worked for several different production companies before embarking overseas. Having spent six years teaching English and Cultural studies in Asia and traveling the world, sidelining with travel journalism and photography, McAlpine eventually returned to his birthplace of Australia for a reengagement with film at the prestigious Victoria College of the Arts Film and Television School. Graduating with a high distinction with a postgraduate certificate in Film & TV Producing Shaun produced four short films that year including God’s Fools (2010) which won the Grand Prize at the Paris Cinerail Film Festival.

In 2011, he production managed music videos for Stonefield, commercials for Hyundai, and was involved with Melbourne based production houses December Media, 360 Degree Films, and Renegade. McAlpine co-produced the short film Relationship Rehab (2011) as a pilot for a television series.

He has worked on the Screentime (Underbelly) series Brothers in Arms as a producers‘ assistant under series creator Roger Simpson. Shaun then moved on to groundbreaking indigenous ABC series Redfern Now, overseen by Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, The Street), and Louisa Kors (The Slap), and featuring the directing of Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) and Rachel Perkins (Bran Nue Dae). Shaun is currently involved in the production office with Upper Middle Bogan, a new ABC comedy series from the makers of The Librarians, while also developing his own material.

 

PRODUCER

NICOLE JOHNSTONE

Nicole Johnstone has a background as a freelance journalist for the Australian Financial Review, photography agency Corbis, and as a travel writer for Life & Leisure.

She has directed and produced short films as part of her three year Bachelor in Screen Production at Macquarie University, Sydney. Two of the films she worked on had public screenings at the Sydney Opera House. An expert on pitching and production managing, Johnstone worked with director Goodman twice before as producer of his shorts Migraine And Michael: A Love Story (2010) and Immaculate Virtue (2010) and aptly navigated the intensive ten day shoot for Wakey Wakey to allow the film to be properly completed.