Ready to Risk it All? How Kinolime Stepped In for Pushing Daisy | Kinolime Podcast Ep 32

Show Notes

Kinolime came to the rescue for this film. Danny and John discuss how Kinolime saved Eduard Mitra, the screenwriter behind Pushing Daisy, providing the funding he needed after applying on a whim never expecting to reach the top three, let alone win.

In this episode: -- Kinolime to the Rescue: The competition’s funding was the critical factor that saved Eduard Mitra from going into personal debt to fund his script, Pushing Daisy. -- An Unexpected Win: Eduard entered the competition on a complete whim and did not expect to crack the top rankings, let alone win the entire contest.

-- Rapid Production: The team has moved fast over the last two weeks, finalizing the cast and executing an intense 4-day set build. -- Next Steps: With the filming wrapped, the focus has now shifted to post-production and editing to finish the project

Full Transcript

[00:00]

we would try to raise more money and kind of pay him back effectively.

[00:03]

But the keynote line simply saved us.

[00:07]

The gun is loaded. We're just ready to shoot at that point.

[00:10]

And we did. We shot it. We wrapped and we're incredibly excited.

[00:25]

Welcome, keynote liners. This is so exciting because we are

[00:28]

catching up today with Edward Mietra, the winner of the short film competition.

[00:34]

We just wrapped two weeks ago here at Keenaline. I'm John Tram,

[00:37]

to my right, your left, Annie Murray. We have these really cool head pieces and I feel like secret

[00:41]

service. Edward, what's going on, man? How are you? Hey, I'm really good. I'm really good.

[00:47]

Really excited to talk to you. Yeah, everyone at home, he's done, he filmed the short already.

[00:52]

We just won two weeks ago. The short's done. That's incredible. But what's been going on?

[01:00]

Update us in the last two weeks since the day we told you you won. Absolutely.

[01:07]

So the sheer epicness of this project basically meant that we started prepping it quite a while ago.

[01:16]

We signed up for the competition, honestly, not expecting to win.

[01:22]

The email that we got from Danny, that basically we qualified for the last 26 was absolutely

[01:30]

mind blowing and we got really excited. But a lot of it was we were planning to go ahead with it.

[01:38]

We tried not to rely too much on out-of-funding. So we self-funding quite a lot of it ourselves.

[01:45]

But we were still kind of short. So we applied to competition. We applied for funding.

[01:49]

We were getting favors left right in the centre. But everything was sort of ready to go.

[01:56]

When we got the news that we qualified for the final 26, then the final 10, then the final 3,

[02:03]

and then just the crazy climax of actually winning it. It was simply mind blowing and it helped us

[02:13]

absolutely immensely because we were going to go shoot it by going into debt effectively. So

[02:20]

our producer was going to front the money and then we would try to raise more money and kind of pay

[02:25]

him back effectively. But he and I were simply saved us and we went into production. So a lot of it,

[02:32]

as I was saying during the announcement, the gun is loaded. We're just ready to shoot at the point,

[02:38]

at that point. And we shot it. We wrapped and we're incredibly excited to share with the world

[02:47]

this week exactly what we shot. And we're going into post-production as we speak. So yeah.

[02:53]

That's incredible. So take us through what the few days after winning this. Because you said the

[02:59]

gun was low and you're ready to shoot. So what was it like winning and getting the money,

[03:05]

like just like was it just all systems go once the check cleared?

[03:09]

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we had. So we had tentative dates with our leads.

[03:17]

And effectively the communication was we wanted. We can go ahead and shoot. We need to shoot

[03:25]

as soon as possible because the tentative days that we had were running out and they had other

[03:32]

engagements. So we really lit the fire to cost the other parts as well. And we were in the process,

[03:39]

I'm not going to go into too much.

[03:41]

Sure. Sure. Sure.

[03:42]

But effectively we cast the rest of the parts. So pretty much the larger business. So the staff room

[03:54]

crew outside of Daisy and James the day before we started building. We had the studio on

[04:03]

lot. We knew we had the studio. So that was really, really good for us because they gave us

[04:10]

sort of the flexibility of okay, we can shoot this week or we can shoot the next week. So we were

[04:16]

very lucky in that respect. We had crew pretty much or crew pretty much ready to go.

[04:22]

Yeah. And then it was just a last minute race to get the final details, you know,

[04:30]

catering sorted transport, the rest of the crew and the rest of the cast. Absolutely.

[04:38]

I'm kind of locking everything down and making sure that everything is in place. And we just

[04:43]

went ahead. The build lasted four days and we built directly on the stage.

[04:49]

Yeah, you sent us some photos for our viewers at home. Here's some amazing photos that Edward

[04:53]

sent us and you can see here the build. Look what he did in preparation. I mean, this is incredible.

[05:03]

Like you are a craftsman. I hope you built everything by hand yourself.

[05:07]

We didn't. We had a construction manager and a production design team who built this and we

[05:14]

sort of helped obviously as much as we could. But these guys are experts. And I think that's kind

[05:20]

of the secret behind all of this is it's kind of surrounding yourself with qualified people who

[05:24]

know what to do. And we found ourselves on set trying to help. And they're like, do you know what,

[05:31]

at this point, just stay away. We know what we're doing. And we helped as much as we could. But

[05:38]

you know props to those guys to Luke and the team and UGR production designer. They were

[05:44]

absolute legends and really pulled this through for us. Yeah, it's fantastic. And just as our,

[05:51]

you know, last sort of question here is what now? Right? Like the movie, you know, your short shot,

[05:59]

will tell us now give everyone in home like what's going to what's the next step for you guys?

[06:03]

So the next step is obviously post production where in talks with editors, we wanted someone

[06:11]

specifically with experience in high-end TV ideally. And we've reached out to a number of editors.

[06:19]

And we've we're basically down to the last option, someone who we absolutely love and we love

[06:26]

their work. And they seem to be incredibly excited about the project, which I think, you know,

[06:33]

talk into a lot of people in the inception of this. And basically we started working on, we started

[06:40]

writing the script two and a half years ago, really three years ago, maybe. But we started working

[06:49]

on the short about a year ago. So we started in 2025 sort of January, February kind of. Yeah,

[06:57]

I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, pretty much a year. Just discussing how we're going to do this,

[07:05]

what the plan is and just putting pulling stakeholders into the project. And getting people excited

[07:12]

about it, I think that's kind of the secret. Getting people involved, the people who care about it

[07:21]

and feel some level of passion towards it and want to give 110% because that's the reality of

[07:28]

short films. It's really, really, really hard for very little money if any at all. So you need

[07:34]

passion to kind of counterbalance that. And if there's something that you definitely have,

[07:40]

it's passion. It always exudes every time we talk to you. Edward, thank you so much for joining us

[07:45]

today. We wish you the best of luck. We can't wait to see a cut. Danny, any parting words?

[07:49]

My issue is I'm like, this is great, but like it feels like a big build. I'm unsure if they'd be

[07:54]

able to actually make this. And it's just so funny that, you know, even before I knew you, like,

[08:00]

if you would have told me that the moment we handed you the grant, you would be, you'd have

[08:06]

cameras rolling. It's spectacular. And I cannot applaud you guys enough.

[08:11]

That's how every production should have scrappy and amazing you guys were at getting this done.

[08:18]

Really awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. It's the

[08:23]

it's sort of a testament to the entire team. And really, that is the secret. As a brighter,

[08:29]

you know, surrounding yourself with people who have kind of the engine and the passion to make

[08:34]

things happen, you will make things happen inadvertently. So however optimistic and crazy the idea

[08:42]

is, you know, the right people can pull it through. So that's cool. Edward, thank you again for

[08:48]

trusting Keenaline with your story and your passion project. We look forward to seeing what you

[08:53]

got and everyone at home. Thanks for joining in. Edward, Meetra. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you.

Ready to Risk it All? How Kinolime Stepped In for Pushing Daisy | Kinolime Podcast Ep 32

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