♤ 、𝐭. ! 〃

Some people are just better unknown.

GREG: He would go on to be quite powerful, I'd imagine. Look at what he does to Sally, and she's a forensic psychologist. Mackenzie on the other hand has him pegged from day one. I love the Mackenzie character, because he was right all along - from the opening moment in the interrogation room when he lights his cigarette, with the lighter with the brotherhood symbol on it. Mackenzie is someway connected and quite rightly suspects Alex. Did you notice that, when he lights the cigarette in his first scene?

I didn't notice it in that first scene, but later on when we see it again.

Okay, last question. Is there anything that you, whether that's just "Greg" or the guy who made Like Minds - is there anything you want the people of the Like Minds community to know, or a question you'd like to pose to them?

GREG: Spread the word about the film.

Because it is a puzzler, I would like to know whether they got it or not, whether they enjoyed the ride they went on, whether they understood it one way, or another, because as I have said, I'm not saying one interpretation is right or one is wrong. The question is… Did they connect with the piece? Did the story take them on a meaningful journey?

I would have thought more people would have connected with the film in its psychological, puzzling kind of way and would want to delve into the deeper nooks and crannies of this story. Unfortunately with its limited release in 2006, not all understood the film.

They do now.

GREG: Well yeah, but on its release they didn't, and many critics didn't get it. I'll give you an example. When we first released the film, we released at Melbourne Film Festival to a packed house. It was fantastic, it was sold out. And it was a big cinema, one of the big two tier old fashioned cinemas. Beautiful. And that was very exciting. The audience was captivated. I remember this one scene where everything went dead quiet, and could have heard a pin drop. That night we got the first review and it was a guy in the cinema, he gave it a five stars - best thing he'd seen in a long time, etc. He was in on the story like you are, right? I sent that off to my colleagues in England, and they were excited. We get up in the morning and we got a three star review from a big newspaper guy who didn't get it. He didn't trash it - three stars out of five, still. But he didn't get it either, he didn't understand or care about the subtext, and one of his main issues with the film was that an Australian film from an Australian filmmaker was set in England. Not taking into account that it was the only way we could finance the film.

I knew some of it was filmed in Australia, but I didn't know how much.

GREG: A lot of it. The scenes where Toni Collette gets out of the car and her papers fly everywhere while she's going into her house. That was an Adelaide terrace, which is on the main road in Adelaide. We had to frame it a very particular way to avoid trees/road etc. And this was shot in the middle of summer, it was about 42 degrees outside and Toni’s got that jacket on. So we had a big wind machine that we borrowed from the people who did the wind FX on Mad Max and we were blowing all this air saying, "Look cold, look cold!" But it was bloody hot. Also the scene in the underground car park where she talks to the Headmaster. It was so hot down there, and they're trying to look cold.

Most of the exteriors were shot in England, we spent about four weeks based in Leeds shooting in surrounding suburbs and townships like Giggleswick.

Great location.

GREG: It was really cool, it's a school with a really amazing church. I loved the English locations; they were amazing and steeped in history. However because it was a co-production between Australia and England, I had to shoot a certain percentage in Australia. So it was a tricky balance. I think we got away with it.

I mean, I live in Leeds and the whole time I was like, oh yeah! That's Leeds.

GREG: Nigel's house. Yes, that's in Leeds. But then the backyard, that's in Adelaide in the middle of summer and it's meant to be winter, so we had to go around finding all these dead trees for when they're putting the guts into the fire. And it's hot, right? It's a boiling hot night in Adelaide, the cicadas are going off.

Another instance is when Toni pulls up in the car to Nigel’s House - the wide shot of the car is in Leeds, but all the action in the car is shot in the suburbs of Adelaide. We had hoses running down the windows to make it look like it was raining. And when she's walking down the path and I'm travelling behind her head - that's a double in Leeds.

Really?

GREG: Yeah, just that shot. The rest of the scene was Toni, but in Australia. I knew I wanted to have a shot of Sally walking down the driveway of Nigel’s house in Leeds, but Toni never went to England. We couldn't make it work with her busy schedule. However with the psychology of this particular shot, I knew we could get away with not showing her face. So even if it had been Toni, I would have been following behind her anyway.

You've got so many minutes you're going to shoot in a day. You've got to get the coverage, you've got to make sure your actors are in the right headspace and everyone is comfortable.

When people say I'm a writer – I think, really I'm really a conduit to the story, I rely on my team to help me bring my vision of the story to the screen. Without them there wouldn’t be a film.

You're the vehicle for it.

GREG: Yeah, the story is bigger than me. I might be the originator, but it came from all sorts of places, like my documentary idea. It was an ever evolving process.

Even the dialogue can evolve. As an example, I was doing a read through with Eddie and Toni during pre production. Sometimes, Eddie would politely say he wouldn't use this word because it sounds too Australian. How about this word? It means the same thing, but better slang for the region. Well I'm happy with that, it sounded natural. It was a great process and helped Eddie take ownership of the lines to help mould the character of Alex. And helped me in the writing process.

There are also times that the words don’t change but the way the actors mould them make a huge difference. I remember Toni had a monologue, this thirty second piece. As she read it, I'm so taken aback by her incredible performance that I didn't add changes or make notes. It just sounded so different to what I'd written, I asked her what she changed and Toni looked at me almost perplexed, and said she'd changed nothing. It was the way she took my words and expressed them in a way far beyond anything I could have imagined.

It was a wonderful journey writing Like Minds and being given the opportunity to bring it to the screen. I thank you all for watching my film and I am thrilled that 20 years on the conversation continues! - Greg J. Read.