Kenta McGrath

Hole in the Ground
2008 • 39 mins

Zack drifts through his everyday existence, wandering the streets, meeting with friends he cares little for, and staring at the places and people that inhabit his world. This existence is punctuated only by brief excursions with a camcorder to film acts of depravity, the only activity that seems to stimulate him. Seduced by the power to create his own images and increasingly alienated from the world around him, Zack commits and records a tragic act that forces him to confront – and engage with – reality anew.

Notes
The ‘Hole in the Ground’, as it was unaffectionately known, was a huge derelict pit in the middle of Perth city, on which now sits the BHP Billiton building. It remained undeveloped for years as a result of various development bungles and became a beautiful eyesore that attracted wildlife, graffiti and plenty of garbage. I'd written a lot of the film around this location – including the ending, which was supposed to take place inside the pit itself – but we had to rush into production when we learned that construction was imminent. After a lot of negotiating we were a whisker away from gaining access, but the only shooting dates offered to us were on an Easter long weekend when we couldn’t afford to fork out for the associated public-holiday surcharges. So we never actually see the ‘Hole in the Ground’ in the film, although several scenes happen right next to it. We like to think that the spirit of the place still lives on in the film, and kept the title because it somehow works. I remember that Cody Fern was great to work with, and it was a fun and relaxed shoot despite the precariously low amount of film stock we had (the shooting ratio was something like 2.5 to 1).