Where's Everybody Gone?

Ana Moraes meets first-time feature director Ringan Ledwidge and actress Amelia Warner

Isolated naïve English backpackers, stranded on the tantalizing Australian countryside.

Suspicious over-friendly American comes along. Expecting no more than a fresher Wolf Creek or a cleaner Hostel, I walk out the screening slightly disappointed. This is no usual backpacker’s thriller as I had predicted. The ingredients are all there, though the mix was altered and the result is a nicely presented, refreshing film.

After no longer than two hours of watching the film I am sitting right in front of its first time feature director Ringan Ledwidge and lead actress, Amelia Warner, who plays Sophie. The couple meet in Australia for a romantic holiday and casually end up befriending an overfriendly American stranger, Taylor (Scott Mechlowicz).

How was it shifting from commercials to film directing?

Ringan Ledwidge: To be honest what I most worried about were the practicalities really, for a commercial, the longest you have is five to six days but a film you shoot five days a week for seven weeks, so am I going to be able to do this? I didn’t really think until it was done really. The big thing really is the lack of money; if it rains when you are doing a commercial you just don’t shoot, do it next day, but in a film, especially a small budget film like this, if it rains, you shoot, you don’t get another day. It’s quite scary really… But I used to work with film agencies for my commercials and well, basically, my commercials were quite narrative anyway so it just felt natural. But it was absolutely something I wanted to try.

How come has this script attracted you?

RL: I got the script sent in to me about four or five years ago and it was much more of a slashing movie, a lot more extreme, a Wolf Creek-Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of thing. But I wasn’t really into that. But I loved the idea of the car, the landscape.

So how did you use the scenario to change the film’s “feel”?

RL: Part of the appeal to script was the setting, I had never been to Australia before but I just assumed that visually it would be really stunning so I wouldn’t need to spend loads of money on location studies, just going out a lot and find places which would be really interesting to have in a big scale. It was great shooting it. I used to be a photographer before I started directing so visually there was a lot of stuff naturally there to make the most of it and use the screen to show the side outside Sydney which is kind of enormous, really vast.

How was it filming in Australia and with such a small cast?

Amelia Warner: It was amazing, it was mad, from beginning to end. Thinking how far we travelled, it wasn’t just Sydney but the outback of it. It was really surreal.

RL: We had a really good relationship among the cast, you would have a laugh and that helped on the shooting. We had a good time in Sydney.

AW: But in the countryside, you sort of wonder if you get lost and you don’t know what to do; you think to run but, where? It’s the middle of nowhere; you can’t get away from it!

Any personal creepy stories of strangers while travelling?

RL: well, I had to kind of escape of someone once; it was a ugly situation and I didn’t really had a choice…

Any Future Projects?

AW: I am currently filming “The Darkest Rising”, set in the UK but all filmed in Romania! More travelling ahead…

RL: Mmm, maybe going back to commercials, we’ll see what comes along.

Gone’s chill-out feel of no strings attached, entangled with endless Australian deserts are swiftly transformed into a desolate and chilling setting, as the American drifter becomes more suspicious. Hopefully it won’t put you off summer adventures abroad.

Gone is on theatrical release now and is reviewed on page 46