Meet Thelma, the Fish Therapist with her soothing voice and bubble spirit...

The School of Fish and their teacher, Miss Fishlips...

There's the street gang - Blood and Mofo, fighting a bitter turf (surf?) war with Bob caught up in the Middle...

Mike and Jim - Good Crab and Bad Crab to Prawny the Shrimp...

...and Bob's long suffering wife.

Teaming up with Johnny Charisma, the two set about organising the idea into a filbale structure. Johnny came up with the idea of linking the scenes in a "Fish in the City" scenario, but when we sat down to write the script, Bob seemed to turn up in every scene, so "Fish in the City" became "Bob in the City"!

Play-Doh was cast in all the major parts, with a real prawn taking one small part as "Prawny the Shrimp". Voices would be supplied by Johnny, with additional voices by Michael and Belinda (Mirana).

Our set was constructed from a mattress bough for eighty dollars at Sleeping Giant (on a Thursday). There was a very nice saleslady there who asked all the right questions about who would be sleeping on the mattress etc to get us the right one for posture and back-support, but we just wanted to cut it up to make undersea rocks. (Our original idea was to use polystyrene foam - get a couple of those big blocks they use in construction sites, but they are an insane $300 per block!! Or so they told us when we said we were making a "movie".)

The mattress slashed beautifully - and with combinations of fluoro and regular paint, we had several modular sections that could be rearranged to represent various buildings in Bob's city. Various signage was generated on the computer, and a special base was cut our of some MDF, enabling us to build rooms with partial floors, so that our characters could interact with their surroundings to s stunning realistic level. Old venetian blind blades were hammered around the curved sections of the floor so that can could be poured into for the sea bed. Michael found tons of fish-tank props to dress the set, and these were also used in "End of the Line", Bob's companion film.

Filming took place over one very long night in the school library. When the first set - Thelma's Fish Therapy - was lit up it looked just magical - the video conveys about a quarter of the impact of this! A bubble machine was used in some shots to add a sense of - well, bubbles!

We took turns getting under the able and operating the characters. Voices were recorded live to speed up the creation process - no post-synching needed. It was nice and quiet in the library, with only occasional stirrings from Security.

At the conclusion of each scene, the set had to be destroyed on camera for the apocalyptic climax - though it had to be destroyed in a way that didn't wreck it, if you get me. Strategic placement of lights, a fog machine, and netting of different scales helped to create this effect. Luckily, Bunnings had plenty of netting in different scales. They also sold us some lino cheap to use in "End of the Line".

Characters came and went. In Bob's world, reincarnation is real, as the same blobs of Play-Doh were reused in several characters. Even Bob was re-born several times as he tended to dry out under the lights.

Filming ground along until four a.m., the last scene being the destruction of Bob's world. Polystyrene packing (free with any electrical appliance!!) was molded into semi-architectural shapes with the help of a blow-torch! Christmas tree lights served to illuminate the streets.

Editing took about a week, including the arrangement of Bob's music using Apple Soundtrack. After arranging and mixing, I couldn't get Bob's base-beat out of my head for weeks!! Some of the music tracks influenced the editing too: the scene that introduces Bob's recovery came out of some ambient loops in the program. And thanks to Glen Op Den Brouw, who's Richard III score was the inspiration for the style of the Bob soundtrack.

Bob's Fate

Bob didn't raise a stir at Tropfest, but rose from the dead and triumphed at the Short Fuse Film Fest in Campbelltown! Thanks to Mick Allen, the guy across the street from the school, who yelled it out as I was riding past one day!! Bob won the PICC prize at the festival - but best of all, entertained a cinema full of people!! It was incredible hearing the response to Bob! If only Michael could have been there!!

Thanks to the Short Fuse Festival, Bob is enjoying regular employment at the Liverpool Regional Museum, screening to positive response ("a cross between Finding Nemo and Tim Burton").

Get along to see it if you can!!