Gallant banana’s Antarctic odyssey
It took nine years for fist time director Jodie Stack to produce the Antarctic odyssey Fruitless Journey.
The short film Fruitless Journey is based on Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal expedition to be the first person to reach the South Pole – with one difference – it’s seen through the eyes of a banana.
Directing the short film was almost as bothersome as the story of failure it documents.
“The film is based on a banana accompanying Scott to the South Poll, it’s narrated and is historically accurate, because it’s based on Scott’s diary,” says first time director Jodie Stack.
In 1912 Scott, an English Royal Navy officer, led a party of five to the South Pole only to find they had been beaten by a Norwegian expedition. On their return journey, Scott and all his four comrades died.
In the film, unbeknown to Captain Robert Scott, Banana and his fruit friends follow him in a wooden crate.
“Banana wants to feed himself to Scott before he dies of exposure.”
Banana starts out green and decays through the film. Stack went through around 100 pieces of fruit per week during filming, and made endless fruit cakes.
Fruitless Journey will debut at the New Zealand International Film Festival’s Homegrow: Quirky Stories, and Stack says the film encountered endless pit-falls.
In 2001 filming began at Christchurch’s International Antarctic Centre in the minus eight degree Snow and Ice room, where crew had to leave every 10 minutes not to freeze.
“The first Art Director refused to wear one of the jackets and got pneumonia,” says Stack.
Other crew left the country mid-production or left projects half-complete, a designer broke her arm during a shoot, and the production frequently ran out of money.
The Antarctic Centre was nice to them and only charged the film crew a donation which went towards the staff Christmas party.
After the disasters of the shooting, it took eight years to bring the film to fruition.
“In post-production there was a lot of technical stuff, like animation of Banana and his girlfriend Navel Orange daydreaming,” says Stack.
Stack finished the film with the help of animators at Wellington-based production company Another Planet, who she met during the 48-Hour Film Festival.
The film is sepia tone, apart from the colourful Banana and his fruit cohorts. It combines live action, puppetry, digital effects, and a combination of 2D and 3D animation.
The story-line was dreamed up by writer Jeremy Herbert while he sat eating a banana under Robert Falcon Scott’s statue in Christchurch.
Fruitless Journey, New Zealand International Film Festival’s Homegrown: Quirky Stories, July 16 to August 1.
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