Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich have the next ‘’Blair Witch Project’’ on their hands. For less than a million bucks, the Australian filmmakers have crafted a film that’s twice as scary, thrice as creative and oodles more exciting than their much pricier Hollywood competitors. CLINT MORRIS talks to Traucki about the rise and rise and rise of BLACK WATER.

Where does the idea come from?
I’d been thinking of ideas for a low budget film for a while. I heard Open Water was made cheaply so I decided to watch it. It was a good film, I liked its economy and how it turned simple things into difficult struggles then I watched the making of and the filmmakers revealed that they had made for the film for $150,000. I was really impressed and thought right I am going to make a $150K film. The thing is Open Water is an Australian story it happened up in the Great Barrier Reef. So I started thinking what other big predator are there in Australia and then it hit me, the Salt Water Croc.

Were you aware of ROGUE when you set out to do this?
I wasn’t until I went and saw Michael Robertson (BLACK WATER’S producer) and gave him the script to read. He said he loved the script it was a real page turner but did I know that another croc film was being made. I felt sick in the stomach for about a week. Luckily Michael said come on lets keep on going, persistence is a great thing.

How did you finance the film?
With a lot of luck and persistence. In the end it was financed half out of Australia and just under half from the UK and a chunk from the filmmakers.

Tell us how you kept the costs down? What sacrifices did you have to make?
Everything was considered from a cost perspective. For example, the location which we didn’t secure till well into pre and which we couldn’t make the movie without had to be within 20 miles of Sydney so we didn’t have to pay driving time and accommodation costs. In every department we kept the costs down by being resourceful and innovative and truly embracing the idea that limitation is good. We all sacrificed a great deal of our personal lives for close to a year but in terms of bringing a quality product to the screen we made sure we didn’t sacrifice anything. That was possible because we started off with a good idea and avoided were possible a conventional filmmaking approach.

You filmed real crocodiles – how is that possible?
We wanted a good “villain” and none of the croc films we’d seen had a good croc, they were either bad dummies or bad cgi, so we had to go for real crocs! It was possible because we know that we could get a great result by using compositing. Still it was hard work getting the right croc footage. The crocs didn’t really respect our storyboards, ungrateful lizards.

Tell us about the location you used
Traditional wisdom would have seen BLACK WATER shot in a studio with a fake swamp and a fake tree but we wanted BLACK WATER to be as gritty and realistic as possible, so that meant a real swamp. Plus the cost of a studio and a set was prohibitive.

The obvious thing to do would have been to go up to Northern Australia but that would have meant transporting and accommodating crew and cast. The budget dictated that the swamp for BLACK WATER had to be within 20 miles of the central business district of Sydney. The swamp also had to fulfil other needs. It had to have a tree that could hold three people, one with enough water around the base of the tree to give the appearance of a flooded river. Typically mangroves are spindly, unable to hold even one person, and grow in tidal regions that only fill with water a few hours a day. So finding the right tree was a real challenge. On top of this, there was the geography of boat to tree, location, cost and of course accessibility.

The search went on for many months, the perfect location proved to be very elusive. Using Google Earth to locate patches of mangroves in the Sydney region we extended the search to the south of Sydney and on one miraculous day stumbled across Gungah Bay, our perfect swamp location only 20minutes south of Sydney.

Was it ever a consideration to use more well-known actors?
On our budget- Nahhhhhh

When ROGUE came and went like it did, did it affect the release of your film?

Yeah it has, when we were trying to raise the production money Rogue’s presence affected us, lots of people looked at us as if we were crazy. You know they’re the big American money we’re the little Australian film, we were the underdog. Well we’ve sold to 42 countries so I guess we’ve proved them wrong. Now because Rogue didn’t do so well at the Australian Box office some of the exhibitors in Australia involved with that release aren’t so keen to go with another croc film. To me that’s a big mistake we are a very different film, you know we are based on a true tale, we’ve kept it gritty and real, we used real crocodiles, it’s like chalk and cheese and yet they are putting us in the same boat.

Like everything other challenge we’ve faced with BLACK WATER we’ll just be passionate, unconventional and resourceful and I am sure we’ll get there.

What’s the roll-out plan for Australia?
We are still in the process of finalising the theatrical release, talk is of a late April or May release but nothing is finalised.

What are you working on now? Is there a “Black Water 2” possibility?
No Black Water 2 for now. I am working on numerous projects but you know after my recent experience of being gazumped by a bigger budget film that’s similar to mine I am keeping my ideas to myself for now.