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totalconway · 5 years ago

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Drinks at the Pub, ends in short film opportunity...

So a little back story first, I started performing stand up comedy in 2012 and by 2013 I was lucky enough to win the state leg of Australia’s largest open mic competition Triple J RAW Comedy and headed to Melbourne to perform on the ABC.

Following that experience I was given a lot of opportunities to perform support spots purely based on that RAW comedy credit.

One case of this was performing at Rottnest Island for their Rottofest summer comedy which was held every Friday during the summer. Rottnest Island is a hot bed of local and international tourist, and the Island’s Gov’s Tavern where the gig is held would often sell out (120+ People) the crowd was always a mix of high profile people and obnoxious drunks (most of the time both)

On one particular Friday night, I was performing, and not to brag blowing the roof off the joint and in the crowd was none other then the President of my favorite sporting team the Fremantle Dockers Football Club.

At the time, the Fremantle Dockers board was facing backlash from the supporter base because they wanted to move the Dockers training ground from their spiritual home of Fremantle Oval to a state of the art, purpose built training facility in Cockburn (Yes Cock Burn) which is about a 30 minute drive up the road.

So after the gig on Rottnest Island, I get introduced to the president of the Dockers with the intro line “Hey Sean, tell him what you think of the Cockburn move” and you can see his look go from chilled and calm to “I seriously got to deal with this shit on my holiday”. I just told him “I’m pumped for it” and I was, its been a good move for the Dockers and I started reeling off the benefits for the move etc etc. We hung out had a few beers and the whole night I was spun out that I was hanging with the president of the Dockers.

I went back to work on Monday telling people I got to hang out with the President of the Dockers, with a bit of fake bravado swagger to jokingly let them know I only hang with A-Listers now! After a couple of days I didn’t think anything of it and went back to gigging and working.

A few months down the track I get an email from the booker of Rottofest Summer comedy asking if I’d be keen to Star in a short film for the Dockers. Its not paid but if the film is one of three winners of the competition I’d receive one of the tickets to the USA which was up for grabs. Honestly, they had me at “Star in Dockers short film”.

Apparently the opportunity was between myself and a Perth duo called Henry & Aaron. Henry & Aaron are film makers/comic actors who pretty much went viral on youtube with every film they made (Talking millions and millions of views) and they lost out to my RAW comedy set that had about 12 views purely because I had a few too many beers with the president of the Dockers.

When I got the call to go meet them about the project I was incredibly nervous. I had a whole pitch prepared about why I was the best candidate for the job “I fucking bleed purple” because I was still thinking I had to audition for the film but essentially I had already been cast in the film. Their only concern was whether or not I could fit in the costume because I’m a big fat dude they had to see if I would be able to squeeze into it. The whole time I was terrified of ripping it because it’s a $3-$4K costume.

Once the costume fit (just) it was straight to work. It was a great project to work on because they gave me a lot of creative control of my character, and I really wanted to portray a David Brent (The Office) like character, like a really fat black sheep in a white herd.

So we started filming in September of 2013, just after the Dockers had beaten Geelong in an away game in the first week of the finals. So the Dockers had a weeks break before they played Sydney in Fremantle’s first home preliminary final in two weeks time. This was a huge moment for the club because If we win this it will be the first Grand Final the Dockers have ever been in.

The first day of shooting was super intimidating, not because I was meeting some of my football idols but because the night before the first day of shooting I watched a documentary called Catching Hell about the Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman who was blamed for the Chicago Cubs not winning a game that would of sent them to the world series. Not the best film to watch when you’re about to work with you’re sporting idols on the eve of the biggest game in the clubs history. To say it made me super paranoid the whole shoot is an understatement, and it didn’t help that the first shot of the day was with the Dockers marquee player Matthew Pavlich. The scene was me jumping on his back, FUCK RIGHT OFF. I’m twice the size of Pavlich and you’re dreaming if you think I’m jumping on his back. If you watch the scene I take the “mark” and I’m nowhere near Pavlich.

It was a great shoot because everything was time sensitive, the players had their other appointments so we literally only had 10 minutes for each shot with the players so we flew through the script.

I got to meet a lot of the players I was fans of like Ryan Crowley, Nat fyfe, I didn’t get to meet Michael Walters but the scene he’s in, my fat is hanging out of my footy jersey and I did hear him say to David Mundy “That dude looks like a bag of oranges” which was funny, but Ideally I would of preferred he made the joke to me so I could of gained a fan when I busted his balls back, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.

The last shot of the film was me gate crashing a press conference with Michael Barlow . Barlow did the interview and the CEO at the time did a big speech thanking the media for their support throughout the year and if they wouldn’t mind hanging around for 10 minutes so we could get our last shot. We smashed out the shot in 2 takes, boom we’re finished, I’m told not to tell anyone about the film until it airs the following week, easy enough right.

Wrong, the next day I’m back at work and people are looking at me like I’m the biggest piece of shit in the world, because one of the media outlets had filmed me gate crashing the Michael Barlow press conference, and passed it off like I was genuinely gate crashing the press conference.

I had to tell people it was for a film which didn’t help the situation because they thought because I do comedy it must have been some Jackass type movie I was doing. It also didn’t help the situation that Radio talk back shows were crucifying me saying how unfunny I was and how big of a dickhead I was for gate crashing the Barlow press conference, but I didn’t care too much because I knew the film was coming out the following week. It didn’t stop my Mum and my sister writing a long scathing letter to the radio station about how they should do their research before they try to shame their baby boy on the radio. Luckily I was able to stop them from sending it out.

The film came out the following week as well as the entries for the other films that we were competing against, the winners would be based on who had the most likes, shares and views. The first film we were up against was by the St Kilda Saints who managed to get Eric Bana to star in their film, it still makes me chuffed to think I starred in a film that went head to head with an Eric Bana film. The second film was by the Melbourne Demons which was a documentary about a child fan who was very sick, third place was us, and the rest of the films were Essendon Bombers which was fucking terrible and a few other teams who I can’t remember.

The film was released the night the Fremantle Dockers played Sydney Swans in a game which would determine who would be playing Hawthorn in the grand final the following week. Literally the clubs biggest game in their history at that point so the game was sold out and 50,000 people got to see me make an ass out of myself and it was humbling how much the Dockers supporters loved it. But more importantly the Dockers smashed the Swans and were headed for their first ever Grand Final.

Being the Dockers fan I am, there was no chance in hell we were missing out on seeing the Dockers play in their first Grand Final. I had cousin’s overseas who cut their holiday short to make it back in time for the Grand Final. It was such an amazing experience heading over for the grand final, and thanks to the film I was a bit of a star amongst Dockers supporters. I was flying over with my dad and at the same time One Direction were flying in and all these young preteen girls were waiting for them with signs and screaming for One Direction. I’m chilling with my dad waiting to board our flight and a family of Dockers fans came over and asked for a photo. All of these young preteen girls were looking at me with a confused look on their face wondering who I was and while they were distracted by me, One Direction walked past the crowd of fans with out any of them noticing.

The morning after we arrived in Melbourne we went straight to the Grand Final Parade which is one of the biggest events of the AFL Grand Final week. All the fans line the street to watch the two competing teams drive through the streets of Melbourne and ends with a big speech on the government steps and the captains of each club holding the trophy in front of their screaming fans. When the event finished all the Dockers fans turned to walk away and saw me in the street. Everyone stopped to shake my hand and to get photos, treating me like a full blown celebrity, even a girl who I had a crush on in High school asked me for a photo and I got to experience all this with my family watching. It was a very surreal and amazing experience to say the least.

The next day was the Grand Final, all the Dockers fans met at Federation Square before the game so we could march to the Melbourne Cricket Ground like soldiers marching to war. It was a sight that Melbourne people have never seen by an interstate club, which made me incredibly proud to be a Dockers fan. Being apart of the film, Dockers fans continued to stop and cheer me as we all marched to the MCG.

When we got to the MCG I was starting to get anxious for the game, my cousins could see me becoming more anxious, which is why they started screaming out "Look it’s the Unsung Docker” every 5 minutes. I had Dockers fans lining up to get a photo with me and then Hawthorn supporters and famous AFL commentators would walk past with a look on their face like “Who the fuck is this guy”

The Dockers ended up losing the Grand Final and we headed to the Dockers after party which felt more like a wake. After the Dockers lost the game I also found out that we also finished fourth in the film competition behind the Essendon Bombers who got the fucking Janoskians to pump out their film amongst their fans and got their views up with comments like “I’m only here because I like the Janoskians” (I’m still bitter about it). In one afternoon I managed to see my favourite team lose the ultimate prize and have my payment for the film pinched from me by some shit head kids, it was a rough way to end what was otherwise a truly amazing experience.

I wasn’t too disappointed though, the film helped me get an acting agent in Sydney which has lead to some amazing acting opportunities. I’ll share some more stories down the track. The Dockers unfortunately haven’t made it to another Grand Final since 2013, but hopefully one day I’m at the right bar at the right time to have a drink with the new president of the Dockers and we can get the wheels moving on The Unsung Docker 2

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