It all started in 2015, when three high school friends in their last year of school decided they wanted to put in as little effort as possible. They graduated with bad marks but a ton of great stories. Cut to five years later and one of those boys has put all those stories into a movie. That movie is called The Library Boys.
The Library Boys follows Zane, James and Mitch as they are faced with the challenges of entering adulthood throughout their final year of school. Zane is a rebellious, loud mouth who becomes obsessed with Becca, the new girl at school. James is a laidback, stoner type but Beth, his long term girlfriend, is pushing for him to grow up. Mitch is just trying to lose his virginity but somehow becomes involved with Tilly, the most popular girl in school.
My goal in making this film was to fill the “Australian High School Film” shaped hole in cinema. I felt my experience had never been accurately represented on the big screen, so I decided to start writing what I knew. The end result is a combination of comedy and tragedy, exploring the ups and downs of adolescence, struggles with identity and the importance of friendship. We tackle both male and female stereotyping in teen cinema by exploring who these kids really are and the walls they have to put up to survive high school. It’s an honest and heartfelt portrayal, full of love and personal touches. And I want the world to see it.
My name is Zane Borg. I’m 22 years old. I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’ve wanted to be a filmmaker since I was 7 years old and watched Jaws for the first time. I would try sending scripts to Spielberg but he never got back to me. At 16, I stopped doing my homework and started making short films. I managed to get into some festivals internationally. That felt good. At 19, I started writing what would become “The Library Boys”, an autobiographical film about myself and my best friends, James and Mitch.
A year after completing the script, I’d assembled a cast of talented young actors, a highly experienced crew, and secured every location, including a brand new school library that was ours for two whole weeks.
After 30 exhausting but exciting shooting days, production was completed. We pulled through and got the hard part done, now it’s just a matter of putting it all together. That’s where you come in.
We’re asking for $15,000 to fund the post-production of our film. A large chunk of this will go towards hiring the technicians and spaces needed to give the film a cinema-quality polish, including colour grading, a 5.1 sound mix and ADR recording sessions. We’ll also be investing in developing an original score for the film, and licensing music from bands and musicians based around Australia. We have an editor signed on already and we’re hard at work on the beginning stages of an assembly edit. We’re aiming to have the film completed before the end of 2020.
Because without the support of people like yourself, personal stories like these can never be told. We’re a small production full of creative people donating their time and energy to create the best film possible. We’ve received no government grants or funding and have still managed to come this far. Now we need that extra push from you. Superhero films are great but we feel there’s room in the multiplexes for a different type of film. Help us to tell our story.
It’s not just another teen movie. That was our goal from the start. We didn’t want two dimensional characters. No jocks and cheerleaders. No females as sex objects. No thirty year olds playing fourteen year olds. If it wasn’t truthful, it didn’t go in the film. Teenagers are just as complicated as adults. They have their own conflicts and internal monologues that need to be considered in every scene. The stoner isn’t just a stoner. The bully isn’t just a bully. It was about peeling back every layer and finding the truth behind it all.
This was something that took months of rehearsals and countless redrafts to achieve but the end result is a film that plays more like a memory than a re-enactment. I’m confident audiences everywhere will be able to find a little bit of themselves in this film.
Your support is necessary to getting this film released, so as a thank you we have a ton of exclusive items up for grabs.
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Thank you for your support and we hope to see you at the premiere!
The good news is we’ve already done the hard part, the entire film has been shot. Now it’s just a matter of putting it all together. Editing, colour grade, original score, sound design and mixing are all important steps on the journey to any great film. $15,000 is a lot of money, but still needs to be allocated wisely. Finding the right people within our budget is integral. Extra focus will be placed on perfecting the sound mix and colour correcting in an actual cinema environment. It’s these little things that make for a polished film. We believe that there’s a market for this film in the same audiences who accepted films like Dazed and Confused, Booksmart and Superbad into their arms. Our goal is to create the best possible film that appeals to this audience. We plan to seek distribution once the film is completed. We will be entering film festivals around the world, creating a direct route to audiences and potential distributors. Come rain or shine, this film will be completed. We’re too far in to turn back now. And every one of our backers will be able to walk across that finish line with us.