Making Provenance

The idea for Provenance came about, as all good ideas seem to, in the pub one day in July 2015.

Ben Hecking, Harry Macqueen and Christian McKay had worked together on various films over the previous years and were looking to tackle a new project together.

Christian had some spare time and invited Ben and Harry to join him on a writing retreat in a small village called Entrecasteaux with the idea that they improvise a short film. Ben said that he wasn't particularly interested in doing a short film and that they might as well make a feature.

Ben and Harry had met two years before - in another pub - when Harry was looking for a cinematographer for a low-budget feature film he was going to be directing. The end result, Hinterland, was released to great critical acclaim in February 2015 and the production model - small crew, short shooting schedule - seemed like an achievable one for this new project.

The only problem at this stage was that no one had any idea what the film should be about. When asked why he had chosen Entrecasteaux as the location for the writers retreat, Christian mentioned that he had played in a music festival there twenty years before and had always wanted to go back.

In the idea of someone revisiting a place from their past, Ben saw the beginnings of a story and, a few days later, he sent out a short treatment.

A week later we were invited out to dinner by Amanda Atkins, who Christian had come across via other projects. She was impressed by Hinterland and a few hours later, after a fairly terrible pitch, she agreed to come on board subject to approving the final script.

In August 2015, with Amanda's assistance, Ben, Harry and Christian went to Entrecasteaux to thrash out the treatment and recce locations.