“CLEAN is an exploration into the hidden world of trauma cleaning, which is the business of cleaning death, hoarding and squalor. Our main focus is the journey of incredible business owner Sandra Pankhurst, whose own life is full of ups and downs and whose declining health has left her at a crossroads. It is about everyday trauma, healing and finding acceptance.” Filmmaker Lachlan McLeod on CLEAN which screens at SxSW 2022.
Welcome to SxSW! Is this your first SxSW experience? Are you attending in person or doing the virtual fest?
Unsure as of right now, but hopefully in person!
How did this whole project come together? Give me a rundown from the preparation to execution to now!
This project initially began as a short film with a focus on the trauma cleaning work itself. After a few months of filming it became clear the stories of Sandra and her clients were the part we should really be focusing on. In particular, Sandra was at a defining moment in her life. She was coming to grips with her declining lung condition and what that meant for her ability to work in the job she loved. We were lucky enough to capture the last job she was ever a part of and the subsequent new direction she decided to go in. Once all of this came to light we knew this was going to be a feature film.
The other part of the execution was to film a lot of content and really get to know the people we were filming. We knew we weren’t going to be able to use all of our footage but it meant that people would be comfortable around us and it would help us decide which “stories” were relevant to the larger ideas we wanted to include in the film.
When it came to Sandra herself, we would film anything that seemed like it could fit into a story-line further down the track. You never know how things are going to end up in this type of documentary, but with Sandra there were endless interesting things happening in her life so we would capture it all as it happened.
We ended up with 16 terabytes of footage and the main structure of the film itself was a bit of web to figure out in editing. There were elements of Sandra’s past and present to weave in alongside client and character stories. After many iterations we used Sandra’s journey as the backbone of the story and figured out how everything else would fit around her. In the end, I think this approach drew out some really nice parallels between everyone and highlighted Sandra’s own Mantra which is “trauma can happen to anyone”.
While working on a project, what’s your creative process?
For the types of observational documentaries we shoot I think the most important thing is to develop a real relationship with the people you are filming. You have to understand how they think about life and then imagine how they might fit into what you want to achieve; both the story and the ideas in that story.
The profession of trauma cleaning is such a heavy one and so it makes it really difficult to know how to approach this film in a way that doesn’t just leave the audience feeling terrible. It has to have a nice balance of sensitivity and humour. Sandra and her staff really made this documentary possible in this sense because they had both of these qualities. For them, clients are people who have had ups and downs like everybody else.
Once you have a good relationship and trust with subjects, the conversations and interviews become genuine. They take on a different feel to those that you see with quick turnaround TV documentaries. From this point on, the focus then can move to what the story itself is and what ideas you want to emphasize.
The edit is always an enormous process for us as we normally have filmed way too much content. But it is here we can refine our ideas further and see them fit together and come to life.
What was your biggest challenge with creating this feature, and what was the moment where you realized “Yes, this is IT!”?
There was a lot of uncertainty around our ability to make this film because of Sandra’s health. The film is structured around a master interview with Sandra, which was to provide important context and tie together the footage we shot over the years. COVID delayed this interview for months, but then Sandra’s own health took a real turn and we had to further delay this a number of times.
Miraculously, there was a very short window where she was in great spirits and reasonable health. It may have been a good dose of steroids. We shot for two days, Sandra was amazing and at that point I knew we had a film!
I am a tech person, so I would love to know about the visual design of the movie from the cameras to the formats used and how it was made from a technical standpoint!
Our team is small and the majority of this film was shot in a run and gun fashion. As we developed the filming over the years we changed our cameras a few times too. The colour grader hated us for this. In the end, most of the actuality footage was shot using a Canon C500 which is full frame so has a nice depth to its image. It is also a good light camera that is easy to be mobile with.
The other visual component of the film were recreations from Sandra’s life. We wanted these to have a cinematic, “larger than life” feel to fit Sandra’s own story. We used an Arri Alexa and larger crew. I think these recreations work well for filling in the gaps of Sandra’s incredible past life.
What are you looking forward to the most about showing your movie at SxSW?
I can’t wait to see an audience reacting to the film. After spending so long editing it and watching countless iterations of it I am now desensitized to all of the little moments in the film – from Sandra’s jokes, to the feeling of being in these extreme cleaning situations. We made the film so people would watch it and this is where this will finally happen.
Where is this title going next? More festivals or a theatrical or streaming release?
This is still yet to be seen. There will certainly be more festivals and a theatrical and TV broadcast release in Australia. Our sales agent will be at SXSW seeing what happens there too.
What is the one thing that you would say to someone who is wishing to get into making movies, especially now as the world is changing at such a fast pace?
I will keep this confined to documentaries. I think I would say go out and do it and make sure you enjoy the process. Know that you probably wont make much money, but there are other parts of it that can be really rewarding.
And final question: what is the greatest movie you have ever seen at a film festival?
The most impactful was a documentary about the Syrian civil war called FOR SAMA. It follows a journalist and her husband who is a doctor providing makeshift hospitalization to civilians caught in the conflict. They have a child called Sama. It is a very unexpected story of hope in the worst conditions you could imagine.
This film and many others like it will be showing at South By Southwest taking place March 11-20. For more information point your browser to www.sxsw.com!