Film in the works to immortalise The Golden Dawn

A filmmaker is crowdfunding to help present the last moments of an iconic Auckland music venue on the big screen.

Ponsonby music venue and bar The Golden Dawn closed its doors on March 24, and sound engineer Bob Frisbee and his team captured every last performance from the venue’s farewell summer of gigs.

Mr. Frisbee filmed the last performances with his team of 17 camera operators, 6 sound engineers and now alongside editor Dahnu Graham are in the process of creating a feature length film from the footage.

“Initially my idea was to record and film all of that in a time capsule sort of way. The film evolved out of that idea,” he said.

Mr. Frisbee said The Golden Dawnwas an “unexpected showcase type venue” and thought it would be worthwhile to document its final months.

The crowfunding campaign on boosted.co.nz will go mainly go towards the music licensing for the live performances in the footage, and Mr Frisbee hopes to include 25 full songs in the movie.

“It’s [producing the movie] cost me around about $13,000 so far, and realistically to finish the movie I’ll need about $25-30,000.”

“We’ve had a pretty good response so far, we’ve had a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of people saying they are really excited about it,” he said.

Matthew Crawley, who was the entertainment manager of The Golden Dawn, was initially hesitant about a film being made.

“I used to quite like the idea of something happening, and just happening without being able to look back on it.

However, Mr. Frisbee convinced him that the project would be worthwhile.

“The way that Bob [Frisbee] described what he had in mind was so convincing that I went for it, and now I’m so grateful that he twisted my arm,” said Mr Crawley.

He said if anyone was able to capture the unique flair of The Golden Dawn, it would be Mr. Frisbee –  Mr. Crawley said he gave Mr. Frisbee full access to capture over 100 live performances.

“He pretty much filmed everything that happened in the bar in the last three months.”

Boosted.co.nz projects and operations manager Donelle McKinley says that Mr. Frisbee’s project is a perfect example of a project being about more than just raising money.

She says his behind the scenes videos and updates are a great method to build an audience for the final project.

The funding campaign ends next Wednesday, 12 April, and at the time of publication almost $5,000 had been donated.

Mr Frisbee hopes to have the film ready for release around July this year.