ABOVE: Colin Dixon is making his first film and shooting it in Coraki.
Susanna Freymark
Colin Dixon has a life that would make a good movie.
But instead of making that movie, he’s been working on one about a fictional murder mystery.
He has spent the past seven years editing a film script, getting funding, losing funding, finding new funding and lining up actors for it.
The drive to complete his feature length film Patched about bikies and brotherhood comes from his own life – his childhood.
“I was never a bikie,” Colin said.
“But when I was 12, the local outlaw motorbike club was over my back fence.
“Those guys used to help me with my homework.”
It took him only two days to write down the story.
Then, seven years to edit, edit, edit. He laughed.
“I hope it breaks the stereotype of a biker,” Colin said.
“Police and bikies are more similar then they realise.”
The film centres on the Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment laws brought in by Campbell Newman’s Liberal National Party government in Queensland in 2013 and repealed by Anna Palaszczuk’s Labor Party government in 2016.
One of the lines in the film highlights the impact of these laws on bikers.
“When I went to bed I wasn’t a criminal. When I woke up I was.”
Colin isn’t doing it alone. His partner Sharon Garrett supports him. They have lived through disasters and home evacuations from the bushfires and then last year’s floods.
They were on the roof with their Great Danes and a small dog as floodwaters rose in February last year.
They were rescued but had to leave the dogs and go to the evacuation centre at Coraki.
A kind man went out to their property and dropped off dog food while Colin and Sharon were at the evac centre. Days later when they returned, the dogs were OK. Several of their motorbikes were lost in the floods but they still have the Harleys they each ride.
Their house was a wreck though.
“We watched YouTube videos and fixed it,” Colin said.
That same strength and practicality has kept them going on the film. If Colin wavers in his determination, Sharon said, she’s always backing him.
“I give him kick up the bum to keep going,” she said.
The film is a “beam of light” Sharon said.
“And we’re old and we’re stubborn.”
And they’re obviously passionate about this film.
“It’s such a great story,” Sharon said.
Everything in the film will be Australian, she said.
“Australian actors, Australian music score, everything.”
Sharon will be doing the wardrobe for the film. Has she ever done it before?
“I’ll be learning as I go along,” she said.
Colin has secured Gary Sweet (Police Rescue, Tracker, House Husbands), Kim Wilson (Brides of Christ) and Nathan Jones (Mad Max, Troy) to star in the film.
He has worked with the actors over the years. Colin is in the film too.
Filming starts in Coraki in August – at the pub, the church and the service station.
Colin said the plan was to have the film out by Christmas.
Watch the Patched trailer below.
