Luke Rex in Bonding.

A solitary figure at an empty bar, CIA clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr John Flemington, is planning to visit his girlfriend in Mexico when he is pressured by mysterious underground operatives to join them on a secret mission.

Here, Bonding director, writer, producer and star, Luke Rex Psy.D. writes exclusively for Cinema Australia about the making of his film.

“I learned a lot from this experience. I really did! And the learning continues. I have to keep reminding myself that no matter what the outcome is now, Bonding will always be a success.”

Article by Bonding director, writer, producer and star, Luke Rex Psy.D.

I appreciate the power of cinema’s ability to raise our awareness of social and political issues. That can be an important function of art if not an essential one. I’m also a big believer in films being made for pure enjoyment and entertainment, a film that helps people to forget their troubles, if only for five minutes. Films can also become that catalytic mechanism whereby an individual’s attention is absorbed into an imaginary world up there on the big screen – that’s magic, and perhaps there is something to be said about the cognitive, emotional, and mental health benefits of forgetting about one’s own thoughts for a time as your being-ness settles into the darkness of the shared cinematic space. 

For me, a synthesis of these two is the ultimate: a film that entertains and at the same time illuminates consciousness, raises our level of consciousness, not just of the world around us, but of our personal identity. This is what Bonding sets out to do. There’s unapologetically no political or social commentary. Firstly, it seeks to entertain you, keep you guessing, to have you thinking more about the story. Original in its own right, Bonding also offers a parallel universe to a cinematic world that has enthralled viewers for decades. This 13-minute exotic-spy-thriller short, if we have delivered it in the intended way, will prompt cinema-going audiences to want more. Additionally, the film can be understood on deeper levels – there is a bigger story too, to this little short. 

In May of 2022, I graduated with my doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. It had been a 10-year journey immersed in academia (starting back at community college), mental health settings, and the odd audition and short film whilst working in rooftop bars, and teaching acting on the weekends to teens in North Hollywood. I had decided to go back to school, somewhat haunted by the fact that I had dropped out of my bachelor’s degree in Sydney, Australia at UNSW in 2002, where I had been jumping between majors, from a BMus/B.A. back to a B.A. English major/Spanish minor. It all felt like too much at the time, and my dropping out felt justified by obtaining the lead role in an independent feature, Picto Crime, which went on to screen at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2003, of all places, in Los Angeles, where I now live. It seems like all roads lead back to the city of Angels.

I moved to Los Angeles in January 2009 after a 3-year stint in New York where I had been pursuing my acting career. I was one of the lucky Aussies to win a greencard in the lottery and moved to ‘The Big Apple’ in 2006. As I’m writing this article it is occurring to me how incredibly interconnected one’s life is when we reflect and look back on how events have unfolded, seemingly miraculously: the experiences we’ve had, the people we’ve met, the personal and professional struggles we’ve overcome. I feel very blessed to be sitting right now in my California bungalow writer’s retreat cottage not a mile from Paramount Pictures, a place that holds a special place in my heart, and whose image was captured in a photo I took during that LA festival in 2003, a photo that now sits upon my dresser. All roads do lead back to LA.

Jannica Olin as Anastasia Mansfield in Bonding.

It seems like everything has come full circle. After graduating with my doctorate in May 2022, I promised myself 3 months off. As I reflected on what I might do in the summer of 22, I started to become curious as to my ability to direct a short film. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Since I had the time, I had the energy, but what would I direct? Around December of 2021, I began to flirt with the idea of a scene in a bar in London where a young James Bond (pre-Mi6), in his early university days, is being watched by Mi6 and eventually approached by them for the first time. Then I started to entertain this idea of a moment in the bar where the barman stirs his martini instead of shaking it, or did he prefer stirred martinis back then? Not really that interested in playing the role of Bond, I had the idea, “What if this wasn’t James Bond, but instead, his son? A son he never met, a son who never met his father.” Bonding was born.

The ultimate psychological motivation behind this US/AUS coproduction, Bonding, was interestingly unrelated to the film itself – I just wanted to see if I could direct a film. Any film. I was prepared to fail. Although I had directed many actors in plays, and scenes, and even co-directed a couple of shorts over the years in Australia, New York, and LA, this would be different. This would be me directing my first short film, a film I ultimately would write, act, executive produce/produce, finance, co-compose, and play the music in. Talk about putting your art out there! I told myself, “Luke, no matter how this turns out, you are going to learn a lot from this experience.” And so I committed to it wholeheartedly. And learn a lot I did. 

On the writing front, I started to develop the script and flesh out the backstory in greater detail to form a clearer, more logical explanation of how the character might have become a clinical and forensic psychologist, and also to gain greater insight into the character’s psychology, especially concerning his understanding of his own identity. I’ve always been interested in the theme of identity having written about this in my English class back at Los Angeles Community College when we were exploring the history and identity of Los Angeles. Interestingly, my work as a therapist (predominantly working with teenagers) is submerged in the adolescents’ developmental phase of identity versus role confusion per Eric Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development. It seems like all roads lead here.

On the producing side, I made a commitment to step into this role as professionally as I could. For me, this meant forming a production company (9 Lives Entertainment), creating a logo (thanks Kevin Nordstrom), production coordinating, locking in a great location, hiring crew, and actors (friends), hiring postproduction services (I went with a turnkey solution), paying for insurance, etc. Once the location was locked in, preproduction went very smoothly until one week before the shoot when my DP called to inform me he was stuck in the UK covering the passing of the Queen and would not be back for the shoot. Oh no! Fortunately, he offered me a fantastic referral in DP Laura Jansen who was great to work with and did an outstanding job on this short.

On the casting side, a good friend of mine, Jannica Olin, was always in my vision for the leading lady. Jannica has a great personal story of her own. A Swedish-born actress who moved to LA in 2011, Jannica acquired alopecia in 2014. It rocked her world: a blonde hair, blue-eyed Swede trying to make it in Hollywood – and now bald. To her credit and through her own sojourn and healing, Jannica embraced this new identity and has worked it into her art creating a one-woman show called (IM)PERFEKT.  She is excellent in Bonding playing Anastasia Mansfield, the leading lady, and mysterious underground female operative. Even on the day of the shoot, I told her, “We don’t know where you’re from. It’s a secret, underground organization. Let the viewer decide.”  On the one hand, this is a spy-thriller centered in your standard geo-political universe and, on the other, the operatives are mysterious, and it is unclear who they work for or maybe even where they are from. 

Ryan Stroud as Darius Lucas in Bonding.

For those readers who might be interested in additional interpretations of the film (most likely outside of the first-time viewer’s experience), the theme of identity in Bonding also aims to transcend our typical day-to-day way of understanding one’s identity as 9 to 5 humans and instead offers an interpretation of a deeper identity we herald. Through the use of “runes”, I became very interested in integrating a layer of esoteric subtext to expound this theme of greater identity to further intrigue the viewer. According to most scholars, runes are a series of ancient symbols developed around the 1st and 2nd century AD. Derived from Germanic cultures, they were used in writing, mainly on stone or metal. However, it is believed by some, through an investigation and research into intellectual and magical realms, the hieroglyphs are of a highly complex nature – revealing the runes to be ideographs expressing a process and flow of force and energy (Thorsson, 1994). In Bonding, in consultation with my makeup artist, Ingrid Weeks, we aimed to synthesize two runes: Algiz (protection, the power of human life and spirit, the force that draws the consciousness of people toward the realm of the Gods) and Sowilo (sun, magical will active throughout the multiverse, dynamic connection between heaven and earth). This synthesized symbol features in the short, and also in a subliminal fashion (hint: keep an eye out at the end of the trailer or in the opening credits of the full film).

The total budget for Bonding was just shy of $US15k, of which approximately 80% was allocated to wages. Everybody was paid (except myself) from the location manager and production assistant to DP, actors, and postproduction turnkey services. There comes a time when people (i.e., artists) should not be working for free and thus need to be paid for their time. I had done enough free projects so I thought it important to put my money where my mouth was, and I made an effort to pay people well. Actors were paid triple SAG rates for a SAG micro-budget film (<$US20k). We shot the 9-page short in 14 hours (from 12pm-12am) plus two hours of overtime for everybody. And yes, I had craft services, catering, and a well-fed crew.

The joy of working on this short was in having the mentality and attitude that everyone I worked with would have something extremely valuable to contribute to the film. For example, I had great talks with Ingrid about tattoos and this evolved into a conversation about the runes which were then implemented into the story, and aided in further development of the characters of Darius Lucas, Jannica’s operative/partner (played by Ryan Stroud) and Bo the bartender (played by Darren Lipari). It was really cool to see how the aesthetic vision in the production (from many hours creating color palettes on Pinterest), in particular, the 60-second bar duologue scene between Bo and Darius was brilliantly complemented in post-production by sound designer Daniel Teo and post-producer Pete Szijarto, who coordinated and oversaw the post process. Daniel was also inspirational in co-arranging and co-composing the final track, Ascension with Greg Beaton and myself. Jeff Turmes on saxophone made a grand contribution to this piece.

The greatest advice given to me was the day before the shoot when I drove to my friend and associate producer’s house, Christian “Tico” Herrera to pick up his Ticovision lenses. He said to me in his cool Costa Rican accent, “Lucas, do what you want. Do whatever you want man. Don’t worry about crossing the line, don’t worry about anything. Be free. Dude, I tell you – the best work is when I forget technique and just try things. So, don’t worry, try things.” Interestingly, Christian “Tico” Herrera was soon after nominated for a 2023 American Cinematographer’s Society (ASC) award for Best Cinematography for an episode of Snowfall – a highly-acclaimed TV series by FX. Perhaps that was one of the benefits of not being a technical director and trusting what I would bring to the table, i.e., knowing my strengths. I went in with a sense of unabandoned freedom, uninhibited by what the industry might say I could or should and should not do. I remember my post-EP’s eyes raised in the edit when I told him I wanted a color palette transition within a scene in the film. It worked! “Try things.” Thanks, Chris! It’s very important in creativity to not be frightened of making mistakes. As I heard Matt Damon and Ben Affleck say in an interview recently, “That’s how you come up with the great ideas that stick.” 

I said earlier that I learned a lot from this experience. I really did! And the learning continues. I have to keep reminding myself – no matter what the outcome is now, the film will always be a success. We’ve been accepted into a prestigious festival in St Kilda which validates the genesis of a creative idea and the courage to exercise the vulnerability to follow through with that idea. I’m grateful. There have been multiple rejections too but there are multiple notifications to come. I’m proud of what we all achieved in this short film. There’s a lesson there too – to sit unashamedly with that feeling of being proud.

Bonding will screen at the St Kilda Film Festival on June 4. Tickets and details here.