The Price of Milk (making of documentary)

The Price of Milk is a magical romp in the hay. Add a few fairy tales, possibly Rumplestiltskin and Cinderella, The Three Pigs [laughter] Add a herd of cows, and you might be pretty much close to The Price of Milk.

– Actor Danielle Cormack describes The Price of Milk, at the start of this documentary

Rob is a sensitive guy. He is a simple man; He loves his animals, he loves his farm and his dog, and he loves Lucinda. And he sees things in a very straightforward fashion.

– Actor Karl Urban describes his character in The Price of Milk, early in ths documentary

Look I hate to say this, but I never really liked him . . . Yeah, he isn't right for you.

– Drosophilia (Willa O'Neill) talks to Lucinda (Danielle Cormack) about Rob (Karl Urban)

On a normal film you would have a script that would be in place well before you started shooting, and that script is the bible . . . everybody works to that script. On our film anything is possible, and it's kind of my job to make sure that everything is still possible.

– Producer Fiona Copland on accomodating director Harry Sinclair's improvisational methods

You'd go to work each day and you would have no idea about what it was that you were going to do. So while it was challenging, it was also actually quite liberating because it forced you to abandon any possible preconception about what it was that you were going to do, and that made you just kind of work truthfully moment to moment, which is you know basically the goal of what you want to try and do...

– Karl Urban describes the improvisational nature of working on The Price of Milk

I really like the idea of making a film that was in a way a special effects movie, but it has no special effects in it. Everything's just done in the camera or . . . it's kind of like it's asking the audience to go along with the idea of magic in this incredibly sort of naive and silly way.

– Writer/director Harry Sinclair on The Price of Milk

In some ways it's an odd thing to do to go all the way to Russia to record beautiful music that we could record here. But in another way it felt very right, because the images of the film are very much to do with fairy tale and fable, and turn of the century Russian music that had captivated Harry, [that] had a very romantic, otherworldly feel...

– Producer Fiona Copland on recording the film's classical soundtack in Russia

It evolved through a stumbling process of discovery which was an essential part of Harry’s risk taking and search for the drama within. Being experimental, Harry demanded you make fresh choices and take risks. I do remember waiting for clouds that would come and go within the scene, as Harry wanted to see darkness and normal light in transition. Things were never ad-libbed or improvised however, he was fastidious about dialogue as written. A few times we reshot an entire scene in a new location with a different emphasis.

– Cinematographer Leon Narbey on working with director Harry Sinclair on The Price of Milk, The Screen Guild website, 1 September 2015