Most movies take months to film. This Australian director did it in six days

One email to Sharknado royalty landed this director his first feature film A single email was all it took for Anthony Frith to secure his first feature film with The Asylum, the infamous B-movie studio responsible for unleashing Sharknado and hundreds of other 'mockbusters' upon the world. The aspiring Melbourne filmmaker had just welcomed his first child, and his CV mostly consisted of comedic skits he posted to YouTube which went nowhere and cutting commercial videos for his parents' business. So Frith reached out to the high-ups at The Asylum. One email exchange and a Zoom call later and Frith found himself appointed director of the new Asylum movie and the first to be filmed in Australia: The Land That Time Forgot. He was also bestowed with the fodder for his own film — Mockbuster — which documents the process. It was a dream come true. But after travelling to The Asylum's LA headquarters, the stars in Frith's eyes were quickly knocked out when he was informed that there was almost no budget, a mere outline of a story and that it would all have to be shot in Australia in six days. Frith always had a soft spot for B-movies; not the kind you would rush to the cinema to catch but the ones on streaming services with bad acting, terrible stories and even worse effects. "What I kind of like about bad movies is that sort of earnest naivety that goes into making them," Frith tells ABC News. "I think people discredit bad movies and specifically Asylum films as shameless cash grabs, which to a point they are, but they are made by people who are passionate who put their time and effort into making them. "There's something kind of special about that." What is The Asylum? The Asylum is far from the first studio to pump out mockbusters — low-budget, low-quality spins on already popular movies or stories in the public domain. The genre has roots in everything from 70s Blaxploitation classics to CGI animations that can almost pass for Pixar (if you really squint). But The Asylum turned the subgenre into an art form of its own. Originally founded in the late 90s by David Michael Latt, David Rimawi and Sherri Strain as a basic distribution company, the trio quickly realised they couldn't compete with the big studios. So they pivoted to a different business model: pump out as many movies as they could, for as little money as possible, in order to always make profit or at least break even. But Frith wasn't prepared for just how committed they were to their short filming windows, which they lovingly dub 'the six-day special'. "I thought it was 10 or 12 days because that's what I read on Wikipedia," Frith laughs. "What actually happened was during COVID in LA, you had to test on the first day of shooting and the seventh day of shooting. So they thought if they shot in six days, they wouldn't have to pay for the second test. So they just ran with it, and never stopped." Despite everyone at The Asylum having full faith in Frith, he landed in Melbourne with a massive task: find a local cast and crew who would work for less, scout dozens of locations and then hope a script comes together in time for a six-day shoot. "It was a stressful, crazy time. There were moments where I was like, 'This is the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. Why do I do this to myself?'" Frith says. "But then I was also contractually obligated to deliver the movie AND the documentary. I'm glad I did it in retrospect, like, you know, hindsight's 20-20." Dinos everywhere It's nailbiting to watch Frith stumble through costuming mishaps, arguments between the cast and crew and a missing producer (The Asylum sends a can-do LA implant over at the last second), but it's just as exciting to see Frith move mountains to pull the whole thing off. Frith is in awe of the work and dedication his cast and crew pulled out. "We never had overtime. We had to move scenes to the following days and stuff but we never went over time, which was insane to me," he says. "One of my favourite scenes in The Land That Time Forgot, one where we have someone tied up on the tree. It's got tension and it kind of works. We shot that in like 15 minutes because the light was fading," he says. "It's like those moments where everything kind of coalesces in a nice way and just works. Everyone might think I'm an idiot once they see it but that's okay. I'm proud of it." And while they might have been a few million dollars shy of a regular feature, there was still enough in the budget for a small wrap party. "We had like a carton of beer in the Surf Lifesavers club after. I think one of the actors, Dave Margetts, bought some doughnuts to share with everyone. It was nice," Frith says. Once the Australian crew had wrapped, all that was left to do was send the film back to The Asylum for their trademark special effects, in this case ravaging dinosaurs. The Land That Time Forgot has the bittersweet honour of being one of the last films under supervision of legendary special effects artist Glenn Campbell, who died in late 2024. "He worked on the original Tron, the original Star Trek motion picture, all these incredible films that he kind of pioneered a lot of those sort of things that they still use today," Frith says. "There's still super talented people there, but he left a big hole to fill. So, then they started just using generative AI because it was like it could keep up with Glenn's speed and talents." While Frith understands the rationale, especially after seeing how The Asylum business operates, he still feels something will be lost for future mockbuster lovers. "I think what's fun about bad movies is the human touch. The imperfections come from a person and they're unique to that person and that film," he says. "Whereas if you're using generative AI, it all inevitably feels the same or looks the same aesthetically." Send the email A year after The Land That Time Forgot's premiere and as Mockbuster hits Australian cinemas, Frith still can't believe what he experienced. "I've got copies of my movie on DVD in my lounge room, which is crazy to me that I've made something that's being sold on DVD. It's such a dream. It's something you dream about when you're a teen, and you're wanting to be a filmmaker," Frith says. And while The Asylum has been knocking on his door to direct another mockbuster, Frith has some other dreams that need tending to. "I kind of fell into documentary a bit, and fell in love with it. You can just like meet real people who are funny, doing interesting things, I really love that," he says. But the director would 100 per cent push any prospective filmmaker to send their own email to The Asylum. "Say what you want about The Asylum, I think the fact that they give someone a shot to make a film is really important. It's something that's dying and inaccessible," he says. "The fact that you even get to make a film is kind of important in itself, because you learn so much. Sure, not a lot of people might watch it, but you can say you've directed this feature film. "That's all that matters."