I was working at Wunderfilm and they were doing some shots for Batman Forever and they said 'Come to a meeting'. It was with Martin Brown (co-producer on Romeo & Juliet with Gabriella Martinelli) . He showed me some storyboard frames, asked some general questions about price, and about how shots might be linked. They wanted to create a cityscape that was a cross between Miami and Bangkok, with the Asian clutter and yet the expansiveness of southern America. He asked about shooting different cities and putting them together and I made the usual comments about "Yes it’s possible, as long as you paid attention to lighting, atmosphere, times of day etc.’ I got back to him with quotes.".

"I was getting into the lift sometime later and I heard people talking in Australian accents so I said "Hi, you guys sound like you’re Australian" and it was Jill Bilcock who I think, was just finishing American Quilt. They had shot some stuff for Romeo and Juliet in Sydney and they were doing an edit on it to show to Fox who apparently didn’t think that the Shakespearean dialogue would work. The edit was just the screen tests cut together to tell a story, Leonardo DiCaprio was playing opposite a girl who didn’t get the Juliet role and there were some other characters. It looked great, really interesting. I said you should go and talk to Chris Schwarze in Melbourne and Jill screamed and she squeeled "I know Chris" and we had a little ‘Australian’s abroad’ get together in the hallway. I showed them the shots we were doing on Batman Forever and had more of a talk. I said that I was coming back to Melbourne to work with Chris, and suggested we work together".