On a windy afternoon at Clovelly Beach, playwright turned screenwriter Tommy Murphy has been assigned the most unglamorous job in the film industry - wrangling seagulls.
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Having written a scene that requires a character to chase one, it is his responsibility to ensure a flock turns up to the set of Holding The Man.
Day-old bread and that seagull favourite, hot chips, has been ordered from nearby shops.
But as often happens on film sets, plans are changing fast as director Neil Armfield shoots the adaptation of Murphy's popular play, which charts the love story between actor and gay activist Tim Conigrave and star footballer John Caleo that endured despite the outbreak of AIDS in the 1980s.
With unexpected roadworks, cars parked in shot and an increasingly brisk wind that disperses any loitering seagulls, Murphy quickly rewrites the scene so that Conigrave, played by Ryan Corr, comically chases a hat that blows away.
With an impressive cast - Guy Pearce, Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Fox and Sarah Snook join relative unknown Craig Stott as Caleo - no last-minute changes can dampen Murphy's enthusiasm for the film.
"Now is the time to tell a great gay love story," he says. "A universal love story that happens to have two men at its centre."
Murphy says Armfield, directing his first film since the Heath Ledger-Abbie Cornish drama Candy, is bringing a deft wit to Holding The Man.
"What we're making is on one hand a tragic love story," he says. "But in equal measure we're making a comedy and we're making something that celebrates life."
Producer Kyle Du Fresne, best known for The Sapphires, says the challenge of making the film is re-creating three time periods - from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
"There are lots of big set pieces. Just getting through the days has been challenging, just for the amount of moving we're doing."
After a brief shoot on the island of Lipari, off Sicily, filming will halt temporarily so that Stott can lose up to 12 kilograms for scenes that show Caleo with AIDS.
Du Fresne is optimistic that the success of the play, which was based on Conigrave's best-selling memoir of the same name, will continue with the film.
"Certainly there's a gay audience who are absolutely committed to seeing this on the big screen. But my experience of seeing the play was that a really diverse audience went to it and connected with it.
"It's a love story and I'd hope that will translate, whether you're gay or whether you know gay people."
Du Fresne believes the debate around the world about gay marriage makes the film topical, despite the period setting.
"I think people are ready for a story like this," she says.
