The next time you pick up a DVD of a film, ask yourself this: how much work and heartache has gone into creating that one and a half hours of viewing pleasure? For you, who is about to press the play button, a hell of a lot more than it takes to pop down to your local video rental or casually upload it onto your computer, that’s for sure.

For Frank Lotito, the writer, leading actor and co-producer of the new Australian movie Big Mamma’s Boy, it’s taken five whole years, from conception to finally putting it in the can. Lotito first made his name as a stand-up comedian and has – like all working comics – done the rounds of countless pubs, clubs and festival venues. And during that time has inevitably gathered up a body of comedy material.

“The idea came about when driving back home with my manager, Jo Lacuros, after doing my last show in regional Victoria. We’d just finished about 90 shows that year, with full houses, around 600 people averaging each night. We thought you know what, we’ve got an audience there. Wouldn’t it be great to go that next step and make a film? An hour and half later we came up with the idea of Big Mamma’s Boy,” said Lotito.

Shortly after, Lotito started writing the script and a few years later, he hooked up with his now co-producer Matteo Bruno while they were working on a TV cooking show together. “It was about 70 pages, it was very rough, Matteo read it, but he could see the potential and he said we have to do this film” said Lotito.

Big Mamma’s Boy only began shooting in April, which took about 6 weeks to shoot and finished with post-production about a month ago. But making a film and doing stand up is an entirely different matter.

“Absolutely, it’s one thing getting up on stage and testing a gag and you get an instant reaction and you know whether that works or it doesn’t work. With film you’ve got to tell a story and with an arc…hopefully, ” said Lotito, adding “so that was the hardest part for me, but luckily my day job is as a TV producer and I have had experience with how to shoot and edit.” “I also knew when I was writing the script I had a limited budget, so I knew what I could and could not do. If I had 20 million bucks, sure I could have done much more,” said Lotito.

But often when there is a big budget, it’s the imagination that can suffer regardless of the opportunities a Ben Hur budget can offer.

“Of course you have to think outside the box, like how do I make this scene funny without, let’s say, doing the stunts…and you just have find a way to make that happen,” said Lotito. It been a long while since that fateful drive home with his manager. In the room that day with Lotito was Bruno. With only a few weeks to go until their opening night, the room is dominated by an enormous table full of publicity material. You name it, posters, fliers, branded lasagne containers and coffee cups to package the look, and a host of Internet links to splatter gun a potential audience. Because it’s crunch time for these boys, being faced with yet another challenge of dropping the creative process, the mostly pleasurable part, and picking up the painful part, how to most effectively deliver their baby.

This will be Matteo’s third feature film and luckily they’re dealing with a niche market that is clearly defined, and what is affectionately known as the ‘wog’ audience. But like a Greek mate of mine once blurted out with a couple a drinks under his belt, when being pigeon-holed unfairly, “Please, come on mate, don’t stereolize me!” Nor does Lotito like being stereo-typed or sterilized for that matter, and no-one should, even if Big Mamma’s Boy leading promo line is ‘a comedy about life, love and lasagne.’

“Yes sure, like Nick Giannopoulos’ movie they call it a wog film but I think it’s Australian, and although we share Greek or Italian backgrounds or whatever, we are all Australians and we are telling an Australian story,” said Lotito proudly.

In cinemas July 28. www.bigmammasboymovie.com.