…and that’s a WRAP

(columba getting loose at the wrap party)

We made it! Principle photography on The Grave Of St Oran is finally DONE. Wow.

The last month of shooting was pretty intense, putting in long hours to make sure we got in all the crazy shots we had dreamed up before the shoot ended. The production actually wrapped a little while back (as those of you watching our shot countdown on instagram would know), but by the end of it I was pretty wiped out, so once we grabbed that last frame I took a short break from all things St Oran.

I still don’t think it’s really sunk in that we’ve finished shooting! I’ve been so focused on putting one frame in front of another, that despite all our planning it was somehow still a surprise to look up and realise we’ve made it to the end. It really has been an amazing experience, being able to dedicate this much time and focus to our own creative project.

A huge thank you to our animator Josh Mahan, who has had my back throughout this whole shoot. Josh is not only a talented animator and excellent human, but also an incredibly hard worker who was always up for doing whatever it took to get the job done, and stuck with us through to the end, despite being in high demand for other much more lucrative gigs. You can check out his instagram HERE!

And as always, heartfelt gratitude to all of our backers who have been so supportive and encouraging throughout this journey. Creating a film like this is a rare opportunity, and you’re the ones who made that possible.

MEANWHILE…

Burnout is a natural hazard of working intensely like this on a project, so after the shoot wrapped I took a month off from St Oran to visit family and friends back in Melbourne, as well as catching up on some client work. Better to keep the flame alive than push too hard and snuff it out!

CHAINSMOKERS MUSIC VIDEO

For a change of pace, I teamed up with my regular collaborators Kim Boekbinder and Molly Crabapple to create this music video for The Chainsmokers latest release. It seems they’re quite popular (the video has just hit 15 million views with no sign of slowing). So that was fun!

WE (STILL) HAVE YOUR HEART

In other happy news, I Have Your Heart, one of our very first animations, was invited to screen at this year’s TED conference! Very humbling to be included among so much talent from across all spectrums of human endeavour. You can watch it online HERE.

WHAT’S NEXT?

After this short break, it’s full steam ahead again as we head into the grand adventure that is POSTPRODUCTION!

• WORKFLOW: Having learned this lesson the hard way too many times, the first thing is to plan the post-workflow. Mapping out the optimal path from the raw Canon format we shot with, through postproduction and into the final export file ready for screening, while maintaining flexibility and high image fidelity. Always seems simple, but anything involving file formats, codecs, and color spaces, will present more curly conundrums than you’d expect. Nothing worse than realizing this half-way through post… always worth taking the time to lock in a workflow plan up front, even if you’re itching to get started on the fun bits!
• EDIT: First of the fun things is to lock down the edit. This is the last chance to refine the storytelling, and is the moment when we really see what this film is that we’ve made. Collapsing an endless possibility space down into a single concrete film reality can be a bit nerve-wracking, but it’s also one of the most powerful parts of filmmaking. Once we have picture lock it’s time for…
• VFX/CLEANUP: With St Oran we have focused on shooting our visual effects in camera as much a possible, so there is a lot less to do here than on some films. Having said that, there are a few shots that have been shot in separate passes that will need to be stitched together, and some that are seperate elements that need to be composited together. Clean up – the process of removing any rigs, stray dust, flicker, or other unwanted elements – should also be simpler than usual as our process of shooting on glass means there was a lot less need to use rigs during shooting.
• PICKUPS: We’ve scheduled a small window of studio time in case there’s any extra little shots we have to go back and shoot to fill in awkward gaps in the edit, or clarify the story. This is a contingency, so hopefully we don’t need to use it!
• COLOR GRADE: Once all the final visuals are done, a last pass of color grading is done tie all the shots together and make the whole thing really shine.
• SOUND & MUSIC: When we have picture lock, concurrently with the rest of post, we will start working with a sound designer, and our composer Jherek Bischoff, to add a soundtrack. Can’t wait to start on this, I’m looking forward bringing a whole new dimension to the film.

So, as you can see there’s still a fair bit of work ahead of us, but it’s all very manageable, a process of refining and polishing what we’ve got. The great unknown wilds of the shoot are behind us now, the rest of the journey is much gentler as we return home with the treasures we found along the way.