For the last number of years, I have worked closely with the team at Tourism Media to produce, edit and colour grade for the largest travel YouTube channel, Expedia. While editing these videos gives me all sorts of envious wanderlust, the team and I are always trying to push the level of quality to give our audience the most jaw-dropping beauty and informative experiences.
It was awesome to see that the agency threw some of our videos from the Travel Guide series into the ring for the 41st annual Telly Awards. It was even greater to see a number of them picked up bronze, silver and gold awards, including one for Best Editing for our energetic video on Barcelona.
The Telly Awards have been honoring excellence across all screen media since 1979. This year alone receiving 12,000 entries across 5 continents. The event works closely with NABshow, ProductionHUB and IFP, to name a few. Previous winners of the Telly Awards include CBS Interactive, HBO, Comcast, Conde Nast, Team Coco and many many others.
For A Good Cause Launches Online!
The editing on For A Good Cause ended some months ago but this is a project that never left the mind. Its comedy and whit are sharp and unlike any other, I’m really excited to see the commissioned launched happening on YouTube with the support of Stranger Films and Screen Queensland.
“What happens when the team tries to “fix” the lack of diversity in a political ad?
A brand new Australian satirical comedy series, ‘For A Good Cause’ follows a digital media agency that creates progressive social change content — but betrays all their values in the process. ”
The series stars Becky Lucas, Julian Curtis and Thomas Larkin and follows an editor, Ollie, in a creative agency with a drive for social change as he tries to navigate the act of moral social change but through not-so moral actions. While the director and I were in the edit we knew we had something special, we couldn’t get through a scene without a chuckle and when you’ve seen something as many times as I have to get it just right in the timeline, you usually become quite desensitised to the comedy. With For A Good Cause however I was ecstatic that the comedy really stuck true and our handling of the more socially grey satirical segments was handled with the utmost care and attention while still preserving the original nature of the comedy.
The show was developed by a small but passionate team, each department deserves props for doing such an amazing job and delivering some awesome content that I could craft so effortlessly allowing us to focus on what the comedy series is all about. The whole team is really excited to see the first launch, feel free to check out the first episode below.
Post Production Begins on ‘For A Good Cause’ | Pilot Series
Since the beginning of 2018 the team over at Stranger Films and I have been developing a few select projects for future production. This year we were lucky enough to have Screen Queensland excited to come onboard and help fund our comedy pilot, For A Good Cause!
We are now into the post-production and the editing is coming along very well! It was one of the smoothest shoots we’ve ever seen and the edit has us in stitches with each and every watch through. We are hard at work refining the project to make sure it’s got the polish and comedy chops it needs to stand out for today's comedy savvy audiences
Editing comedy is a unique experience in its own, while we have tackled a few comedy projects before like The Bus Knight, each short is it’s own unique experience and requires us to treat each scene as an individual. That's not to say that we aren’t throwing in some great motifs across the film for some recurring laughs.
Timing is key when it comes to comedy and we are very carefully spacing out our jokes and reactions to give audiences the time they need to breath, laugh and feel every beat that the characters are experiencing. One key thing we learnt with our previous projects is to be very careful not to run too many jokes close to important dialogue, after all, you don’t want to be laughing over a some important exposition.
For A Good Cause is due to launch in a few months and we are all excited to see what audiences think!
Kegs of Glory Series Launches!
Over the last few months the teams at Tourism Media, Pacific and I have been hard at work, creating, producing, filming, and editing the Kegs of Glory series for launch.
This 10 part series commissioned by Expedia was designed to dive deep into the local craft brewer scene across Brisbane and Melbourne to further their brand with more local and authentic content. Our team crafted each documentary episode around a brewery; highlighting the brewer, community and spotlight on their biggest and best brew.
I was lucky enough to be apart of the filming process, going to each brewery and experiencing the community and passion that each brewer puts into their liquid creation. The series style evolved effortlessly as the project progressed, each day on-set coming up with new ideas on how to better connect and engage the audience.
When we came into post production, our weeks of work and style improvements were put to the test, we decided very early that the style should look “rough” and “authentic” while being quite polished around the edges. We aimed to give off that quality that Expedia desired while giving audiences the authenticity of a local production.
It was an amazing experience to work from start to finish on such an exciting and passionate project. The teams behind the series really helped pull everything together, truly an amazing family of creators.
The Kegs of Glory campaign is still currently running and can be seen via https://www.expedia.com.au/explore/kegs
Sodium Squad Trailer Launches Online!
During the past few weeks I have been hard at work editing a pilot for the upcoming series Sodium Squad. Post production has now completed on the episode and we are counting down the days until the initial release.
“The series followed an Aussie team of professional Overwatch players who are all round pretty bad at what they do, the journey follows their rise up the ranks through sheer luck and determination.”
The launch of the trailer went amazingly well, gaining front page status on Reddit and over 20k views in the first week alone. The community response appears to be strong too, with a large number of comments left across the video and the Reddit post.
The pilot is a joint production between The Higgins Brothers and Stranger Films and aims to break the barriers of modern series by trying to incorporate gaming and in-game footage into their series. While initially this was a challenge, the switched-on team managed to pull it off largely seamlessly in a regular production cycle.
Look out for the release of the first episode in the coming weeks, but for now you can watch the trailer on YouTube below.