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.

Cinemagraph Headshot Design with Tempest Studios.

This month I have been working closely together with the team members over at Tempest Studios to design a new standard of motion headshot. Our design is a streamlined version of a cinemagraph mapped onto a regular colour graded headshot.

The piece requires some editing to adapt to the screen however the process is streamlined enough to enable a pretty quick turnaround for the new Studio. Keep an eye on the guys over at Tempest Studios in Brisbane, they are a great creative team with a lot of passion and a drive to make some great stuff.

Yosemite Travel Guide Wins Communicator Award

Each week the team at Tourism Media and I work hard to create showstopping and deeply informative vacation travel guides for Expedia. As the in-house editor and colourist, I am proud of each video we create but when we finished the post production on our Yosemite Vacation Travel Guide we knew it was something special.


The guide shows viewers the spectacular national park and acts as a gateway for those thinking about visiting one of the USA great national parks. The park is so stunning that no matter what shot I chose, i couldn’t pick wrong.

A few weeks ago Tourism Media was surprised when our Yosemite guide won a communicator award from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA) in New York. We received our statue last week and the team has a refreshed yet humble energy in the office. We are looking forward to bringing the world better and better travel guides throughout 2017.

Shakes takes home gold at the West End Film Festival

This Sunday Shakes had its second premiere screening at the West End Film Festival and it took home gold for the first time, winning the Audience Choice Award for best film.

I’m happy to have worked in the post-production department of with such a great creative team and it was a pleasure seeing my visual effects work up on the big screen. Director Jason Fitzgerald had such a clear and creative vision driving each VFX shot with precision and care which together made every on-screen element flow perfectly together. I’m happy to see the short production get some recognition.

Shakes will continue its festival run later this year at the Long Island International Film Expo

Shakes Continues Its Run in the Festival Circuit.

This week the short film Shakes has continued its festival run with a screening at the Backyard Film Festival and selection into the Long Island International Film Expo. It’s exciting to see my visual effects work traveling to so many festivals and for the film to receive so many good reviews across its screenings.


You can catch Shakes the Long Island International Film Expo on the 13th - 20th of July

Shakes Short Film | Official Selection in the West End Film Festival

Last year I worked as lead visual effects artist on a quirky Brisbane short film called Shakes and it has just been added to the official selection for the 2017 West End Film Festival.

Shakes is a great story about an anxious man overcome with a mental disorder and the story follows his ordeal trying to break through his barriers with others.

This will be the second year running that my work has been in the selection at the West End Film Festival, following the 2016 short The Bus Knight which I crewed as editor and visual effects artist.


Find out more on the WEFF website: westendfilmfestival.com.au

Queensland University of Technology’s new tech exhibition in VR

The Creative Lab is an initiative by the Queensland University of Technology to host and exhibit emerging technology from around the world. Recently The Creative Lab created a new exhibition called “The Museum of Colliding Dimensions” which utilised virtual reality and mixed augmented reality to place viewers into a virtual space.

The Creative Lab partnered with the team over at Stranger Films to produce the experience in a traditional video format and I was brought onboard to edit and manage post-production of the video.

It is always a treat to work with such stunning footage, the team at Stranger captured some amazing visuals which glowed in hues of blue and purple. The effect gave off a dreamy experience which was enhanced during the editing to make the event feel ‘out of this world’.

The entire experience can be viewed online on QUT’s Facebook or YouTube channel, or previewed on the link below.

QUT Talks Conscious

The post production on Brisbane based feature film Conscious now nears completion and it is beginning to generate some hype through some media outlets.

One place which is singing the praises of Conscious, is the Queensland University of Technology. QUT has a high number of graduate students working on the film and has publish a detailed article explaining the depth of the project and the roles of each graduates.

You can check out QUTs article here

Be sure to look out for the release of Conscious sometime in the near future and be sure to jump over to the facebook page to keep track of its progress.

Like Velociraptors Music Video Wins Gold at ACS Awards

A long while ago I was asked to come onboard a very awesome music video project as editor and visual effects artist for Brisbane based band The Con and the Liar.

The music video was headed by a very talented team with Harrison Norris directing and Brian Loewe as cinematographer. 

The clip was was very awesome with a string of wire stunts and pyrotechnics, mixed in with an array of wild visual effects. The video was all wrapped nicely into a toungue-in-check stylistic atmosphere which gave it a great overall tone. 

the clip is due to release soon, however it has already started making waves with its gold award victory for cinematographer Brian Loewe taking home the highest achievement from the Australian Cinematography Society.

So lookout for the video hitting the web in the near future! 

‘The Bus Knight’ Short Film Public Release

A couple of years ago I joined a tight knit crew of “The Bus Knight” as the editor and visual effects artist. After a few weeks in post-production the Brisbane based short film was complete and launched its way into national festivals.

The Bus Knight is a story based off one of Reddit’s most popular posts, written by a local comedian. It is a story about a sole bus passenger standing up and defending a racist attack on a bus driver and his passengers. The story revolves around the principles of Aikido, fighting without fighting.

The short film was selected to appear in 5 festivals including The ScreenIt Film Festival, Capricorn Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, Backyard Film Festival and West End Film Festival. The film took home a total of 5 awards including Best Film and several Audience Choice Awards.

It was a pleasure to work closely with the director Tony Walsh from Stranger Films and cinematographer Brian Lowe to create such a well polished and popular short.

After a successful run the crew has decided to release it for all online to enjoy, so we present you The Bus Knight...


 

Oceans to Geneva EP Launch | Visual Design

Oceans to Geneva has just launched their first EP with accompanying tracks available on YouTube and Spotify. Earlier this year i worked closely with the team to help design a build the style for the visualization video. 

The band and I went through a few drafts and settled on a monochromatic simplistic style with audio wave bars and inky mist trails mapped onto the album cover art. 

Check out the song and design below.

 

Inspired Education Group | Studio Sessions

Inspired Education Group is a new company dedicated to developing a support network for educators in Australia. The company is working with The Arc Film Productions and myself to create a set of stream-lined instructional video tools. These tools focus on being interesting to watch and highly graphical, while retaining a large amount of useable knowledge needed for educators across the country. 


Recently we sat down in the studio to manage the first steps of post production and let each program expert begin their work recording and teaching through the new video format. With a strong format and direction, this video set is looking like it will do very well in helping educators learn and teach more quickly and more effortlessly. 
 

Museum of Colliding Dimensions | Teaser Launch

This week, a short teaser video I edited was launched for the Brisbane CreateX festival. QUT and the talented team over at Stranger Films helped collaborate to bring together a simplified short video on some amazingly complicated VR and augmented reality technology used for the upcoming The Museum of Colliding Dimensions event.

“The Museum of Colliding Dimensions formed after the appearance of the first Platonic Rift between our world and another. It presents a stable environment for visitors to interact with the phenomena at a safe distance.”

— Deb Polson, Curator of Mixed Realities.

This exhibit launches on the 28th of August and is open for all to explore and interact with this amazing installation piece. 

The Bus Knight Takes Home Gold at the West End Film Festival

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend the West End Film Festival with the crew from Stranger, we got the chance to watch and enjoy all the fantastic films on offer. The slate was a farmers market of raw local talent and it was refreshing see see so much creativity in one room, there was especially some very creative editing and post-production work this year.

Our short The Bus Knight was lucky enough to be chosen as apart of the official selection of the night and we were even more honored to receive the West End Film Festival’s Audience Choice Award for the night.

Thank you to everyone who voted and to the crew at the West End Film Festival for such an awesome night.

Aussie Feature Film "Conscious" Post-Production Underway

Up and coming feature film Conscious has just launched their latest funding campaign to inject fresh funds and help complete it's run in post-production. A couple weeks ago I was asked to step on-board the project as its post-production supervisor to help the project move smoothly from shoot to screen. The editing team is now underway, working to make Conscious a truly fantastic production. This collaborative horror/thriller film sees a number of talented and experienced individuals working together to create a bold new thrilling Australian feature film. 

This is the debut feature for Writer/Producer Neeta Gosal and Director Luis Bran and is set to release this Halloween. 

Where Evil Lurks.
A psychiatrist builds a machine that will help him find his wife's killer but before he can seek revenge, the machine uncovers something he never expected.
IMDB

Oceans to Geneva Music Video Launch

A few weeks ago I was invited to collaborate with the Brisbane based Oceans To Geneva team in crafting their post-production for their first EP launch music video. The team came up with some fantastic visuals supported by some strong band performances and it all came together in a stunning music video. 

While a relatively simple soundstage setup, DP Nick Moore managed to form intricate setups and together with the fast pace editing style and stunning colour work by the talented Jake Ryan, the team created a video and style that the band was excited to see go live. 

The Oceans crew utilises high quality socially targeted videos to promote themselves locally and state-wide. Now with more than 10,000 views, you can checkout their new video below:

The Bus Knight Nominated for St Kilda Film Festival | Short Film Update

In early 2015 I had the pleasure to work with some talented creative minds to create a short film called The Bus Knight. I was on board as the Editor and Visual Effects artist for the project and after several months of collaborating with the team it is fantastic to see the project nominated as official selection for the St Kilda Film Festival 2016. 

The movie was created by Tony Walsh of Stranger Films and based off a viral Facebook post from actor Angus Robinson. The post details a mysterious stranger who saves an inner-city bus ride from the tyranny of a bogan hijacking. 

The project was then partially funded via a crowdsourcing campaign and the Raw Nerve program (A Screen Queensland Initiative). The Bus Knight was all produced in Brisbane and went on to take awards at both the ScreenIt Film Festival and the Capricornia Film Festival in 2015.

 
Check out the trailer below:

Timelapse Post Production | Importance of workflow

Recently I worked as the post-production manager on a Creative Brisbane Timelapse project headed by The Arc director Patrick Gatling. The project was designed to test and showcase the latest techniques and software surrounding timelapse photography and videography.  The project featured some hyperlapse driving clips, RAW image and regular compressed JPG photography.

The hyperlapse and JPG clips worked flawlessly and handled very smoothly in all our editing and effects software. However, RAW timelapse workflow requires special care and attention to give the editing process room to breath.

We found that stabilisation, noise reduction and deflicker were the biggest time-killers when working in the format and render times slowed each machine down to a halt on a number of occasions.

The solution was developing a preset and transcode workflow which applied all the effects mentioned above, before we started any editing. Each clip was pre-loaded with its needed effects then transcoded to an intermediate proxy and master. The proxy enabled us to edit the clips effortlessly including applying small in-frame movements and avoiding any bumps in the lapses, This meant managing all our render time in one go and minimising mid-edit delays. After the edit was complete it was as simple as re-linking to the master file and transitioning over to Davinci Resolve for colour grading.

You can check out the timelapse video here:

Feature Film "Rise" To Air On Channel 9

The 2014 feature Rise follows the true story of Will McIntyre who has his life thrown into turmoil after false allegations lands him in a maximum security prison. The movie centers around Will's survival in prison while awaiting his appeal. 

The film was created by an independent team primarily based in Brisbane, Queensland, lead by director Mack Lindon. Cinematography by Geoff McLeod, edited by Jack Higgins & Daniel Warner and film colouring by Matthew Sawyer

Recently crew and fans were treated to the news that the film will get its first TV premiere on channel 9 in 2016.
 

BREAKING NEWS! Ch 9 airing RISE in 2016!!! Thank you to everyone who made this possible & your patience in acknowledgement.

Posted by Rise Movie on Sunday, 24 January 2016

QUT- CEA Creative3 Forum | Graphical Promo

In late 2015 QUT hosted the annual Brisbane Creative Enterprise Australia's Creative3 masterclass and forum. A two day event to encourage the free flow of creative ideas to help grow small business in Australia.

This year the organiser's for the event passed on the brief to create a visually interesting, information driven video which highlighted past years and talked about the future. The team at Stranger Films and I set out to push the start of this year's Creative3 campaign forward with this kinetic graphic and montage promotion. The video was used to kick off stage 1 of the event, being projected wall to wall during the lead-up to the forum.