Let’s face it. When it comes to attending the movies these days, we’re blessed with a myriad of choices. But making a decision? That’s the hard bit. Will it be comedy or drama? 2D or 3D? The front row or the back row? Or, the biggest dilemma of all: do I want a choctop or popcorn?

Charged with producing the Melbourne International Film Festival Trailer, director Damien Kelly, producer Josh Butt, and the team at Badjar Ogilvy faced this predicament head on by getting a box of popcorn and a choctop to fight it out in the backstreets of Melbourne, 70’s Kung-Fu style!

Despite the city’s relentless attempts to slow the shoot down, the crew never wavered from their task. Neither rain, beer deliveries, belligerent builders, random acts of God, or those pesky kids could stop them from a fantastic day’s shooting.

Stuntmen Sirios Niaros (Choctop) and Paul Rochford (Popcorn) did a hilarious job in the suits and they were well controlled by fight co-ordinator Brett Anderson. Glen Maynard’s beard scratching might not have won him any awards, but it did win him the love and respect from the MIFF marketing team (seen behind him in the queue at the Candy Bar).

All in all, it was a lot of work to do in one day, but it went pretty smoothly in a back alleyway in Chinatown. Everything that needed to be filmed was — all on the brand spanking new RED Mysterium, thanks to Inspiration Studios mastered by DOP Gary Richards.

Once shot, Editor Owen Norling worked his magic to cut the TVCs and cinema trailer, as well as doing the Lightsaber effect. Online editor Eugene Richards added in the ice cream splashes, titles, effects and bomb fuse. Colourist Martin Greer did a wonderful job with the grade and from there, it all went to Stevo Williams — where the sounds brought Chocky and Poppy (and their duel) to life.

Mixed together with music by composer Michael Allen and a voiceover by Lee Perry it was a great experience for all.

Big thanks to Digital Pictures and Flagstaff Studios for all their work in Post, Deluxe for printing the trailer to film and Soundfirm for the Dolby 5.1 master.

Click PLAY to view a slideshow of the behind the scenes.

Client: Melbourne International Film Festival
Production Company: The Guild of Commercial Filmmakers
Director: Damien Kelly
Producer: Josh Butt
DOP: Garry Richards
Agency: Badjar Ogilvy
Executive Creative Director: Michael Knox
Writer: Darren Winter
Art Director: Joe Hill
Agency Producer: Tim Marxsen

Director Damien Kelly has just completed a big job about a little man for Stihl Dealers. Conceived by creative hot shop The Foundry, the commercial reinforces Stihl’s serious support message by depicting a tiny Stihl Dealer living with one of his customers to help him out whenever he needs it.

Shot over three days, the commercial required a large amount of green screen, rig building, model making, and compositing work in order to create the overall effect of a miniature man in a giant world. It also required a lot of careful planning to make the effect as believable as possible. After all, people are never going to believe that our tiny man is real but Damien wanted to suspend that disbelief. To help convey this he decided to treat each effect as a single shot, which resulted in a much more convincing illusion.

One of the most challenging shots was when the customer hangs the little guy up on the shed wall. To achieve this a rig with giant hooks was built so that the actor could be literally hung up on it using cables. It meant that the motion of the little guy being carried and then attached to the wall was real rather than a less convincing animated motion effect. The little guy was then composited into the hand of the customer, who was hanging up a proxy scale model.

Click to view Effects Sequence 1

Another tricky shot was when the tiny Stihl Dealer passes the big screwdriver to the customer. Damien felt that large scale props and sets would look fake so instead decided to break the shot up into two components. The first was a separate background plate of the bench with a small rig that had two retractable claws to hold and release the actual-size tool. This meant that the actor could reach in and take the real tool out of shot in real time. The second was to film the Stihl Dealer holding a proxy tool that was again built to scale. The two shots were then composited together to create a seamless visual effect.

Click to view Effects Sequence 2

Director: Damien Kelly
Producer: Helene Nicol
Line Producer: Julian Bryant
DOP: Wayne Aistrope
Post Production: Active Motion
Agency: The Foundry
Creative Director: Annie Price
Art Director: Melinda Pritchard
Writer: Eugene Horat
Music: String Theory Creative
Agency Producer: Jon Mahney

Click here to view STIHL - Tiny Dealer

Click to watch the first TAC Ken Lay TVC

Mat & Justine have just finished the first of 3 TAC commercials working with Ken Lay. It was great to get to work with the police and Ken Lay, he was very professionial and great to work with, he must have thought the same of us!