I haven’t posted here in way too long, and I realise that doing so is a really grounding exercise (as well as being a commitment that I made to blog more!) The fact is that, as expected, I became incredibly busy with Clouded.
The shoot went ahead as planned between the 13th-15th of November – a three-day shoot with a reasonable number of crew in a cozy cottage, in typical Brisbane heat. We had our first day slightly interrupted by rain, but we were able to repeat some affected shots on the third day.
Overall it was such an incredible experience. Everyone was keen, excited and it was such a lovely working environment. The actors truly blew me away with how much they brought to the story, I never would have understood the full depth of it all without them.
I was pretty stressed and running around like a chicken with its head cut off on the first two days, but that’s pretty much part and parcel of directing and producing a film! The third day was surprisingly relaxed as we were so on top of everything and there was nothing left outstanding or preparation for the next day for me to worry about.
Without further ado, here’s some of the BTS by our photographer, Julienne.
Since then, we rushed into post-production without delay, and over the last month have been working on the vision edit. We were interrupted in finishing that by going back for a quick reshoot to improve one shot, but finally (!) we have our vision locked off. It’s now on our VFX team, sound editor, colourist, and composer in this final stretch (still a lot of work to be done, clearly!) At this point the film should be complete mid-January.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of the amount of work that was put into the film, not just by myself but everyone else who contributed. I really hope you all like it.
In any case, I swear I’ll have more writing and updates sooner than this one took. One of the reasons why I’ve been so busy lately is that I’m formulating all the projects I’ll be doing next year, including working on my next script. ‘Til then, take care.
Esther Vale 