About

Bio:  Cameron McCulloch is an editor by profession and an award winning short film director. In this article Cameron takes us through the editing and post-production process of his latest short The Tea Party. This film is a follow up to the short Home, a Rom-Zom (Romantic Zombie film). Which was made with a no/low budget, and has screened in 40 festivals around the world and picked up a quite a few awards.

The project: The Tea Party is a short black comedy, comprised of two actors and four puppets. It was shot over 2 days. “Princess has waited a long time to finally meet her Prince Charming, the only thing standing in their way is her foul mouthed pets and the lack of a afternoon tea condiment.” Check out The Tea Party TRAILER here.

 Cast & Crew

Cast: Leslie Simpson, Michelle Bourke, Samuel Johnston, Steve Bastoni.  Production Designer: Emily Curtis            Sound Designer: Paul Shanahan @ Final Sound  Composer: Apollo Symphony Orchestra                                  Puppeteers & Puppet Creation: Michael Bevitt & Beth McMahon. Director Of Photography: Matt Scott                        Editors: Cameron McCulloch & Stefan Engelhardt Writer: Cameron McCulloch                                                            Producers: Cameron McCulloch, Zoe Rixon and Emily Curtis Director: Cameron McCulloch

POST PRODUCTION WORKFLOW

Shooting Format:
DSLR Cannon 5d Mk2, to card. The cards where backed up the end of each day to 2 separate sources. We where running 2 splits one for the camera and one under the table for the puppeteers. Audio was recorded using a Sennhieser Mic and Zoom Recorder.

DIT or Data Wrangler on Set: No. We just had numerous cards, which we backed up each day. (We only shot for 2 days)

Editorial System & Set up:                                                                My Macbook Pro, 4 gigs ram running project off firewire 800. I wanted to try Premier Pro. By changing the short cuts to final cut ones it made it much easier. Not sure if I am going to use Premier again though, Yes it works natively with DLSR footage (Something I wanted to test) but I think I am going to go back to converting to prores and cutting in FCP 7.

Dailies process:                                                  I synced all my footage using Dualeyes and began to edit in Premier. It was very easy, Dualeyes worked a treat.

Storage and backup system:                                                          My project was running off a Firewire 800 drive which I would work off. After each session it was backed up to a secondary USB drive, (As during the first weekend of editing, my cat jumped on my laptop pulling out the firewire which corrupted my project file so I had to start from scratch). The cat is still alive.

Edit Schedule:                                         I wanted it all done in time for Sundance (this did not happen), that was the only schedule, about 2 months in post. The edit took about three weeks for a rough cut. Then another four weeks of me piss farting round with the edit. I had a co editor who did the rough cut, and then I came in and cut the hell out of it even more. We had to pick-up two reaction shots, which took about 30 mins to shoot with the lead actor. Once the edit was done I took it to my co producer Zoe, who then made some suggestions. I trimmed some more, and then we went into final Sound and our Grade.

Post Production Advice:                                                                                                     Zoe, @ Final sound advised on the edit. As did my DOP Matt. I also had friends comment on the edit.

Grading:                                                                                                We are grading @ Complete Post On Scratch. Our grader is Grayton Hevern.

Sound-post production process:               This had a massive sound post-production process. All of our puppets needed to be voiced by actors. Firstly we had to cast them, I was lucky enough to get Samuel Johnston and Steve Bastoni to donate their time to do the voices. I was also very lucky to have Final Sound behind me again (they did the sound work for Home), for the sound post-production. Paul Shanahan is our sound designer and an amazing one at that! Without him I am nothing. (That also goes for all of my cast and crew, they worked so hard for no money to make the film for the under $2000, budget both on this and Home, I now owe them all a Liver, A Kidney and a Lap Dance.)

Mastering:                                                                                              I will keep a digital master and make whatever the festivals ask for.

Screening At:                                          Hopefully it will be in December at a festival in Melbourne (LIKE US at www.facebook.com/teapartyfilm for updates). Soon after fingers crossed it will tour the world like the last film did!