A script that's been ten years in the making, crafted by the visionary duo Colin and Cameron Cairnes (Scare Campaign, 100 Bloody Acres).

The brothers had a clear vision: to create a "slightly dangerous, live television atmosphere" that would transport audiences back to the '70s —a time when satanic panic was the ultimate ratings booster.

Drawing inspiration from late-night talk show legends like Don Lane, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson, the directors aimed to craft a film that was as spooky as it was suspenseful. The film also delves into the grey area between science and belief, questioning the boundaries of our understanding in a way that leaves audiences both thrilled and thoughtful.

Off the back of a successful collaboration on feature film Lone Wolf, Mat Govoni called us in May 2021 to pitch the project “I’m working on another film, this one with the Cairnes Brothers. It's a horror in the form of a late-night talk show broadcast tape, we’ll be doing a studio shoot and it needs to look and smell like it was shot in the 70s.”

"We're all here to make something decent, to do meaningful work. It's always about finding the right fit in a new partnership, wondering, 'Are these guys on board? Are we on the same page?' Our experience with your team was affirming; it was about problem-solving and making it the best it can be. We have nothing but positive things to say about that experience." - Mat

An email with the finance plan shortly followed and we got to work crafting a post-production budget that would enable a meticulously crafted audio-visual experience that was as authentically '70s as disco and bell-bottoms, but with the crispness of modern cinema. 

Ah, the gap—the exhilarating, sometimes hair-pulling space where a director's dream meets the nitty-gritty of post-production. It's where the storyboard turns into a budget spreadsheet, and where our expertise turns challenges into cinematic gold.

So, you've got a decade-old script by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, directors who double as editors, and a producer, Mat Govoni, who's already a fan from our previous collaboration on Lone Wolf. Sounds like smooth sailing, right? Not when you're staring down a $400,000 budget and a 12-month timeline.

In a world where everyone's trying to reinvent the wheel, we opted for simplicity. The goal was fast turnaround so that material could be reviewed ASAP. It's not about being flashy; it's about being efficient and effective.

Workflow: 

• We used industry standard Silverstack XT to process camera cards onto redundant storage.
• From there proxies were generated using Davinci Resolve, with an applied show look developed by colourist Nicholas Hower CSI. 
• All material was archived to LTO tape and vaulted. 
• Dailies previews were sent out via Frame IO
• Silverstack daily reports sent out to the Studio.

The Cairnes brothers are both avid editors (not that kind of Avid), and naturally wanted to work from the comfort of their respective homes. We made this possible using a tool we’ve come to love, our secret weapon for remote collaboration… LucidLink.

You know that phrase “The future is now?”. Yeah, that's LucidLink. It’s like if Avid was owned by Atlassian and they were in the post-production business. With LucidLink, we had four edit systems (the brothers, an assistant, and our DI station) accessing the same media which appears locally on each computer as if they’re in the same facility. 

Key Software: Premiere Pro, LucidLink

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Meet Adam White, co-founder of Future Pictures and the Gandalf of VFX. With a background as both an editor and visual effects supervisor, Adam knows how to make the unreal look real. He led a small but mighty team of artists, including Dylan Perry, Greg Cooper, and Peter Leary, in creating the film's visual magic.

We set up a VFX shot tracking system in ClickUp, our go-to project management tool. But the real game-changer once again was LucidLink (see Remote Editing). Work-in-progress shots were rendered directly into LucidLink, enabling the Cairnes brothers to drop them straight into the edit. Revised renders would be overwritten, automatically updating the edit project. 

This process truly shined during finishing. Revisions to shots were automatically updated into the Digital Intermediate project in DaVinci Resolve. This allowed us to effortlessly render out new sound references bi-weekly in the weeks leading up to the final mix. The cherry on top? These new references also included updated grades, graphics, and titles.

In total, we had nearly 300 VFX shots to tackle. Post Lab IO handled 32 in-house, while the rest were expertly executed by Adam's freelance team. It was a collaborative dance of art and technology, all orchestrated to bring a devilishly good story to life.

Techstack: After Effects, Mocha Pro. Houdini, 3DS Max, Photoshop, LucidLink (Sharing to Editorial), SyncThing (Sharing between VFX team)

Deciding on a unique look that emulated the feeling of 1970s U-matic tape seemed like a straightforward choice, yet it presented interesting challenges as we started our R&D process. After processing an entire rough cut edit to vintage U-matic tape, we quickly realised that getting too close to a true U-matic emulation wasn't really in the best interests of the film - it was too glitchy and washed out, too fuzzy and distracting to a modern audience.

Nevertheless, it was important for both us and the directors to push quite far out into the extreme end of what’s possible and then work to find the median ground where it works to complement, not distract, from the story. After some experimentation, the directors set our brief:

“We don’t want to do the ‘classic music video’ look - glitchy, everything's sort of warped. We have to be subtle because we didn't want it to get in the way of the story. We don’t want that to draw attention to itself unless it’s helping the story. You know, there's a glitch or tape tear or whatever for a very specific reason.”‍

“I mean, I think you know, we pushed it probably a bit far at the beginning, which is what you always do anyway. And we should just reel it back a little bit. And we're all I think we've found a sweet spot.”

Ah, colour grading—the unsung hero of post-production. Meet Nicholas Hower CSI, our senior colorist and the wizard behind the curtain. Inspired by late-night legends like Johnny Carson, Nicholas and cinematographer Matthew Temple set out to recreate that '70s analog broadcast vibe, but with a modern twist.

“Nick's great… I could not imagine there being anyone a better colourist on this job. He clearly got what we were trying to set out to achieve. And he went to extreme lengths, I think, to make that happen.”

Nicholas didn't just slap on some filters; he went full mad scientist. Partnering with Video Lab, a specialised video transfer company, they meticulously captured the spatial and temporal qualities of standard definition analog tape and NTSC broadcasting.

This wasn't just a simple colour correction; it was a deep dive into the physics of vintage video. They recorded thousands of colour patches to U-matic tape, which then formed the basis for a custom LUT (Look-Up Table).

Using ColourSpace software, this custom LUT was engineered to emulate the non-linear colour changes of analog tape. It was a labour-intensive process that required a keen eye and a deep understanding of both vintage and modern video technologies.

The result? A film that's a visual time machine, transporting audiences back to 1977 while keeping them firmly rooted in the now. And let's not forget how his meticulous work gave the VFX team the roadmap they needed to bring the devil himself to life, all on a shoestring budget and tight timeline.

Workflow

• Davinci Resolve
• Colourspace
• Klein K-80 Colorimeter
• Sony BVM-A14F5M Vintage CRT

In a world where everyone's trying to reinvent the wheel, we opted for simplicity. The goal was fast turnaround so that material could be reviewed ASAP. It's not about being flashy; it's about being efficient and effective.

Workflow: 

• We used industry standard Silverstack XT to process camera cards onto redundant storage.
• From there proxies were generated using Davinci Resolve, with an applied show look developed by colourist Nicholas Hower CSI. 
• All material was archived to LTO tape and vaulted. 
• Dailies previews were sent out via Frame IO
• Silverstack daily reports sent out to the Studio.