05 April 2006

The first feature film to be fully post-produced at Park Road Post’s new facilities illustrates the strengths of the company’s relationship-forming approach to its clients

When No 2 won the audience award in the World section of the Sundance Film Festival, Park Road Post was one of the proudest of those celebrating the film’s success.

It wasn’t just that the recognition represented a triumph for the modestly budgeted New Zealand film by first time director and writer Toa Fraser.

But Park Road Post was particularly proud of the fact that No 2 which is one of the first features to have been completely post-produced at their new, state of the art facilities in Wellington, New Zealand.

What also made the film special to the post-production house was the challenge that its form presented to the post-production process.

The story of No 2 takes place entirely on one day and much of the action is filmed outside.

From the beginning, the challenge for the filmmakers was ensuring a visual consistency to the natural change of light from the story’s opening just after dawn, until its conclusion at an outside feast just before sunset.

Making this single day’s events – shot like most films over several weeks – believable as a real, continuous summer’s day was an achievement realised by the establishment of a close working relationship between Park Road Post staff and the filmmakers.

Philippa Campbell is one of No 2’s three producers and she explains some of the attraction of Park Road Post.

“We were able to use it as a one stop shop,” she says.

“We had all of our dailies processed at Park Road Post, went through a Digital Intermediate [DI] process, mixed the sound and had our premiere prints produced there. Having that all in the same building made it terrific from an organisational point of view.

“It also makes sense for a small budgeted film like ours because it maximises the time for everyone involved,” she says.

Because of the time span of the story in the film a key process was the DI stage.

“[Cinematographer] Leon Narbey was a key player in this. He suggested using a DI as a way of ensuring the look of the film during the grading process.”

“We had budgeted to shoot on 35 mm film stock with conventional film post-production. A DI would have been more than we could afford.”

But Narbey suggested that if the film was shot on 16mm a DI would become affordable.

Prior to his suggestion Campbell had had no experience of a DI process.

“One of the great things about working with Jon Newell and his team at Park Road Post was their willingness to talk us through what the process would entail and what we needed to know about managing our time and resources.”

Philippa Campbell cites this willingness to enter a relationship with the filmmakers to help them achieve their goals as a key benefit of working with Park Road Post.

“Of course it’s to Park Road’s advantage to let us know what we’re getting into and what we need to do to make their work flow easier.

“But really, for us the result is that we had such a wonderful experience we’ve come out of it as a real flag-bearing project,” Campbell says.

“It’s wonderful to be able to celebrate that relationship.”

Leon Narbey, who is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated cinematographers, had prior experience of the DI process both in Europe and at Park Road Post.

One of the things that makes this facility stand out for him is the high quality of the facilities available there.

“The fact that you’re sitting in a suite which has fantastic digital projection and a large screen means you can do your work looking at the image on a cinema scale. It’s so much better than monitors where you were often seeing yourself reflected in the screen,” Narbey says.

Those are qualities of which Park Road Post Colourist and Telecine Manager, Jon Newell is proud to see endorsed.

“No 2 was the first film to use this suite – it wasn’t just a fantastic opportunity to see it working but fantastic to see how it has turned out and is helping the film,” he says.
 
Narbey also draws attention to the advantages of combining several parts of the process in one building.

Narbey was working directly with Clare Burlinson, the film’s Digital Colourist who is a contractor with Park Road Post and they were in close contact with the facility’s Film Colourist, Lynne Reed, who was handling the output of their digital image onto film.

“Each day we were able to go to the lab with Lynne and see how the Digital Image had come out on film.”

Clare Burlinson agrees that it’s the team atmosphere at Park Road Post that makes that sort of collaboration possible and makes the facility a special place.

It also makes for an incredibly supportive environment she thinks.

“Often in post-production you get stuck in a little dark room: at Park Road you can move around and people come in to offer feedback. People here are really interested in their jobs and it makes it more fun.

“Although I’m the digital colourist I worked closely with Lynne to talk about the stock and understand how our work would be affected by being printed onto film,” Clare Burlinson says.  

But this was not just a matter of talking about technical issues.

“We are always talking about the dramatic context of the job - how will this feel in terms of the drama at this point of the film,” she says.

Another key element in any film is the sound mix – this was overseen by Park Road Post’s two time Oscar winning Sound Mixer, Michael Hedges who worked with the film’s composer, Don McGlashan, and Sound Designer, Tim Prebble, along with the director, Toa Fraser.

“They were fantastic people to work with,” Hedges says.

“Part of what made it work was that we got together really early to talk about what we were going to do so that we could understand what Toa and the team were trying to achieve.”

This is an aspect of something that Michael Hedges thinks is a uniquely New Zealand approach at Park Road Post.

“In a lot of other places the director will appear and then the sound mixers will never see him. The Park Road way is to say; you are welcome to be here for as long as you want. It’s a kiwi way of working – getting together in a friendly way with your mates, knowing it’s going to be great because we’re all keen to make a great movie.”

Hedges points out that there’s also more of an opportunity for directors to stay in touch with the sound mix at an all in one facility like Park Road Post where you can go and be involved in other, separate parts of the process which are literally along the hall.

Michael Hedges says the same qualities appeal to international projects.

“We’ve had international directors who have come here with projects that are considering using us and they have been astounded, not just by the facility, but by the friendliness of the people they came to talk with. They’ve told us that this feels like a great place to make a film.”

Park Road Post is not just a great place because of it’s technical superiority and state of the art technology, but also because of its exceptional level of comfort and décor which is truly at a five-star level.

From the enormous lobby through to the large sound mixing theatres, to the offices production companies are able to use, to the smaller DI and editing suites, everything is designed to enhance the quality of the experience for film or commercial-makers.

Park Road Post has become most renowned through its association with New Zealand filmmaker, Peter Jackson and his epic Lord of the Rings cycle and more recently King Kong and you might think producers of modestly budgeted films might get the impression that the glamour of Park Road Post is not intended for them.

Philippa Campbell explains what it meant to her.

“Independent filmmakers everywhere grapple with small budgets and limited resources, and producers and directors in particular feel the heat of this. 

“By the time we arrived at Park Road  we were exhausted after the filming – Toa had just shot his first movie and had his first baby. We walked in here and were looked after.

“King Kong was going through post production at the same time but we were never made to feel that we were a small film and that there was a big film that was more important than us,” Philippa Campbell says.

The proof of that is that Campbell came straight back with her next film – the also modestly budgeted Black Sheep – which, like No 2, will be completely post-produced at Park Road.

In this case it’s an even more fully integrated experience of the Wellington-based film facilities founded by Peter Jackson, as the film will incorporate creature effects from Weta Workshop and use Stone Street Studios for filming - all of them located with in a few blocks of each other.

For Campbell it’s an ideal filmmaking environment.

“It’s great to have everything in one place, to not be separated geographically and to know how supported you will be.”