Lake Mungo

Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Were the shots with the ghost put in during post or was the actress there and was her appearance just altered in post. If you get my meaning.

Thanks,

Mike
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Hi Michael...

Thanks again for the words...

In keeping with the whole "keeping it real" vibe, we did everything in camera using very low-fi and home brew VFX techniques. (Look up Pepper's Ghost for example)

We did also sometimes treat the footage by dubbing it through multiple generations and deliberately abusing the dubs. We often would simply film home movies again off of a monitor. One home movie clip was dubbed VHS to VHS 12 times. On the 9th dub I took the tape out of the housing and scrunched it in my hand, before winding it back and dubbing some more.

On some of the news footage we dubbed multiple generation copies using old 1" C recorders which I also interfered with as they were dubbing....:-)

Even all the stills photos used in the film were printed onto actual photo paper, "handled" and aged before being filmed (not scanned) to give everything a real sense of credibility, that it had been in someone's house, on someone's wall before it made it to us the filmakers.

We could have easily used either the camera original digital files, or scans which would have made any tracks into images easier, but we tested both approaches and guess which one looked better....

Even though it was a pain in the a** and i was cursing Joel for making me do it, it was the right thing to do for the look.

jb

John Brawley
Cinematographer
Sydney Australia
www.johnbrawley.com
 
ChipG said:
John,

Also cain't wait to see Lake Mungo, are they selling dvd's through a website?
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Hi Craig,

I imagine after the films US theatric run in Jan 2010 you'll be able to get it on DVD. It will be available from december here in Australia if you're really keen....

jb

John Brawley
Cinematographer
Sydney Australia
www.johnbrawley.com
 
John Brawley said:
Mostly I imagined I was a documentary cinematographer from a prestigious production. We imagined we were resourced but only so far as a high budget documentary shoot would be. I deliberately limited myself to a small lighting package from a van running only from house power.

jb
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Curious how far you went with this. Like did you and the director talk about the documentary's point of view, what the documentarian was trying to get out of this? Did the documentarian have an agenda?

This might all be apparent when I see the film, but curious how far you went with those "character" aspects and how they affected choices made in the shooting, if at all.
 
Mark Harris said:
Curious how far you went with this. Like did you and the director talk about the documentary's point of view, what the documentarian was trying to get out of this? Did the documentarian have an agenda?

This might all be apparent when I see the film, but curious how far you went with those "character" aspects and how they affected choices made in the shooting, if at all.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Although Lake Mungo is a documentary, we wanted to just simply try and present the facts as they happen. Lake Mungo is *shot* over 12 months. When we first meet the family some of the story world's events have already happened in the past tense so to speak. We can only re-enact them and present the *evidence* of what's happened.

Other event unfold as we film so we react to them and cover them in a more observational style.

This was all designed at the script stage so we had to create that sense of time without explicitly explaining it in the film. You would simply watch and get the sense that things were unfolding in this way. We shot the majority of the film over a 5 week period but we had been shooting what I call wallpaper, overlay of the town and *elements* over a 12 month period. This was usually juts me and the director making the drive to the town and staying for a weekend and shooting the elements and the seasons.

We felt that we wanted out documentarian to not really take a position on the story, and to try and to a straight telling of the story. We'd let the audience decide what they wanted to believe. The film is really about what happens to a family going through, first the trauma of loosing someone in an unexpected way, and then dealing with the lingering questions of a life left behind, especially in the way that secrets are revealed and how they affect the family's *view* of their daughter.

Lake Mungo is about the grief of a family who have lost their daughter. She haunts them in many ways. Perhaps literally as a ghost, but she haunts them in many other ways as well and that's what we wanted to explore. So as the documentary filmmakers, we were always interested in the family as the subject and how they react to each new turn in the story as Alice haunts them in new and unexpected ways.

We were very influenced by films like " Capturing the Friedmans ", " Best In Show ", " Edvard Munch " and anything Errol Morris, especially "Fog Of War"

All these films use the documentary mode to tell a story. Some of them are real docos, others are using the doco form to tell a story.

We were always very uncomfortable with "mockumentary" because it infers satire and that's NOT where were going.

jb
 
John Brawley said:
Hi Michael...

Thanks again for the words...

In keeping with the whole "keeping it real" vibe, we did everything in camera using very low-fi and home brew VFX techniques. (Look up Pepper's Ghost for example)

We did also sometimes treat the footage by dubbing it through multiple generations and deliberately abusing the dubs. We often would simply film home movies again off of a monitor. One home movie clip was dubbed VHS to VHS 12 times. On the 9th dub I took the tape out of the housing and scrunched it in my hand, before winding it back and dubbing some more.

On some of the news footage we dubbed multiple generation copies using old 1" C recorders which I also interfered with as they were dubbing....:-)

Even all the stills photos used in the film were printed onto actual photo paper, "handled" and aged before being filmed (not scanned) to give everything a real sense of credibility, that it had been in someone's house, on someone's wall before it made it to us the filmakers.

We could have easily used either the camera original digital files, or scans which would have made any tracks into images easier, but we tested both approaches and guess which one looked better....

Even though it was a pain in the a** and i was cursing Joel for making me do it, it was the right thing to do for the look.

jb

John Brawley
Cinematographer
Sydney Australia
www.johnbrawley.com
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Thanks so much! This is really fascinating stuff.
Any chance that this will play in major cities here in Canada?

Thanks again for all the great information. I'll be sure to hit you up with more questions later.

MAH
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Thanks so much! This is really fascinating stuff.
Any chance that this will play in major cities here in Canada?

Thanks again for all the great information. I'll be sure to hit you up with more questions later.

MAH
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Hi Michael.

Im not sure how wide the release will be or even if it makes it as far north and up in your part of the world.

It's screening as part of After Dark.

http://www.horrorfestonline.com/?p=528

jb
 
@ John Brawley if you are still around these parts.

Unfortunatley I missed your film when it screened (premiered??) at the Dungog Film Festival.

There were two films screening at once and my wife and I wanted to see both but obviously couldn't so we took one each. She got to see "Lake Mungo" while I watched "Little Deaths".

I really enjoyed "Little Deaths" and was worried she may have gotten the bad side of the deal but on meeting up with here afterwards she was glowing in her appraisal of your film...well done.

Anyway, as far as I can gather it only had a limited release here in Oz and I don't think it came to Newcastle. Is it likely to be shown on a "big" screen in NSW anywhere in the near future?

If not it looks like I need to get the DVD.

Mmmm, maybe I can request it for our local film society's 2010 calendar.
 
Thanks. Yes the film played dungog but actually premiered at Sydney international film festival. It's out on DVD through madman in Australia in december.

Jb
 
ChipG said:
Yawn.
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Yes I must say the new trailer is a bit over the top.

It is not a horror film. It has suspense and it is about ghosts and the supernatural but if anyone goes in thinking they'll be getting horror would be disappointed.

jb

(currently at Sundance)
 
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