The Post Lounge, Melbourne.
Formerly a producer at DDP Studios, Bronwyn Ketels found herself out of a job when Deluxe closed DDP in Melbourne and Sydney earlier this year. Ketels is now a senior post producer at the new Melbourne facility of long-established Queensland company, The Post Lounge.
In the wake of the closure of the biggest supplier in the local industry, Ketels writes for IF about the new gig, and why, "although we are very small compared to DDP/Deluxe… in Australia at the moment it doesn't make much sense to be that big."
Our new post facility is in a converted warehouse in Collingwood and we are offering picture post and VFX services on long-form and short-form TV and film projects. Rohan Cooper is our Operational Manager and main staff editor, Steve Cooper is the Owner, Managing Director and VFX Supervisor, and business partner Kurt Royan is the General Manager across both facilities.
I've just come on board as Senior Producer. Steve and Kurt are down in Melbourne every other week as Owner/Managers, completing VFX supervision, business development and remaining hands on with all long-form projects.
The Post Lounge started in Brisbane in 1979 (formerly named Beeps and started by Steve Cooper, who was then an editor) and there are currently about 20 people up there (plus freelancers depending on large VFX projects), and it is still proudly owner-operated.
Down here in the Melbourne branch we are a bit more boutique and are currently running five offline edit, grade, online suites (including a Resolve 2K DCI/grading theatre), plus supplementary services and the ability to expand or contract as required, with a small core staff and a great team of freelancers.
Recently, freelance senior colourists Dee McClelland and Olivier Fontenay have graded films through the Melbourne facility. We have an in-house colourist, Kali Bateman, who is available in Melbourne for commercial, TV and film projects, and I am also talking to other prominent Melbourne/Sydney colourists about coming on board as freelance colourists on future projects, so we are able to offer a range of talent and budgets for grading.
This goes for online and VFX too – while we have key core staff, we are open to providing freelance talent to suit a production's needs, and I am of course keen to continue to work with some of my excellent pals from DDP as they are some of the top artists in the country, and we have all recently been made redundant with the closure of DDP.
We have recently completed work on two local features (A Few Less Men and Don't Tell) and a TV pilot (Ronny Chieng: International Student, which has now been commissioned to series for the ABC) through the Melbourne office. We currently have another two indie features (The Butterfly Tree and Bad Blood) and a TV series working through, as well as the odd short film project.
We are collaborating with sound suppliers, including the highly regarded Paul Pirola, and Labsonics, so are able to offer picture and sound post packages when it helps a production to package them together, and can discuss investment on projects when required by producers looking to offset or finance their projects.
We also have the advantage of having the Queensland and Victorian bases, which can of course work to the benefit of producers working within funding guidelines from those states. The Butterfly Tree is a good example of this – shot in Queensland but post produced entirely in Victoria.
I must say that although we are boutique compared to DDP/Deluxe, unfortunately in Australia at the moment it doesn't make much sense to be that big. There seems to be an ever-growing need to keep overheads down as the local films do not always have the budgets, and the international films are few and far between in Victoria at the moment. And television always struggles to find big budgets even though production values are increasing and people are looking for lower-cost solutions, such as editing in-house.
As The Post Lounge's Melbourne office is the new kid on the block, we totally understand that we need to prove ourselves in the market to the local producers who do not yet know us. We were looking to do this anyway even while DDP existed, as an alternative to the big Deluxe top-end post production model with the big overheads. Now in light of the recent events it seems even more timely to be offering something lower-cost and more flexible to the local industry.