Tony Gardiner + Engine's short-film 'III' picked for HollyShorts 2012 Film Festival in Hollywood, CA

Says Gardiner: "III was shot earlier this year to show the world what our new Sony F65 camera can do. As we were one of the first to have an F65 there wasn't much footage available and rather than just produce some standard test shots for a reel we decided to make a short film."

Gardiner decided to collaborate with Sydney-based director Nick Kacevski and his brother and Engine producer George Kacevski after having recently shot a successful TVC with the pair.

Says George Kacevski: "Nick came up with the idea of shooting three different light scenarios involving a beach in the early morning, a forest and a night scene. Each scene would also feature some talented performers and challenges to really put the F65 through its paces. Tony, Nick and I then pitched the idea to Calvin at Engine as we needed a production and post production facility that would be able to handle the entire digital workflow in house. Fortunately Calvin thought it was a great idea and we set to work."

Over the next week Gardiner and the Kacevski brothers shot martial artist Hakan Manav, contortionist Bree Robertson and dancer Traves Ross at Tamarama Beach, Coopers Park and an abandoned factory in Alexandria taking the footage to Engine for what was to be a very fast post production workflow, even by short film standards.

Says Engine CEO Calvin Gardiner said, "We wanted to work on III as it was worthwhile in terms of refining new digital workflows and future planning. More and more of the work we do is shot digitally and III in particular combined RAW, compressed and high-speed workflows - something that was quite unique."

In fact such was the uniqueness of the shoot that Sony USA used the short film as a promotional tool for the F65 camera on Sony's social media sites and at trade shows.

Says Tony Gardiner: "Sony wrote to us and complemented the seamless use of footage from RAW codecs and SR compressed codecs. We really put the camera through all possible lighting conditions and it performed better than anyone could have imagined. The images are very pleasing on the eye and have a film-like grain. We knew as the first short film shot in Australia with the F65 that it would create some interest but not even we thought it would get so much coverage worldwide and be selected for HollyShorts."

Once at Engine the F65's footage was ingested to Engine's server with both RAW and SR codec footage processed into proxies via Da Vinci's Resolve. The footage was offlined in Final Cut Pro with Calvin Gardiner overseeing the edit. The native, RAW and SR footage was reprocessed into 10-bit DPX and onlined and graded in Flame Premium.

Says Calvin Gardiner: "Producing III was a great achievement in itself for the guys as the timeframe was incredibly tight. From Engine's point of view we are delighted III has been selected for the HollyShorts Film Festival. The images are excellent and really show what the Sony F65 and a good digital workflow can achieve. As a result we are also working on the world's first anamorphic F65 shoot so there are exciting times ahead."

Click for more information on the HollyShorts Film Festival

EP - Calvin Gardiner
Producer - George Kacevski
Director - Nick Kacevski
DOP - Tony Gardiner
Post production - Engine