Guest blog by Sebastian Solberg

Modern Man – Watch it, like it, share it with everyone you ever met – and use the hashtag #VMShortsvote: http://tinyurl.com/ModernManFilm

From my London office-bedroom last Friday morning, I was able to travel to Wales to watch a woolly mammoth being brought to life with 3D technology, then take a trip across the pacific to New Zealand and see a cavewoman transport herself from an Ice Age into a spotless kitchen. I then finished off by zooming back to Europe, Dublin to fill producer Jassa Ahluwalia in with the latest updates.

It’s mind blowing how instant communication is now – with modern technology there’s no longer a distance barrier and teams can be chosen based on talent rather than location.  Of course, as with every new challenge – and with such a VFX-heavy film! – there were days of horror when the internet suddenly became temperamental, or bandwidths ran out! Regardless, this film would not have been possible without modern technology and is a firm example of modern filmmaking.

After the amazing experience of using modern technology to make this film I thought I’d share what I learnt:

• Work with people you trust and who are passionate about the project. When it comes to crunch team you need to know your team will pull through otherwise you won’t sleep at night!
• Have a post production co-ordinator / VFX co-ordinator whose role it is to data wrangle, set deadlines and make sure the team have everything they need. I ended up doing this myself and it took up 80% of my time. This meant less time was spent on perfecting the film.
• Have a workflow that every team member follows. We didn’t have a good workflow and because of this near the deadline we had files all over the place with different names being sent via wetransfer, dropbox, skype, email – it was a nightmare! Use one system that everyone follows and keep a strict workflow!
• Use images and video examples as much as possible so your team know exactly what you want, YouTube and Google images are perfect for this!
• Set yourself enough TIME! This is a big one, we completely underestimated how long it would take to do the VFX; it takes months not weeks to create good VFX sequence. We ended up not sleeping for the last couple of weeks of post-production to meet the deadline. You don’t want to be doing this if you can help it! Just remember all good things take time.
• Finally make sure you have fun – this is why we make films after all and if it’s not, then you’re in the wrong business!

Good luck with your future projects and I’d love to hear how you’ve used Modern technology to bring your film to life.

@SebSolberg