Bega film student Gary Lonesborough releases teasing trailer for short film

“The edit has just begun so I will be finished with the picture editing in five weeks, then I'm going to start on the sound design, recording foley and ADR and will be getting in touch with my composer very soon,” the 20–year-old Sydney Film School student said after a sleepless night chopping and cutting the trailer as part of his Advanced Diploma course in Screen and Media.

“It is physically and mentally draining as I am also editing two other short films at the moment so I'm all over the place, but it is all worth it when you get to see your hard work on the screen at the end of it,” he said.

“So I'm enjoying every minute of being exhausted.”

Foley is a post-production process that involves reproducing and adding sound effects to a film that brings it to life for the big screen, and is a process Mr Lonesborough finds rewarding.

“It is basically just trying to match what you see to the ear,” he said.

“So if someone was walking in the bush then you would think of how that would sound with leaves cracking and stuff, and the main thing with footsteps is to remember the left foot always sounds different to the right foot!

“The sound would also depend on what shoes the actors are wearing so it’s definitely a massive trial and error thing, but it is fun breathing life into a project through sound.

“You can have a good movie that looks bad but sounds great, but there's no such thing as a good movie that looks good and sounds bad,” he added.

Mr Lonesborough’s father stepped in to play a role during the hasty filming process making the role his own – a glimpse of his character is included in the trailer.

“I'm sure once the film is a couple weeks into the edit and we start cutting stuff it will become a bit weird for me having him in the film, but at the moment I'm just finding him very entertaining, he's a natural,” Mr Lonesborough said.

“His energy and presence on the screen is a standout, he improvised a bit and made the character his own, and is probably better than the one I had written in the script.”

After filming The Children around the natural beauty of the Bega Valley, Mr Lonesborough is hoping to bring his finished film back to Bega later in the year.

“My producer and I are going to try to organise a screening down in Bega before the film is shown at the festival up here in mid-December,” he said.

“I’m hoping we will try to organise something to make a night of it.”

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