In Part 1of 'Making The DVD' we looked at the making of the non-commercial DVDs for LiMBO and Autumn Heart. If you missed Part 1 click
here.
In this second part of the series we will examine the creation of the Quondam DVD which became Last ATAK Pictures' first DVD to be made publicly available.
Making The DVD Part 2 - Quondam on DVD
When work began on Quondam in August 2003 director Andrew Davidson and producer Kevin Brett discussed their desire to present the film on DVD at the end of the production. The creation of the Autumn Heart DVD had shown that a quality product was within the abilities of the team, and that they had the skill to pull it off. Unlike the Autumn Heart DVD which had been designed to appeal to a narrow group of individuals, the goal of the Quondam DVD was to make a product that would interest a wide audience and explore the complete creation of the film in a structured and professional manner.
To this end it was decided that everything that was happening with the film would be documented, the pre-production period would be used to create a series of short documentaries that premiered on this web site, with the plan to feature on the DVD in their full resolution glory. Every stage of production was shot, and interviews were arranged with Andrew and Kevin, as well as Darren McAree, Daniel Anderson and Steven Coltart to gather key insight from the production team as the film was formed.
As principle photography started in November 2003, as with Autumn Heart, Ross Lucas was on hand to document the film's shoot. However, it was decided that with production split between photography and the make-up that a second cameraman should be brought in so that no element of the filming was missed. Ross brought Ben Macrow onto the production, they shared the workload and by the end of the 2 day principle photography in November 2003 Ross and Ben amassed 14 hours of behind-the-scenes footage.
The challenge creating the documentary features was that they were all due to be screened in March 2004 at the film's premiere. Andrew Davidson, who was editing the film, was also editing the 30-minute 'Making of' feature and Part 5 of the Web Documentary series. With these features created so far in advance, once development started on the DVD in the summer of 2004, the largest features had been created: 6 Web Documentaries with an average time of 4 minutes and half hour documentary created a combined hour of video exploring the making of the film.
Click for larger versions
Using the same spider-diagram method that Andrew and Michael Buxton had used previously, Andrew set out a list of what features would be on the DVD and how they would link together. The main change that Andrew wanted to make between the Autumn Heart DVD and the Quondam DVD is that the menus would be animated. This was for a number of reasons, it was the logical next step for DVD production, to create something more dynamic. The other reason was that, unlike LiMBO and Autumn Heart, Michael Buxton would not be available to create the graphic menus. Scenes from the film were chosen as backgrounds and loop points were made. Many of the menus were built from scratch using the original footage, some like the 'Play' menu had entire sections fabricated to accommodate the buttons.
