With Russian film ‘Leviathan’ garnering Oscar and BAFTA nominations and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign film this week, IFTN talks to Dave Hughes of Windmill Lane Pictures Post Production about his work on the acclaimed film.
Working closely with Russian DOP Mikhael Krichman (who he previously worked with on the Subotica produced ‘Miss Julie’) Hughes graded the film with Tim Morris and Sandi McGrath supervising the 4K Digital Intermediate at Windmill Lane.
Dave Hughes – whose long list of previous credits include ‘Love/Hate’, ‘The Guarantee’ and ‘Gold’ – speaking to IFTN about his work on the film said: ‘This job came about because I have relationship with the DOP (Krichman) after working with him for ‘Miss Julie’ and he asked could he bring the job of the grading here (to Windmill Lane) and his producers agreed. So, when they locked the cut, we got the call and they sent it here. The grade lasted about two and a half weeks because it is quite a long film.’
For Hughes, the success of the film did not come as a surprise: ‘To be honest, it was a great piece of work. Even when I first watched it way back in May last year, we could tell it was going to do well. It’s a strong film with an eye to being an epic. It has quite a small cast but the photography makes it big. It’s a great level to be working at.’
With the Sundance Film Festival beginning on January 22nd, Hughes is currently finishing the grade on ‘The Hallow’, directed by Corin Hardy which is set to have its’ world premiere at the world’s leading independent film festival.
Hughes is also set to team up with Krichman for a third time on the Jim Sheridan directed ‘Secret Scripture’, which began principal photography earlier this week: ‘We have been working through the rushes with Mikhael since it started shooting and then once the shoot finishes, we will start the grade but the edit’s happening here too so in between we will be getting sequences and practicing for that.’
Dave Hughes (with fellow colourist Matt Branton) and Windmill Lane Pictures Post Production currently have a slew of films to work on – five features in the next three months – three of which are international films coming to Ireland solely for post-production work.
‘At the moment, I would say our jobs are split about 50/50 between international jobs that are coming here purely for the grade and Irish features so that’s really nice. We are going to start work on an Italian film that was shot in Italy by Irish DOP Piers McGrail. We are also doing Paddy Breathnach’s ‘Viva’ which is here at the moment as well as ‘My Name is Emily’.’
Aside from ‘Leviathon’, Irish animated feature ‘Song of the Sea’ also received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, Northern Irish short ‘Boogaloo and Graham’ received a nomination for Best Live Action Short Film and the John Carney helmed ‘Begin Again’ received a nomination for Best Original Song.
