Featured image credit: Faith Guoga

We chat to Faith Guoga about NEST.

What inspired you to create NEST?

This short film is inspired by a bush fable about a lyrebird that would halt logging operations by mimicking the sound of a fire alarm. It was developed by Steve Anthopoulos (Grand Prize Winner, Final Draft Big Break 2020), James Hunter (MIFF Accelerator Director 2021) and Faith Guoga (Masters of Producing graduate from the Victorian College of the Arts 2021).

What challenges did you face in creating this production?

The 3 biggest challenges in making this production were:

Making a film during a global pandemic, including putting together a crew interstate while completing our pre-production in a 2-week mandatory quarantine.

Capturing a live tree felling in one take on a single 16mm film camera at a sustainable plantation with a trained arborist.

Bringing the lyrebird sequence together. This included sourcing the rights to the perfect lyrebird footage so it could be digitally composited over the top of a plate with our actor and then animating the beak in time with the alarm sound which was not finalized until our sound mix at the very end of production.

What are you hoping audiences will take away from watching this film?

We are hoping the film will resonate with audiences on an emotional level and that the themes of 'environmental warning signs going ignored' will leave people thinking.