Johannesburg-based post-production house, Mushroom Media recently
completed its second feature film project, providing Dark Matter Studios a full
service post-production solution, including editing, grading and online of Leading
Lady, the latest romantic comedy by director Henk Pretorius.
The film, which stars Irish actress Katie McGrath and South African musician Bok
van Blerk, involves a British drama teacher who comes to South Africa to prepare
for a role as an Afrikaans war heroine. She enlists the help of an Afrikaans
farmer, and a romance develops.
Mushroom Media, which is well established as a post-production facility for
commercials and other long-form work, completed their work on Leading Lady in
April, in preparation for the film’s release later in the year.
Warwick Allan, founder of Mushroom, says of the project: “Its been a great
pleasure to work on this film and especially being able to offer a one-stop post
solution to the guys at Dark Matter Studios has been great. We were able to
give the film a lot of personal attention and be intimately involved in every
aspect of its development through the post chain from offline to grade and
finally online.
“We understand that a film is often many years in the making before it even
gets to us in post and, as a filmmaker, you need someone to help you take it to
completion with a renewed sense of energy and make sure the absolute best
results are achieved from the shoot’s rushes.
“We are passionate about post-production and love the complex mixture of
creativity and technical aspects that makes post so interesting and places it in
such a pivotal role in the creation of a feature film. We see ourselves as real
partners to the director and producers of the film in that we can be leaned on at
the end of the long journey to get it done the best possible way.’
Mushroom Media will celebrate its 10th year of being in business at the end of
2014 and the company has moved through different areas of focus in the
advertising, entertainment and television industries of South Africa over the
period but has always had its roots in post-production.
In the past two years Mushroom has developed its full service offering to include
high-end grading (DaVinci Resolve – working with up to 5K footage) and online
editing capability (Smoke & After Effects) in addition to its offline edit based
services. Their model is to keep it small and work with highly skilled freelancers
specifically chosen for the job at hand.
This keeps the company agile and responsive to the changing needs of the
industry and technology and pairs the right talent to the job. With large scale
projects such as the 2.5-hour SAMA award winning concert film for Lira, full post
on a locally produced feature film for Monarchy Group called Thina Sobaili
(entered for selection at Cannes 2014), iBhokwe – a short film by John Trengove
(official section at the Berlin Film Festival) and an ever growing number of
commercials under its belt. Mushroom Media has firmly positioned itself as one of
the key players in the post-production sector of South Africa and is set to
continue to solidify this position with its personal and friendly boutique style of
digital post services, all under one roof – with the one goal of doing top notch
creative post work for the South African film and commercials industries well into
the future.
