Kindred began as Josh Bryer’s bit on the side. And Josh Bryer’s bit on the side began in 2012. By 2013, most of adland knew all about it and a big chunk of adland was not only egging it on, but helping it to thrive.

That says a little about adland mateship in general and a lot about the M&C Saatchi creative director himself.

Now Kindred, “A FILM BY A LOT OF PEOPLE. 9 MINUTES. COLOUR. ENGLISH,” is about to hit the festival circuit. The first sci-fi to star indigenous Australians, will walk the red carpet at film festivals throughout the world, beginning mid-August.

Here’s a peek behind the curtains:

A lot is packed into Kindred’s 9 minutes.

“KINDRED’s core theme is belief, and we wanted to explore how belief or cynicism (a lack of belief) changes under extreme pressure.
 Beliefs are tested the most when worlds collide. So we set up a collision between the two most polar worlds we could think of: the world’s oldest living culture, and an advanced race of aliens,” is Bryer’s thinking behind its scenes.

It was not a fun and giggles project.

“The VFX were a mammoth task. Even though the main action only runs for 9 minutes, there were 200 shots in the film – of which 190 had VFX, and there were up to 9 in one shot. It took 3 VFX houses, and some 60 artists in total, from all over the world, to finish in 2.5 years. Someone called it ‘The World’s Shortest Feature.”

It was made with love, but even love needs to be paid for.

“It was only partly crowdfunded in the end. The rest came from a combination of an investor (Altaire Productions) and my pocket. But yes, the crowdfunding was tough. You become a bit of a nag in the end. But it blows you away how generous people are. Even strangers.”

And this is only the beginning.

“Kindred is a both a standalone short, and a pitch piece for a feature length film I’m writing, which is going into Draft 5. The idea is to see if a studio is interested in the feature script, once the short has done the festival circuit and been picked up for distribution – which will be proof that the idea has an audience.”

(Quotes from FilmInk interview)

Primary credits:

Written by producer and post supervising director, and founder of
 Red Centre Films, Josh Bryer.

Produced in association with Altaire Productions (also managed marketing, sales and distribution).

Executive producer was Marie Slaight.

Co-produced by Annie Kinnane.

Live action directed by Oscar Nicholson.

VFX were sourced from all over the world – as far afield as Brazil, USA, Italy and India – compiled by Digital Pulse…

…and completed by Heckler, who also hosted the online edit.

A key alien effect was added by ZSpace.

FSM did the grade.

Sound and music was made and mixed by Smith & Western.