Human connection came to the fore when we were all suddenly deprived of it. Something people generally took for granted became something people craved, talked about and reminisced about. Melbourne cinematographer and DP, Joel Egan, and Volvo made a campaign about it. For Egan, the two-year project came from the heart.
The Stable: Please tell me how you came to work on the project with Volvo. What does it mean to you?
Joel Egan: During the start of the pandemic, I found myself quite isolated in the city away from my family and not able to visit my hometown or get out of the city and back to nature. I’ve always yearned to get back to nature and because I was fortunate to have grown up by the ocean, I wanted to share that personal feeling of being present in nature and connecting with a loved one but tell the story from places that have not really been shot or over-shot commercially and are personal to me. Ultimately, nature has such a healing and meditative effect and I wanted to transport the audience to that emotional state.
Initially, I pitched my idea to the agency on record. They loved the concept and took it to global. But lockdowns and the uncertain nature of things intervened, especially as we were going to require two multi day shooting blocks. I felt it was only going to be made locally. As a result, a close stills photographer friend, Jayden Ostwald, and I reached out to Volvo Cars Melbourne. They came on board and supported us through the project.
This project is especially important to me for a number of reasons. I live and love brands and have followed the strong emotive work for Volvo Internationally created on location in Sweden. In the cinematography community, these ads have always been the yardstick, aspirational and so building on their strong work and adapting it to a local market and honouring the brand is very satisfying. Conveying the idea of memories or making memories, with Volvo both transporting us to these locations and protecting our way of life, were key mantras and anchors. More importantly, we honoured each story by telling it in an emotive and authentic way. You can actually feel that each talent is completely present, creating a real memory and something they will remember for the rest of their life. Creating the environment in which the talent could really go there in a safe place and share it is what I’m most proud of.
The Stable: There is “quietness” to the story – a meditative nature. What were your aims and ideas for the film? Special film techniques?
Joel Egan: It was important to share the locations where I had experienced special moments with loved ones and nature and present them in a way that was new and unique to others and also have an international feel. The backstory for me was always about grounding the characters in nature, being present with a loved one and connecting in the beauty of nature with soft emotive light. I’ve always loved the power of holding on a frame, which allows the viewer to really take in the environment and feel like they are experiencing the emotional state of the character and transporting them to that place.
We did extensive scouting in South Gippsland to pinpoint the best time of day for sunrise and sunset, with golden hour or blue hour – pre-dusk or dusk – chosen for three particular emotive looks for the project. The project was shot in two blocks, a total of five days broken into one day filming with each talent and two days of dedicated car tracking. We used a combination of hand-held and slow dolly pushes to motivate and place the audience in the mind of each of the characters. To achieve the best time of day for tracking shots outside the two dedicated days of filming tracking shots, we had a car-tracking vehicle on standby with permits and traffic management crew on standby that on the day of production with the right weather would call on.
The Stable: It could not have been an easy shoot?
Joel Egan: Weather was not on our side for two of the main shoot days, but we felt the mix of summer and winter weather and light would result in a more well-rounded project. Even with weather holds and going on standby, we found ourselves chasing both the light and rain and at one point we were rained and hailed out. Even so, we turned this around by embracing the bad weather and were able to capture some of the best moments as well as footage that was completely unexpected, unique and impossible to recreate. It was incredible to be on location with such a dedicated crew and with talent that really wanted to be there and share such intimate experiences. On the day, you could really feel that each cast member believed in the process and were making a memory and that these memories were special to them.
Postponing the shoots due to the lockdowns was also challenging but the silver lining is that the project evolved and the importance of getting out into nature and being with loved ones became even more evident throughout the pandemic. So many people have not been able to get out into nature or see their parents, children and even partners during the pandemic for various reasons. A big thankyou goes out to all of the amazing talent, partners, crew and everyone involved in bringing this project to life.
The Stable: Tell me about you?
Joel Egan: Being from a small coastal town, I never really considered working in TV and film as I simply didn’t realise it was a career possibility and that this world existed. I grew up with a love for nature, sport and spending time with family, and from a young age taking black and white stills photography of landscapes. My career started off in media and moved into video after a chance experience assisting a friend on a small video shoot seven years ago. I always dreamt of studying film, and from that moment it opened my mind to exploring working in the industry and becoming a cinematographer. Soon after, I joined content production company, The Story Lab, running a creative team and learning from some of the best DPs in Australia on set. After being accepted into film school, well-known Australian commercial DP, Joel Betts, sat me down and said I had a great eye and that I just needed to shoot and keep shooting. This gave me the confidence to go on and live out this dream of becoming a commercial DP.
I received a Silver ACS Award for my first self-funded passion project, Volley – Moments, and from there I have been fortunate to work with amazing brands and production companies freelancing as a DP full-time. I’ve pushed hard to develop a range of styles within sport, lifestyle, automotive, and narrative and am confident in achieving any setup, look or cinematic storytelling technique now. I love pushing and elevating each project where possible and am always looking for collaborations and projects that require or demand that type of energy.
Last year, through my two personal projects, Bully and Rival, which explored confronting and controversial subjects, I won two Gold ACS Awards in branded content and also an Award of Distinction at the National ACS Awards. Both projects were about telling a true, authentic story on screen and projecting the subconscious of our talent on-screen through heightened narrative cinematic storytelling techniques.
I consider myself a filmmaker, not a director, and love working with other directors, creative teams and agencies collaboratively. I love the traditional commercial model as it’s important to always be exploring new visual ideas, looks, storytelling techniques and spots, but find myself exploring other ideas and narratives in my own time. I’m proud of all the commercials and opportunities I’ve had to date, but especially of proud of all my personal projects, which generally I like to do one to two per year. These are either fully funded commercially or created in a co-collaboration with support from brands and partners.
Joel Egan is represented by Auscrew and available for freelance cinematographer bookings. For enquiries please contact Joel by email or phone: 0439113537
