Working with Naked Communications and client Deakin Sport, Monster & Bear were tasked with creating a series of authentic, heartfelt, documentary-style videos with some of Australia's leading athletes.

This series of interviews was filmed over 2 production days in separate locations, so we knew getting through the shooting schedule would be a challenge.

By interviewing each athlete over the phone in advance of the shoot, we were able to plan the flow of their story, and design a list of questions to be used on the filming day. Based on the phone call, we edited together a montage of photographed memories that would appear in the projections behind our talent. This was an uncommon situation for us - we had to go through post-production before the shoot had even started!

On each shooting day, we had to make sure that everything was ready to go the moment our athletes walked in the door. We blacked out the location, set up our lighting and camera placement in advance. Our heavy-duty rear projection system was set up based on the main camera angles we had chosen, and pre-loaded with all of the edited photo montage material.

We made sure that all of the athlete's time on set was spent getting natural, authentic interview material and cinematic, slow motion cutaways. Our planning in pre-production meant that we knew how each story would unfold, and we could allow our talent to speak to each question freely, without any scripting or autocue.