Majarich: I’m not just a filmmaker. I work as a designer and creative director in advertising by day. That entails writing, illustrating, coming up with creative concepts for brands, and occasionally…filmmaking. I first started making my own films and shooting my own stuff about five years ago. I bought a Micro Four Thirds camera and began learning about frame rates,  shutter speeds, and stabilization. It was challenging, but also fun. I had an idea of what I thought looked good in a static frame, but no idea how to translate that to motion. I started making little travel films and gradually built up to making shorts. I remember one film director (I think it was Guilermo Del Toro) saying that moviemaking is the best form of art as it encapsulates everything else: music, photography, writing, acting, even typography. I really like that definition of filmmaking.

Majarich: All of the above! Like most people making films, I try and soak up everything film-related that I can. I am a big fan of many filmmakers that I’ve found through my social networks or past projects. Guys like Olaf Blomerus, Diego Contreras, Josh and Jon Baker, Ash Thorp, Payman Benz, Noah Conopask, Alex Serafini — there’s so many talented folks out there that I’ve tried to emulate. A LOT of trial and error is involved, too.

Majarich: I’ve always believed that ideas should come fully formed and knock you over their head with their brilliance immediately when you conceive of them. But this project was a big lesson in the opposite of that. I shot hours and hours of footage before I had any idea what the final story was going to be. I love sci-fi, so I set myself a goal of making something in that domain. I started with a basic template of a creature feature: an alien invasion of some sort. But I wanted it to be more than that. The best science fiction isn’t about the gizmos or the technology or the aliens, but about what effect these obscure elements have on the people. In the final weeks as I was editing, and with the help of my fantastic collaborators, I was able to consolidate the final idea into what it was and what the alien creatures were there for.

Majarich: I had rough storyboards, a voiceover script, a mood board, a treatment and all sorts of other visual reference for what I wanted to do. Usually with a project like this you would create these resources to prove to others that you know what you’re doing. But I made this for my own benefit. To prove to myself that I knew where I was going.

Majarich: Naomi Sequeira’s profile came up on a casting website, and immediately it struck me as to how intriguing she looks. She has a great presence on screen and also helped develop the character and story.

Majarich: The locations are all around my home suburb. There’s nothing too exotic and nothing that we had to pay for. It was all done through legwork and just working out where would look good. I’m especially proud of the car park shots. There’s an abandoned parking tower about five minutes from me that I often go and just take photos at since it looks so cool. My girlfriend — who is my number one collaborator and helps me out with every creative choice I make — is always rolling her eyes when I say we should go visit it! Because it’s not operating, there’s no artificial neon light, and if you hit it in the middle of the day, the sun washes in from the sides and just coats every surface perfectly.

Majarich: I got especially lucky here as my little son Milo was about to be born. I annoyed all the hospital staff by poking my head into empty rooms and filming them. In more ways than one, Milo was my little good luck charm!

Majarich: They involved a lot of trial and error. I set myself a limited budget and knew that techniques like rotoscoping were out of the question. So I ended up experimenting with biological elements as a kind of proxy  for an alien entity. I deliberately decided to choose VFX elements that could work without too much interaction with the environment around them. So “floating” made sense both in terms of feasibility as well as the storyline. I’ve taught myself a tiny amount of 3D in the past few years, but for the amount of shots that were involved here, I got help with tracking and compositing them in. Naturally, the shots that started off with a nice, cinematic-looking plate with dramatic light and pleasing camera movement ended up looking the best.

Majarich: The film was originally created for the Moment Invitational Film Festival. SoI bought pretty much every Moment  lens you can get: wide, anamorphic, telephoto, macro. I used all of them in “Invasion.” I had an ND filter on top of them most of the time. I tried adding in a pro-mist filter into the mix, but it got too heavy for the gimbal to handle. I experimented with a few different rig options. I used a DJI Osmo Mobile Gimbal with some counterweights, as well as my own cinema camera shoulder rig. For the opening push-in tracking shot, I borrowed a wheelchair from my local pharmacy for added smoothness. I’ve also done that shot multiple times before where it didn’t work out, so of course practice is key. I had some Aputure portable lights in a few shots to augment the natural light. Software wise, I used Filmic Pro to capture footage on my trusty iPhone 8. The newest smartphones are way too big for my liking. The latest models have some features like HDR filming that I might be missing out on, but even 4K/24fps on the older phones can be stunning.

Majarich: The advantages are that you can shoot almost anywhere with very little set-up time. You don’t need to have this big shoulder contraption that you usually have with a more commercial project. It’s so inconspicuous. You can just pull it out and shoot without it looking like you’re on a shoot. This changes the dynamic and the relationship your actors will have with the camera. Because I was my own DOP, I also had the luxury of being able to shoot as much as I want. The downside is that a cinema camera has built-in stability and the ability to capture shallow depth of field and higher bitrates and better color science. Both approaches have merit for sure. In the end, it’s not about the gear, it’s about the idea.