The Northern Rivers Times
December 14, 2023
12 NEWS
Young, upcoming film makers The Macfarlane brothers selected as ambassadors for the AACTA Festival
Young upcoming film makers Austin and Lachlan Macfarlane will be ambassadors for the 2024 AACTA festival
By Sarah Waters They are described as ‘two bros who make videos’ on their social media accounts, but Lachlan and Austin Macfarlane’s work is catching the attention of some major players in the film industry. The two brothers from Brisbane, have been chosen as ambassadors for the upcoming AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Art) Festival held at HOTA on the Gold Coast next year from February 8 - 11. The four-day festival will run alongside the prestigious AACTA Awards ceremony for the first time, allowing the
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public to see what goes on behind the scenes of Australia’s vibrant screen industry. Lachlan, 23, and Austin, 21, better known as The Macfarlane brothers, have amassed a huge international following on social media, including over 100 million views on Tik Tok, for their comedic, action-packed videos, with incredible visual effects. Despite, being in their early twenties, the brothers have been honing their acting, directing and film making skills for more than 13 years. It all started when they were young kids playing with lightsabers and they
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decided they wanted to ‘put themselves into’ a scene from StarWars. After a few online tutorials on video making and special effects, the brothers realised they could - and haven’t stopped making digital content in the form of short video clips since. They write, act, film, direct and edit every video, dedicating their weekends to filming, at often far-flung places, and during the week they do all the postproduction work. Austin aptly describes their videos as ‘mini blockbusters.’ In their series of Harry Potter videos, the brothers pretend to go
to Hogwarts for the day, which includes footage of them flying on broom sticks, walking through walls (and past ghosts), playing Quidditch and having wand fights. Austin and Lachlan filmed at locations in Europe where the real Harry Potter movies were made, as well as different churches in Australia, to make it look like they were at a medieval castle. They used every postproduction technique in the book to create the incredibly realistic content, including green screens and sophisticated special effects. The Harry Potter clips are one of many of their video series that have
racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and comments. Lachlan believes their success in the online sphere, is largely to do with their relatable content and the cinematic quality of their work. “If you look at some of our content, you’ll see some of it is filmed with professional cameras, we have a level of colour grading and the visual effects also sets us apart,” he said. “It also has this escapism nature that I think people are really attracted to. “I think some of the best videos we’ve done is when it feels like we’re characters, who are in this world, and it
feels limitless. “I also think the visuals really stand out on a platform like Tik Tok which is usually the sort of stuff that is shot on your phone. “But we find the ones that do really well always have a relatable component, because people connect with it and they’re more likely to share it.” Austin agreed, adding most of their videos have a really fun nature, but there is a strong emphasis on visual effects. “All of our videos come from a different idea - sometimes it’s a really interesting visual we want to do or effects we want to do that we
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