Film shown at 20 global film festivals used DaVinci Resolve Studio for every stage of post production.
Fremont, CA, USA – Friday, January 31, 2025 – Blackmagic Design today announced that “The Ninth Order,” a supernatural film by father/son filmmaking duo Nick and Jess Ahern, has completed a global film festival circuit, which included being shown at 20 festivals and winning more than a dozen awards. The film was shot entirely using various Blackmagic Design cameras, with post production completed using DaVinci Resolve Studio for color correction, audio, editing and VFX work.
The film features “Wolf Creek” star John Jarratt, and was shot entirely in the Blue Mountains of Australia. The supernatural drama follows the journey of Jada, an ordinary teenager who is thrust into the mystical world of a centuries old group, called the Ninth Order, following the death of her estranged father. With her friends held hostage by the supernatural cult, Jada’s only hope lies with Finn, a young man who could help her understand her father’s death.
As the film began to attract the attention of film festivals around the world, both Nick and Jesse were faced with finalizing the film as well as adjusting formats to meet the different standards needed by each festival.
Nick explained: “All the tight integration of camera, edit, grade and audio mix within the Blackmagic family of cameras and software meant ‘The Ninth Order’ was possible for a ridiculously lean budget. The creative flow was never frustrated by the toolset and the look and sound of the final film is a wonderful showcase for Blackmagic. The awards for Cinematography and Editing that this film has already won, against films with a hundred times the budget, back up this claim.”
Shooting for the film with a small crew of three over five days began in 2023 with Nick using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K digital cinema cameras. He then added additional Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro digital digital cinema camera as they became available.
Nick explained his path to becoming a DP and editor on the film. “The fact that I was the DP and have spent nearly as much time as an editor made the job of being a first time feature film director a lot easier. I could walk away from each scene knowing I had enough in the can that was going to cut and I would have options. This also gave me a consistency all the way from pre production, production and post production.”
DaVinci Resolve Studio was used for all of the film’s post production, with editing done by Nick, and color, audio for a 5.1 sound mix and VFX work completed by Michael Gissing from Dig City Post in Tasmania. Gissing used DaVinci Resolve and Fairlight Desktop Consoles.
Gissing explained his work on the film: “I was keen to get involved with Nick’s film. There were actual locations, not sets, often with a mix of controlled lighting and sometimes just available light. There were also night shoots and some VFX shots so it was a great exercise for me to push my skills into the requirements of those tasks.
It was a further bonus to know the edit had been done in Resolve. It was a relief to know I would get a project with perfect translation and no issues with file reconnecting as with Blackmagic cameras there is really no chance of file name duplication. And the sound post was also helped by having the audio in the timeline in Resolve.”
One of the DaVinci Resolve Fairlight audio features that Gissing relied on was non destructive clip stacking on tracks. This allowed him to layer clips and hear just the top layer, which meant a huge amount of dialog editing and controlling level, EQ and cross fading did not require clips to be spread over lots of tracks. It also allowed waveforms to be seen as an overlay so matching ADR to a reference clip was easy.
“My favorite Fairlight feature is the ADR tool. It allows me to setup a complete foley session, with delineation by ‘character’. This usually means an actual character for ADR sessions but it also means ‘foots timber’ or ‘foots grass’ etc can be setup in a list with accurate record in and out, as well as an onscreen text to help the foley artist move incredibly quickly through a recording session. To be able to filter the list by character means all the foley of a particular type can be done, then move onto the next foley task. The tool also gives pre roll, count in, ticker tape and audio cues. So foley for the film was remarkably consistent, fast and used minimum keystrokes,” he explained.
Press Photography
Product photos of DaVinci Resolve, Fairlight Desktop Panel, URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2, Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com
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The Ninth Order Completed With URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and Fairlight
