These two worlds couldn’t seem further apart.

In one of them, Tim McLachlan and his editor, Jonno Woodford-Robinson, sit in a plush, dimly-lit Park Road Post Production edit suite. In front of them, Frosty Man and the BMX Kid has been reduced, in just four days, from an actual awe-inspiring sun-drenched Queenstown vista to a no less spectacular image on a 22-inch monitor. But what at first seems like a reduction is soon proven to be more than the sum of its parts.

In the other world, the sun beats down on the Rees Valley near Queenstown, where Kristi Simkins is shooting the second Your Big Break film, Something Special. Surrounded by a mountain range so perfect that no VFX department in the world could generate it, Kristi and her crew must nevertheless focus inward – not on the scenery, but on the subtle nuances of her actor’s performance.

Kristi Simkins and the Something Special crew are dwarfed by the mountains of the Rees Valley

At Park Road, Jonno is putting the finishing touches to the rough cut of Frosty Man as Tim looks on, suggesting tweaks and changes. Tim is delighted with how the shoot went – they got everything they needed, and even managed to wrap half an hour early on the second day!

As the final adjustments are made, I feel privileged to join Tim and Jonno as they watch the rough cut of Frosty Man for the first time. And even in this unpolished form – they’ve got a full day ahead of them tomorrow to get the running time down from nearly four minutes to the required three, and to smooth out those rough edges – Frosty Man and the BMX Kid is an absolute delight: James Rolleston’s performance as the BMX Kid is sparky, with terrific comic timing and Bruce Allpress makes a wonderfully curmudgeonly deity. It’s also a genuinely spectacular film – when the BMX Kid cups his hands to his mouth and shouts to the mountaintops, you feel the kind of elation that can only be inspired by the majesty of the landscape around him. I can’t wait to see the finished film.

A first glimpse of Frosty Man and the BMX Kid

Meanwhile, out there in the world that Tim has explored on screen, Kristi is shooting a very different kind of story – one in which painful memories are laid to rest in that very same landscape. Sitting at Park Road watching Tim’s story makes me excited to think there are still four Your Big Break entries still to come.

Park Road Post Production

As I leave Park Road Post Production, Peter Jackson gets out of his car and heads inside. It’s a reminder that this incredible facility is not only a luxuriant environment in which to finish a movie; it’s also a technological powerhouse purpose-built to serve the world’s most ambitious and innovative filmmakers. And our finalists are right there with them.

– Your Big Break Critic