Postie Apocalypse

Today our guest is Houston Chorley from Sydney, Australia. He works in the film industry and his latest project is Postie Apocalypse, a no-budget action film shot in one and a half days. We have conducted an interview with Houston about the process it took to make a short action film.

What inspired you to make this short action film "Postie Apocalypse"?

I was working on a big budget Hollywood film that will remain nameless, in the process of making the film I had become so frustrated and joyless. Making Postie Apocalypse came from a desire to feel creative and reignite the joy that used to come with watching and making films. Fortunately for me, my friends felt the same way once I mentioned the idea while on a break at the studios.

How much time did you take to prepare before the shoot?

I spent a lot of time preparing. I think I spent the month prior to shooting scouting for locations, doing drone test to see what would look dynamic on screen and I story boarded the whole script so my cinematographer knew roughly how I wanted it to look as he hadn’t seen the location until the day of the shoot.


What kind of details and to what extent were you challenged in the filmmaking process?

I think one of the most challenging factors was lack of actors. I had our lead Zac Drayson who is an accomplished actor in Australia, apart from him I basically had to use my mates, the crew that were there on the day. That came with its own problems. Everyone was turning up when they could so availability for scenes was an issue, we had to shoot scenes in a way that the audience couldn’t tell that these actors(crew) weren’t in the same scenes together. The other challenge was the editing. Once having seen all the footage I was overjoyed but the task of dropping shots, lots of shots to keep the film moving forward caused a lot of delays and uncertainty.

What motivates you to make such an action film with so many constraints?

I think it was a thought constantly repeating in my head, if I didn’t make this film now I was probably going to leave an industry that I love so dearly.

How do you feel to have completed the filming in one and a half days with only one actor?

I didn’t realise that we had done either until after we had finished it but it just makes the whole process even more satisfying.