Filming a forest is a challenge because trees simply don't move around that much compared with, say, an animal or a person. So the question for us was how do we make the forest feel alive on screen? Also, many of us are familiar with the hyper realism of say, a beautifully shot David Attenborough documentary, but we wanted to present the forest in an unfamiliar way, one that would help people connect with the forest. So the second challenge was how do we film the forest in a way that makes people look twice? We worked with Sherwin Akbarzadeh, an ACS accredited cinematographer based in Melbourne, to develop a visual language for the forest. Our approach was to eschew precision in favour of impression – we filmed the forest as though we were creating a painting.

The challenge with filming a giant tree is that it is impossible to get the entire tree into the frame. We worked with Tasmania-based outfit the Tree Projects to help capture different points of view from within the canopy. The Tree Projects consists of climbing scientists, Steven Pearce and Dr Jen Sanger who worked with General Strike to locate our tree subjects and rig the cameras 80m up in the canopy. They were assisted by arborist Shaun Green.

THE GIANTS team worked with Arko Lucieer and Leonard Hambrecht at TerraLuma, the Spatial Data research unit at University of Tasmania to conduct 3D Forest scans for the film that were subsequently animated by Alex Le Guillou. 

TerraLuma used ground 3D laser scanning as well as aerial drone scanning to capture point cloud data of the three protagonist trees and their surrounding forests.

The forestry industry uses laser 3D scanning as a tool to calculate timber volumes ahead of logging. It is also widely used by the construction industry. We wanted to subvert this tool and use it for the opposite purpose – this time to capture the beauty and diversity of our ancient forests as well as to reveal the hidden life of trees – and inspire their protection.

For THE GIANTS France-based motion designer Alex Le Guillou, created immersive point cloud animation of the forest from 3D forest scans provided by Terra Luma, at the University of Tasmania. Alex began working with forest imagery as a personal creative project but he was used to the relatively tame woodlands and rural landscapes of Europe. (Australia is one of the few places that still has extensive primary forest – only fragments of ancient forest remain in Europe.) When he received the data he literally could not 'see' the trees – the data was so dense. As the film shows old growth forests are very complex and densely populated areas, so took a lot of work for Alex simply to isolate the individual trees – and then animate them into characters.

Archive was a key componant in making THE GIANTS and we drew on numerous sources to recreate Bob Brown's 50 years of activism as well as his early childhood. Materials ranged from family photo albums to amateur footage, news footage, video and more recently, social media assets. Sources included Bob Brown's personal archive held at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, the ABC News Archives, The Wilderness Society's photo collection and the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra. There was a wealth of material to choose from – often overwhelmingly so! So our key challenges after locating material sources was breaking it down into manageable quantities, and eventually making our final selections. Read on to hear some more details.

The idea that plants and humans have so much in common is beautifully evoked in The Seed, by Norwegian singer/songwriter AURORA. This song, which brings a moment of magic to THE GIANTS' end credit roll, was an early source of inspiration for us. This stunning version was arranged by Phia Exiner, Artistic Director of Melbourne Indie Voices choir (MIV), and sung by around 200 people at the Forum with MIV’s Josh Teicher accompanying on electric guitar.

Catherine Marciniak & Stephen Axford are the duo behind Planet Fungi and passionate about all things forest and all things fungi. They produced the stop motion animation, film and stills of most of the fungi you see in THE GIANTS. In a happy coincidence they were travelling to Tasmania just as production began – so were able to film fungi in the actual Tarkine/Takayna rainforest for THE GIANTS. We were astonished by the diversity and beauty of the imagery. Catherine and Stephne are documentary film makers in their own right, so do check out their website and Youtube channel to delve into the extraordinary world of the 'Fifth Kingdom'.

Hieroglyphic Stairway by the American poet, writer and ecologist Drew Dellinger brings a powerful moment of reckoning to the film. 'What did you do?' is such a simple question with such profound implications. Drew's question inspires us to self-examine our contribution to the planet and calls on us to stand up and take responsibility. Everybody wants to leave the world a better place for future generations. Asking ourselves 'What can we do?' is a great starting point because when we ask this question we find answers, resilience and a path forward. You can hear the poem in its entirety in this video – and learn more about Drew Dellinger's poetry and ideas at his website.

THE GIANTS soundtrack contains music from a mix of sources, from original compositions by Melbourne-based composer James Henry to various international artists. One piece that's particularly moving is James' re-mix of the song milaythina nika performed by Tasmanian musician Dewayne Everettsmith in palawa kani, the Tasmanian Aboriginal language. The song celebrates the Tasmanian Aboriginal people's connection to Country, and is used to illustrate Pakana woman and indigenous elder Theresa Sainty's segment about Takayna/Tarkine and its significance for Tasmania's indigenous community. Watch this video to learn more about the original song – the performance by Dewayne starts at 8:55.