Young, upcoming film makers The Macfarlane brothers selected as ambassadors for the 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.

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The four-day festival will run alongside the prestigious AACTA Awards ceremony for the first time, allowing the 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 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.

Young upcoming film makers Austin and Lachlan Macfarlane will be ambassadors for the 2024 AACTA festival

“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 haven’t tried or there will be something trending – a movie has just come out – and we want to do something along the theme of that movie.

“Next week, we’re going to do a Mad Max Video because the Mad Max trailer just came out.

“But our videos always stem from a real-life place – when we went camping our car was bogged, so we want to focus some of that video on Mad Max’s car getting bogged,” he said.

One of their most recent videos titled ‘How parents say they got to school’ generated a huge online response.

It features a hilarious parody of the brothers traversing through fields, climbing up rock faces and camping in the bush to finally reach a school situated on top of a mountain.

The video clip was enjoyed by people in all corners of the world, from Ireland to the Middle East, with people commenting ‘sounds just like what my parents say.’

The brothers’ videos have landed them numerous awards at major film festivals, including Trop Jr, ATOM, AiMCO and the Lift-Off Sydney Film Festival.

In June this year, they represented Australia in the film category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, after they won the film category at the Young Lions Australia competition.

They have also directed sponsored videos for brands including Fortnite, Boost Juice, Foxtel, Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros.

Their TV & Cinema credits are also building with recent work for Australian Emu War (2023)

Last month, Warners Brothers flew the brothers to London to watch the world premiere of Wonka, allowing them to meet fellow creators and lead actor Timothée Chalamet.

Recently, the dynamic duo left their full-time jobs – Lachlan a content creator and Austin, an online editor – to focus on their film making business Macfarlane Bros.

Austin and Lachlan said their next goal is to transition into directing longer films or TV productions.

“Tik Tok has always just been a vehicle for us to do longer stuff,” Austin said.

“We want to try and become a brotherly directing duo and move into film and TV.

“Next year is about making that jump from online to traditional media.”

Lachlan said the AACTA festival provided the middle ground to explore that transition with discussions hosted by online creators as well as Australian film directors, screenwriters, and cinematographers, such as Warwick Thornton, who directed the Australian drama film, The New Boy.

The brothers are particularly looking forward to an encounter with Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou at the AACTA festival, who started out making online content, before moving into feature films.

The Philippou Brothers directed the hugely successful Australian supernatural horror film Talk to Me, which was released internationally in July this year.

Lachlan and Austin said they were thrilled to be selected as AACTA festival ambassadors and have the opportunity to meet and hear from the country’s leading creatives.

“It’s pretty amazing when you think of the other people who are ambassadors, that we’re side-by-side with like Chris (Alosio) Lincoln (Lewis) and Savannah (La Rain) they’re all really well established in the industry and they’ve been in some shows and movies that I love,” Lachlan said.

Austin said he had been talking about AACTA for a long time prior to finding out he was going to be an ambassador.

“I’m genuinely really excited for it.

“We’ve watched the AACTA awards, and the life streams, and I’ve been sending Lachlan stuff all year about the short film nominees.

“Hearing that it was at the Gold Coast was awesome and hearing that there was festival was even better, it makes the ACCTA awards quite accessible,” he said.

The AACTA festival will offer more than 70, mostly free, film, television, music, gaming, pop culture and family events will take place during the four-day event.

Attendees can attend screenings, live music, kids’ events, acting workshops, meet-and-greets and panel discussions held by the country’s best directors, writers and content creators.

More information can be found at: www.aacta.org/aacta-awards/2024-aacta-awards-information/

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