"Last Measure"... What was originally "The Silent are Guilty", in another life "Stones and Sticks", and one or two other out of left field names at some point in time, was nothing short of a passion project for all of us working on it.
Written by Ruaidhrí Peters Lynam and Scott Boland, Last Measure is a short film following a three piece band; Fionn, JP and Oisín. They're under pressure to cook up a good, solid album, and in an attempt to get in the zone travel to a cabin owned by Fionn's uncle owns to seclude themselves with their craft, but with the isolation and disagreements tensions rise and things go wrong.
I was in charge of all things visual in this film, this began about four/five months prior to production whilst we were on break (December 2025), figuring out logistics of the car sequence; how we would film it and where. As the weeks ticked on and we discussed further ideas, we weren't having a great deal of luck finding a location to shoot the film itself, or a safe location to film the car sequence.
But, as luck would had it one of our group members Harry Prendergast struck gold landing us the location of Larchill Arcadian Gardens; this location worked as a solid filming location for scenes in the film, offering a huge area to work with and a resting area for crew/cast to have down time, a peacock because peacocks are cool, and a huge laneway which worked a charm for our car sequence plans. We had a gander around the place on the 07.03.2026 exactly five weeks prior to production, and settled on it.
Storyboarding, Shot Scheming and Rehearsals
Prior to this location scouting, I had began picking Ruaidhrí and Scott's brains regarding a storyboard, and this is something we put roughly three full days into by the time we finished. Listening to their ideas, and drawing it as a I heard it, running it back by them again and going from there. But this was all off memory from a once off viewing of the location, we would soon go back again and get a better idea, troubleshoot ideas, and meet our talents we sourced for this project, Fionn Ryle, Niall Daly and Joe Kennedy.
Two weeks on from our first look on-site and our continued working at storyboarding, we met for a rehearsal day, bringing the rest of our crew and cast onsite to Larchill Arcadian Gardens (02.04.2026). This day acted as an opportunity to get everyone on the same page and break the ice among our cast and crew.
LR: harry Prendergast, Niall Daly, Scott Boland, Fionn Ryle, Joseph Donovan and Dylan Shields sitting down for a table read of the script ahead of rehearsal.
We wanted a variety of ways we could show off conversations amongst the characters inside the living room space (also called "The Nook" in storyboarding notes) and with this came our four point camera system, this is how they turned out in the final film:
C1 - Three Shot of all lads C2 - OTS Fionn facing Oisín
C3 - OTS Oisín facing Fionn C4 - One Shot of JP
C1
C2
C3
C4
For that rehearsal day however, things looked a lot more primitive, but we were satisfied with how we made the space work. Our actor for Oisín couldn't make it in the end so our choreographer Scott sat in for him as we ran through some rehearsals, focusing on:
- Testing of the four point camera set up for conversations (See a rehersal day VS final cut comparison below)
- Testing of the four point camera set up for conversations (See a rehersal day VS final cut comparison below)
- The testing of recording the car sequence
- The teaching of choreography for the fight sequence
Rehearsal Day VS Final Cut Footage of the four point camera set up
Two rehearsal sequences of the car scene, one testing dialogue and the other testing the route.
An extract of some of the choreography being taught to Fionn, VS the final cut.
I realise now that while talking about essential scenes we all saw making the final cut from the moment we began this project, I mentioned the car scene but another HUGE one was the fight sequence. We're not fighters in the crew, but we did also think one could be reeeeeeeally cool. We have a stuntman/choreographer Scott Boland, and my incredible partner Katie (no.face_makeup) who is a make up artist.
So it would've been rude not to at least try our hand at a fight sequence!
Preparations and Props
So, with all this in mind and T-2 Weeks till kick off we wrapped up storyboarding and figured out how we would do anything, next came the scramble for props to continue or world building beyond ideas and chatting.
I can't really speak beyond my experience preparing props, and I couldn't even begin to guess where the Scott came across half of the stuff he brought along, but talking from my contributions in order of intrigue would probably go...
Rifle - Don't get ahead of yourself, it's not a real rifle. Those of you who have read my previous blogs may have read how when I began content creation in secondary school I did Airsoft Game Videos, it is a second hand (and broken) Airsoft toy sniper rifle (bonus fun fact, the GoPro used to film the car sequence is the same one which was used to record my Airsoft Gameplays back in the day!)
Fake Cigarettes - In the story JP is a smoker, but in real life his actor Niall is not, so we sourced "fake cigarettes" to use in production, chocolate flavoured ones to be exact. They are herbal and tobacco free, and something Niall was comfortable with using, plus they looked cool on camera
Alcohol - I work parttime in a pub when I'm not doing photos or video, they allowed me to take empty cans and bottles to dress the set. With a €3.50 investment in iconic red party cups and €2 in a huge bottle of ginger ale to mimic cider, we were sorted!
Painting Equipment - My Grandad used to be a painter
Guitar Case - My friend Rowan plays guitar (these last two points were
not that exciting )
