Magical fire can be built in post. Getting a cast of busy theatre performers onto the same set is a rather less cooperative problem. For Sydney’s Deerstalker Pictures, taking 1 For All from short fantasy sketches to The Exorcism of Nixie meant solving both, while keeping a fan-funded production moving across months of scattered shooting days.
The special brings together Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro G2 4.6K and PYXIS 6K cameras, DaVinci Resolve Studio colour work, practical lighting and a substantial effects workload. But producer and director of photography Goldie Soetianto’s account of making it is just as much about continuity, opportunistic locations and a team that understands the same fantasy references. In written answers to TechDrivePlay, she explained how those pieces fitted together.
Featured image supplied by Blackmagic Design / Deerstalker Pictures.
From a one-off sketch to The Exorcism of Nixie
1 For All follows The Awful Ones, a group of adventurers whose competence is not always equal to their enthusiasm. The live-action fantasy comedy takes inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, and its move into longer storytelling builds on a world developed since 2019. Blackmagic’s October 2026 production release put the show at 85 episodes, including two musical episodes and a music video, with almost 400 million YouTube views at that time.
The Exorcism of Nixie explores the tragic backstory of the group’s usually happy-go-lucky pyromancer. Soetianto says the team had scattered clues about that history through earlier episodes, leaving room for a larger story if the audience made it possible. The special, described in the release as entirely crowdfunded by fans, gives those ideas roughly 50 minutes across two parts, with more room for character, drama and comedy.
That relationship with the audience runs through the production. The creators’ Part 2 description thanks Kickstarter backers, Patreon supporters and YouTube subscribers for helping make the project happen. For an Australian team building a fantasy world for a global audience, the people watching are also part of what allows the next story to be made.
The biggest production challenge was the calendar
Soetianto’s usual short-form schedule involves one- or two-day shooting blocks, often making two sketches in a day. Those blocks already require careful combinations of cast, characters and locations, but they can fit between everyone’s other commitments. With many cast and crew working in theatre, she says Mondays are the only day they can shoot regularly.
A longer narrative could not simply take over a continuous two- or three-week block. Instead, the team filmed across many months, taking opportunities when people and places lined up. One came while travelling interstate for a promotional event, with a castle close enough to turn the trip into a filming opportunity.
“Honestly scheduling was the most difficult part of shooting a long form narrative,” Soetianto told TechDrivePlay. The extended schedule then created continuity work across performances, hair, make-up and wardrobe. Some actors using their own hair rather than wigs had grown it considerably between shoots, leading to quick fixes on the day or later in post. Even a fantasy adventure has to negotiate the very ordinary passage of time.
Why the team used URSA Mini Pro G2 and PYXIS 6K
The URSA Mini Pro G2 4.6K was the principal camera, with the PYXIS 6K providing an additional option for tight multicamera arrangements and trips to less accessible locations with a small crew. That division gave the production ways to adapt its camera setup to the day, rather than treating every location as though it could accommodate the same crew and equipment.
Soetianto had already used Blackmagic cameras throughout 1 For All and had shot feature films on the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K as a freelance cinematographer. In the supplied release, she describes that familiarity as a source of confidence in moving the series into longer narrative work, with images intended to hold up on both small and large screens.
The release also credits the cameras’ high resolution, high frame rates and integration with Resolve Studio with supporting the production’s effects ambitions. Those ambitions included chain lightning, walls of fire and meteor storms. For this feature, the interesting detail is how the team brought the camera material together before building the finished look.
Matching the cameras before creating the grade
Using cameras from the same manufacturer still left work to do in the grade. Soetianto says the different sensor generations use different colour science, so the team checked the colour space transform nodes for each shot in the edit. They first accounted for differences in contrast, saturation, noise and dynamic range, then established the creative look.
In practical terms, that means dealing with how each source image is interpreted before asking neighbouring shots to feel like the same scene. The transforms provide a technical starting point for bringing the different camera sources into a shared colour workflow. Soetianto’s account emphasises getting those foundations right, rather than assuming a shared badge on the camera bodies makes their images identical.
Blackmagic’s explanation of Resolve’s colour workflow similarly separates balancing and matching images from developing a creative grade. That provides useful context for the order of work here: first make the sources sit together, then shape the mood of the fantasy world.
Daylight, teal moonlight and warm fire
The special’s lighting starts with sources that belong in its world: daylight, moonlight and firelight. Soetianto says the team leans into colour and illumination because the series remains primarily a comedy, even when scenes become emotional or dramatic. Night scenes retain enough light to show detail, rather than letting the fantasy disappear into darkness.
Her palette includes saturated teal for moonlight and warmth for flame. LED effects or hand-cutters provide fire flicker, while timed lighting cues connect what happens on set with magical effects added later. Smoke and haze also contribute to the look. These are deliberate choices made during filming, giving post-production material that already responds to the imagined light sources.
What DaVinci Resolve Studio brought to the effects work
Resolve Studio was used primarily for colour correction, while tools including Magic Mask and Cinematic Haze helped with the wider effects workload. In the release, Soetianto gives a practical example: when building regulations prevented the team from running a smoke machine on a set, Cinematic Haze offered a way to add the atmospheric effect later.
She also describes using Magic Mask to help remove distracting modern items from the frame, alongside lighting and glow effects that gave her more control over the finished image. The release identifies these as non-generative tools. Their role in this account is to support work on filmed material, including isolation, cleanup and atmosphere.
Those examples help explain the relationship between filming and finishing. The team could build a fantasy setting with costumes, sets and lighting, then use post-production to address things a location or a shooting day would not allow. Each tool solved a particular problem within that larger process.
Rebuilding marketplace shots with green screen and Unreal Engine
Goldie’s written answers add another part of the workflow that is easy to miss in a camera-focused story. During the marketplace sequence, the team ran out of time to capture some medium close-up reaction shots. Shooting the reverse angle would have required relighting and redressing the set, so those shots became later pick-ups.
Nixie’s reactions were filmed against green screen, with lighting matched to her movement through a marketplace containing several fire sources and Emby in fire-puppet form on her shoulder. The background then had to be constructed in Unreal Engine to fit the existing location footage. Soetianto describes combining elements taken from other shots with suitable 3D assets to create it.
That is a specific example of the work behind making a missing angle belong in a sequence. The character’s lighting, the replacement environment and the surrounding shots all needed to agree. Resolve’s grading and finishing tools were part of the production, while Unreal Engine supplied the constructed background for these pick-ups; the work extended across both.
The lesson for creators building a fantasy world
Asked what she would pass on to other creators working with a small crew, Soetianto starts with the people. Her advice is to find collaborators who are invested in the world, its characters and its story, as well as how it looks. A similar sense of humour and shared references from films, books or games give everyone a useful language for describing what they are trying to make.
“And when you need a lot of extras, it’s great to know people who have armour and fantasy clothing ready to go!” she adds. It is an appropriately practical closing note from a production that found time for a castle while travelling for an event. Cameras and software give the team options; knowing who can turn up, what they understand and what they can bring helps turn those options into a shoot.
Where to watch The Exorcism of Nixie
Both parts are available on Deerstalker Pictures’ official YouTube channel: watch Part 1 and watch Part 2: The Finale. The latter premiered on 16 October 2026, so viewers can now follow the special through to its conclusion.
For creators, the production offers plenty to look for on a second viewing: how the warm and cool light works across shots, how different camera angles fit together, and where later pick-ups join footage captured months apart. The fire and spells are the visible fantasy. The less visible craft is making all those separate days feel like one adventure.
Zachary Skinner is the editor of TechDrivePlay.com, where tech, cars and adventure share the fast lane.
A former snowboarding pro and programmer, he brings both creative flair and technical know-how to his reviews. From high-performance cars to clever gadgets, he explores how innovation shapes the way we move, connect and live.
