Following a brief festival season, Eating Late and Working Late – two dark comedies about the lost and inconsolable – have been released online and on SBS.
Both shorts combine live-action performances with miniature sets to create a striking and surreal visual aesthetic – the perfect backdrop for Lee Lin Chin’s trademark deadpan narration.
“We never originally planned to use miniature sets superimposed over real actors,” explains co-creator Daniel Wood. “But when the managers of the real life Chinese restaurant we wanted to use to shoot Eating Late told us ‘no way’ we had to get creative.”
“It turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” adds co-creator Lewis Attey. “Using miniature sets instead of real locations meant we could actually shoot both shorts in one day in front of a huge blue screen that we set up in a dance recital auditorium. It gave us way more creative freedom than we otherwise would’ve had.”
Eating Late premiered at the inaugural SXSW Sydney in October 2023, and both shorts screened at Melbourne’s ReelGood Film Festival in 2024.
“I had an inkling a milestone was in sight for Messrs Wood and Attey and that there’s more where Eating Late and Working Late came from – charmed then to be along for the ride,” says Lee Lin Chin of her time working on the productions.
Acting alongside Lee Lin Chin is an all-star cast of homegrown Aussie comedians, including Nat Harris, Rhys Mitchell, He Huang, Jonathan Schuster, Diana Nguyen, Tommy Dassalo and Hannah Camilleri.
Eating Late and Working Late are the work of Bit Livid Films, a production company collaboration between writing/directing duo Lewis Attey and Daniel Wood.
