He went from making frozen pizzas in London to working on an Oscar-nominated film

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You’ve got to wonder if Lachlan McKinlay shouldn’t just be buying lottery tickets.

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He went from making frozen pizzas in London to working on an Oscar-nominated film Back to video

Less than two years after graduating from Queen’s University with a degree in film and media, the 25-year-old London native is working in Montreal as a video editor for Framestore, an internationally acclaimed visual effects company based in London, England, with offices around the world.

He’s had the job for nine months and already has an Oscar-nominated film, Don’t Look Up, under his belt.

We should all be so lucky.

“I was shell-shocked,” McKinlay said. “I couldn’t believe that a year ago I was working in a factory (Dr. Oetker pizza factory in London) and my first film I work on gets nominated for a bunch of Oscars.”

But then you talk to McKinlay and soon realize luck has little to do with where he is today.

Instead it’s a classic story about hard work and perseverance, a clear example of what Roman philosopher Seneca meant when he said “luck is where opportunity meets preparation.”

Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, a dark comedy about an apocalyptic event when Earth is threatened by a comet, is nominated for best picture, film editing, original screenplay and original score. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep.

Framestore is not nominated for an Oscar for Don’t Look Up, but it did receive a visual effects nomination for its work on the latest James Bond instalment, No Time To Die, one of many awards and nominations received for films the company has worked on over the years.

To put the Oscar nomination into perspective, 170 people at Framestore worked on No Time To Die, led by creative director for film Jonathan Fawkner, whose name is on the nomination.

Similarly, a massive team worked on Don’t Look Up, so it’s clear McKinlay is but one small cog in a massive machine.

Still, McKinlay’s achievement is not insignificant, given where he started and where he finds himself at the age of 25.

McKinlay was born and raised in London, the son of lawyer Maia Bent and award-winning playwright Michael McKinlay, who is also one of the founders of the Forest City Film Festival.

Lachlan McKinlay graduated from South secondary school, then headed to Queen’s, graduating in mid-2020 with honours.

His love of film has persisted since childhood.

“I remember when he should have been outside playing with his friends, I’d have him inside watching Citizen Kane,” Michael McKinlay said.

“He’s always been a movie hound. He’s always loved the whole process of putting a film together and I think he realized early there were a lot of actors and directors out there.”

Lachlan McKinlay said he was “baptized” in film.

“My parents were huge movie buffs and I soaked it all up like a sponge,” he said.

In a high school communication technology course, while working on a project about basic film concepts — wide, normal and long-angle visuals — McKinlay took the project to a higher level, illustrating the film concepts with a film that carried a story line and receiving praise from a teacher.

“That was one of the moments I realized I really needed to pursue it,” McKinlay said. “It was thrilling, very fulfilling.”

“And I found I loved editing. It felt like I was constructing a puzzle. I fell in love with the process. I always felt that editing was the unsung hero of the movie world. Editing can make or break a film.”

McKinlay said it was The Lord of the Rings trilogy — regarded by many as one of the best and most influential films ever made and one of the highest-grossing series with about $3 billion in receipts — that helped him decide to study film at university.

“That movie (series) just hit home for me,” McKinlay said. “It was like my gateway into the film industry.”

So, he focused his passion for film on the process and headed to university.

Meanwhile, his sister Scotia got a job as a production co-ordinator for Framestore, leaving after a year or so to pursue a career in speech pathology. But before she departed in 2020, she introduced her brother to her co-workers, including head of editorial Barnes Wheeler. McKinlay later called and told Wheeler about his ambitions.

“He’s the first person who’s ever phoned me up, told me what he wanted to do and asked what he needed to do to get there,” Wheeler said. “So I did (tell him), but I never expected to hear from him again.”

In a couple of lengthy emails, Wheeler advised McKinlay on things he needed to read and learn, including computer programs. By then, McKinlay was working at Dr. Oetker and decided factory work wasn’t in his future. He quit and focused on getting the tools he needed to join Framestore.

Last spring, McKinlay again contacted Wheeler and told him he’d done everything the head of editorial had suggested.

“He had great timing,” said Wheeler, who was surprised when McKinlay contacted him again.

“At the time, we were interviewing for a position and he called. He rose to every single challenge I put in front of him and we hired him. He’s a fantastic person, honest and forthright and hard working.”

Not long after McKinlay was hired, he got a lucky break. A more experienced video editor working on Don’t Look Up left the company and McKinlay was tapped to take over the project, his job basically serving as a conduit between the film’s director and creative team and the staff at Framestore, who fill the screen around the actors with their visual effects.

“We’re not directly involved in the creative side,” said Wheeler, who received a film credit on Don’t Look Up as video editor since he’s McKinlay’s boss.

“We’re more like technicians. But we work as part of a very large machine and if one part of that machine doesn’t work, the whole things falls apart, everything grinds to a halt. It really is a team.”

McKinlay said his parents often host Oscar parties with friends gathering to watch the awards show, everyone tossing a few dollars into a pool and the person who makes the most correct predictions of winners taking it all.

Still revelling in the excitement of Don’t Look Up’s nomination, he’ll be watching the Oscar broadcast March 27 alone in Montreal where he now lives.

He’s already immersed in a new project with Framestore, but bound by a confidentiality agreement not to talk about it.

“I was pushed into the deep end of the pool and told to swim,” said McKinlay of his first video editing experience.

Yes, but he had a life preserver: hard work and perseverance.

jbelanger@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/JoeBatLFPress