From Moscow to Detroit to... Alton, Illinois? End-of-Summer Updates

It has been a particularly hot and muggy summer in central Texas. Luckily, when you work in post production, you spend a lot of your time indoors. While working for Flow Nonfiction, an Austin-based production company that specializes in documentary storytelling, I shared a space with three other editors. The only down side was whenever we had to take a phone call, we stepped outside. The shade from a cedar tree can keep you cool only so long.

Small Business Revolution - Main Street

Flow Nonfiction produces the reality series Small Business Revolution - Main Street, which streams on Hulu. I worked with Flow last summer on a series of videos for the Minneapolis Museum of Art. That was my first time working with director Matt Naylor and it was a great experience, so I was excited for the opportunity to join the Flow team for the third season of SBR, working (for the first time) as a Story Producer.

Small Business Revolution - Main Street was created by host Amanda Brinkman and is sponsored by Deluxe. Before each season, small towns across America compete for a revitalization grant and to be selected as the feature town on the show. Once the winning town is determined, six businesses are featured on the show as they receive a small business make over by Amanda and her marketing team at Deluxe. The town featured this season will be Alton, Illinois.

Myself and Senior Story Producer Daniel Tarr reviewed dailies and make selects for the editors. We identified the story beats we wanted to focus on and worked as sounding boards for the editors while they assembled and shaped the cuts. We also reviewed cuts and provided feedback at each stage of an episode's development.

It was a collaborative process start to finish. And while every episode has specific conceptual beats in common, the show is shot in a documentary style that invites the unexpected. This season, SBR explores some topical and challenging themes that might take fans by surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing people's reactions once it premieres in October.

Being a Story Producer combined several different roles into one: post-producer, writer, editor, even a dash of directing here and there. It's a position I could see myself taking on again in the future. It was a nice change of pace from strictly editing. On SBR, I was able to look at the story from a bit further out, which awarded me new challenges and new opportunities for growth as a filmmaker. Most important, I was lucky enough to work with one of the best crews in Austin.

Season three of Small Business Revolution Main Street launches this October on Hulu. I'll be sharing links and promo material on Twitter as we get closer to the premiere.

The Russian Five

The Russian Five continued its festival run this summer, including the Seattle International Film Festival (where it was a finalist for Best Documentary) and the Traverse City Film Festival, where it received the Audience Award for Best Documentary. We set out to make a crowd pleaser of a film, so an audience award is a testament to that vision, as well as to director Josh Riehl's tremendous and pain-staking work bringing this story to the screen. I'm really pleased it's getting seen and receiving some recognition!

The Russian Five has a few more festival dates this fall, including the upcoming Montreal Film Festival. Keep up with Russian Five news here.

Poster by Yen Tan

Recent Screenings of ATLANTIC CITY and THE RUSSIAN FIVE

Throughout last spring and summer, I edited "Atlantic City," a short film written and directed by Miguel Alvarez. Shot on 16mm film, "Atlantic City" is about two drifters in South Texas who find themselves at an impasse.

Atlantic City

Miguel and I met at the University of Texas and have worked together on a variety of commercial shoots, but this was the first time collaborating as director and editor. We took our time editing the film in between other gigs which allowed us to experiment with structure and rhythm before locking the film for sound and color.

This spring, "Atlantic City" debuted at the Aspen Shortsfest, a great film festival that offers a unique backdrop for filmmakers to network with one another. It also recently played at Indie Grits in South Carolina and made its international debut at the prestigious Busan International Short Film Festival.

I'm very proud of our work on "Atlantic City." It's especially cool to see the grit and grain of 16mm film on the screen, big or small. Such an evocative look and texture to match the emotional tones of the narrative. Looking forward to seeing where else "Atlantic City" plays!

The Russian Five

Last fall, director Josh Riehl and producer Steve Bannatine brought an assembly/rough cut of The Russian Five to producer/story consultant Jason Wehling at Arts + Labor. Josh had been working on this film for nearly 6 years, a labor of love, and he was ready to take it across the finish line after such a long journey. I came on board as editor, Ryan Vaughn was our assistant editor and off we went at a furious pace, the goal being to debut the film during the 2018 film festival season. Probably the fastest cut of my career: Four and a half months to take a very rough cut of a documentary that charts decades of history and features dozens of characters and sub-plots.

The Russian Five tells the story of how the Detroit Red Wings, throughout the late 80s and early 90s, launched a desperate scheme to end their decades long hockey championship drought: The Red Wings organization drafted Soviet players when the Soviet Union remained our Cold War adversary. The Red Wings brass didn't know if they would ever see these players actually play for them in their prime - if at all - so they were taking a monumental gamble drafting these players. 

The movie traces the team's clandestine efforts to smuggle these players into the United States in order to build a juggernaut team which featured the first ever all Russian five-man unit in the NHL Imposing their will on opponents and revolutionizing the way the game was played, they came to be known as the Russian Five.

Spy thriller. Underdog story. It's a fun ride. 

On April 12th, The Russian Five debuted at the Detroit Free Press Film Festival. Dedicated to showcasing documentaries about Michigan or by Michigan filmmakers (director Josh is from Port Huron), The Russian Five was the opening night film and screened at the beautiful, historic Fillmore Theater in downtown Detroit.

The show was a sellout, with 2,500 Red Wings fans chanting "Let's Go Red Wings!" as the house lights began to dim. Screening this film to the hometown crowd was like going to a rock concert.

After the screening, Free Press writer and Michigan native Mitch Elbom hosted a Q & A with Josh and two of the subjects of the film: former Red Wings General Manager and President Jimmy Devellano (who executed the plan to draft the Russians) and former Red Wings player Darren McCarty (who was on the team and is a three time champion).

I only got to spend about a day and half in Detroit, so I need to go back to really get the full experience. But it was a helluva ride being a part of the post team for this movie and I enjoyed telling this story with Josh, Jason, Steve and Ryan. It was a gauntlet, for sure, with plenty of (respectful) yelling and passionate pleas for sanity and impossible deadlines we both blew and met all at the same time. But the story and the characters are so rich that it was worth the sweat and sleepless nights it took to tell it.

As a testament to Josh's journey and our work, the film received one of only three awards that were given at Freep: the Spirit of Michigan Award. This is the festival's only jury award. Hopefully this is a sign of more good things to come for Josh and the film - and for telling the world the epic story of the Russian Five.

Recent Work: Editing one take spots for Revelator

Last fall, Revelator hired me to edit these one take spots for Workers Credit Union. Directed by Jake Eide, these were shot in a studio and involved some matte work in post. They were meticulously staged and choreographed: Jake used a metronome so the actors could feel a rhythm for when each new piece of action should occur. Jake and the Revelator crew did dozens of takes for each spot, honing the timing as well as trying out different variations of actions and performance to give the client an opportunity to pick between subtle but important differences across edits.

How much editing really goes into something that's shot in one take? Well, foremost I served as a fresh pair of eyes to judge the best performances from take to take. I helped Jake narrow down each spot to the best handful of takes that balanced performance, timing, and variation. Then I added music and sound effects so we could narrow down the selections further, I think to a top three for each spot to send to client for review. Once we received client notes, we narrowed the spots down to the winning take for each. Then Jake put the finishing touches on the visual effects, color and sound.

Check out the "Big Wigs" spots below:

A look back at projects from 2017

Concerts, caverns, paintings and portraits of people on the fringes of society. The projects that comprised my 2017 workload spanned a spectrum of subjects, content and creative & technical challenges. In other words - just another year for any freelance video editor.

I had the chance to collaborate with old friends and make new ones. I also stretched my skills not only as an editor, but as a manager and a team leader. It's important to improve my craft with every project and each passing year, and I think I learned a lot from those I worked with in 2017.

For much of the first half of last year, I worked with the team at Revelator, a production company founded and led by Head of Production Chris Ohlson and Creative Director Matt Muir. Revelator's work spans commercials, live events, music videos and film. I've known these guys for years and work with them often. I'm drawn to their sensibilities, their work ethic, and they're ability to put you at ease even in the face of the most crushing deadline. 

Jack and Pete Tell It All

They contracted me for several months as an editor and a post-producer. (If I had to say what a post-producer is versus a post production supervisor: I'm responsible for the personnel, the planning and the execution of a post-production workflow, yes, but also might have more creative input than possibly some post-supes out there... I dunno - maybe I'm giving post-supes short shrift!) Any given week during my contract I might be spinning two, three, or four different plates at once. 

Aside from some general workflow consulting needs and the short spot here and there that needed cutting, there were two major projects I was responsible for. The first was an hour long documentary about the founders of the Missouri-based theme park Silver Dollar City. (Imagine an 1880s mining town... with roller coasters and cotton candy.) What's unique about Silver Dollar City is its commitment to employing actual craftspeople that might have been in just such a town: blacksmiths, wood carvers, cutlers, cobblers and candy makers. There's also a giant cave which you can tour if you're willing to climb 505 feet of steps to the bottom. Most tour goers can escape the cave by taking a rail car back to the top of the park, but for our crew - when we visited Branson, Missouri to film interviews and coverage of the park - we had to haul our equipment up and down that staircase more than a few times. (I think Chris had the record by going up and down 11 times in one day.)

The subjects of the documentary were brothers Jack and Pete Herschend. Titled Jack & Pete Tell It All, it was directed by their son Jonn who is a filmmaker and artist based in San Francisco. Jonn is gregarious and enthusiastic about anything and everything, so I enjoyed working with him. Here is the trailer for the doc (shot by Revelator collaborator Drew Xanthopoulos):

Jack and Pete Tell It All - Trailer from David Fabelo on Vimeo.


Jack and Pete Tell It All is an oral history documentary. Drew and Jonn took inspiration from Errol Morris films, shooting interviews in UHD with the subjects answering questions into the lens. We were able to punch in to the interviews in order to create more coverage without shooting more coverage (due to budget and scheduling constraints). Working this way gave me new insight into Morris' approach (pre-Wormwood, al least).

The Sensitives

Speaking of Drew, in 2016 I edited his feature documentary The Sensitives. Last April, The Sensitives premiered in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. Our screenings received a tremendous response. Q and A's were sometimes lively, sometimes emotional, always intelligent and insightful. I think what Drew, producer David Hartstein and I may have enjoyed the most was meeting other filmmakers and trading war stories about the journeys each of our films took to get there. 

The Sensitives also screened at the Camden International Film Festival where it received Special Jury Mention for Cinematic Vision. The Sensitives is available on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Prime. Own it on Blu Ray, if you like!

Pandora

The other major project for Revelator was managing post and delivering next day edits and later an event reel for Pandora during their SXSW concert series. Teams from both Revelator and Pandora spent months preparing the shoot, which comprised of using seven stage cameras, two roving cameras, and a backstage interview set-up across four days featuring somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty performers. This was produced by Alex Bronner and Rolando Romero of Revelator and Brennan King of Pandora.

Camera feeds were fed to a Tricaster via SDI. Revelator's creative director, Chris Shea, directed the live edit. That signal was broadcast to screens around the venue. The Tricaster also recorded the live edit. We copied those files to a QNAP with Thunderbolt 2 and Gigabit connections. Our DIT would also be responsible for ingesting footage from the cameras. Our assistant editors fed me selects which I would use to build the recap video that we would upload the next morning. There were two reviews with Pandora's creative director, DG: once in the afternoon and another at the end of the night. Conor Gordon from Pandora provided me with much needed guidance and editing help when there was a backlog of material.

The first day was the toughest. I was wearing multiple hats: creative editor, post-producer, and IT novice. While we had run tests with the QNAP in the weeks leading up to the event, we hadn't had as much time perfecting the workflow with the Tricaster. The first day involved working out some bugs in that workflow, so my creative edit took a major hit and I had a fairly embarrassing first review with Team Pandora. But they were patient and gave me some specific direction that helped me build a stronger edit for the second review. While day one was anxiety-fueled, each subsequent day got smoother as we fell into a rhythm as a team. Don't get me wrong: documenting a live event is walking a tightrope, but we had a great crew from both companies who never panicked. We just worked the problems, adjusted the workflow, and tried to enjoy the ride as much as possible.

I have to give a special shout-out to my DIT, John Monroe, and my assistant editors Jo Haung-Zellner and Rachel Win. We threw a lot of technical/workflow hurdles at John. A lot of media was coming at him at once and he kept his cool the whole way through. Jo Haung and Rachel kept our project organized and combed the footage for the best material.

Check out one of the Pandora recaps here:

Pandora at SXSW 2017 - Day 3 Recap from David Fabelo on Vimeo.

Art Is Essential

Over the summer, I worked with Flow Nonfiction for the first time. I had been hearing great things about the good people at Flow for years so I was eager to work with them. They hired myself and another editor, Justin Barclay, to cut a series of short documentaries for the Minneapolis Museum of Art. Called Art Is Essential, the theme of the docs is "art in everyday lives." As a way to highlight the impact art can have on each of us, each episode spends a day with a different artist or art lover associated with the museum.

One of the episodes I edited was "Andrea." It's a personal look at motherhood, art as an educational tool, and the importance of representation:

Art is Learning: Andrea from Minneapolis Institute of Art on Vimeo.

2018

Finally, last fall, after a short hiatus, I began work editing a new documentary about the Detroit Red Wings. We're still working on it, though we'll be locking picture soon. I can't say much yet, other than I knew very little about hockey eight weeks ago, but I know a ton now. I can also say I think it's coming along nicely and is going to be a fun one. Can't wait to share it when it's ready!

SLASH and SIR DOUG Available on Amazon Prime

Two projects I worked on have become available on Amazon Prime. 

Slash, a delightful coming-of-age comedy starring Michael Johnston, Hannah Marks, and Michael Ian Black and written & directed by Clay Liford, is available to stream on Amazon Prime (and is also available on iTunes. I was co-editor along with Bryan Poyser.

Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove is available to stream on Amazon Prime. This documentary about Texas troubadour Doug Sahm is a musical mystery tour that takes you from the 1950s to the 1980s with Doug as your guide. I was an additional editor.

Both of these projects were lots of fun to be a part of. They each had great teams of creatives behind them and each premiered at the SXSW Film Festival. Please check 'em out and enjoy!