"A crazy tale..."

The Legend of MEXMAN screened last weekend at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. I was hoping to attend in person but my flight was canceled last minute (as in... 9PM the night before a 6AM flight). The window for the trip was so short I would have missed the first screening with no guarantee of making it to the second (or returning from California).

Sadly I missed out, but I've been able to live vicariously through director Josh Polon and producer Steve Bannatyne, who've kept myself and co-editor / co-producer Jason Wehling updated on the screenings and the response to the film. 

We've collected a few reviews so far, all positive. Alan Ng from Film Threat heaped effusive praise on the film, calling it "fascinating and heartbreaking." He writes:

Writer-director Josh Polon’s The Legend of MexMan is an incredible behind-the-scenes documentary, particularly for emerging filmmakers. It’s an essay, of sorts, about the war-like tension between art and the business of art. It also serves as a not-so-typical discussion on mental health.

Ng really nails what we were hoping to achieve with Legend of Mexman.

Unseen Films also review Legend of Merman, describing it as "a crazy tale of a filmmaker in over his head." 

The Santa Barbara Independent notes that "Polon concocts a hard-to-describe adventure in which documentary truth, neo-non-fiction and film-about-film qualities collide."

If you have some time, there's this video review by Team JVS:

It's always gratifying to see audiences connect with your work and see the intention so clearly. 

The Legend of MEXMAN

The Legend of MEXMAN is a madcap documentary about obsession, creativity and finding your voice. When director Josh Polon screened it for producer Steve Bannatyne, he told Steve he thought it was close to finished, but something was nagging at him. A sense that with some fresh eyes and one more pass on the edit, the film could reach new depths. 

Steve introduced Josh to my creative partner, Jason Wehling, and me in hopes we might become those fresh eyes. Jason and I provide story consultation to filmmakers and companies. We rely on our two decades of experience working in independent film, television, commercials and online content to help clients more effectively tell their stories. We thought Josh had an entertaining and engaging cut but we agreed we thought maybe there's more. 

So Josh, Jason and I notecarded his existing structure. We looked at some footage he hadn't found a way to use in the film but he always found compelling. We re-shuffled the cards and created new beats & scenes based off this raw material he showed us. Then we did what we do: we started editing.

Once Josh was happy with the changes, we helped manage his finishing and delivery. This February, The Legend of MEXMAN screens at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and Big Sky Documentary festival over back-to-back weekends. And more festivals will follow from there. 

HI, I'M TRAVIS MILLS now streaming on Discover+ and HBO Max

Retired Staff Sgt. Travis Mills lives by one mantra: “Never Give Up. Never Quit.” It's the cornerstone of his motivational speeches and the philosophy he applies to every component of his life: family, work, health, philanthropy. Sounds straightforward, right? 

How he came to this philosophy in the wake of unimaginable tragedy is the story we tell in Hi, I’m Travis Mills, the first episode of season 2 of Magnolia Network’s “Hi I’m…” series.

Hi, I'm Travis Mills official synopsis:

After surviving an IED explosion in Afghanistan, Travis Mills became a quadruple amputee—one of few to recover from this injury in US military history. While grappling to find purpose in the aftermath, Travis and his family band together to recover and help others along the way.

Director Jon Michael Simpson established the look and tone of the series when Magnolia adapted his feature length documentary Hi I’m Blake into one of the first installments of the show. When he started interviewing editors for Hi I’m Travis Mills, I was recommended to him by a mutual friend of ours (whose own film I did some work on last year). Our first meeting was virtual. It was a lengthy first meeting where we talked about past projects, how we like to work, and Jon Michael’s vision for the episode. 

When I watched “Hi, I’m Blake” I was impressed with the way it effectively intercut between verite, interview and archival. It also had a ton of heart. Jon Michael's sense of structure was strong. I felt like we’d work well together. So I was excited when I was offered the chance to join the team on Hi, I’m Travis Mills as its lead editor.

For post, that team included: co-producer Ben Hanks, co-producer and director of photography Jeff McQuitty, additional editor Ryan Vaughn, and animator Victor Maestas.

The shoot was broken up into two legs - one in the spring and one in early summer. We also received traunches of archival - a mix of family home videos, media appearances and footage from the Travis Mills Foundation. About 16 weeks of post production had been budgeted with 12 dedicated to the edit, which is aggressive for a TV hour long but achievable with a good team in place and a well planned workflow.

Ryan processed the footage as it arrived. We had worked together on The Russian Five so he and I already had a short hand in place for working together and how we wanted to organize the project. We worked in Adobe Creative Cloud and edited on Premiere.

Jon Michael and I didn’t begin working together until after the second leg of shooting was complete. It was a 4 week sprint from our assembly cut to our first true rough cut. From there we received notes from Magnolia and completed two more cuts responding to their feedback. Somewhere in that time we managed to shoot an additional interview, staged atmospheric b-roll, and we also received some late-arriving (and critical) archival that had a dramatic impact on the final piece. 

TBD Post in Austin, Texas did a tremendous job with color correction, sound mix and final delivery. The score was composed by Hanen Townsend (who also happened to score a previous project I edited, The Sensitives). Both the production and post-production teams got to finally meet face-to-face at a small crew screening the night before Hi, I’m Travis Mills began streaming on Discovery Plus. 

Our team gelled amazingly well together. This was a fun one to be a part of - even with such heavy subject matter. at times. I think Travis' sprit and sense of humor rubbed off on us. We felt a great deal of responsibility telling his story and put a lot of thought into translating his emotional journey into this specific format. 

This is a brief overview of my role on the project. I look forward to elaborating on specific aspects of the post process in future posts.

And the nominees are...

 

Thought I'd dust off the old blogger to share some good news: The nominees for the 2021 Daytime Emmy Awards were announced in June. Small Business Revolution was nominated for Outstanding Lifestyle Series. 

This nomination is for season five of the show which had already been under way in the spring of 2020 just before the coronavirus spread across the U.S. and states instituted strict lockdowns and public health safety measures. Season five chronicled the impact covid had on the participating businesses.

Since season three I have served as a story producer. Just like the featured businesses, we had to pivot operationally, changing both how we shot and edited the series. Suddenly scenes that would normally be shot on location were screen captured as zoom calls. Normally our edit stations would be at the Flow Studios offices and tied together via a server. Like many other productions and industries, we devised an entirely new workflow that allowed our editors to work remotely.

It was a challenging season, so it's a pleasure to be among the shows recognized. We have one of the best teams in the business! Congratulations to Amanda, Deluxe and Flow Studios. Season six is already underway - can't wait to share it when we're finished!

THE RUSSIAN FIVE begins its theatrical rollout this weekend

The Russian Five begins a screening in theaters this weekend, including in Michigan and at AFS Cinema here in Austin. It will begin in 25 theaters and gradually expand from there. As word of mouth travels, hopefully we'll be able to add even more dates and locations throughout the spring, leading up to an eventual digital release.

For now, though, if you're near a theater where The Russian Five is playing, check it out on the big screen. As director Josh Riehl puts it:

"I think that the communal experience of watching a movie in the theater together with your friends and family is especially important for 'The Russian Five,' " he said by email. "We watched and cheered on our Red Wings together at the Joe, so being able to watch the film in a theater full of Red Wings fans, with everyone reliving these memories together, really is the ultimate viewing experience." 

For a list of initial Michigan theaters, go here.

For more information on the film, please visit TheRussianFive.com.

If you're in Austin, the film will screen Saturday, March 23rd at 5PM at AFS Cinema. For more information, please visit AFS Cinema.

See the trailer for The Russian Five

The Russian Five is the story of how the Detroit Red Wings - desperate to be a symbol of hope and triumph for a city suffering the effects of dramatic economic upheaval - scouted Soviet hockey players before the fall of Communism and in some cases, helped them to defect to the United States so they could play in the National Hockey League. With the construction of what became known as the "Russian Five," the Red Wings ushered in a new era - and changed professional hockey forever.

Part spy movie, part sports movie, all underdog story, The Russian Five is a fun, twisty and emotional ride featuring a wide range of never before seen archival footage and animated sequences created by Russian artists. It marks the directorial debut for Josh Riehl and I feel so fortunate to have been part of the team as the film's editor.

When Josh brought the film to Austin, he had a solid assembly cut that laid out the main beats of the story. Working out of Arts + Labor with producers Steve Bannatyne and Jason Wehling, and assistant editor Ryan Vaughn, we worked with Josh to reconstruct the film's narrative arc and elevate its key emotional beats. This is a densely packed story that spans decades and Josh had spent six years on research, shooting interviews, gathering terabytes worth of archival footage and beginning the edit. It was a team effort to bring all these elements together in a matter of months so we could make our debut in Detroit to over two thousand Red Wings fans at the Fillmore Theater.

Since its festival run, The Russian Five was picked up for distribution by FilmBuff. Check out the brand new trailer below, and visit The Russian Five website to keep with news on how to see the film.

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!

THE SENSITIVES Trailer! UPDATE: Now available on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon for rent or to buy

"The Sensitives" Official Trailer from Drew Xanthopoulos on Vimeo.

The Sensitives - a verité documentary following three stories about suffering from and living with the mysterious illness known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity or Environmental Illness  - is still screening publicly around the country and will be available online next month. Check out the trailer above.

While The Sensitives continues to screen on tour in select theaters around the country, it is now available for on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon. For more information about screening dates, please visit The Sensitives Facebook Page.

THE SENSITIVES wins Jury Mention at CIFF '17 + Reviews

The Sensitives, which I edited for director Drew Xanthopoulos, had a busy weekend September 15-17. It screened in Chicago, at the Newburyport Film Festival, and at the Camden International Film Festival. At CIFF, it was awarded Special Jury Mention for Cinematic Vision. It will next screen in the city where it was made: Austin, Texas, on September 29th. Details here. 

Since Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last spring, The Sensitives has sparked much discussion and praise. Here's a sampling of reviews:

"Observational and impressionistic" - Hollywood Reporter

"Empathetic yet nonjudgmental... Xanthopoulos allows each of the subjects to move at their own pace, but he and editor David Fabelo settle into an agreeably lilting rhythm that reflects life progressing even when the film’s subjects are threatened with being left behind."- Moveable Feast

"Xanthopoulos approaches the subject of being essentially allergic to modernity in a way that’s refreshingly non-symbolic. In addition to eschewing hard-nosed medical analysis, the film treads a line between acknowledging both its subjects’ very real symptoms and the frustration of friends and family who see them retreat into isolation." - The Verge

"[I]ntensive realism... invit[es] our empathy to stretch out wider and wider with each story." - Paste Magazine

"The Sensitives is a gentle and affecting window into the isolated prison cell that becomes a sensitive person’s life." - Vague Visages

To keep up with news and updates about The Sensitives, like it on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Lots of Excitement For The World Premiere of THE SENSITIVES at the Tribeca Film Festival

The Sensitives - a verité documentary I edited (directed by Drew Xanthopoulos) - has its world premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival this week. It's earning some buzz ahead of it's first screening. Here's a quick rundown:

Tribeca's Director of Programming calls us one of the "hidden gems" of the festival.

IndieWire calls The Sensitives one of Tribeca's 14 "must see" films.

A little birdie told No Film School that The Sensitives is "one of the most cinematic documentaries they've ever seen." I'm not going to argue with whoever said that.

I don't know what Metro is but they're looking forward to our film.

Finally, Village Voice calls The Sensitives "superb" and "poignant." You're too kind.

More info soon and a little coverage of the fest!

SXSW 2016: SLASH Gets In + Panel News

Two big announcements for this year's SXSW Film Festival:

Last fall I jumped on to help out on Clay Liford's comedy Slash. Sharing editing duties with Bryan Poyser (who is better known as a director, but here's a secret - he's also a champ editor), Slash is a coming of age movie set in the world of erotic fan fiction, aka slash fiction. Not your typical backdrop for a teenage boy's sexual awakening... which will make it all the more satisfying to unveil to audiences next month.

Shot in Austin, Slash features a cast of up and coming stars and was made possible by a hard working, dedicated Austin crew. Clay created an original sci-fi super hero to base the slash fiction on, so after a successful Kickstarter campaign, costumes were designed & tailored while sets were constructed in the desert to help create a world within the world of the movie that helps sets the story in motion. Inspired by Harry Potter, Star Trek and who knows what else, Slash will be a fun time at the movies in March.

Click here for screening times!

I will also participate in a panel on March 12th titled "In The Cut: Editing a Movie Sample." I get to share the mic with such accomplished editors: Sandra Adair, Leah Marino, and panel organizer/moderator Kyle Henry. I'm inclined to sit back and learn as much from them as anyone else in the room.

Here's the panel description:

Editing is the final stage of a film's writing. How can editing be used to reevaluate/reshape what you’ve generated during production? Learn tips and strategies from editors who work across all forms and genres to tell engaging and emotionally moving stories. Featuring Emmy and Academy Award nominated editors of films that have screened at major festivals like Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Berlin and Cannes. We will review samples from up to three works-in-progress (5 mins max length). Participants, please post samples to Vimeo and send links to moderator Kyle Henry at least 12 hrs before panel begins for selection via SXSocial.

Click here for panel info!

Photos from the BRIGHT SHADOW world premiere

Bright Shadow - Lone Star Film Fest

If I wasn't so busy editing another documentary at the moment, I would have posted these photos sooner. On November 6th, Bright Shadow - a feature documentary about singer/songwriter Ana Egge - had its world premiere at the Lone Star Film Festival in Ft. Worth, Texas. I drove up the day of the screening, met up with director Jesse Lyda and the rest of crew - which included Ana, producer Jason Wehling, cinematographer Allen E. Ho, and executive producer Clark Lyda. After catching up over dinner, we headed over to the AMC Palace to screen the movie to festival goers.

Bright Shadow Q and A

Our Q and A after the movie was in front of a packed house, yet still felt intimate. Both Ana fans and folks unfamiliar with her music praised the movie and asked us insightful questions about the process of making it. It felt like the we connected with everyone in the room, which is what we aim to do when spending years piecing an emotional journey like Ana's.

(If you are unfamiliar with Ana's work, check out her latest album, also titled Bright Shadow, on iTunes or buy direct from her website. Past albums also available.)

Director Jesse Lyda with Ana Egge

After the movie, we walked across the street to the Flying Saucer where Ana played a set. Myself and the rest of the crew continued to talk to audience members who joined us at the screening. Great screening, great night!

Red carpet selfie

WORLD PREMIERE: Bright Shadow - a documentary about songwriter Ana Egge - debuts at the Lone Star Film Festival

Courtesy of anaegge.com

Bright Shadow, a documentary directed by Jesse Lyda, is an intimate window into the artistic journey of singer/songwriter Ana Egge. Jesse followed Ana during the run up to, making of, and release of her album Bad Blood which was produced by Steve Earle.

Jesse captured some moments on video that might be too raw for most artists to have laid bare, so it's a testament to Ana, her wife Amy, and the rest of Ana's family to let us tell their story. I think we crafted a film that is a modern, truthful meditation on artistic expression - whether that art be expressed through music, film, or family.

On a personal note, and admittedly this is a bit of inside baseball, it's the first feature I edited using Apple's Final Cut Pro X, which was much maligned by professional editors at the time we started work on the project. We used Final Cut X before it was truly, completely ready to take on a feature. The program has been improved and expanded substantially. It's my favorite NLE to use and I think its organizational features are particularly superb for documentary work.

Bright Shadow makes it's world premiere Friday, November 6th at the 2015 Lone Star Film Festival.

LONE STAR FILM FESTIVAL: Both SIR DOUG and BRIGHT SHADOW will screen this November

Two movies. One festival.

Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove will continue its film festival run when it appears at this year's Lone Star Film Festival in Ft. Worth. Directed by Joe Nick Patoski and edited by Cody Ground, I served as an additional editor during the push toward its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year.

Bright Shadow, a documentary about musician Ana Egge directed by Jesse Lyda, will make its world premiere at Lone Star and I can't wait to share it. A passion project for Lyda, it is the first feature documentary for me to serve as lead editor. I've been an assistant, an associate editor and an additional editor, but Bright Shadow goes down as the first for me to sit in the hot seat and help find the story with Lyda and producer Jason Wehling. We're looking forward to this screening and finally getting to share Ana's very personal story with everyone!

Here is the press release by the Lone Star Film Society announcing both films amongst several others.

Also worth noting (for the post production geeks out there): we edited Bright Shadow on Apple's Final Cut Pro X. We started in version 10.0.9 before it was really ready for a feature. We made the jump to 10.1 when that was released and it made a world's of difference. Hopefully, I'll be writing more on that soon!

This won't be the first time for my work to be screened at Lone Star. My short film "Do Over"  screened at Lone Star in 2012.

TRAILER: Take a look at Rick Alverson's ENTERTAINMENT ahead of its fall release

Last week, the trailer for the dark comedy Entertainment was released online. Arts + Labor - which handled post production duties on it - hired me to be post production supervisor. It was quite a handful prepping and shepherding this ambitious indie (shot entirely in ARRI RAW) through post within such a tight window on its way to a Sundance premiere earlier this year. I learned a ton, though, from Aversion and his DP Lorenzo Hagerman. It is also currently playing at NEXT Fest in LA.

Indiewire wrote up a post introducing the trailer.

So did AV Club.

So did this website, Consequence of Sound, in which they wrote: "Similar to The Comedy, Entertainment is a very meditative experience that uses startling visuals to carry its strange narrative."

Here is Indiewire's review from Sundance.

Entertainment will be released by Magnolia Pictures in select theaters and iTunes November 13.

SHORT FILM: The Half Life of War Available Online

Last summer - while I was still in the middle of editing a feature documentary - I snuck in (to what little spare time I had) editing Kyle Henry's short film "The Half Life of War." Inspired by the memory of his father who was a war veteran, "The Half Life of War" is a 6 minute meditative piece that asks the viewer to consider how we memorialize war. It also illuminates how ubiquitous, yet obscure war monuments seem in our day-to-day lives.

Half-Life of War from Kyle Henry on Vimeo.

Kyle and I would meet in the evenings after each of us spent our respective days editing other projects. He shot the footage on and off for nearly a year, capturing a variety of monuments spanning cities and seasons.

An experimental doc was a new challenge for me - no script, no dialogue, no story in the classical sense to guide me. This movie was to be more about evoking a mood, a feeling, a conversation with the viewer. It would largely be driven by rhythm and juxtaposition. Kyle himself wasn't even quite sure what direction we might take. The footage could be combined and re-combined any number of ways. The sound editing could be realistic - perhaps all diegetic/environmental - or it could be surreal, or possibly more documentary in nature as when we discussed editing interviews with war vets under the images.

Kyle gave me some guiding principles: First, let's find a progression that we like (could be exploring the monuments by season, from day to night, urban to rural, rural to urban, etc.). Second, let's begin on a note of mystery and draw the viewer in to our themes.

I think one of the reasons Kyle likes working with me is that I sometimes try to deliver two or three different versions of an idea early in the editing process.  It gives him a something to react to and he can compare each version against each other. It helps him communicate as much what doesn't work for him as what does. No matter how rough or half-baked, he always tells me, "The first pass is about getting a dialogue started between director and editor." That's one of the reasons I love working with Kyle: he creates a safe space for me to experiment. Plus, since he's also an editor, he is able to try some things out too and is very clear with his directions.

Initially, we let our shots play long. This way we would feel the stillness and discover the cut points rather than, say, create the cut points. Every little tweak we made, we would watch from several shots back in order to get into the movie's rhythm each time we needed to evaluate a cut. So, you might have made a cut a minute and ten seconds in, but you're going to play back starting at the thirty second mark in order to evaluate it. Sometimes, no matter how deep our adjustments in the movie were, we'd re-watch from the beginning, make a change here, a change there... Then re-watch from the beginning again.

And so it goes when you build a film that is delicate and meditative.

We finished it in less than a month while Kyle finished a residency at Austin-based production company Arts + Labor last summer. It has since screened at the Cinedelphia Film Festival and the Mary + Leigh Block Museum of art, among other venues.

Check out the web site which includes not only the film but also original essays that discuss the film's themes, a director's statement, and 30 second shorts that re-appropriate footage from the film and the cutting room floor. We hope you enjoy the film. Please share it!

Half Life of War Facebook Page