Fischer Edit/FX Blog

On the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina “Left Behind Without a Choice” premieres. “Left Behind Without a Choice” is a feature-length documentary about the animal rescue effort in New Orleans focusing particularly on a group of Minnesotans who volunteered through Utah based Best Friends Animal Society.

Fischer Edit’s Katie Carpenter offered her expertise to Director Kim Walsh-Borgan’s project, putting together an 80-minute film she is excited to share with the world. “I’m glad that it’s finally here. It’s been a long process but I’ve learned through all of it.” Carpenter like many arriving to tomorrow’s premiere is also quick to point out the reality that many may have forgotten. “It’s exciting to celebrate after spending time and effort, but it’s also important to spread the message that there’s still a lot of need.”

Throughout the editing process, Carpenter went through over 20+ hours of interviews and b-roll footage as there were so many different stories to tell. “It was hardest to cut some of the characters because each person interviewed had something very special to share from their experiences in New Orleans,” she explains. And of the animals themselves? “There were some tears. It’s very touching…I tried to craft a sense of hope from this story.”
“Left Behind Without a Choice” premieres with a red-carpet event Friday, August 29, 2008 at 7PM in two theaters at Carmike Cinemas in Oakdale. The premiere is sponsored in part by Fearless Filmmakers of Minneapolis and Animal Ark, a Minnesota-based no-kill shelter. Proceeds from the event will benefit the shelter: tickets are available at the theater or can be reserved here.

Take a look at Katie’s blog for more information.

Editorial is by it’s nature a function of finding pieces and putting them together in a (hopefully) aesthetically interesting way.  Sometimes the way the pieces go together is more obvious than others.  Sometimes the obvious way is in fact the only way.

That certainly was not the case with the Cox business spots I recently worked on for Periscope.  Terry Windell, the director had a very clear vision for what he wanted to accomplish and he designed some really great and elegant gags.  However, given the amount of work to be done with the relatively short shooting schedule the clarity of the vision as provided in script notes or director boards was somewhat… lacking.

Like most editors it’s important to me to have a few days to rough together the spots to get a sense of the feel and find what appeals to me in terms of performance, composition, pace, whatever.  So after I loaded and organized the dailies I started building spots.  At Terry’s suggestion I started with “Acrobat” since this was the most straight forward and had the least amount of compositing necessary to tell the story.  That said I still ended up with about fifteen layers in one of my first comps, but I digress.  ”Acrobat” came together pretty quickly and in fact the air version did not veer that far from my initial edit.  That was not the case with the other two.

The other two spots were huge collections of green screen elements and backgrounds.  Even after they were organized they presented a daunting array of possibilities.  Now don’t get me wrong, lots of options are what you want as an editor, but then there would be other pieces that were in the boards that just didn’t seem to be there.  After several days and WTF?!? moments I did have edits that were working (barely) but I kept feeling like I was missing something, which in fact I was.

Anyway, long story short…

As any good editor will tell you, working with a director can be a great or a miserable experience.  When Terry came in, it was like the lights came on.  He was all like, “See here I wanted you to take this guy from “Trapeze”, flop him and blow him up and then see he’ll match for that part of “Jumps” …”  The amount of stuff he had in his head was stunning.  We had a great time together and as his process became clear to me we could practically finish one another’s sentences.  So this was one of those cases where it really was collaborative, and the spots are better because of it.

By Tony Mills

Fischer FX Visual Effects Supervisor

Flame & Smoke artist

One of the most rewarding career experiences, is when a good first job with a client, leads to working on a second job with them, and it turns out to the next “big one” for your reel. Producer Judy Wittenberg gave us just such an opportunity when she let Fischer FX bid on an amazing set of boards for Cox Business Services, via agency Periscope.

In the boards business people in their everyday environment were doing amazing things demonstrating strength, agility and nimbleness, in a synchronous fashion becoming the perfect metaphor for the brands suite of business services. One spot used acrobats and Parkour artists, one would use trapeze artists and a third trampoline artists.

Bill Rogina (senior producer Fischer Edit/FX) was involved in the search for a director with producer Judy Wittenberg, art director Tim Moran and copywriter Greg Beaupre. After considering several FX-savvy directors, the choice was Terry Windell via Crusty Pup Pictures (and Bill’s friend) Jon Derovan, with whom Bill had worked at PDI/Dreamworks. Terry’s illustration background (he created the ectoplasm in Poltergeist and killed Darth Vader in the 3rd Star Wars movie) led to dynamic shooting boards that captured the essence of the creative brief right away. We also decided that Fischer FX would supervise the production due to the rigorous technical requirements.

Early on it was determined that location was paramount, as we needed to shoot background plates for three unique spots that each had different considerations and needs. The Nikken building in Irvine turned out to be a perfect choice. In addition to being used for many feature films, you can see this building in the new stop motion Lexus campaign. With its sweeping atrium and grand staircases, it provided all the angles necessary. This one day shoot took nearly 18 hours to get it all in the can. We took detailed measurements and coordinated with the production crew to determine exact angles and focal length for matching up green screen shooting in the studio.

The green screen cinematography took place over two full shoot days at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood with the biggest piece of green cloth I have ever seen (over 80 X 120). It’s not easy to rig trapezes and trampolines for green screen shooting, but the crew stepped up and setups were achieved quickly and efficiently. We overcranked all the green screen footage, shooting at speeds of up 120 fps which would give us the ability to control time in the post work and mix up frame rates for an aesthetically arresting look. This high frame rate would also give us a nuanced degree of control over motion blur, allowing us much more control over the look of the final composites.

Once the production was wrapped, Tim Taylor started editing as soon as dailies arrived and was joined by Terry Windell for several days. Jake Parker (flame artist/Visual Effects Supervisor) and I started pre-visualizing composites for Tim and Terry and determining the best post approach to the work. Discussions with Oscar Oboza, the colorist on the job, determined that each spot would have a signature palette. We had Oscar transfer the green screen materials as a flat pass which would give us the most flexibility in our integrating the live action background in our FX composites. For the finish, Jake and I ended up tag teaming on “Acrobats” and singularly helming “Jumps” and “Trapeze” respectively. Matt Collings also played a big part in all the necessary cleanup.

Each spot had various challenges, but noteworthy was the roto on 90-120 fps footage, the motion of the trampoline jumpers, and the wire extensions and enhancements to the trapeze footage. Two weeks of post led to the three spots completion, with music by Emoto and final mix by Modern Music. As was the goal, each spot had a signature style of movement, palette of color, and custom music that perfectly fit. The FX work was tough but rewarding and effective for the client. And for us, not one but three more for the reel!

This spot is part of three Fischer Edit/FX’s Tim Taylor, Tony Mills, Jake Parker and Matt Collings worked on for Periscope’s client Cox Business.  Read Tony Mills’ blog or Fischer Edit’s latest press release for more information.

Cox Business “Acrobats” spot from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

This spot is one of three Fischer Edit/FX’s Tim Taylor, Tony Mills, Jake Parker and Matt Collings worked on for Periscope’s client Cox Business.  Read Tony Mills’ blog or Fischer Edit’s latest press release for more information.

Cox Business “Jumps” spot from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

This spot is one of three Fischer Edit/FX’s Tim Taylor, Tony Mills, Jake Parker and Matt Collings worked on for Periscope’s client Cox Business. Read Tony Mills’ blog or Fischer Edit’s latest press release for more information.

Cox Business “Trapeze” spot from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.