SPOKE at the finish line

#7 Nonlinear Film School - after you lock picture

Hello from Seattle!

When I first arrived here in 1995, on June 21st, it was cold and rainy. I could see my breath. This weather pattern lasted for a few years until the early 2000s when it started to warm-up earlier. The weather this year reminds me of the one of 29 years ago when the saying went: Summer starts after the 4th of July. Happy Summer everyone!

A month ago we locked picture on my newest documentary film SPOKE. Today I wish to tell you about what happens to a film after the edit is decided on. We will be sharing stills from SPOKE for the first time. Perhaps, your next moving outing will be reacher after this deep dive into our creative process.

Remind me, Bogdan, what was SPOKE about?

SPOKE follows the story of Canadian firefighter and three time cancer survivor, Rudy Pospisil. Rudy opens up about the psychological and health dangers of his job, riding around the world for cancer research and living a life with a purpose.

It has been 23 years since Rudy’s first cancer diagnosis at age 41. At the time, Rudy and his wife, Susan, took out all their savings and went to Europe on a two month trip with their three children. They didn’t know how long Rudy had to live and wanted to do something memorable.

Today, Rudy is still here with us, full of vigor, wisdom and stories to tell!

a scene from the film SPOKE

Riding his bicycle around the world, Rudy begins to confront the post-traumatic stress he has accumulated over his 30-year career as a firefighter. Within a single day while riding on a highway in Australia, Rudy counts over 70 dead kangaroos. The animals gather by the roadside early in the morning to drink dew collected on the road. Freight trucks with massive grilles in front ruthlessly plow them down. These scenes remind Rudy of the numerous car accidents he has witnessed. He has no choice but to face and battle this trauma once again.

scene from the film SPOKE

While the story is told through the eyes of Rudy, SPOKE is a tribute to all firefighters and first responders around the world. I learned a great deal about what they go through in order to continue to serve and protect us. Now, when I see firefighters or policemen line up after me in a coffee shop, I always offer them my spot.

Rudy Pospisil in the film SPOKE

scene from the film SPOKE

What does “picture lock” mean?

After seven months of working with editor Fred Beahm and at least six versions of the film, the edit is complete. We edited on our own and, together, via a video link on Louper - Fred in Los Angeles, me in Seattle. We showed each version to a test audience. From the discussions after the screenings, it became clear what worked in the film, what was missing, and how to move forward.

At the beginning of our collaboration, Fred and I used Frame.io, where we uploaded versions of the film and commented on them.

The edit, or picture, needs to be locked because if the director continues to change it, the timing gets disrupted. This creates problems in the subsequent stages of work and increases production costs.

The next four stages of work proceed simultaneously.

Color Correction

Once the picture is locked and there are no more changes to the edit, the film is sent to the colorist. Since the raw film files are very large, we edit with smaller ones called proxies. Martin Petrov, our colorist, spent about ten days replacing all the proxy files with the original raw files. He put up our film version on one monitor and meticulously replaced everything in the edit, shot by shot.

Martin will be creating four versions with different color corrections:

1. One for cinema screens, which we are working on now. That’s why there’s a second monitor in the third picture. It is calibrated for cinema projectors.

2. An internet version

3. A version for home televisions

4. A version for TV broadcasting

A screenshot of our work on the color corrections - Martin and cinematographer, Matthew Skala, are in the right corner.

Martin lives and works in Bulgaria. In the past few weeks, we have been meeting with him and cinematographer, Matthew Scala. The three of us work together - Martin in Sofia doing most of the heavy lifting, me in Seattle, and Matthew in Los Angeles. We use DaVinci Resolve Remote, and it’s as if we are all in the same room. Well, I stay silent most of the time and occasionally give my input on a shot.

The monitor on the right shows how the film will look on a cinema screen

Sound Design and Mix

Brian Sloss lives and works in Seattle. We first collaborated on the sound design and mix for my debut feature film, THERE.

Brian will be doing the final mix in surround sound - 5.1. SPOKE will be my first film with surround sound, which is very exciting. We'll definitely need to rent state of the art movie theaters for the world tour.

At Brian’s studio

The Music Score

With the score for SPOKE, we took an unconventional approach. Composer Brian Baron started working on the music months ago while Fred and I were still editing. For a month, we met every Saturday to watch parts of the film and play chess. The last time, Brian won.

Traditionally, scoring the film begins after the picture is locked. About ten days ago, the three of us - Brian Sloss, Brian Baron, and I - met twice in person to watch the film from beginning to end. We pause, discuss, take notes, and then watch it again.

Graphic Design and Visual Effects

Christofor Balabanov works in Plovdiv and lives twenty minutes away in Brestovitsa - a village nested at the foot of the majestic Rhodope Mountains. We are collaborating with him on the graphics for the nine different newspapers that are part of the film. Each newspaper clip visually narrates Rudy’s journey. Currently, Christofor is at the seaside and has taken his laptop to work from there. I’m having a blast coming up with secondary headlines that we may not even see in the final film.

SPOKE mock-up newspaper work in progress.

Twenty one year old Bulgarian artist Marina Ivanova is illustrating the graphics in charcoal. We’ll break down this process in a later blog post. Visual effects and motion graphics are being handled by Tihomir from the De-Attic studio in Sofia. We first worked together in the spring of 2020. The visual effects include adding fire, inserting drops into a catheter, animating newspapers, and more.

SPOKE should be fully ready by the middle of August.

In the meantime our Team in Bulgaria

• We are developing a marketing strategy (we’ve learned a lot from KAVAL PARK).

• We are building a website.

• We’ve sent the working version of the film to the Toronto International Film Festival - one of the biggest film festivals in the world. Say a little prayer for us to get accepted. To put it mildly, this could change our careers forever!

I’m curious, what are you watching at the moment?

I’m watching the series Mr. Robot. And after we locked picture, I treated myself to a solo trip to watch the new Mad Max movie at the Cinerama in Seattle.

a scene from the film SPOKE