Tongal filmmaker Kyle Soehngen and his crew ran around with 6 different running teams, across 6 cities, to capture footage for the Under Armour Connected Footwear Project. With hours of footage to sort through, he needed a solid plan in place for post-production, and it started as soon as he and his crew hit the ground running in pre-production. The final spot “We Will” captures the tenacious and intensely communal spirit of these running groups:
After launching our new Post-Production 101 section last year, which offers advice and resources for managing post-production on Tongal Projects, we wanted to interview a filmmaker who excels in post and always seems to have their ducks in a row.
Having a plan for post-production, no matter the scope of the Project, is important. Whether you plan to edit yourself or bring on an editor, conversations about post should start the second you begin pre-production.
Though a lot of the storytelling magic happens during production, behind and in front of the camera, editing is the final and definitive phase of storytelling. Editors are skillful artists, crafting sequences that dare to draw us in and sustain our attention. We talked to Kyle about some of his strategies for post-production and how he tries to get ahead of any bumps in the road.
Maddie: Do you do all your own editing, or do you work with an editor and/or post-production supervisor?
Kyle: Whenever possible, I prefer working with a dedicated editor or editorial team. I enjoy the collaborative aspect of working with an editor and I feel the final product is better for it. For me it's sometimes too easy to get locked into a singular vision, so having another set of eyes is a great way to see things differently. From little suggestions to major changes, it's always surprising (in a good way!) what a great editor can bring to the table. So much of storytelling finds its place in the edit bay, so I find a lot of value in collaborating with an awesome editor. If I'm cutting something myself, it's usually due to budgetary reasons.
M: At which point do you start planning for post-production? In your experience, what creative and/or production elements have the greatest impact on your workflow?
K: As early as possible! Personally, I like planning for post right away for both creative and logistical reasons. Typically, I bring my editor into the fold around the same time I'm chatting with my cinematographer about our approach to the film. You want to consider things like the pacing and rhythm of a film just as much as the look, so why wouldn't you want to have these conversations with the person that will be doing the cutting? Those early conversations are so important. They will shape so much of your film. And a great editor will bring ideas to the table that you may not even be considering yet since you're in the mindset of pre-production. A lot of people think of editors as people just pushing buttons to execute someone else's vision, but they are filmmakers first and foremost. As such, they have just as much impact as your DP, production designer, etc. Beyond that, there are all the logistical reasons to bring them in early on. Workflow is from capture to delivery, so you want those conversations to intermingle, not be separate stages.
As for workflow, I'd say the story we're trying to tell dictates the greatest impact. Yes, there's all sorts of technical crap to figure out in any workflow, but all that dramatically changes if you find the best format to tell your story is to shoot it on an old Hi-8 camera or iPhone instead of a decked out Alexa. Everything stems from the story, the rest just falls in line.
M: What are some automatic things you do to make “post life” easier?
K: As I mentioned before, bring in your editor/post team from the outset. :) Other than that, and this may sound weird, if you're doing a commercial or similar, have your music and VO figured out before you shoot. Haha! Maybe it's just me, but I have a really hard time nailing both these things and they always come back to bite me in post.
M: You recently shot a series of ads for Under Armour that required you to travel to 6 different cities (2 international cities) and document running groups. How did the scope of this project impact your post-production? What were some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
K: The scope and timeline of the Under Armour job had a major impact on our post-production process. We knew right away that we would have pretty much zero post time since the production involved so many travel days. The biggest decision was whether we should take our editor on the road or ship drives back to him. This ended up edging into budget considerations as well. If we were to ship drives, we would need backups and send them on a rolling basis in order to make our deadline. At that point, you're costing out triplicate drives and shipping for each spot against airfare and hotel costs. At the end of the day, we took him on the road since you also have the added value of being in the same room together while working on edits. And due to the nature of this particular project, the deliverables were always a bit of a moving target, so that presented plenty of challenges in terms of laying out all our sound, color, and onlines.
Also, we shot a LOT! We never quite knew 100% what the shoot day was going to look like, so our cameras almost never turned off. Our schedule was travel/scout/shoot/travel/scout/shoot/day-off, so you end up with one day of planning after seeing all your locations the day before. One day we might only have three runners and complete control over where we wanted them to be, but other days we had almost 200 runners doing a four-mile route through the city. With all the footage, we had to be very attentive to organization so nothing was lost or mixed up. Obviously, this is something you would do with any shoot, but it was compounded by the sheer amount of footage we had after every shoot day.
M: What do you enjoy the most about working with brands? Any advice for filmmakers to help them make the post experience as client-friendly as possible?
K: For me, I most enjoy the opportunities for these short spurts of collaborative creativity. And since at the end of the day you're working on something for a brand, you often have to work within a box with which you are not the most familiar. That's always exciting because it pushes you to try new things. And, of course, it's always fun if the brand is down to go out on a limb to try something different.
As for having a client-friendly post experience, I think it's important to lay out a clear schedule for every step of the post process. There are a lot of things we as filmmakers might take for granted in the post process that clients may or may not be thinking about. If you can lay out that stuff clearly as early as possible, it makes for a better experience for everyone. Also, and this may seem obvious, it's important to listen. As filmmakers, we can get protective of our work and if something doesn't work for a client, it can be tough to divorce yourself from an idea. I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for your ideas (you should), but it's also important to remember you're making this thing for a brand.
M: When all is said and done (or rendered and delivered), how do you reward yourself and your team?
K: Ha! I suppose it's different for each project, but taking your team out to a really nice dinner and drinks seems to always go over well. I'm also a fan of game nights. It's a good way to decompress after a big project.
