01
Development
Everything starts here. The creative of films is so important to us. Anyone can shoot an interview and edit b-roll on top of it. The local news does it on the daily for cheap! We always like to make sure there’s that last 1% of stubborn effort. Here, we’d bring in a writer. In collaboration with our client, we’d be researching, conducting remote, preliminary interviews with talent, watching what’s been done and writing. We’ll start with a treatment for approval and notes. From there we’ll develop a script for another set of collaborative reviews and approval. Here, we’d have a script, a budget and a plan. Moving us into:
02
PRE-PRODUCTION
We have a Super Producer, Zach, that’s worked on much larger projects but we’re lucky to have him because he likes fishing as much as we do. Zach IS the wheels-on-the-bus. Coordinating schedules, booking permits, running with logistics, taking our script and our shot-lists (also collaborated on during this time) and turning them into an actionable, on budget production.
03
PRODUCTION
We do so much pre-production to counter expensive surprises in production, but we’ve done this for long enough to know it can all go to shit. That’s where experience kicks in. Deported out, stolen from, apocalyptic weather, no fish - we’ve dealt with most of it. We are problem solvers. With that said, solutions are run through the EP’s before any major decisions are made.
We shoot on RED cameras, we own two. Our favorite setup is our boat mounted TAV (Tributaries Assault Vehicle) for getting smooth, sustained, non-wavy boat-to-boat cinematography. We also recently put together and modified a set of vintage Canon cinema lenses.
Lastly, we have an attached studio in Bozeman for product inserts, efficiency for serial production and for rent to the public.
Learn more about our TAV, the studio or our DIT Kit.
04
POST-PRODUCTION
I personally have a love/hate relationship with editing. It sucks up all of my time but as a director I can really hone in on the footage and try things. Which brings us to:
Collaboration. The best idea wins, is a good policy in the edit. My post-production team has been in Tributaries’ orbit for a long time. Not only is our priority the client and audience, I think Dadi (colorist) and Colter (post-sound) have created a level of A/V that has set a standard in fly fishing.
I have a humble edit suite in downtown Bozeman for live editing with 70+ terabytes of online storage. I’ve been known to travel with an editing computer and, we collaborate via Frame.io when schedules and budgets don’t allow live cutting. For further collaboration, we employ a tool called Parsec to allow remote, live editing. We transcribe all interviews to make the radio-edit process a breeze between writer, client, edit team. We do post using a “picture-lock is the goal” philosophy.
Learn more about our frankenstein-ed editing process or our server, TDC Tower.
05
DELIVERY
UHD resolution deliverables are uploaded via Dropbox, or anywhere needed. We create and maintain double backups of all raw files and project files and deliverables. I’m always happy to put these backups in the mail to bring the footage in-house or further out-of-house.