Yankees-Dodgers: An Uncivil War (ESPN Films)
“The story of two of baseball’s most historic franchises in the 1970s and how their rivalry reflected American life during the era.”
Produced by Endeavor, Film45, Peak Mark Films and commissioned by ESPN Films. Narrated by Rob Lowe.
This high-end documentary was already in progress when the President of the media conglomerate Endeavor, Mark Shapiro, brought the project to Director Fritz Mitchell.
As a master of making sports stories relevant to the larger culture of the moment, Fritz is in high-demand. He and I were colleagues at CBS Sports back in the day, and we re-connected on this project.
At first, I supported Fritz’s long-time editor, Paul Carruthers, on the off-line edit of “An Uncivil War,” (while juggling my day job at CBS Sports). Fritz and Paul collaborated on the over-arching narrative; I was assigned stand-alone vignettes. Fritz would identify a section that could be isolated, Paul would package the material for me to edit, and Fritz would consult back and forth with both of us. Once completed, Paul would incorporate my work into the larger documentary, then Fritz would assign me the next piece.
The clips on view here represent a sampling of sections I worked on in the off-line edit.
Initially developed on spec, the project had an uncertain future after the off-line was completed. That changed when ESPN Films commissioned the movie and gave it an air-date. I was hired back to work on the color-correction and conform, with four weeks to complete the process before air.
But this documentary had made unfettered use of archival footage. Not only was it time-consuming to track down the high-resolution replacement files, the price must have been ENORMOUS! I can only speculate what was causing delays at the lofty executive levels of Endeavor and ESPN Films. But weeks passed during which rights for the footage we needed to complete the film were not cleared.
When we finally got the green light, and were able to start gathering the hi-res footage, a four-week project had been compressed into only six days before air! Emergency measures were required.
Knowing we would need more help, Fritz brought on the colorist, Art Bell. Then Paul and I made the desperate decision to experiment with a new beta version of DaVinci Resolve. The software had been released only two weeks earlier, but boasted an amazing, untested capability that was exactly what we needed: Art was able to color-correct remotely on the same timeline that Paul and I were using to conform the movie. We could work simultaneously! A revelation that allowed us to work much faster than conventional workflows.
I’ll leave the gory details of those six days to your imagination. But after many stressful all-nighters, we made air on ESPN.
The movie is excellent and was very well-received. I know because my wife – who is not a baseball fan and knew nothing about the events – loved it! Credit to Fritz and Paul for their remarkable story-telling collaboration.
“The story of two of baseball’s most historic franchises in the 1970s and how their rivalry reflected American life during the era.”
Produced by Endeavor, Film45, Peak Mark Films and commissioned by ESPN Films. Narrated by Rob Lowe.
This high-end documentary was already in progress when the President of the media conglomerate Endeavor, Mark Shapiro, brought the project to Director Fritz Mitchell.
As a master of making sports stories relevant to the larger culture of the moment, Fritz is in high-demand. He and I were colleagues at CBS Sports back in the day, and we re-connected on this project.
At first, I supported Fritz’s long-time editor, Paul Carruthers, on the off-line edit of “An Uncivil War,” (while juggling my day job at CBS Sports). Fritz and Paul collaborated on the over-arching narrative; I was assigned stand-alone vignettes. Fritz would identify a section that could be isolated, Paul would package the material for me to edit, and Fritz would consult back and forth with both of us. Once completed, Paul would incorporate my work into the larger documentary, then Fritz would assign me the next piece.
The clips on view here represent a sampling of sections I worked on in the off-line edit.
Initially developed on spec, the project had an uncertain future after the off-line was completed. That changed when ESPN Films commissioned the movie and gave it an air-date. I was hired back to work on the color-correction and conform, with four weeks to complete the process before air.
But this documentary had made unfettered use of archival footage. Not only was it time-consuming to track down the high-resolution replacement files, the price must have been ENORMOUS! I can only speculate what was causing delays at the lofty executive levels of Endeavor and ESPN Films. But weeks passed during which rights for the footage we needed to complete the film were not cleared.
When we finally got the green light, and were able to start gathering the hi-res footage, a four-week project had been compressed into only six days before air! Emergency measures were required.
Knowing we would need more help, Fritz brought on the colorist, Art Bell. Then Paul and I made the desperate decision to experiment with a new beta version of DaVinci Resolve. The software had been released only two weeks earlier, but boasted an amazing, untested capability that was exactly what we needed: Art was able to color-correct remotely on the same timeline that Paul and I were using to conform the movie. We could work simultaneously! A revelation that allowed us to work much faster than conventional workflows.
I’ll leave the gory details of those six days to your imagination. But after many stressful all-nighters, we made air on ESPN.
The movie is excellent and was very well-received. I know because my wife – who is not a baseball fan and knew nothing about the events – loved it! Credit to Fritz and Paul for their remarkable story-telling collaboration.