Episode #34 - So many colons in this title! Justin Joseph Hall is an Emmy winning Editor of vérité documentary movies. He love sifting through mounts of footage to carve out the most interesting aspects of what he discovers in a short amount of time. Today he honors Downtown Community Television where he learned to cut their style of vérité footage by showing his favorite movies they’ve made.

For his short Justin brought an off-shoot of the Frontline episode Life on Parole. The short is called Halfway Home: A Father’s Story. It’s a movie that follows a father who was released from prison on parole for an entire year to see what life is like after prison. It’s an example of people with forgotten paths that are ignored by society with trials and tribulations that are often ignored by society. Justin speaks of the challenges of editing the movie and the challenges the main character faces in a complicated social justice system. The food served for the short was an apple and cake.

The feature Justin selected is an often forgotten movie he considers near perfect High on Crack Street: The Lost Lives of Lowell. The documentary that inspired the movie The Fighter was directed by Maryann DeLeo, Richard Farrell, and Jon Alpert. It covers the use of crack cocaine and the spiral it causes in one’s lives and the pull of addiction to the powerful drug. They served donuts, popcorn and domestic beer for this feature.

Learn more about Justin Joseph Hall and his work sign up for Fourwind Films’ newsletter. In the forecast to look forward to please check out host Justin Joseph Hall’s newest movie coming out a comedy special by Nimesh Patel called It’s Dark & Patel Is Hot.

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Appointed Contributor - Justin Joseph Hall

Host - Laura Davi

Sound Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar

Episode #33 - Ilaria Polsonetti is an Emmy nominated Editor of documentary films. She creates smooth edits in her edits and enjoys creativity in her work. She is kind and collaborative in her process which she goes through today in our episode.

Ilaria brought the New York Times OpDoc Dulce. It’s an ideal documentary for Ilaria that has patience, fantastic locations and subjects, and great sound. It’s an example of the documentaries she would always love to work on in a Direct Cinema style slice of life.

The feature Ilaria chose is VICE’s Black South Rising: Inside Charlotte's Mostly Black and Brown Government. Ilaria and her VICE team put together the time after the killing of Keith Lamont Scott by the police in Charlotte, North Carolina documenting the change in the government as more people of color ran for office. It was an emotional screening that shows what it is like when new people take place of old governments.

Learn more about Ilaria Polsonetti and her work on her website. In the forecast to look forward to please check out host Justin Joseph Hall on With Nothing to Say chatting about his entry into film and how he shaped his career.

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Appointed Contributor - Ilaria Polsonetti

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Sound Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

Line Producer - Laura Davi

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar

Episode #32 - Meet Rebecca Stern, a director and producer of documentary films. She has absolutely soared in her career since one of her first jobs as a Production Coordinator on the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Cartel Land. Her directorial debut Well Groomed is now streaming on HBO. Rebecca, or Becky, is open, humble, and a delight to talk with.

Our appointed contributors for Feature & a short are asked to choose one short and one feature, and they have to have been involved with one of them but not the other. Rebecca brings the sleeper success Snowy. This documentary short about a pet turtle named Snowy whose owner embarks on a journey to find what would make him happy got into Sundance after a cold submission. We discuss what it’s like to get into Sundance, funding short films, and what Rebeca thinks needs to evolve in that process.

The feature is The Thin Blue Line, a film Becky had never seen — though she has worked on films about the legal system and incarceration in the US.

Learn more about Rebecca Stern and her work on her website.

And keep an eye on a Fourwind Films short-form documentary series coming soon: Marcellus Hall: An Artist in New York City.

Appointed contributor, Rebecca Stern.

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Appointed Contributor - Rebecca Stern

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Sound Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

Line Producer - Laura Davi

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar

Episode #31 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode.  It is made for people with extensive knowledge in post-production and can be confusing if you do not have that background.  If you do not have that background skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another COVID Feature & a Short episode: Mastering File Differences. In this workflow process share, Director/Editor Justin Joseph Hall explains how to export the proper master file for your archives or for delivery.

This is important in order to future-proof your final file and what you’ve invested all of your time and your money into. Justin shares how to preserve the best possible quality for your project’s posterity by covering:

• Equipment

• Creating a master file for a short film versus for a feature

• High resolution

• Why you should avoid letterboxing & pillarboxing (black mattes — black bars — above, below, and around the moving picture)

• Suggestions for finishing codec (not H.264!)

• JPEGS, for example, JPEG 200 files or Targa files for animation 

• Incorporating audio and graphics into your master file

• Subtitles (don’t include them)

• File labeling

  If you have any post-production questions, email Justin directly at [email protected] or check out Fourwind’s blog page for helpful tips in creating media.

Thanks for listening! For more content like this check out other podcast episodes as well as our blog posts, where a wide variety of film and multimedia professionals share what they’ve learned.

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Audio Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar

Episode #30 - Welcome to the second Fresh Air Award! Four cinephiles continue a Fourwind Films tradition of awarding a film that pushed cinema forward the most as an art form during a particular decade. The film has to have changed movies in some way and made a lasting impression on the filmmakers. This episode goes way back in film history: 1900-1909.

Before getting into the nominations with the panelists, Justin Joseph Hall delves into what early motion picture making was like, from the origins of the term “movie magic” to describing early stop-motion animation, which included a story of cheese attacking people, because of course it did. They were all silent films. 

The four cinephiles in this panel are filmmakers Elizabeth Chatelain, Justin Joseph Hall, and Inga Moren Tapias, as well as actress and public speaking coach, Shirley Venard. If the piece has moving images and came out in the appropriate decade, it’s up for nomination. This group chooses an array of documentaries, shorts, animated films, and feature films, including one with the best-trained dog in cinema history.

Here is the link to all the nominations: 1900’s Fresh Air Award Nominees - Letterboxd list

There were several overlaps, but here are the main nominations made by each panelist:

Elizabeth Chatelain nominees

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1903)

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903)

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Justin Joseph Hall nominees

The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

The Coronation of King Peter I of Serbia (1904)

Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903)

Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Inga Moren Tapias nominees

The Flying Train (1902)

The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1903)

The Man with the Rubber Head (1901)

La Glu (1907)

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Shirley Venard nominees

Mary Jane’s Mishap (1903)

The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1903)

Rescued by Rover (1905)

Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)

Fantasmagorie (1908)

To find the 1900’s Fresh Air Award winner click on this link!

Hope you enjoy this episode! Share with us your own lists, comments, arguments, and films that we left out via social media @fourwindfilms. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening, Season 5 to come shortly!

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Fresh Air Award Contributors for 1900s Decade - Elizabeth Chatelain, Justin Joseph Hall, Inga Moren, Shirley Venard

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Sound Mixer - Brian Trahan

Additional Sound Recordist - Dakota Anthony

The theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode #29 - Meet Megan Masur, a Brooklyn-based Director of Photography and Steadicam operator. She’s an incredible utility person with a ton of technical experience having worked in animation, as a DIT, and as a camera assistant while building towards her career as a cinematographer. Fourwind Films has had the pleasure of hiring Megan for a number of projects, including as a Camera Op for Prologue.

Megan chose a short film she shot called We’re All Alright, which she fell in love with as soon as she finished reading the script. She talks about the film’s central themes of depression and female friendship, what it was like working with a majority female team, and the challenges of filming on a fire escape.

For the feature film, Megan stuck to the theme of mental health with Short Term 12, about young staff members working at a foster care facility. It’s an independent film that continues to find fans years after its release (2013) and is also known for its phenomenal ensemble of now critically acclaimed actors including Lakeith Stanfield, Brie Larson, Kaitlyn Dever, John Gallagher Jr., and Rami Malek.

Megan’s advocacy for films and open discussion about mental health is evident in her curation for this podcast. We appreciate her coming on for this episode during a time where so many people can benefit from viewing and discussing these kinds of stories. Follow Megan’s work on Instagram, and by watching Prologue at the IndieBOOM festival from Dec. 21 - Jan. 3, 2021.

Megan Masur at the fully-masked, limited capacity, Feature & a short podcast recording. If voices sound a tad muffled, now you know why!

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Appointed Contributor - Megan Masur

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Sound Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

The theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode #28 - There’s a connection between 70’s cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and Justin Joseph Hall’s directorial debut, “Prologue,” which he gets into this episode of Feature & a short. After watching the two films, Justin answers audience questions. He shares what it was like collaborating with writer Piper Werle on Prologue’s script, how locations are characters in themselves, the casting process, and horror movies that explore the fear of having children.

Prologue is a multiple award-winning short film charged with secrets and terrible communication skills. It follows Julie, a young Italian immigrant living in Northern California who is perfectly happy in her marriage until she stops being able to go along with what her husband wants. With the unexpected help of an elderly stranger who thinks Julie is someone she is not, the young newlywed navigates how to live her truth.

Starring - Claudia de Candia, Shawn Thomas Diefenbach, Shirley Venard, Ariel Woodiwiss

Screenwriter - Piper Werle

Assistant Director - Kate Branom

Assistant Producer, Set Photographer - Daria Huxley

Producer - Ricky Rosario

Cinematographer - Gary Jaquez

Director, Editor, Colorist - Justin Joseph Hall

Justin Joseph Hall is an award-winning, multilingual Director and founder of Fourwind Films and Quatre-Vents.  His work has been acquired by major television networks such as HBO and he’s worked as a lead creative on projects that received awards at The Emmys, TriBeCa Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, and more.

His many years in the industry allowed him to guide audiences through unforgettable thought and emotional experiences working primarily as a Director and Editor.  He has held positions as Editor for networks such as HBO, NBCUniversal, and PBS.  At Downtown Community Television he helped pitch and develop the show Axios (2018-2021), the Emmy-winning documentary series.  Abuela’s Luck (2018) was picked up by all HBO’s streaming platforms and slated to be adapted into a full-length feature movie.   His mastery of post-production and the visual arts has awarded him opportunities to work with Major League Baseball, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, National Geographic, Discovery, and BMW, to name a few.

Justin’s work as a Director has procured awards.  Prologue (2020) is a superb, surreal exploration of relationships and miscommunication winning Best of Awards at Manhattan Film Festival and Worldfest Houston International Film Festival.  His docu-series on creative careers, Artist & the City (2021) won 6 awards including the Audience Award for Best Series at YoFiFest.

Justin believes in two things: diverse perspectives help solve complex problems and that first rate execution of an idea matters more than the idea itself.  That’s why since he hit the ground running into his career in 2008 and he has directed and managed a talented workforce from New York to Paris to Tokyo.  

Since 2014 under Justin’s direction, Fourwind Films creates high fidelity media exploring statistically underrepresented perspectives.  It’s sister company, Quatre-Vents was created in 2022 to help create a greater Post-Production industry in his home state of Minnesota.  He disrupts the redundant motion picture industry with relevant, fresh perspectives, including his own.

Justin Joseph Hall, owner of Fourwind Films and this episode’s contributor, dressed for a viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Host - Laura Davi

Sound - Brian Trahan

Theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode #27 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode. It is made for people with extensive knowledge in Post-Production and can be confusing if you do not have that background. If you do not have that background skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another COVID Feature & a short episode: Coloring Differences.

Owner of Fourwind Films, Justin Joseph Hall, has worked on many projects as Colorist. In this episode he gives us some tips about giving working on a feature and a short as a colorist. It’s important to budget your time and tell people how much it costs. You need to know what program you can use, if you are onlining the material and where you are taking the hand off point from the editor (if you are not editing the film.)

Justin guides you through topics like creating a budget and that it’s important to ask questions like how many looks and set ups you need to create. He goes through other essential things to consider in color are color space and exports.

If you have any Post-Production questions, email Justin Joseph Hall directly at [email protected] or check out Fourwind’s blog page for helpful tips in creating media.

Produced by Fourwind Films

Host: Justin Joseph Hall

Brian Trahan - Sound Mixer, Additional Music

Theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode #26 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode. It is made for people with extensive knowledge in post-production and can be confusing if you do not have that background. If you do not have that backgorung skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another COVID Feature & a Short episode: Assistant Editing.

Most assistant editors want to advance their career to become and editor someday.
Owner and Editor of Fourwind Films, Justin Joseph Hall, has worked on many projects as Assistant Editor. In this episode he gives us some tips about Assistant Editing. First off to know the different jobs in Post-Production to find opportunities to experiment and try different things. Always discuss at the beginning of the project how your credit is going to be. Remember that as an assistant editor you gotta be the organizational voice. You want to have an easy-to-read organizational format. Be consistent with the way you label files as you working on a team! Talk to the editor about gaining a system for ingesting and synching. Color-correction and sound-mixing are essential parts to consider for a complete proper project.

It’s your job to make sure that your work is accurate and that you maintain a high quality product for finishing your video!

If you have any Post-Production questions, email Justin Joseph Hall directly at [email protected] or check out Fourwind’s blog page for helpful tips in creating media.

Produced by Fourwind Films

Host: Justin Joseph Hall

Brian Trahan - Sound Mixer, Additional Music

Theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode #25 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode. It is made for people with extensive knowledge in post-production and can be confusing if you do not have that background. If you do not have that background skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another COVID Feature & a Short episode: Setting Up in Post-Production Differences, which focuses on how to set up a project in post-production.

What differs the most between working on features and shorts is which software editing you use. Owner of Fourwind Films’ Justin Joseph Hall suggests Premiere for faster turnaround time and Avid for longer projects. He also gives us some tips about folder structures and file labeling. Specifically that organization skills are extremely important in post-production. Know your camera. Know your codec. You wanna make sure that things will sort in a logical manner in order not to cause yourself a lot of work towards the end of the post-production process.

Here is a link to our folder structure template that is mentioned in the episode.

YYYY-MM-DD (Name of Project)

Host - Justin Joseph Hall.

If you have any post-production questions, email Justin directly at [email protected] or check out Fourwind’s blog page for helpful tips in creating media.

Produced by Fourwind Films

Host: Justin Joseph Hall

Brian Trahan - Sound Mixer, Additional Music

Theme song of Season 4 is Loopster by Kevin MacLeod.