My production and post company, halflife* has been providing high-end dailies and color services via our ultra-fast fibre pipe to shows setting up shop in New Mexico for almost 15 years. Most shows keep the post in LA or New York and really just look at us as a data hub. The 4 Oscar-nominated feature Hell or High Water and director David McKenzie had something else in mind and my team and I were happy to oblige.
We maintain an historic 4000 sq. foot log cabin built in 1927 as a production office. When it was originally built, "the cabin" sat well outside of the Albuquerque metro area, high in the desert llano overlooking rolling sagebrush plains and a few route 66 establishments. It now sits in the heart of Albuquerque's "most fabulous" neighborhood, Nob Hill. Originally named by the builder of the cabin and early Albuquerque developer Col. D.K.B. Sellers after his favorite neighborhood in San Francisco, Nob Hill has become the center of culture and nightlife in modern day Burque. But for all its urban appeal, the cabin retains a timeless cloistered feeling.
For British Director David McKenzie and Editor Jake Roberts it was just the inspiration they needed. I was asked to put together a pipeline and while I had been able to be hands off with our dailies operation for some time this custom workflow really required my expertise.
Jake took up residence (literally) in one of the upstairs bedrooms and we set up a 4 seat Avid Unity system working off of Halflife's SAN. Dailies became hourlies with Teamsters running constant drops to the cabin and David would land in the edit suite at the end of every production day, pop a Negra Modelo and watch fully edited scenes.
I'm a director by trade but the opportunity to work under David McKenzie and Jake Roberts with Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Gil Birmingham on a Taylor Sheridan penned Blacklist film was too good to turn down.
The nightly screenings quickly became weekly full cast and crew BBQ's convened to watch the film we'd shot each week. Drawn to the down-home comfort of the cabin the cast would inevitably stay late into the evenings. I even got to pick some guitar with the Dude himself. The experience was so rewarding for all involved that it only seemed natural that, come awards season, Hell or High Water had been nominated for four Academy Awards Best Picture and Best Editor among them. I have to believe the magic of the creative vibe in the cabin played a small part in that success.
