Justin Joseph Hall: Marcellus Hall an Artist in New York City, Fog of War

Episode #42 - Justin Joseph Hall is an award-winning, multilingual multimedia 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.

Justin Joseph Hall, photo by Laura Davi

Our screening resumed back at Fourwind Films’ headquarters.

For his short, Justin brought his short series, Marcellus Hall an Artist in New York City. The five episode season has won six awards and been nominated for many more around the world. The documentary is of New Yorker Illustrator Marcellus Hall who also wrote the song Life Is Still Sweet that inspired Float On performed by Modest Mouse.

We screened the entire series back to back and served white and yellow cheese with steak in conjunction with the series.

The feature Justin chose inspired his series with a one-on-one interview that endures the entire documentary. It was Errol Morris’ Oscar winning Fog of War where Robert McNamara goes through thought processes of military decisions during major wars of the United States of America. We served a juicy homemade Vietnamese Beef And Lettuce Curry during the screening.

To learn more about Justin Joseph Hall, sign up for Fourwind Films newsletter.

Credits:

Host - Laura Davi

Production & Event Space - Fourwind Films

Post-Production - Quatre-Vents

Editor - Billie Jo Laitinen

Sound Mixer - Hans Bilger

The theme song of Season 7 is New Tires by Silent Partner.

The 1920's Fresh Air Award

Episode #40 - Welcome to the third Fresh Air Award! Four cinephiles continue a Fourwind Films tradition of awarding a film that pushed cinema forward the most as an artform during a particular decade. To be nominated, a motion picture has to have changed movies in some way and made a lasting impression on how movies are made today. This episode delves into the decade that saw the beginning of successful commercial sound in cinema: 1920-1929.

Before getting into the nominations with the panelists, our host Justin Joseph Hall goes through a quick history lesson on what was happening in the decade businesswise and technology-wise. 

The four cinephiles who select the nominees in this panel are cinephiles Elizabeth Chatelain, Tracey Goessel, Justin Joseph Hall, and Kevin Hinman. If the piece has moving images and came out in the appropriate decade, it is eligible for nomination. This group chose an array of documentaries, shorts, animated films, and feature films, including films with the first synchronized score with animation, the first montage, a commercially successful duo tone color film, and the first soundtrack synched on the film strip.

Here is the link to all the nominations: 1920’s Fresh Air Award Nominees - Letterboxd list

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

To find the 1920’s Fresh Air Award winner click on this link!

We 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, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening, Season 7 to come shortly!

Thank you to our cinephiles who did joined this out of their passion. To hear more from them, visit links below:

Elizabeth Chatelain

Quatre-Vents Post-Production

Movie Directing & Writing

Credits for podcast:

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Fresh Air Award Contributors for 1900s Decade - Elizabeth Chatelain, Tracey Goessel, Justin Joseph Hall, & Kevin Hinman

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Editor - Billie Jo Laitinen

Sound Mixer - Hans Bilger

Additional Sound Recordist - Elizabeth Chatelain, Kevin Hinman, Ricky Rosario

The theme song of Season 6 is Getting It Done by Kevin MacLeod.

Additional Music MOMFG & The Drums! provided by Kevin Hinman & Magnum Opus for interludes.

Music in the public domain used in this podcast:

Deep Blue Sea - Clara Smith

One of Battleship Potemkin’s Scores - Eisenstein wanted the scores to be updated about every decade.

Don Juan Soundtrack - Context on who wrote it “William Axt used two pieces that owned by Robbins-Engel, "The Fire Agitato" and "In Gloomy Forest," along with several pieces of European classical music including compositions by Richard Strauss.

Justin Joseph Hall: Yeon-Gi, Samsara

Episode #39 - Justin Joseph Hall’s 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. He is Director and Founder of Fourwind Films. Dorie Hall hosted the podcast which was held as a private screening in Minnesota.

For his short, Justin brought a never publicly screened version of Yeon-Gi, an experimental Buddhist themed movie. This version was created in 32x9 aspect ratio, and includes a full reflections visible on screen. The emotional short created a lot to talk about in our discussion.

Dorie Hall, Justin Joseph Hall - photographer Laura Davi

The feature Justin chose to screen is the famous location documentary, Samsara. During the screening Fourwind chefs served a mouthwatering combination: potstickers, burgers, fries, and a cola.

Through the visuals of nature and human altered locations, Samsara shows nature on land nearly void of life until we encounter various locations of cities and former settlements. It’s an emotional journey around the earth with seemingly no connection except our location on the earth and what the montage movie weaves together through the beautiful images.

To learn more about Justin Joseph Hall, sign up for Fourwind Films newsletter.

Credits:

Host - Dorie Hall

Editor - Billie Joe Laitenin

Sound Mixer - Hans Bilger

Event Space - Hall Family Home

Photographer - Laura Davi

The theme song of Season 6 is Getting It Done by Kevin MacLeod.

Choosing Hard Drive Differences

Episode #38 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode.  It is made for people with extensive knowledge in post-production and can be a confusing listen if you do not have an interest in the material.  If you do not have that particular background skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another Feature & a Short workflow episode where we chat about differences in working in Feature versus short movies. In this episode Director, Editor Justin Joseph Hall explains what criteria to look for when choosing a hard drive in general, but specifically what will save you time on feature projects.

Thank you to Bobby O’Brien for requesting this podcast

The Biggest difference between a selecting a hard drive for feature or a short movie is really the transcoding, export time, and transfer times (time to create backups).

The first thing to look for in either a feature or a short movie is the connection. There are three modern connections found in the fall of 2022

          1. USB-C

          2. Thunderbolt

          3. USB-3.0

Ethernet connection to a network is also an option if you happen to be working off of a large storage network in an office. Otherwise another storage device to consider is a RAID = redundant array of independent disks. It’s probably not worth it to invest in an expensive RAID for short. There are 3 main ways to set up your RAID.

          1. RAID 0

          2. RAID 1

          3. RAID 5

We go through all types, but recommend RAID 0 for editing digital video, mainly because it’s the fastest way to read and write data.

Don’t forget to backup your hard drives in three separate physical locations. Plan out before you start post-production where your three locations will be.

Justin suggests a few brands

    1. G-RAID

    2. Seagate

    3. LACIE

    4. OWC

Justin also suggests to diversify backup types including going through what an LTO tape is. Quatre-Vents is Fourwind Films’ sister company in Minnesota!  They can be your solution for LTO Tapes and all other Post-Production needs .  In the podcast Justin tells how you can get 70% back on video expenditures through tax incentives through Quatre-Vents.  Some are direct rebates, just by hiring us and others in the region. Justin also goes through various options of powering your drive and pricing for drives. And don’t forget to always include hard drives in your budgets!

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.

Credits:

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Editor - Billie Jo Laitinen

Audio Mixer - Hans Bilger

The theme song of Season 6 is Getting It Done by Kevin MacLeod.

Justin Joseph Hall: Halfway Home: A Father's Story, High on Crack Street: The Lost Lives of Lowell

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.

Credits for podcast:

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

Ilaria Polsonetti: Dulce, Black South Rising: Inside Charlotte's Mostly Black and Brown Government

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.

7641 Faas 033 Ilaria Polsonetti.jpg

Credits for podcast:

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

Setting Up in Post-Production Differences

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.

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Justin Joseph Hall: Wasp, Rock & a Hard Place

Episode #17 - Justin Joseph Hall our owner from Minnesota has been working hard in post-production at DCTV this year. For this episode that was recorded on his birthday he decided to share how vérité documentaries can be made and aspects of using documentary style camera work can be used in narrative filmmaking.

Justin started with Andrea Arnold’s famous short film Wasp. It is entirely shot in handheld form with little or no music. It follows a family in real time evoking well-known vérité cinema techniques brought forth to documentary filmmaking by folks like the Maysles brothers in the 1960’s and beyond. It is a short intense drama about family responsibilities colliding with personal freedoms.

The feature Justin brought forth was Downtown Community Television’s Rock and a Hard Place that they made for HBO Documentaries in conjunction with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. The film is a vérité documentary by the legendary modern vérité directors Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill and was the first documentary Justin Joseph Hall had worked on with DCTV. He began as an assistant editor and many of the montages in the film for editor David Meneses.

To learn more about Justin’s work in conjunction with DCTV, please check out FRONTLINE: Life on Parole and the new series Axios on HBO.

Episode hosted by Daria Huxley.

Justin Joseph Hall - Assistant Editor

Justin Joseph Hall - Assistant Editor

Host - Daria Huxley

Sound Mix & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

Theme song of Season 4 is Johnny's Tune In Waltz by Salitros’ Ridin’ Rainbow.

Justin Joseph Hall: Long Distance, The Science of Sleep

Episode #9 - Justin Joseph Hall presents Long Distance, a one-minute short he directed and released in 2016. The short features Isabel Restrepo and himself as a couple in a long distance relationship. He shares his choice behind excluding dialogue (hint: it has to do with him co-starring in it) and the spontaneity of its origins. The feature film is La science des rêves or The Science of Sleep, directed by Michel Gondry. Discussion centers around the use of foreshadowing and dream sequences in the film, as well as Gondry's other work.  

Justin is an independent film director and editor, and the owner of Fourwind Films. He's currently in post-production for his first documentary feature, Frames of Reference, a multi-continental effort that explores localized education across the globe. He is also in post-production for a short narrative, Prologue, and an internet documentary series. Keep up with him and the dogs in his life and other themes on Instagram.

Credits:

Host - Daria Huxley

Location & Production Company - Fourwind Films

Justin Joseph Hall - Director/Editor

Justin Joseph Hall - Director/Editor