By Iain Blair

Kari Skogland is a prolific and successful director of TV dramas. Her long list of credits includes The Handmaid’s Tale, Boardwalk Empire, The Walking Dead, The Americans and House of Cards.

No wonder Marvel tapped her to direct and EP the globe-trotting action-adventure The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, a six-part Disney+ series that takes place following the events of Avengers: Endgame. With odd couple Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) taking on timely issues, including racism, the result is “an epic, character-driven story,” says Skogland. “We get to go inside these characters and their world in a much more intimate way. If the movies were a snack, this six-hour series is the meal. And it has all of the wonderful things that come with the MCU — action, comedy, a high-octane pace, familiar faces and new characters. It’s incredibly relatable.”

I talked to Skogland about making the series as well as the post and visual effects. Her creative team included DP P.J. Dillon, ASC, ISC;VFX supervisor Eric Leven; and editors Jeffrey Ford, Kelley Dixon, Todd Desrosiers and Rosanne Tan.

This is full of huge action scenes and cinema-level VFX that look like they came straight out of the Captain America films. Did you study up on all that?
Absolutely, and I also had the whole Marvel team. Everyone had worked in that space in one capacity or another and had all this expertise, which really helped with my steep learning curve.

Can you talk about integrating the post and VFX from day one?
I wanted to front-end-load all the VFX shots, so that Eric and his team could get working on them right away. We did a lot of previz and stunt viz with The Third Floor, so everyone was on the same page, and you’re also honing the shots and sequences early on. I love previz because it’s like moving storyboards. I storyboard with a team, and then they’re turned into previz, so we can see what we have and either expand on it or cut back on stuff. Then we integrate the stunt viz and the stunt team’s choreography. At the end of all that, you have a great roadmap, with all the minutiae and detail — and that gives you more freedom to try stuff and discover stuff on the day on set.

We were in lockstep with all the VFX teams, and they were part of every decision. It was all carefully planned out because I believe in as much prep as possible. I also love to find the inspiration, so even in these huge action sequences, it’s important that, in the moment, you allow for things you didn’t expect, that you find the magic you can’t plan for.

How tough was the shoot?
It was tough since we were doing a six-hour movie, but our schedule was like a Marvel two-hour movie — that was quite a challenge. What also added to the challenges was the huge scope and scale and wanting it to feel international — shooting overseas — and bringing a cinema feel to it … but I had all the toys and equipment we needed. We started shooting in October of 2019, and we had shot about 75% before production shut down due to COVID. Then we began post and came back later.

Tell us about post. Was it remote because of COVID?
Yes, it was all remote, and everyone was at home and connected via Zoom. In some ways it was very efficient, but in other ways it was difficult, and we all missed being in the editing room together. We did the sound mix at Skywalker, and that was also remote. I was at Technicolor in Toronto, and everyone had high-end headsets, and that worked well.

You had four editors cut this.  How did you all work together?
We had three editors during production — Kelley Dixon, Todd Desrosiers and Rosanne Tan — and they each had two episodes, as they were cutting concurrently while we were shooting. After shooting each day, I’d work with one of the editors at night to get the scenes mapped out and, of course, they’d be working through the day. That way I’d get time with each editor, and I could see if we needed any pickups or anything else.

Then Jeff Ford came on as the supervising editor once we got into post. He’s worked on many Marvel movies and shows, so he has a real sense of them. He was like the guru of post. He’s amazing and really brought the scenes alive and worked very closely with the other three, so it was a team effort.

What were the main editing challenges?
Tone and pacing were critical on such a complex project, but we also had a plethora of choices in each scene since we’d done some ad lib and improv, so we had to really calibrate all that as well — particularly with John Walker and trying to nail his journey and who he is. When I shot all that, I wanted to have options in post, as I very much believe that post is your one big last opportunity to essentially redirect the picture. We really calibrated all that and tried all sorts of options in post as we went. And then, as with any show or movie, you look at all of it and go, “Oh, maybe that scene would work better somewhere else.” So there is some reimagining of the story as you go along and discover new things all the time, and we had the time to do that and experiment. We also had the benefit of Jeff Ford’s fresh eyes when he came on for the second stage of post. For instance, it was totally his idea to start it all off with the opening shot of a guy ironing. That was genius, as it draws you in, and in such a lovely way. Here’s this guy doing what he has to do, and then suddenly we’re in this big action sequence.

There are a ton of visual effects. Can you talk about working with VFX supervisor Eric Leven?
Eric came on board right at the start, and he and I started planning out all the action sequences, set extensions and so on. It was literally just me, him and production designer Raymond Chang in the office. That was critical, as Eric and I worked in tandem, and Eric has wonderful ideas and can also pivot very quickly on those ideas. We’d go down some roads and then abandon them and then rethink them. He also helped us a lot with all the previz, and he was able to take some half-baked ideas and run with them while I was busy elsewhere. He elevated every one of the action sequences.

We began with storyboards, and Eric turned those into previz, which gives you a first look at the potential of the sequence. He’d be there through the whole pipeline through to the final, so he’d oversee everything and all the vendors [including Trixter, Crafty Apes, Technicolor VFX, Cantina Creative, Weta, ILM, SPI and Rodeo].

What about the DI?
It was done at Marvel’s own new DI suite and all remotely, except for some execs here in LA who could be in the room. I had a feed at Technicolor in Toronto, and the DP had one as well, and we could look at the actual DI and color-correct accordingly. They did a first pass, and then we did some tweaks and another pass, and we’d bounce in and out of some of the shows because we were still adding VFX shots as we went. Given that it was all remote, it worked well, but there’s no substitute for being in the room — especially in terms of editing — but it means that post can evolve and that you can be remote and get great results.

Fair to say this is the most ambitious project you’ve ever directed?
Oh yes, for sure! It’s beautifully complex and embraced all the themes I love to work with in my projects and topics that I think are important. Plus, it has huge action sequences and great character development, so it hit all the bases. It wasn’t just extremely challenging, it was also very satisfying.

Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.