Lucky Post Flame artist Tim Nagle has a long list of projects under his belt, including collaborations with David Lowery — providing Flame work on the short film Pioneer as well as finishing and VFX work to Lowery’s motion picture A Ghost Story. He is equally at home working on spots, such as campaigns for AT&T, Hershey’s, The Home Depot, Jeep, McDonald’s and Ram..

Nagle began his formal career on the audio side of the business, working as engineer for Solid State Logic, where he collaborated with clients including Fox, Warner Bros., Skywalker, EA Games and ABC.

Tim Nagle

We reached out to Nagle about his and Lucky Post’s work on the feature film Miss Juneteenth, which premiered at Sundance and was recently honored by SXSW 2020 as the winner of the Louis Black Lone Star award.

Miss Juneteenth was directed (and written) by Channing Godfrey Peoples — her first feature-length film. It focuses on a woman from the south — a bona fide beauty queen once crowned Miss Juneteenth, a title commemorating the day slavery was abolished in Texas. The film follows her journey as she tries to hold onto her elegance while striving to survive. She looks for ways to thrive despite her own shortcomings as she marches, step by step, toward self-realization.

How did the film come to you?
We have an ongoing relationship with Sailor Bear, the film’s producing team of David Lowery, Toby Halbrooks and James Johnston. We’ve collaborated with them on multiple projects, including The Old Man & The Gun, directed by Lowery.

What were you tasked to do?
We were asked to provide dailies transcoding, additional editorial, VFX, color and finishing and ultimately delivery to distribution.

How often did you talk to director Channing Godfrey Peoples?
Channing was in the studio, working side by side with our creatives, including colorist Neil Anderson and me, to get the project completed for the Sundance deadline. It was a massive team effort, and we felt privileged to help Channing with her debut feature.

Without spoilers, what most inspires you about the film?
There’s so much to appreciate in the film — it’s a love letter to Texas, for one. It’s directed by a woman, has a single mother at its center and is a celebration of black culture. The LA Times called it one of the best films to come out of Sundance 2020.

Once you knew the film was premiering at Sundance, what was left to complete and in what amount of time?
This was by far the tightest turnaround we have ever experienced. Everything came down to the wire, sound being the last element. It’s one of the advantages of having a variety of talent and services under one roof — the creative collaboration was immediate, intense and really made possible by our shorthand and proximity.

How important do you think it is for post houses to be diversified in terms of the work they do?
I think diversification is important not only for business purposes but also to keep the artists creatively inspired. Lucky Post’s ongoing commitment to support independent film, both financially and creatively, is an integrated part of our business along with brand-supported work and advertising. Increasingly, as you see greater crossover of these worlds, it just seems like a natural evolution for the business to have fewer silos.

What does it mean to you as a company to have work at Sundance? What kinds of impact do you see — business, morale and otherwise?
Having a project that we put our hands on accepted into Sundance was such an honor. It is unclear what the immediate and direct business impacts might be, but for morale, this is often where the immediate value is clear. The excitement and inspiration we all get from projects like this just naturally makes how we do business better.

What software and hardware did you use?
On this project we started with Assimilate Scratch for dailies creation. Editorial was done in Adobe Premiere. Color was Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, and finishing was done in Autodesk Flame.

What is a piece of advice that you’d give to filmmakers when considering the post phase of their films?
We love being involved as early as possible — certainly not to get in anyone’s way,  but to be in the background supporting the director’s creative vision. I’d say get with a post company that can assist in setting looks and establishing a workflow. With a little bit of foresight, this will create the efficiency you need to deliver in what always ends up being a tight deadline with the utmost quality.