Written by Rosie Felice

Post production remains alive and well in the Hudson Valley, despite significant challenges faced by the industry in the midst of COVID-19. Two local professionals, Tim Miller and Fiona Otway, have each stayed exceptionally busy during the pandemic working on exciting projects in the Hudson Valley area. Among other work, both filmmakers have been in post production on feature documentaries: Miller and his team at Big Chief Studio are currently editing their documentary “We Remember: Songs of Survivors,” a film that follows songwriters who express and honor the stories of Holocaust survivors through music, while Fiona Otway was working earlier this year on the edit of a film tentatively titled “Going to Mars,” a biographical documentary on the life and work of the American poet Nikki Giovanni.

TIM MILLER
Tim Miller is the executive producer and creative director of Big Chief Studio, a digital media production company located in Kerhonkson, NY. Big Chief works with clients to create a broad range of video content, including global corporate adcampaigns, commercial marketing, and promotional videos for local businesses. Some of their best known televised work includes 'Sideshow:Alive on the Inside' (TLC), 'The White House: Behind Closed Doors (History) and ‘Buried Treasure’ series (FOX).

Independent of Big Chief, Miller has had an extensive career as a Creative Director and VP for networks such as NBC and HBO. His work as a director and producer spans across several iterations of visual media, including television, news, and music videos, garnering him two Best Director/Best Video awards from the Academy of Country Music for the Garth Brooks music videos “We Shall be Free” and “The Change.”

Tim Miller, Deirdre Reckseit Miller, Tim Guetterman (sitting)

Miller lived and worked in New York City for 20 years before falling in love with the Hudson Valley and moving upstate with the editorial side of his production company approximately six years ago. Big Chief now does all of its post production through four edit bays at their 10-acre property in Kerhonkson, which Miller refers to as a “digital farm.”

“We have a virtual staff now of about 10 creatives – some staff, some free-lance – working on projects,” said Miller on the current post production process of Big Chief. “Most of them have been working remotely, some even through remote access to our editing systems, which is interesting when you’re there alone and suddenly the computers light up and start editing!”

Though the pandemic has significantly complicated production for Big Chief, Miller and his team have remained busy creating video content for clients. Much of their recent work in the past year has been for multinational corporation and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, who are currently on the front lines of trying to develop a Coronavirus vaccine. Big Chief is also working closely with ABC on advertising promotion and commercial projects, in addition to doing pro-bono work for SUNY schools, including the local SUNY Ulster.

“I can’t lie, it’s been tough for us, but we’ve never ever been as busy as we’ve been over the past nine months,” said Miller.

Currently, Big Chief is in post production for the PBS feature documentary, “We Remember: Songs of Survivors,” a poignant film which follows the process of local musicians who connect with Holocaust survivors and create songs inspired by the survivors’ stories. Through the organization Sage Arts, songwriters and musicians spent months with elders in the community to create music that would reflect and honor their experiences, finally culminating in an inspirational concert at Mount Saint Mary’s in May, 2019.

"It’s been a life-changing experience, bringing such joy to me and all those involved," said Miller. "My hope would be that we could finish the film sometime before the spring."

In addition to being edited locally, "We Remember: Songs of Survivors" was set in the Hudson Valley and included many local crew members and staff.

"The process was just extraordinary," said Miller on the production of the film. He went on to say, "It’s a film that involved a lot of very talented local people in the Hudson Valley, and that makes me proud. Shooters, musicians, music directors, mixers, sound mixers - it really brought the community together in a real meaningful way, and I'd love to be able to keep seeing that happen down the line for us.”

FIONA OTWAY
Fiona Otway is a Kingston based editor and filmmaker who is known for her work on “Hell and Back Again,” “Iraq in Fragments,” and “Kiss the Paper,” among other projects. Over the past several months, Otway has been busy working locally as an editor, story consultant, and educator.

Fiona Otway. Photo courtesy of Marie Hinson

“2020 has definitely been a strange year! I am based in the Kingston area and have been working remotely for many years, so covid-19 has suddenly mainstreamed that approach and made it easier in a lot of ways,” writes Otway. “But it goes without saying that there is still a lot of uncertainty in the film world these days and my conversations with other filmmakers always come back to a cautious outlook on how covid-19 will affect our industry long term. For now, I feel grateful to have kept busy this year.”

Fiona has been working on a biographical documentary film going under the working title, “Going to Mars” - about Nikki Giovanni from Brooklyn-based directors Joe Brewster (‘American Promise’) and Michele Stephenson (‘American Promise,’‘A Conversation on Race’).

“I have been working off and on for a long time on a documentary edit about one of America’s foremost living poets, Nikki Giovanni, an icon who rose to prominence during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and who has contributed immeasurably to an ongoing cultural conversation alongside other luminaries like James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Novella Nelson, Sonia Sanchez, among others,” writes Otway. “Nikki Giovanni has had an enduring influence spanning generations, and her legacy is particularly relevant right now.”

In addition to her work on “Going to Mars,” Otway has been working in post on a narrative, dark comedy short from academy Award winning director, Cynthia Wade (‘Shelter Dogs,’ ‘Freeheld’) and has been collaborating on an experimental edit with documentary filmmaker Sam Green (‘The Weather Underground’) on a film that Otway projects will be in production for many years.

“This project was really fun for me because I’ve been able to exercise new creative muscles, working outside of my typical documentary genre,” Otway writes on the short film with Cynthia Wade.

Outside of editing, Otway has also been doing exciting work as a story consultant. Some of the filmmakers she has consulted for recently include Lindsay Lindenbaum on her debut feature “Tomboy,” Raul Paz-Pastrana on the documentary film “Border South,” and Stefan Forbes on his upcoming documentary “Hold Your Fire,” which though still in post production has already been honored with the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize.

Otway has also been working since 2016 as a Visiting Artist in Residence at Bard College and is passionate about educating a new generation of filmmakers.

“I really love being able to combine my creative efforts as an editor with my work supporting and sometimes mentoring other filmmakers,” writes Otway. “Most recently, I taught an intensive year-long class on start-to-finish documentary filmmaking with a social justice emphasis. It was an ambitious course, because some of the students had no prior experience with filmmaking, so we covered everything from nuts and bolts to deconstructing metanarratives and strategies for decolonizing documentaries. In a year that won’t be forgotten, it’s inspiring to watch these students grapple with the complex social issues that their generation is inheriting and put their whole hearts into films that explore these issues inside and out.”

As of November 11, several productions are back at work under new strict Covid-19 guidelines, so it looks like post production professionals will continue working on new projects as they are delivered for picture editing, sound design, scoring, mixing, VFX, and more. The Post-Production Tax Credit program is designed to strengthen the post-production industry in New York State and its positive impact on the State’s economy. With so many post production professionals in the region, the Hudson Valley Film Commission hopes and looks forward to reporting on their work. Stay tuned for more post-production news.

The Hudson Valley Film Commission is a 501(c)(3) non profit organization that helps productions secure local crew, cast, locations, vendors, post production facilities, and more! Since 2000, the film commission has supported and worked on over 500 productions, helping to create thousands of jobs and over $250 million in regional economic development. The Hudson Valley Film Commission is supported in part by Dutchess Tourism, Markertek and the Wood Dock Foundation.

Please support our efforts with a tax-deductible contribution @ hudsonvalleyfilmcommission.org/support