Lucas Harger

Lucas Harger (00:01):

The culminating craft and art of film is the edit.

Colton Holmes (00:06):

How do you get in and out of that mindset?

Lucas Harger (00:09):

Well, editing's hard.

Colton Holmes (00:10):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (00:11):

I'm like, you don't need to say anything. I know everything I need to do. And then just like I can get to work.

Colton Holmes (00:15):

I think there's a lot of value in recognizing that.

Lucas Harger (00:17):

I don't prescribe to the Rick Rubin you don't think of your audience when you're making something.

Colton Holmes (00:22):

Whatever's going on outside those doors is its own thing.

Lucas Harger (00:24):

And that can either be incredibly exciting or incredibly heartbreaking. There's a lot more we could talk about.

Colton Holmes (00:29):

Yeah. Absolutely. I'm Colton Holmes, and today I'm your host on the Rough Draft. In this episode, I sit down with Lucas Harger, an acclaimed film and commercial editor, supervising editor and partner at Bruton Stroube Outpost. His client work features brands such as Nike, Amazon, Apple, and Disney+. And his documentary portfolio includes work on over 10 features, two of which recently made their debut at South by Southwest. Lucas' intentionality is incredibly contagious and apparent from the moment you begin talking with him. He and I talk about that intentionality and how it helps position him as a storyteller and collaborator with directors. We also chat about his editing mindset and philosophy that set him, his team, and his work up for success with each project. All right. Here's my conversation with Lucas Harger.

(01:25):

All right, Lucas. So since we started concepting the Rough Draft, I've been super excited to have someone in post-production join the show. And so whenever we got the opportunity to bring you on as a guest, I jumped at that and I've been looking forward to today ever since I saw your email. And so first of all, just thanks for joining.

Lucas Harger (01:43):

Yeah. Absolutely. I'm happy to be here and to bring post-production to the Rough Draft.

Colton Holmes (01:47):

That's right. Let's show some editors some love today.

Lucas Harger (01:50):

Yeah.

Colton Holmes (01:51):

So actually a few years ago I watched your interview with Film Supply where you just dig into how you find inspiration in poetry and how you connect that to cutting film.

Lucas Harger (02:02):

Yeah. For sure.

Colton Holmes (02:04):

And I think the world and the internet is curating things for us a lot. And so sometimes I think just going back to some analog or just something that we can just physically feel and touch and read-

Lucas Harger (02:16):

Yeah, for sure.

Colton Holmes (02:17):

... And curate on our own is just really important.

Lucas Harger (02:20):

Yeah. Absolutely. No. And I think looking for inspiration for your craft outside of your craft, I think you can get really siloed on the internet and just go down rabbit holes of editing tutorials or gear tutorials or unboxing stuff. And so you can start to just silo your inspiration just based on what your specific craft is. But pulling in outside inspiration from poetry or from reading fiction, nonfiction, going to museums, going to art museum, just looking for inspiration outside of your craft will always inevitably pour itself back into your craft.

(03:01):

And so for me, I find a lot of just inspiration, whether aesthetically or even rhythmically through poetry. And so yeah, I think expanding and kind of curating your own feed, if you will, is definitely an important part.

Colton Holmes (03:16):

Yeah. No. I think that's so wise. So editing's always been the aspect of production that I've always felt most comfortable with. And it's like where my passion kind of just grew its legs and it's the thing that I always just kind of go back to. If I'm feeling insecure on any part of production, editing is always where I get my confidence back. And so I just want to talk about how do you approach taking on that responsibility of you have so much power once that project hits your plate.

(03:48):

So how do you honor what the original maybe vision was for the project, but also how do you infuse and inject your voice and your style into projects?

Lucas Harger (03:59):

For sure. I think a lot of it, I mean just inherent in the question all points to collaboration. And usually with the director, there's other projects that have other voices that you collaborate with as an editor, but that director-editor relationship is really a sacred one. And it's the reason why you can look through and find all of these top directors working with the same editor for years. My favorite would be in the scripted world. My favorite would be Denis and Joe Walker working on all of the film from Dune to [inaudible 00:04:32].

(04:32):

I mean, they've just been jamming together for a long time because they start to understand each other's sensibilities and they start to understand each other's language and they can fall into a rhythm very quickly. And so for me, you've started that conversation, that collaboration, and you've started to already impact the production and the storytelling and the capture before footage even hits my desk. And so sometimes that's the case, there's zero footage and we're having a lot of conversations leading up to production. But then there's also times where I'll get brought into a project that's like 60% of the way through production, and then I get a chance to watch all of the footage, and then I get a chance to start to infuse my thoughts and to infuse where I see the story kind of developing. And especially in documentary, there's just so much constantly developing and taking shape. And so for me, once the footage hits my desk, we're kind of already on the same wavelength of creative collaboration and then I can dive in and start cutting it with the vision of the director at the forefront of my mind, but also willing to pivot when something starts to arise in the footage that they didn't see, that I wasn't expecting, that nobody really foresaw, but it's a really unique cinematic opportunity that we definitely can't let go.

(05:48):

And so I think it's the good editor or the great editor that can take in outside inspiration, like we were talking a little bit ago, that can take in direction and vision from the director, but can also be open to letting creativity enter the edit suite and to create something wholly unique that nobody could have really foreseen before getting into it. And that's when you feel like you're now not just making a video, you're making a film, and you just start throwing things on the timeline. And then once the screen starts vibrating, it's like, all right, there's something here.

(06:20):

And then you can just keep pulling that thread and just keep chasing it as an independent editor, but then also as an editor and director collaboration, a duo, you're just like, this is definitely revealing itself as the path forward. And so it gets to the point where really great ideas are manifest in the timeline and you're just like, I don't remember doing that. Do you remember having that idea? No, I don't remember having that. It's like a third party has been entered in. It's just like, how did that great moment happen? It's like I don't know.

(06:51):

It's like you start to not take any responsibility for anything. It's just like this thing is just starting to cut itself in a lot of ways. And so being open to that kind of mode of operation and that collaboration yields way better results than people coming in with, especially in the doc world, coming with definitive declarations of exactly what this film is. And that's a big red flag to me when I'm talking to potential director collaborators. It's like, if you are so incredibly sure of what this film is, then I'm not the cutter for you.

(07:25):

That's not really my thing. So I think it's just that openness, that being willing to collaborate often and early. If you get a whole load of feature length documentary footage dropped on your desk, and that's the first time you've talked to the director, you're probably in for a little bit of a whirlwind.

Colton Holmes (07:44):

Yeah. How do you find the right story? What's the one process or the one philosophy that you always use and that you always go back to? I'm starting at point A, the story is somewhere over there, what's your attack?

Lucas Harger (08:01):

Sometimes the film is very linear, and so you kind of have a concept of where it is. But even with a linear film, there's a lot of opportunity to get more abstract. So for me, the story starts to reveal itself, or I put a lot of weight on that first watch as an editor. Watching down all the footage is the most important practice in the process, I think, because you're starting to identify things in the footage that make you as the blessed first audience. The true first audience. I mean, honestly, a lot of times even the director hasn't seen everything, which is obvious.

(08:40):

Because especially if it's a multi-cam shoot, they're like over here and this is happening over here, and they don't have time to watch down the footage, whatever. So a lot of times I'm either the first or the only one to have seen everything. And so being that first audience, paying attention to what is making me respond emotionally or viscerally or looking through the hundreds of hours of footage and identifying what are those-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:09:04]

Lucas Harger (09:03):

Or looking through the hundreds of footage and identifying what are those key moments that are just like, wow, that's a story. You know what I mean? Identifying those. And then it's the process of packaging all that up and making those moments as poignant and powerful as we can through cutting through music, through sound design, through color, through all of the tools that we have. And then packaging them all up and presenting them to the second audience, which is the true audience, the real audience.

(09:33):

And so for me, it's keeping that in mind, keeping in mind the audience. He has his reasons, but I don't prescribe to the Rick Rubin, you don't think of your audience when you're making something. So that's how I kind of start from an emotional standpoint. And you obviously have have things you have to do. You have context you need to get down, you have to get from A to B to C, and then it's like, what's the most poetic, artful, compressed, consolidated, information rich way we can kind of pivot through these things so that we can start setting up the next thing that's going to really pay all of this off. And so that's how I approach it. It all starts with watching down all of the footage and being very diligent in watching down all of the footage.

Colton Holmes (10:23):

Which can be an exhausting thing to do sometimes.

Lucas Harger (10:26):

Yeah, yeah. But editing's hard.

Colton Holmes (10:29):

Yeah. Have there ever been moments where maybe you look back on a project and you realize, "Hey, I was feeling this certain way in this time whenever I was cutting this together and now maybe a couple years removed, I can see how that influenced how I cut it, and maybe now I would've cut it a little differently if I was feeling the way I'm feeling today." Do you see a connect between, man, maybe things that are going on in your life or some things that you're feeling and how that translates into maybe without even knowing it, how that translates into how you have cut something?

Lucas Harger (11:01):

I mean, I don't know about feel. I mean, every cut I look back on, I'm like, I would do it a little bit differently now. There's always things, I don't know where this quote came from, "But films are never finished. They're just abandoned." And so there's always stuff you wish you could go back and continue to work on and hone in and dial in.

(11:23):

So for me, I think the thing that it is the other things happening in life that can manifest themselves in the edit more so from a workload or business standpoint, I'm not sure if I've ever necessarily considered my emotional state at that point having played an impact. I think I can see the inspirations of the media or my feed, what I had curated for myself, what I was reading, what I was listening to, what I was watching, what I was looking at. I could see those things showing up in the timeline. And I may cut a little differently now because I have different inputs in my life, and those are showing up in the ways that I'm cutting. And ideally when a film hits and you start to identify what the state of the film, the emotional landscape and texture, I start to curate things around that.

(12:17):

Adding things to the word cloud that surround that topic, that theme, especially if it's something that I don't know very much about historically. I'll read a few books, kind of catch up on this, and then start... I cut a feature doc on cowboys and other than just basic cowboy knowledge, so I read a couple books about cowboys, but then also started to read a bunch of cowboy poetry and started to step out. So it's like finding things within the universe of your project to start inputting. And so I try to manipulate that as much as I can with switching up my inspiration, switching up what I'm consuming that are hopefully going to... They will pour themselves because things will pour into your timeline whether you intend it or not. And I would rather it be intentional than not.

Colton Holmes (13:03):

Yeah. No, just speaking back to where we started, the intentionality and the purpose. You're being proactive about controlling your emotions into the direction essentially as you... And maybe even doing that in the space where you're going to be editing, is that where you kind of curate all of these things is at your desk so that maybe whatever's going on outside those doors is its own thing, but once you're back here, it's like, this is where I've been curating this?

Lucas Harger (13:28):

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, having a space and curating the space is huge for me. Here at the post house, we each have our edit suites. The editors can set them up and decor them out however they see fit. So it's twofold. It's having a space for me that is purely dedicated to cutting. I walk in here and I cut, the whole room is set up to cut. I have the client couch, client monitor. I mean, this is where you edit. There's not much else you could do here.

(13:58):

But then also the second aspect is having my team and having the post house around. I've worked with some of these people for eight, nine years here since I've been here. And so having the team here, whether we're collaborating on a project, literally on the same project, or we're just in spiritual collaboration, I've seen a ton of their cuts. They've seen a ton of my cuts. They can call me out if I'm doing the same thing over and over again, having that. And then there's just something just totally different about having, and this is a very beaten path, but there's just something very different when somebody else enters the room and you play down a cut. You just all of a sudden see it in a totally new way.

(14:40):

And so just having quick access to people who understand what a rough cut is, understand a work in progress. There can be slugs, there can be holes in, whatever. There can be things, and they either can speak into it or just don't even have to. Sometimes they'll watch it down and I'm like, you don't need to say anything. I know everything I need to do. And then just like I can get to work. And so having a space and then having my consistent team here behind me, I'm behind them. We're all trying to make work together and make better work together. And so that's kind of how, going back to other questions, get in the mindset, be intentional. I think editing, you can just edit as a crafts person, you can be a bricklayer in that way and just focus on the craft. Or you can be the architect of the project. And also you have to be the bricklayer, right?

(15:33):

So there's the two-handed approach to editing because you have to be an artist as well as a craftsperson. But I think kind of pulling all the threads that we've been talking about together, to be an editor is definitely a lifestyle choice. And everything can pour into your craft and into your art in ways that you don't really see manifesting it immediately, but they will over time. And so it's definitely a lifestyle. It's definitely a specific choice. It's definitely a particular choice for a certain subset of people who really love it and can excel in it and want to get better and grow their art and craft.

Colton Holmes (16:16):

Yeah, I think that's so important, man. And it's cool to see how proactive you are about just creating that space intentionally and that room that you're in right now is only for cutting and doing podcast interviews. So one thing that you mentioned the other day, whenever we got to chat for a little bit was documentaries are the editor's medium. And I just kind of want to dig into that for a little bit. How does having documentary chops help you approach other genres of editing, different genres of film?

Lucas Harger (16:46):

Yeah. I mean, if you're cutting doc and you're collaborating with the director in the ways that we've been discussing, documentary is definitely the editor's medium. It's where they wear the most hats. It's where they have the most purview over so many different areas of the film, whether it's putting in the temp score, working out graphic treatments, ideating text treatments, cutting the film, the aesthetic, the pace, all of these different nuances. And I'll just even say branding the film. What does this feel like? What do the graphics feel like? The editor really sits shoulder to shoulder with the director in almost every single aspect. But then getting into the story, there's a lot of back and forth, and there's a lot of doc cutters that are credited as writers as well. And so there's a lot of that writing, note carding, outlining, breaking the story, identifying the characters, pivoting, all of the stuff that in scripted would have been done by the writer or in earlier states of the process. And so I view doc as the heavy lift of the editor, and then it kind of can waterfall from there-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:18:04]

Lucas Harger (18:03):

And then it kind of can waterfall from there. If you can lift 100 pounds, surely you can lift 50 and you can cut a scripted, or you can cut a commercial, or you can cut all of these other things. But if you can lift 50 pounds, it's not a given you can lift 100. And so having documentary as the starting point for myself brings forward a disposition in the editor where they can attack a project, any of those other projects with creative chops, but also project managerial chops, with being able to be the center of the post project and collaborate with the sound designer and a mix and the color. Because a lot of times the director spends the most time in the edit room, not as much time in sound and not as much time in color. And so for me, the timeline kind of becomes the notepad of the director and then I can go into those rooms and like, this is what we were thinking about for this sound. This is what we're thinking about for the color. And so kind of becoming that almost creative project torchbearer,-

Colton Holmes (19:01):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (19:01):

To bring the director's spirit into the other rooms and to make sure this is fulfilling everything that we had discussed. And so it's having that documentary mindset when you go into a 30 second commercial cutting room that can pay huge dividends and that it's just a different way to approach it. Now you have to understand each one of these genres has different demands on the editor. There's a huge demand on the editor for a documentary and scripted feature. And then once you get into the commercial work, it's like, are you there, identifying why you're on the project? Are you there as a creative collaborator? Probably. Are you there as just like a cool collaborator to hang out with because it's a 30 second commercial about milk? It's like, cool. I'll jam with the creative director and be a good hang and play ping pong, whatever. And so you also are identifying why you're on the project. But that's also a doc, I believe that's a doc mindset. You have to identify why you're here.

Colton Holmes (19:59):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (20:00):

And employ different parts of your craft, your art for the specific need.

Colton Holmes (20:05):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (20:05):

And so having that doc mindset is huge for all of the other disciplines.

Colton Holmes (20:10):

Yeah, it's interesting how, I mean, the way you describe it, I just imagine there's different versions of you as an editor, right? And different people get the different Lucas for different projects. Right. So.

Lucas Harger (20:23):

Yeah.

Colton Holmes (20:24):

I think there's a lot of value in recognizing that, that like hey, for this project, like you said, they're going to get this version of me and that's going to make this project better. That's going to make our relationship better, and that's going to make me maybe even not burn out on the next time I move on to something that needs the other version of me and needs all of that version of me so that I'm not wasting it here. So one thing I want to get into is something you mentioned on Monday that might ruffle a few feathers, is that editing is the most uniquely cinematic discipline. I'd love for you to just flesh out that thought.

Lucas Harger (20:58):

I mean, ruffling feathers is fun and you could talk me into a couple other disciplines, but we're going to go with editing because I'm an editor. Film is the juxtaposition between two shots, and you can be tricky and make it feel like a one take. Fine, whatever. And there's a couple that do that and even less that do it well. But the craft of editing is the craft of filmmaking and everything is working towards the edit and towards the actual assembly of the film, bringing in the visuals, bringing in the dialogue, the sound. The process of editing is the process of filmmaking. Until then, it is all just raw materials and raw goods, which are all important. And they all need to be there and to be done and be done well in order to make a film.

(21:49):

And so I'm not saying that they're necessarily not film crafts in and of themselves, but the unique position and the unique exploration of cutting from this angle to this angle to this angle and it being a cohesive story is not obvious that it was going to work. And you can go back and read these, the pioneers of film who are also the pioneers of film editing and see their exploration into will this work? It wasn't obvious that it wouldn't be incredibly disorienting to cut from a wide shot to a tight shot of an actor. The process of film and the forward direction of film as an art form has been in lockstep with the development conceptually and also technologically of the edit.

Colton Holmes (22:43):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (22:43):

And so it is the culminating craft and art of film is the edit and the edit to bring all of these things together. And so for me, it's like that's a very exciting and daunting seat to sit in. But it is a lot of fun because it's the time when people, you can pull the film out of theoretical and out of people's imaginations and start putting it on the timeline. And that can either be incredibly exciting or incredibly heartbreaking for directors. But it is the time and the place where the idea of a film starts to become the reality of the film.

Colton Holmes (23:25):

Yeah. I think it's fun to be a part of that, one of the final steps like you were just getting at too. We just had Mark Waters on the podcast. He's a composer, conductor, and he's gotten to do a lot of film scores. And one thing that he mentioned was whenever a director comes in and they get to watch their film with a score behind it, he's like, "Sometimes their reaction is they just saw their baby say their first words for the first time." And he's like, "That's such a fun joy to get to watch their dream come to fruition." And I think the editors get a lot of that experience as well too.

(24:01):

I want to dig into a little bit and shed some light on just what it looks like to do these things. What are some processes that you use? What are some tools that you use? And let's kind of dig into the tangibles here. And specifically we can talk about this around some specific projects. And I wanted to bring up the fact that you just actually had two films featured at South by Southwest, the Lions of Mesopotamia, and then Clemente. First before we dig into the tangibles, I'd love to just know what your experience was like getting to live that, coming down to South by and watching your films on the big screen.

Lucas Harger (24:37):

Yeah, it was awesome. It was a whirlwind. It was a lot of fun. So on Lions of Mesopotamia, I was the editor and then Elise Andert here, she was the story producer. And then Mark Bartels did sound design and mix, and then Clark Griffiths did the color. So we kind of had this whole post house around this project. And Ryan Bicknell was the online editor and... So we were just all on it. And then for Clemente, Chent was the lead editor, and he worked with Elise as well as a story producer. And then on that one I was a supervising editor.

Colton Holmes (25:14):

Okay.

Lucas Harger (25:14):

And we also did color. So it was just like having these two films, bouncing around the studio, bouncing around the post house was awesome. And so as the whole team, we went down to South by and got to be there for the premieres and it was a lot of fun. It was surreal and really fun to see it on the big screen. Really fun to have the Q&As.

Colton Holmes (25:35):

Yeah.

Lucas Harger (25:35):

Really fun to walk around the festival and hear people talking about your film, that you don't know who they are. So there's just a lot of really unique and cool experiences for sure.

Colton Holmes (25:44):

Yeah. What are some tools that you guys use? What are some processes that are in place to make sure that you all can actually hit a deadline with two feature docs floating around?

Lucas Harger (25:53):

Yeah, I mean, a lot of Moxie, there's just a lot of pulling together the team and making sure all of this stuff is having very broken down timelines and deadlines that we can achieve. And so it's having people like Sunshine, who's our post supervisor, and just coming around it as a team and being like, what is the way that we're going to approach us? We're all hooked, I mean, nitty gritty. We're all hooked up on a server, shared server with like, I don't know, 650 terabytes. And so we're all cutting off of that. We have our workstations, we have, everybody has their specific discipline. And a big one for us is having Ryan, who's our online editor, conform, get all this stuff in Resolve for the colorist to do their thing. But then we also deliver out of Resolve. Even though we cut in Premiere, we deliver out of Resolve. And so it's having that workflow, having a dedicated person who's ushering as archival shots come in, swap these shots, swap this shot. We got this on watermark, we got this VFX shot, who's constantly doing that...

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:27:04]

Lucas Harger (27:03):

We got this unwatermarked, we got this VFX shot, who's constantly doing that alongside the colorist. And so it's like building the team and having the team have the chops and the understanding of the goal and also the steps along the way to the goal. And so it really comes down to the people, and then the tech is there to support the people. So we have our server and all of our workstations hooked up, all shared storage and stuff like that.

Colton Holmes (27:25):

How long were you all working on posts for those two projects?

Lucas Harger (27:28):

A couple years. Two, two and a half. It wasn't every single day. It was get the footage, start cutting. There's usually that rush, not rush, but there's that first initial push to get an assembly or a rough cut. Director comes, sits for a week or two weeks and work through, and get it to what we call a rough cut. That's the rough cut. I don't talk about rough cut until after the director's here, because if you start presenting cuts as rough cuts, that's when you start freaking out. But if you present them as assemblies, it's like, "Oh, okay. We can... Okay." It is not a rough cut yet. It's just an assembly.

(28:01):

And so get it to the rough cut and then start the notes process. And a lot of times it's just pencils down until we know what the next steps are, whether it's festival distribution. And so the whole calendar was two, two and a half years, but there were periods of in and outs throughout that time.

Colton Holmes (28:19):

So I'm assuming you all are working on other projects while you're also working on these. How do you get in and out of that mindset? Because if you're working on a 30-second ad spot, you're going to have to be in a whole different mindset than whenever you're working on one of these feature docs. How do you go in and out of those things?

Lucas Harger (28:37):

You just do. You just have to. And that's kind of how I've set up the post house is if we are going to get the opportunities to do these features and these original content, these films, then you have to be willing and okay with and diligent about changing your mindset. So everybody can do it differently, whatever. But the reality is you're on a film today and tomorrow you're on a dog food commercial, and that's just the way it is. And so you have to get yourself in the mindset.

(29:08):

And so in some ways that's just the work of an editor, maybe in general, but definitely specifically here. And so you just keep things in perspective and keep the ball moving forward. I always step out of a future timeline with the next two or three things that I know I need to jump into and start so I can start quick. I don't want to get to some kind of level of completion and then I open it up and like, "I don't know what to do." I open up my timelines and I have a hundred things I need to do. And then that gets the ball rolling. Some of them are technical things, clean up, work on some little audio transitions, whatever. And then some of them are more creative. And so I can dive into the nitty-gritty, get me back into the flow of the film, and then get to the creative.

(29:51):

And so it's always leaving little strings to clean up on my features so that I can get back into them seamlessly. But that's also the pivot. I think it's the pivot in and out of these genres that kind of keep stuff fresh. It doesn't really matter, if you cut your dream project every single day for the rest of your life, you'll burn out. I would wager a bet to say probably just as quickly if you cut stuff you were not super hype about for the rest of your life, you'd probably burn out at roughly the same time.

(30:24):

And so it's like the mixture and kind of that oscillation between different genres of cutting that I think really keeps stuff fresh, at least it does for me. I really love stepping out of features and going into advertisement and stepping out of advertisement and going back to... I really like going in and out because I love them both for different reasons. And so it gets a lot of fun. Sometimes it can get a little hectic, but such is life.

Colton Holmes (30:49):

Is there any specific way that you keep track of where your mind was whenever you're stepping away and then coming back, like some kind of notetaking?

Lucas Harger (30:58):

Yeah, I mean, I take notes, just handwritten notes on a notepad that I always have here. And then I use a little extension called Post Notes. That's just like a notepad that can directly connect to a timeline. And so it's within Premiere. And so then I can just pull up that timeline in Post Notes and just jot myself down a couple to-dos or this is what I was thinking where the next steps would be. So it's kind of both.

Colton Holmes (31:21):

I mean, a lot of what you just answered revolves around the collaboration with your whole team. If you were just a one-man band doing one of these projects, what would you think would be some of the top tools or processes that you would have to adhere to that you would want someone else that's maybe doing what you're doing but without that support to lean into?

Lucas Harger (31:44):

I mean, it's kind of cop out, but I would be like, "Get a community." I mean, "Don't do that." You can work in your basement or whatever. You can do it however you want to do it. I'm not saying there's one way to edit, but I do think that, I know that filmmaking is a communal effort. So if you're not bumping into them on the daily, physically in a space together, I would definitely find some kind of cohort creative collaborator, whether they're other editors, whether they're just people that have great sensibilities, whatever. I would definitely find that because my cuts are 50% what they would be if I didn't have my people. And so it's just like don't do that would probably be my biggest thing.

Colton Holmes (32:31):

No, I mean, you say it's a cop out, but I think that's really important, and especially now if you're living in the middle of nowhere, but this is your passion, you can connect with people online...

Lucas Harger (32:41):

Yeah, totally.

Colton Holmes (32:42):

... and build that community where you...

Lucas Harger (32:44):

Yeah, absolutely.

Colton Holmes (32:44):

... get to share that experience and get the feedback.

Lucas Harger (32:47):

And you can get the... We're in St. Louis and it's our goal and our intention to get the projects that we want to get, whether they're these features that go to South by, whether they're... We start on a doc series for one of the major streamers in the next month. So there's really exciting projects that we're getting looks at. But you just have to be intentional about it too. So if you're in the middle of nowhere, not only is possible to find a creative community that you can rely and trust to be that voice into your art, but you can also get the projects that you want to get. But you just have to be intentional about them both. And you also have to be intentional if you're in New York and LA. It's a different kind of intention, but it all comes back to intentionality and just not letting your career happen to you, but you making it be the thing you want it to be.

Colton Holmes (33:38):

Well, it's been a pleasure getting to chat with you today, Lucas. Man, I love how intentional you are and how disciplined you are with that intentionality. So thanks for sharing all that today. And for those who are listening, how can they find you online?

Lucas Harger (33:52):

Just Google. It kind of pops up my website, which is lucasjharger.com. This post house, which is brutonstroube.com/outpost. I'm on Instagram mostly. Though infrequently, it's definitely where I am the most. And that's where you can see my timelines. It's pretty much all that I post anymore. But yeah, those are the places. And then, I mean, email contact form, whatever. I'm on email a lot and in Instagram DMs, and so that's where I hang.

Colton Holmes (34:23):

Sweet. And we'll link all that in the show notes as well. For Lines of Mesopotamia and Clemente, is there a public release date for any of those yet, or are they still just kind...

Lucas Harger (34:33):

Not yet.

Colton Holmes (34:33):

... doing the festival circuit?

Lucas Harger (34:35):

Yeah, hybrid between festival, but predominantly looking for distribution. And so they're each in kind of sales mode, especially after South by which kind of puts a feather in the cap and helps those efforts. And so hopefully in the next couple few months we'll have either them out or some very definitive word.

Colton Holmes (34:54):

Yeah, cool. Well, we'll link the landing pages for those as well in the show notes. But Lucas, thanks again for joining us today. Man, I hope we can do this again maybe sometime in the future.

Lucas Harger (35:06):

Absolutely. Totally. Thank you for having me. And yeah, we'll definitely have to... There's a lot more we could talk about.

Colton Holmes (35:12):

Yeah, absolutely.

(35:14):

Well, that's it for today's episode of The Rough Draft. To learn more about our guests and to find links and resources related to the conversation, check out rev.com/podcasts. Be sure to rate and subscribe in order to stay up to date with the latest episodes and help other creatives find us. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to seeing you again on the next episode of The Rough Draft.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [00:35:36]