Life after a chemical spill: 'The Bulldogs', filmed and edited with Blackmagic Design

The production team of 'The Bulldogs', shown in the Slamdance Film Festival this year, choose the URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and DaVinci Resolve Studio digital cameras from Blackmagic Design to shoot and edit an impressive feature-length documentary.

Directed by Noah Dixon y Ori Segev, The Bulldogs revolves around the residents of East Palestine, Ohio, and their complicated road to recovery after the catastrophic train derailment and the consequent spill of chemical substances that devastated their community. For a year, the film crew closely followed the villagers as they rebuilt their lives after the disaster, capturing everything from the continuity of local traditions to the rise of tensions due to prolonged cleanup efforts. The production of the film was in charge of Alexander Hyde y Drew Johnson, with additional cinematography by Logan Floyd, Anthony Codispoti y Josh Nowak.

Segev, who also worked as a director of photography, chose the camera URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 due to the model's ability to provide flexibility when working with a limited staff without compromising the cinematic look. "It's a camera with incredible capabilities, I love using it for documentaries because it has the perfect balance between size and weight, allowing it to adapt to any situation. You can easily move it without having a designated camera assistant, and you can rely on it no matter what the circumstances. I really like the images you get with this model. The color palette of the sensor is fantastic and it renders skin tones beautifully."

Segev accompanied the camera with the The best objective is 16 – 40 mm Angenieux and the filter Pola route, which allowed “restoring the intensity” of the colors of the sky. The documentary was also recorded in Blackmagic RAW in Open Gate: "In total, we recorded more than 40 terabytes of material for this film and edited it directly, we did not generate a single proxy file. Everything flowed perfectly, without any obstacles."

DaVinci Resolve, in charge of post-production The Bulldogs

The editor and co-director Dixon, satisfied with the performance of the software DaVinci Resolve of Blackmagic Design, highlights that the tool allowed him to shape the film in real time: "From the beginning, we knew that we wanted "The Bulldogs" to be a visually striking documentary. For that reason, we did not want to leave the color until the end. DaVinci Resolve allowed us to do the grading and editing simultaneously, which was a huge advantage. "We weren't just putting together all the pieces of the story, we were shaping the atmosphere and tone at the same time."

DaVinci Resolve Studio, Dixon explains, also helped the team deal with the most common obstacles faced by the documentary filming. For example, the tool voice isolation was “extremely useful” to recover dialogues that were difficult to intelligible, while different VFX masks and tools They allowed to eliminate distractions for the viewer.

Segev and Dixon were able to use the software remotely, performing simple touch-ups in parallel. He color As such it was assumed by Segev who sought to “contravene the expectations of the environmental disaster film genre.” In his own words: “We wanted to move away from the muted palettes commonly used in the genre and instead use more stylized, bold color grading. For us, the film aesthetic is directly linked to issues of resilience, community and place.” In the most technical aspect, he deployed the “Specific colors"he added grain y halo effect, and repeatedly used the effect “Analog damage”.

"Having it all in one such robust program saved us a lot of time. The flexibility of DaVinci Resolve made it an amazingly effective tool for what we needed," concludes the filmmaker.