"The Bicycle City" (2016)
Directed by: GREG SUCHAREW
Produced by: FELICIA JAMIESON, GISSEL ROSARIO, ERIC YOUNGELMAN
Cinematography by: FRANK TROTTA, GREG SUCHAREW
Edited by: GREG SUCHAREW
Project Overview
In 2016, I made my directorial debut when my documentary feature, “The Bicycle City” premiered at the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. RIIFF consistently ranks as one of the top 10 film festivals in the United States. “The Bicycle City” received a decent amount of press and the trailer was even posted on Sundance, among other sites.
Using that good press I was able to crowd-fund about $5000 for post-production completion.
My crew and I had spent months in Rivas, Nicaragua. This was the city where Rolex Enterprise Award winner and CNN Hero, David Schweidenback, perfected the business model of the not-for-profit, Pedals for Progress. Pedals for Progress collects used bikes gathering dust or destined for landfills in the United States, and sends them to the developing world as economic development aid (over 20,000 bicycles have been delivered to this town alone).
“The Bicycle City” tells the story of how Pedals for Progress originated and was perfected in Rivas, by looking into the lives of the people whose prospects that were elevated by simply having a bicycle, and the people who made the program a success by distributing those bikes.
The project was ambitious.
I needed to plan an international production in a place where I didn’t speak the language. I solved the language issue by flying in a producer I met through my professional network.
I also needed to make sure the crew had everything they would need. This was critical. In Nicaragua, we would not have access to replacement production equipment, computers, or even reliable internet. Storage and back-up solutions were a primary focus. We required enough storage for all the footage we would shoot, we had to be able to back-up that footage, and we needed to ensure we had the ability to restore systems if there was an issue.
Shooting a documentary poses unique challenges not seen in narrative film production. A narrative has a script and while that may change during production slightly, it is rare for it to be thrown out completely. This can and does happen during the production of a documentary. It is important to have a plan and be clear as to what the film is about, but it is crucial to be flexible and, even more so, to be in-the-moment.
Shooting in the developing world poses unique challenges. The project required a dedicated international team. Frank Trotta (Cinematographer) Gissel Rosario (Producer), Greg Sucharew (Director)., we met Julio there and he helped out.
The film’s post-production posed a completely different challenge. Putting together an interesting narrative from non-fiction sources is difficult under the best circumstances. I had to do it in a foreign language with little chance for re-shoots.
I began by having all the interviews transcribed into English. From that point I could make a paper edit of the film's structure. I made sure to keep the paper edit especially long, including anything I could possibly use so as not to complicate the next step. I hired a bi-lingual assistant editor to pull all the clips I had highlighted for the paper edit and roughly subtitle them. Had I not kept the paper edit long this step would have to be repeated through many iterations and cost the project valuable resources. I was then able to cut together the film’s structure.
Logging and organizing thousands of clips so you can find what you want is a challenge unto itself. Since most everything was shot using two cameras (absolutely essential), I developed a meta-data structure to keep track of it all.
Once the basis of the structure was edited and the project organized, I began filling out scenes. I edited and re-edited until the project was where I wanted. I then shot a few final scenes in the United States to add the exposition needed to complete the story.
When everything was together I moved on to image-quality enhancement for archival footage and I color-graded, sound designed, and created graphics to complete the film. The film was then ready to submit to festivals.
“The Bicycle City” has been screened at festivals all over the world including the European Union, Turkey, and Singapore, as well as across the United States.
Some of the various scenarios the team had to contend with during the shoot.