Host Kirk Nordenstrom welcomes Wouter van Gestel, Technical Director of the 48 Hour Film Project and City Producer for Eindhoven. Known as the “Wizard of the 48,” Wouter shares how he helped transform the competition’s technical backbone — from digital uploads and Cinema48 to building common tools that now empower city producers worldwide.
In this episode, Kirk and Wouter dive into the evolution of the 48HFP — from late-night drop-off dashes and heart-pounding submissions to the innovations that now make global participation possible. Wouter shares stories of his early days as an editor and colorist, his first wild 48 experience in Eindhoven, and how his innovations in DCP creation and checksum verification reshaped the festival during the pandemic.
They also discuss the magic of community, the importance of safety for filmmakers, and plans for future Filmapalooza road trips — complete with pizza, beer, and maybe a stop at Harry Potter World.
Highlights include:
Wouter’s first 48HFP in Eindhoven (and a USB-stick sprint with seconds to spare)
Becoming a City Producer and innovating DCP workflows
The creation of Cinema48 and checksum-based digital drop-off
How virtual tools saved events in places like Montana
Memories of Filmapalooza, Rotterdam, and pandemic pivots
Road trip dreams from Seattle to LA with the 48HFP family
Why common tools and branding are shaping the future of the 48
[00:00:00] Kirk: Welcome to 48 Hour Heroes Origin story. I'm your host, Kirk Nordstrom, the co-producer of the Seattle and Montana 48 hour film projects. Today I have a very, very special guest, Wouter van Gestel He is, well, to put it bluntly, he is the Wizard of the 48 Hour Film Project, and I'm really, really bummed that I did not get to see him at Film of Palooza this year, which is a whole story, which we will get into.
[00:00:34] Kirk: But Wouter is awesome. He's just flat out awesome. He's a great guy, super talented, super smart, and. He's really helping to build the 48, a common set of tools that we can all use to grow our events and create more inclusion and [00:01:00] participation in the 48 hour film project. So I would like to welcome Walter Van Heto, the Wizard of the 48 Hour Film Project.
[00:01:20] Kirk: Alright, welcome. Welcome everyone. I have a very special guest here with me today. Walter Van Ketel. Mm-hmm. Who is the technical director now, I believe for a 48 hour film project internationally and the city producer for Eindhoven. And how many other cities.
[00:01:43] Wouter: We are moving maker, which was one of the things that I did with with Pierre.
[00:01:50] Wouter: We moved that over now to, to RNM, which is really close close by. But yeah, that I do that with with Indra. And yeah. We are [00:02:00] starting a new experiment doing a special I believe that Indra already told something about that, but we, we already, I think she
[00:02:07] Kirk: was, yeah, I think she was talking about that yesterday with me and Christina.
[00:02:10] Wouter: Yeah. So we're do, we're doing together with an a, a, a special film festival that is doing all the genre films like horror sci-fi fantasy, which are things that. Both Indra and I are nuts about we are huge geeks. Um, I like you both. Exactly. So I mean, yeah. So, so Indra came up with, with the, with the idea, so, okay, we should do a special with just these stars would be great.
[00:02:41] Wouter: And then she came up with, maybe we should do with together with with the Imagine Film Festival and Okay, yeah, sure. Let's just reach out and see if the, if the, if they're up for it. And they are. So yeah, that's that's going to be a collaboration. Yeah, so, oh, very
[00:02:57] Kirk: cool. Yep. Yeah, so it'll be interesting [00:03:00] to see how Europeans tackle the genre aspect.
[00:03:05] Kirk: 'cause you know, we have the, the hair, the comedy, the sci-fi. We've had political satire. We've had. I believe family film, holiday film here. So it'll be, it'll be fun to see a, a European take on Yeah. On those genres. 'cause Well, you know, I love 'em. My first cat that I had in his adult was named Ash after Bruce Campbell's character in the evil dead movies.
[00:03:31] Kirk: So that tells you how much I much, I love it.
[00:03:37] Wouter: To be fair, I'm, I'm not really that much into horror. I, I mean, I do some of it, I mean, the, the, the recent film last night in soho, for instance, I love that, love that film. For instance, that, that kind of horror. I really don't like the psychological, uh mm-hmm.
[00:03:55] Wouter: Kind of things. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a huge sci-fi [00:04:00] geek. I mean, grew up with Star Trek and, and at some point also Star Wars don't, doesn't matter. I mean, space stuff. Yeah.
[00:04:14] Kirk: Yeah. I, I, my dad took me to see Star Wars, the, I mean, episode four, a New Hope in the theater when I was five. Wow. So whenever I see good sci-fi, I feel like a five-year-old hanging out with my dad at the. At the movie theater.
[00:04:32] Wouter: Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I, I grew up with the, the VHSs and then at some point, and when I was in high school, the they did the, the, the special editions.
[00:04:43] Wouter: And do came, those came out in, in, in the theater. So I, yeah. With a couple of friends, we, we went out to see yeah, to see Star Wars in the theater, which was Yeah like a first for me at that point. [00:05:00] So, yeah. So yeah, it's, ugh.
[00:05:03] Kirk: Loves me some Star Wars. Mm-hmm. So, well, let's, yep. Let's get back onto the 48.
[00:05:10] Kirk: So, how did you get involved? What's your backstory coming from? I, know, you run a DCP production house, obviously a post-production person. What was your journey, you know, from filmmaking and into the 48?
[00:05:29] Wouter: Okay, so I, I did attend film school. Mm-hmm. And I was mainly an editor and at some point that I evolved that into being a colorist and more like the, the, um, online part of the post-production process finishing.
[00:05:49] Wouter: And at some, I believe the first thing that was kind of part of the 48th, even though it, I was [00:06:00] barely aware of, of the whole thing was, was a team asking me to, to do the color grading for for it. I have no idea which for which city it was, or I have to look that up. But but the first real attempt was in 2015.
[00:06:17] Wouter: That was the first year that we did Ein Dove which is basically my hometown kind of, and yeah, so with with a team, we decided to to participate and barely made it in, made it on time. I mean, that our team leader I remember that at some point we had huge audio problem problems and the which wasn't our fault, it was the audio guys that we hired and they did a miserable job anyway, so at, so the whole thing didn't sync up whatsoever.
[00:06:54] Wouter: And, but I mean, we had to do something, so, so yeah, we still did [00:07:00] render, put it on a USB stick. We were way too late. And at some point we were there, one, one person would, would push the eject button. I would pull the USB stick give it to the team leader. She would she would run to the elevator.
[00:07:15] Wouter: And because we were at, at my office at that point, and that was really close by the, the drop off point. Oh, that's nice. So, yeah. So she went down with with the elevator downstairs, run outside. There was a car waiting with motor running, and they, they drove, I don't know how fast in a 30 kilometer per hour zone.
[00:07:39] Wouter: Anyway, where's It's 2020, about 20 miles an hour for
[00:07:43] Kirk: Americans.
[00:07:44] Wouter: So I believe with, with two seconds to spare, she delivered it. And I'll, I'll, I'll try to, to, to find the, the, because there is, there is video footage [00:08:00] of, of her one and delivering that. It was amazing. But yeah, so that was kind of our first thing.
[00:08:08] Wouter: The, and the other thing was that, I mean, we were still back there at my office and we were totally convinced that we just failed it. There was no way that she would've done it. So she called and half crying. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, yeah, so sorry that we didn't make it, but we did make it. Oh my. So, wow.
[00:08:34] Wouter: Yeah. So yeah, that was that was the first time real, first time
[00:08:40] Kirk: you had a real 48 hour experience on that one
[00:08:43] Wouter: real, real full 48 hour experience. So, and yeah, then you kind of get hooked on it. So very close a I believe a week after the awards there was Antwerp for, I believe they did that [00:09:00] once.
[00:09:00] Wouter: And yeah, we managed to to, to do that one too. And yeah. And by a miracle we won that one actually. Ah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So that's, that's kind of as, as a participant the, the first wow. Couple of of ones that's, notable,
[00:09:27] Kirk: I've never done a yay 48. There was a sibling competition way back when called the National Film Challenge, which became the, the Four Points.
[00:09:38] Kirk: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:39] Kirk: And crazy Me, I was actually producing two teams in one weekend and editing one of the films. And that's all mail, you know, it's all mail in, so it's not quite the same thing. But we really did have to rush to the DHL office so that we could get it [00:10:00] stamped and, you know, show that we had it in on time.
[00:10:03] Kirk: So that's, that's the closest I've had to one of those experiences. But most of the time it's just me watching people freaking out, jumping outta cars, running down the street. Yep. It gets nuts. So how did you, how did you become the, the city producer for Eindhoven?
[00:10:19] Wouter: Okay, so I believe it was 2017, if I'm correct.
[00:10:26] Wouter: At that point we always had the the, the awards no, not the awards, the, the screenings. We had that at at a place where they would just connect. They, they would just connect the laptop and just show it that way. And and they had the opportunity to show it in an actual cinema, but they, of course, wanted to have dcps.
[00:10:53] Wouter: And Pierre knew me at that point and knew that I was able to create [00:11:00] dcps. So he called me and I was like. Can you help me run this technical part of it, which I know nothing about. And yeah. So yeah, and that's how I started helping Pierre. And that kicked off a lot of things. And so at first it was just helping out.
[00:11:20] Wouter: And then after a couple years, he, he asked me yeah, to become the Yeah the city producer for for ein Tova together with him. So, yeah. And a lot of things that we now have originate from, from that because, um, yes. The thing is that one of the things that, that I really would really like when I created a a digital cinema package is to have the highest quality.
[00:11:56] Wouter: Possible. So like a ProRes file or something like [00:12:00] that. And that's usually not what you're given when they're delivering their their use B stick? No,
[00:12:06] Kirk: no, not at all.
[00:12:07] Wouter: No, no. So what we did was just for, for the screenings we asked people to still create a, a higher quality version that was so,
[00:12:20] Kirk: or
[00:12:21] Wouter: a DNX hd.
[00:12:22] Wouter: Exactly. And send that to me. And so I would receive dozens of, we transfers and my air bridges and stuff like that. And that. Sucks. It's interesting getting the USB sticks. Oh my God. It was so slow. It was so slow. Yeah. So I did that one time and then I was like, okay, I'm creating something myself because that this is nuts.
[00:12:48] Wouter: So I created like a simple portal where people could simply upload stuff and so that, that, that was yeah. Someone, something that that, that could be used [00:13:00] for, for that. And then at some point Pierre said okay, but could they also do paperwork like that? Sure. Why not? It's just an upload tool, so.
[00:13:09] Wouter: Sure. So that's, that's how we we started yeah, already doing uploads and digital paperwork way before cinema 48 was a thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, that, that caught the attention of, of Mark. So, I the, the, the 48 has its city Producers awards, I believe, I believe they're called.
[00:13:36] Wouter: And they're things for, for innovations Yeah. That happen. Don't know if they do them at this moment still. We didn't do it this year. No. But anyway a couple years ago they, they, they did. And Pierre nominated me basically without telling me I might have. And so [00:14:00] at some point I received a news letter with with the, the with the results.
[00:14:04] Wouter: And I was like, wait. I'm getting an innovation award. Wait, what?
[00:14:11] Kirk: What's going on? So it's completely justified. Completely justified,
[00:14:17] Wouter: yeah. Yeah. So, and yeah, well, I thought, well, that's, that's going to be a whole thing. And anyway, that was like a couple months or so before before film of Palooza Rotterdam happened.
[00:14:32] Wouter: So that was like the first contact thing. Then I was asked to also create the DCPS for Rotterdam and all that thing started, and then well, yeah.
[00:14:45] Kirk: Well, and what you've done over the last couple of years has really revolutionized. We as city producers are going to be able to work going forward. It's really, really, really incredible.
[00:14:58] Kirk: Chris and I, we [00:15:00] started the Missoula 48 in 2019, and I've told this story a bunch of times, but we both have, you know, deep ties to the Missoula area. But Montana is such a huge state, and there's, in the entire state, there's only a million people and it's the fourth largest state in the United States.
[00:15:18] Kirk: So if we really wanted to have a successful event, it couldn't just be Missoula. You know, Missoula only has, I think 50, 60,000 people. You know, it's not a big city. There are no big cities in Montana, so we'd have to reach out to the rest of the state. And consequently, Chris and I would have to make those drives.
[00:15:41] Kirk: And we're used to the drive from Seattle to Missoula area. That's a one day drive, that's a full day's driving. We'd have to recruit from Billings, which is five hours East and Bozeman three, you have two and a half, three hours [00:16:00] east. So it's a lot of work. And to do a physical drop off is kind of mean for Montana filmmakers.
[00:16:12] Kirk: Yeah. And they passed their film incentive in 2019, so there's more and more and more people anxious to get in on this because there's more and more and more work. And this is a great way for people to show their talents. But when Cinema 48 became a, you know, a necessity because of the pandemic, it really became so incredibly useful because Chris and I now realize we can't run the Bozeman, the Billings, or the Missoula 48.
[00:16:44] Kirk: Now we can run. The Montana 48 hour film project. The, you know, the logistics that we have to worry about now since we can do virtual kickoff, virtual drop off is how do we handle screenings, which is gonna [00:17:00] be the, the big challenge. So we're thinking we'll do a night in Billings, and then the next night a screening in Bozeman, and then a screening in Missoula for each of those.
[00:17:10] Kirk: But without Cinema 48 and what you've brought to us technologically, that wouldn't have been possible. Yeah,
[00:17:20] Wouter: I know. I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's, it has been a crazy two years, to be honest. I mean, the thing was that, to, to track back a little bit about, about the first ID for cinema 48, um.
[00:17:38] Wouter: You remember that they did the, the, the stuck at home? Yes. Ones, right? Yeah. And, um, the idea was that people would post their film on the Facebook page of that specific one, and I believe that the problem was that at some point, the it [00:18:00] was so successful that people couldn't couldn't track all, all the films that, that were coming in.
[00:18:07] Wouter: I believe there were like two, 200. Yeah, there were a lot of them were a lot, but there were a lot. So, and I came with the idea okay, I can just build, build a website. So I built a website in a day or so and where people could just enter their, their YouTube or Vimeo link and. Then rate things and keep a comment, something like that.
[00:18:32] Wouter: And simple stuff from a technical point of view. But that's again, caught Mark's eye. And he contacted me and he was like, I have this idea for the Global, for a Global Film challenge, and which is sure, it's, it's a nice challenge, but it's basically it's a test of seeing if we can even do the 40 eights as an online [00:19:00] thing.
[00:19:00] Wouter: Mm-hmm. Because the pandemic is going to be here a while. And so, yeah, we, we discussed this whole project. The thing is of course, that it's not just an an, an upload tool because you have mm-hmm. The element of the competition with it. So you need to be very sure that, that the drop off moment is, is accurate and that, but you also don't want to, what's the word?
[00:19:27] Wouter: This? Yeah. Penalize. Yeah, penalize. Because because they have like a bad internet connection. Yeah. And then I came up with the whole the whole checksum the fingerprint, which was brilliant. That was a brilliant idea. Which is also kind of adopted from Four Points, I believe. Yeah.
[00:19:50] Wouter: That's how Four Points did it. Yeah, exactly. But what they did was they asked you to go to website, drop in the file, and then if you had the checksum send them [00:20:00] the checksum, and then afterwards they, they could yeah. So
[00:20:03] Kirk: it still go to another website, do a thing, and then come back to the original website.
[00:20:08] Kirk: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Wouter: Yeah. And what I did was combine that, that thing, so I, I I found a script that would analyze the file, get the information, and then if I got the information, then immediately I wrote a script that would send that back to the server. And the moment that that would hit the server, that would count as the drop off time.
[00:20:31] Wouter: And because that would be done before you would even send one bite of data that would, yeah, that would, yeah. That was the solution for it. So I build that and that was really scary to, to, to do such a short time.
[00:20:48] Kirk: Well, so trying to explain that to the filmmakers was that was a lot of work.
[00:20:54] Kirk: 'cause you know, it's a new thing and convincing them that, you know, explaining to them [00:21:00]that the checksum just needs to be performed before seven 30. Yep. Like you said, not even a bite of the actual film needs to be uploaded, but just the check something needs to be done is such an abstract concept for so many people.
[00:21:20] Kirk: You know, it gotten, since I do a lot of, you know, media management, digital loading, I'm very familiar with Checksums. 'cause you know, my software does that and I'm used to it and yeah. So explaining it to people who have no idea what it is was a bit of a, yeah, a bit of a mental challenge. But once people get it, they're like, oh, so my film isn't late because it says my check sum was it, you know, 7 29.
[00:21:50] Kirk: Yeah, yep. Your upload may have stalled. Just send it again or wait it out. Exactly. And there was a really long time where [00:22:00] people were asking, are we ever gonna do digital? Uploads and get away from the, the in-person turning in. And that just did not seem like a possibility for the longest time.
[00:22:11] Kirk: And I just said, I'd always say no. The physical turn in, it's part of the DNA of the 48 really tow the, the corporate line, so to speak. But once we did it for the, for you know, the last couple of years now. I am completely sold. We aren't going to hear these stories of people risking their lives going, you know?
[00:22:33] Kirk: Yeah. 160 kilometers in a 20, you know, in a 30 zone.
[00:22:37] Wouter: I know, I know. I've been, I've been to many drop offs. I mean, off after doing starting to do Eov. I also did helped with with Maker. So I, I did a couple of the actual physical drop offs and yeah. Seeing people run in and doing crazy things and hearing about all kinds of.
[00:22:59] Wouter: Crazy [00:23:00] thing, but the we when, when I spoke to, to, to Pierre about this, he, he was really abdomen about going back to the old way of doing the drop off because there is like a charm. You come together, you have like far afterwards. And, but the thing was that the advantage of doing it digitally and yeah, I don't know.
[00:23:21] Wouter: It, it's, it's a choice I guess. And but the more people are using it I think,
[00:23:28] Kirk: you know, I think we're gonna get more people participating because of it. Yep. I've had a couple of teams that have participated many, many times and they've done it enough times, they've generated enough of their own horror stories, experienced enough for the eight related trauma that they're like.
[00:23:53] Kirk: Just because of the dropoff, I don't want to do it anymore. I, I can't put myself through that anymore. And I've already noticed [00:24:00] this year while I've been kind of hyping the coming 48 season, said, yeah, we're gonna be doing digital dropoff. We'll do a hybrid in-person virtual kickoff because with the mask mandates and public gatherings starting to wind down, it'll be good to get that social aspect back.
[00:24:22] Kirk: 'cause that ultimately is, you know, community is such a huge part of it. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's such a huge part of it. So it'll be nice to get back to that, but give people the options. 'cause I know, you know, half of 'em are gonna say, no, I want to go to the physical kickoff. They wanna draw their genre outta the hat.
[00:24:38] Kirk: They wanna, you know, potentially pick up an actor at the last minute. Things like that. There are definite benefits, but safety, I, I keep coming back to safety. I, I don't want anyone to get hurt trying to get in on time, and Chris and I are gonna try and think of a fun way to get people to actually come and celebrate their [00:25:00]achievement that night if they want to.
[00:25:03] Kirk: So we'll probably live, cast it from solo bar, which you're gonna see next year. Yeah. When we do our road trip, I'm taking everyone to solo. Yeah.
[00:25:14] Wouter: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. I've heard you talk so many times about all the things that that you're doing in, in Seattle. I can't wait to actually be there.
[00:25:25] Kirk: Yeah. So for a little context here, we will get into the craziness of, of the last week. So film of Palooza wrapped up this previous Saturday, March 12th, and it didn't quite go, is planned. What happened, Walter? Okay, so I'm gonna giggle through this whole thing at this point.
[00:25:49] Music: Yeah,
[00:25:50] Wouter: I know, I know. So, for me to to go to to, to the us I needed to do a PCR test of course.
[00:25:58] Wouter: And so I did [00:26:00] that on the Monday before that, that was for me. I, I was about to arrive on, on on Tuesday and travel on Tuesday. And and the test results took a. Way too long. So, at some point I needed to just leave because otherwise I would arrive too late on, on, on at the airport. So, and I was, I I was traveling with, with Indra, so she would travel we, we would both travel to the airport.
[00:26:31] Wouter: So finally we get there, still no test result. So we, we decide to get a second test at the airport and just hope for the best. While I was waiting for that test result, the first test result came in and unfortunately it was a positive test result. So that was the end of [00:27:00] my film of blue.
[00:27:02] Kirk: Didn't even start ended before it began.
[00:27:06] Kirk: Yep. Oh, 'cause that was crazy. 'cause I was traveling overnight Monday to Tuesday, and so I flew Seattle to Detroit. Detroit to DC and so it's, you know, four and a half hour flight from Seattle to Detroit. And I slept a little bit on the plane and when I woke up just dazed and learning that my flight is gonna be delayed and there's no coffee open at the Detroit Airport at six 30 in the morning, which is
[00:27:40] Kirk: crazy.
[00:27:40] Kirk: I'm, I'm gonna leave a horrible Yelp review for that entire airport. And then I get this text from Indra. I can hear her crying through this text. Oh yeah, she was, I can hear her crying through this text. Absolutely. Was, yeah. Why [00:28:00] her tested positive. And a fe thing outta my, out of, just into my head, out of my mouth is, don't have to fucking kid about this.
[00:28:11] Kirk: This is no time to be joking about this. You've gotta be kidding me. It's no, we did. And then I think I texted you, isn't it a little early for an April Fool's joke. Wow. I wish it was April
[00:28:23] Wouter: Fool's joke. God, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, at that point I was traveling back to Anto. Geez. Yeah. And I have, I have been in quarantine ever since, and I can leave quarantine two days from now when this podcast is gonna be released.
[00:28:44] Kirk: Oh. But I mean, that was such, that was such a huge shock to everyone. And Indra, so Indra and Mark were the first people I saw. I got in at about noon. Then took a shower to get [00:29:00] the airplane and airport off of me, and then ran into Mark and Indra. And we, Indra immediately just grabbed me and was crying I can't believe it.
[00:29:11] Kirk: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Wouter: But the thing the other thing was, I mean, half of my suitcase was, was packed with all kinds of text. I had my camera, I had, oh my God. I had I had ultra Studio thing. So I would, would be able to get the best quality video from yeah. From my computer and got microphones.
[00:29:34] Wouter: I also needed to make sure that PJ was able to from Pittsburgh, that he was able to to, yeah. Basically gear up. I mean, he needed, he needed to. He did. He
[00:29:46] Kirk: really? Yeah. He threw in a big way. He pulled through in a big way. Yeah. But the first thing that we thought of wasn't, oh shit, what are we gonna do about the award show or the screenings or everything is, I mean, the first thing that, [00:30:00] I mean, mark Indra and I thought was, it's painful.
[00:30:03] Kirk: It's just such a shame that Weer is not going to be able to see the result of all of this work you've been putting in since last year. Yeah, I know. Because you put such an incredible amount of time and energy into it and you know, really allowed the backbone of the event. Was the work you were doing and Yeah,
[00:30:25] Wouter: I know, I mean, I mean we, we collaborated so much on the on, on the DCP career agent for yeah.
[00:30:31] Wouter: Thing. And I mean, yeah, I mean, I was also okay. I mean, yeah, finally I got to see you again in person. Yeah, yeah. Basically everybody in person, but Exactly.
[00:30:43] Kirk: But
[00:30:43] Wouter: especially, yeah, the people that I've been working with so intensely for the, for the, for the past few months on, on film of Palooza and, and other things.
[00:30:52] Wouter: Of course. And of course the, the, the Zoom calls that we, that we did of course, which we gotta bring, we gotta start doing those again. Yeah, yeah. [00:31:00] Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:31:01] Kirk: I think we all just got burnt out on as much as we all wanted to sit around and talk to each other. I think it's just so much zoom over the course of the pandemic, but Yeah.
[00:31:14] Kirk: But I know, you know, Dino was so looking forward to meeting you and just all these other people we're looking forward to meeting you and Jim. Being able to congratulate you on all fantastic work you've done. I know I listened to the podcast, so I know
[00:31:31] Kirk: it was, yeah, so when we had the, the meeting on Monday, I'm sure that the microphone on Mark's computer didn't do it justice, but when you put that meme up,
[00:31:45] Kirk: the
[00:31:45] Wouter: entire reading was dying. I know. I mean, the, the, yeah, I was thinking like, I mean, I can, I can be very bummed about it. I can also just make it turn it into a joke, but yeah.
[00:31:58] Kirk: Yeah. That's
[00:31:59] Wouter: the
[00:31:59] Kirk: only way you get [00:32:00] through something like that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just going to, you know, tear yourself up and it's, yeah.
[00:32:06] Kirk: It's, it's not worth it to do that. But I mean, you were so genuinely missed. I know. The whole time. Everyone really, really, really appreciates all the work that you put in 'cause it's really helped the work you've done for Phillip Palooza and the work you've done to help headquarters give us city producers a set of common tools has, it's been enormous because this is my 18th year and because, you know, I'm 50 now and starting to get kind of set in my ways.
[00:32:47] Kirk: For the longest time, you know, we had the dashboard. Yep. And then we had the new dashboard, which is the one that's currently being revamped. And so much of [00:33:00] what we had to do as city producers was cobbling together all of our own tools and headquarters. Largely answered questions. Would occasionally provide some graphics and gave us the common message that, that we would share with our participants.
[00:33:21] Kirk: And now we're starting to get these common tools that we can all use and the new graphic design stuff. I, mark sent me the new logo today and I immediately opened up an illustrator and started clapping. Yeah, it's awesome, right? It's a, well, it's a well put together illustrator file. I can do anything I want with it.
[00:33:45] Kirk: I love it.
[00:33:46] Wouter: Did you see, because Mark also attached the, the, the style guide Yeah. That they did. It's, it's, it's so good. It's so good. I mean, I was so funny
[00:33:56] Kirk: coming into the 21st century.
[00:33:58] Wouter: Exactly. I [00:34:00] mean, one of the things later on in, in the document is more about the customization of the logo for each city.
[00:34:08] Wouter: I love that idea. They if, if I'm correct they thought about that specific part and it's definitely something that will go well, I'm gonna be
[00:34:17] Kirk: designing a t-shirt today with it. Awesome. Just because it'll be fun. Yeah. I could do something new. And it's not, mark told a funny story about the new logo.
[00:34:31] Kirk: So the logo is new, but it's, if you look at it just a casual glance, you're not really gonna notice anything. But it's actually pretty huge. But I guess when he was working with the, the team in Rome, he said, well, we want something new, but we don't want you to change it too much. Or there are gonna be three people incredibly angry with you.
[00:34:58] Kirk: And to that, he said no. [00:35:00] And that's a reference to Indra, Chris Cherry and I with our tattoos. My immediate response was, well, no, we have the classic logo,
[00:35:12] Kirk: We have the 48
[00:35:12] Wouter: classic logo. Yeah, I know when, when the logo was, was presented to the rest of hq. Yeah. I immediately had, had to think about, about Endra was like okay. If it's not good, she's going to kill us. And um, yeah, but that then I saw what, what it was, and I was like, okay, this is I think she, she will be happy with it.
[00:35:36] Wouter: She's, she's
[00:35:37] Kirk: very happy with it. She's very happy with it. And before my life as a filmmaker, I used to work in graphic design. I was a graphic production artist for print and web, so not actually a designer. Design isn't my forte, but I worked with graphic designers and creative directors. I would basically [00:36:00] take their sloppy ass Photoshop and Illustrator files and streamline 'em, clean 'em up so that they could be delivered to the web developers or to a print shop, and everything would just go seamlessly.
[00:36:14] Kirk: So I got the logo and I was just like, this is okay. I can work with this. This is great. This is clean. Yeah,
[00:36:21] Wouter: exactly. I did, I did before I did film school, I, I went to a, a graphic design school as well which is like a, a, a, yeah, the Dutch education system is, it's weird, but it's, it's kind of like a lower tier college.
[00:36:35] Wouter: Mm-hmm. Kind of, part where the, my film school was basically actual college, so Yeah. And I had Illustrator and Photoshop lessons. So, and I, yeah, I, I. Immediately. Yeah. Same as you. I mean, you open it up and you see what it should be and that's, yeah, that's huge. I mean, I can
[00:36:56] Kirk: access every single element in it, every point in [00:37:00] it I can access and even the curves and everything, I, I can do whatever I want with it.
[00:37:04] Kirk: The old, the classic logo is great. It's served us well for a long time and I have, I think the original EPS file of it, I think, well the 48 developed after PDF became the underlying engine for Illustrator. It was EPS used to be the file format and then PDF, which makes sense because PDF is just evolution of postscript.
[00:37:29] Kirk: But looking through, you know, opening up the old logo and illustrator. I just wanna pull my hair out 'cause there's like weird. Blacks of white that are masking things out. It's oh, this person didn't know how to use paths. Oh, this is painful. They don't know how to make a compound path or punch through.
[00:37:49] Kirk: It just gives me a headache and gives me flashbacks to my old life, which made me drink a lot. I'm really happy with the new direction.
[00:37:58] Wouter: Yeah. Yeah, [00:38:00] exactly. I mean, the rest of the old design is really nice. And they're also creating mockups for for the main page, for the new mm-hmm.
[00:38:09] Wouter: Website. The dash is something that I create myself, but um,
[00:38:12] Kirk: which I'm so looking forward to. I am so looking. I do want to be one of the, the testers and I will try to break it and give you feedback. Yeah, please, please
[00:38:22] Wouter: do. Because that's, that's the whole point of thing. Yeah. So the thing is that, I mean, you, you talked about, about the dashboard and one of the main things about new system is going to be that just as you had with cinema, 48 teams will also have their own place where they can create something.
[00:38:42] Wouter: And that's the starting off point of so much more. Yeah. Yeah. I don't wanna repeat too much about about my whole, whole presentation, but maybe we should revisit that at some point. But
[00:38:54] Kirk: yeah, it's, I, it's really the utility that it's [00:39:00] providing for participants and for city producers is incredible.
[00:39:05] Kirk: I'm, I got excited just thinking about the possibilities for this year. All right. Well, you know, I wanted to take a month off and not think about the 48, but here we go. It's just this year long process for me at this point. Yeah.
[00:39:20] Wouter: And it's going to be a process anyway. I mean, I mean, there's still so many things that I need to create, but the, the whole structure is there.
[00:39:28] Wouter: And I brought in all the old database stuff which is, which was nightmare to handle, by the way. But because even imagine the, I, from what I understood the current, the, the, the, the database of the current website was like an iteration on an iteration of the old, old website. Yeah.
[00:39:52] Wouter: Yeah. So everything that was created was tagged on, basically. Yeah. And. I mean, it worked, it served [00:40:00] it, its purpose, but if you're going to modernize it, just do it correctly. So it was
[00:40:06] Kirk: yeah. Well it's so funny because what you're doing, all the stuff for the website is basically what drove me to film school.
[00:40:15] Kirk: 'cause I was, I was working in the, the graphic design realm and I got laid off from, you know, a good paint job that I kind of hated in 2001. And I was trying to think, you know, how do I as a graphic production artist in the early two thousands, you know, we were kind of a dime a dozen. I was better than most at what I did than, and I was thinking, well, how do I, how do I differentiate myself?
[00:40:39] Kirk: How do I make myself invaluable? So I started reading books on JavaScript and CSS and, you know, Python and other things. And after about a month of unemployment, I just went, I hate this. I hate doing this, this, I'm getting anxious just reading [00:41:00] these books. I hate this. Yeah. And I was thinking about moving back to San Francisco to finish up my photography degree, but I made too many good friends here in Seattle and didn't want to move just yet.
[00:41:11] Kirk: And the Seattle Film Institute had a 40 week program and I said, oh, that seems like a logical next step. I'll go into cinematography or something. And I wound up in editing. That's how I got it into the field. I just fell in love with editing and storytelling and just got myself away from all the things that, you know, you've learned on top of the filmmaking stuff.
[00:41:33] Kirk: And
[00:41:34] Wouter: that's still, I mean, having a graphical background is really handy if you're doing It's Yeah because you know how branding works and that's, yeah. I know a lot of editors that, that don't simply, and especially if you're working on. The corporate stuff. Yeah. It, it is so important to, to, to nail that that, that marketing yeah.
[00:41:58] Wouter: Part of,
[00:41:59] Kirk: well, just [00:42:00] having, and just having the ability to, if you're dealing with corporate customers who don't understand, I don't even wanna say the technical side. They just don't understand well, the graphics graphical side of things.
[00:42:13] Kirk: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:14] Kirk: And they can't, you know, you say, okay, well, what's the Pantone color?
[00:42:18] Kirk: And they go, what? Okay, just send me a graphic and I'll figure out the RGB values. And just knowing, you know, knowing the difference between bitmap and Vector graphics and how to access elements of a graphic, whether it's vector, bitmap, and either adapt it to your needs or recreate it, which you did, which you.
[00:42:49] Kirk: For virtual film of Palooza. That was one of a background you recreated.
[00:42:57] Wouter: Yeah. Yeah. Still. I'm glad
[00:42:58] Kirk: you got to it before [00:43:00] I did.
[00:43:02] Wouter: Oh my God, you took a bullet for me. That was a nightmare to recreate. Yeah, definitely. But yeah. Oh man,
[00:43:10] Kirk: that was a lot of Yep. Little elements on a big canvas.
[00:43:16] Wouter: Yeah.
[00:43:17] Wouter: Fortunately, a lot of repeating elements also. Yeah. But it took me a little over a day to to do so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:26] Kirk: That's just a lot of working with the pen tool. Yep. Yep. Yep. Alright. So yeah, we, I, I, I just gotta get back to we missed you so much and you know, next year we're gonna do a road trip from Seattle to la.
[00:43:44] Kirk: This was Olivier. Well, Olivier started the idea. So his son's gonna be going to school in Vancouver, and Olivier said, well, hey, would it be cool if I, you know, come down, I know you're just three hours to the south. Would it be cool if I come down and hang out before heading out to Filma [00:44:00] Palooza?
[00:44:00] Kirk: And I said, let's do one better. Let's you, me and Chris Road trip down. And then Indra walked up and I'm like, Indra, do you wanna do a road trip to LA next year? And she's yeah,
[00:44:11] Wouter: yeah. And then, and then she texted me, Hey, we're going to, we're going to do a road trip from Seattle to la I'm in.
[00:44:18] Kirk: Well then kind of roped Chris in without informing her. So I texted her and she said, I'm in.
[00:44:25] Wouter: Awesome, awesome.
[00:44:27] Kirk: Oh yeah. The plan is, I'll go pick up Olivier Vancouver. You and Indra fly into Seattle. We'll, I'll come and hang out at my house. We'll have pizza in the backyard. Awesome. And homemade beer and.
[00:44:40] Kirk: We'll have Mead available as well. We'll go hang out a solo bar. And then, so my plan is, since this is my coast, I love the West Coast. I don't know if I can live away from the West coast. I need to be near the Pacific Ocean. We'll drive from Seattle to Portland, [00:45:00] stop at a couple of the iconic places in Portland.
[00:45:03] Kirk: Go to a food truck pod, go to Voodoo Donuts, and you can have a Maple Bacon bar, which is their famous thing, which I think is kind of gross. And then we'll drive down to San Francisco. Have you ever been to San Francisco? I've never been to the United States, so, no, not. Okay. Well, yeah. San Francisco is my favorite city on the planet.
[00:45:25] Kirk: I love San Francisco. So we'll cram a bit of San Francisco in for a day, and then it's about 700 kilometers to LA from there. So we'll stop in Santa Cruz where I went to college, which is on the coast. We'll get coffee at my favorite coffee place and burritos at my favorite burrito place in the world.
[00:45:46] Kirk: And then we'll just, we'll drive the more scenic route down to la and yeah,
[00:45:50] Wouter: so cool, man. My, my brother and his, his girlfriend they, a couple years ago they, they flew to to San Francisco [00:46:00] and drove down to, to, to la so, and took a lot of pictures, so I, I know kind of what to expect, but can't wait to see it in person, so,
[00:46:09] Kirk: oh, it's, it's fantastic.
[00:46:10] Kirk: I, the drive down, highway one on the coast, we can't take it the whole way because if you go San Francisco to Los Angeles on Highway one, which goes right along the coast, the whole way, it takes forever. It's just windy, windy, windy. So we'll, at a certain point, cut over to 1 0 1. Which kind of goes along the coast and then cuts inland and then comes back to the coast and ultimately winds up with one around Santa Barbara.
[00:46:39] Kirk: But it's a beautiful drive. I, I love it. Awesome. Much better. 'cause you can just take I five from Seattle all the way to LA and it's a beautiful drive until you get to the California Central Valley and then it's just cattle farms and almond farms for 800 kilometers. It's terrible [00:47:00] and it's hot and there's scorpions and snakes.
[00:47:05] Kirk: So, yeah I can't wait to do this.
[00:47:08] Wouter: Me too. Me too. I, I heard of the idea and I was like, this is so, this is going to be so awesome and Yeah. I can't wait to, to do
[00:47:17] Kirk: Is Ra told you the, my idea for the documentary?
[00:47:20] Wouter: Yeah, but didn't you well, not, not specifically I guess, but, but the documentary you, you also mentioned something on your podcast about getting getting mark to, to Antarctica.
[00:47:33] Kirk: Yeah.
[00:47:36] Kirk: But I was thinking, you know, this could be the, this could be the beginning of the documentary, you know, heading to film the Palooza with an international cast of characters, and then meeting up with an even more international cast of characters. Awesome. Just, you know, bring a camera. I'll have my GoPros.
[00:47:54] Kirk: Plunked onto the car, the whole drive. It'll be a gigantic tax write off.
[00:47:59] Wouter: Yeah. [00:48:00] I'll, I'll definitely bring that, bring my my pocket six guy. Yeah.
[00:48:03] Kirk: Yeah. There we go.
[00:48:04] Wouter: Yeah. It's gonna have to be, it is. It's a year from now. No, I know. It gives us some time to, to plan this yeah. In detail. So, but yeah, we're definitely going to do I can't
[00:48:18] Kirk: wait.
[00:48:18] Kirk: It's gonna be so much fun. Well, okay, so Film Palooza and Rotterdam, which is a great Rotterdam. Mm-hmm. You know how it goes. It's like after the, the final party, everyone says goodbye and then you're just kind of depressed after it. You've said it's a giant emotional bomb when you've said goodbye to everyone.
[00:48:36] Kirk: Yep. And this year was kind of nice because we had the big goodbye after the party. And on Sunday I met up with Indra and I met up with Kyle and Michael and Kat and Jeanette. Down on the National Mall. Mm-hmm. Indra and I were starving 'cause we hadn't eaten yet, and it's like noon. So they have a huge line of food trucks [00:49:00] and, you know, there's so many not justifiable stereotypes of Americans, but this the food truck thing, I, I just pulled Indra and said, okay this is one aspect of America that I just absolutely love is the American food truck.
[00:49:16] Kirk: 'cause you got some hardworking immigrants, you know, either from, you know, Southeast Asia or the Middle East, or Central or South America making at the same time. Hamburgers, hot dogs, falafel, quesadillas, pad Thai, and kebabs, all in the same truck. It's, I I love that.
[00:49:46] Music: Oh
[00:49:46] Kirk: wow. Yeah. I love that so much. To me, that is just the epitome of America right there.
[00:49:53] Kirk: Yeah. Awesome. And so she got this giant loaded hot dog and I got a, a [00:50:00] chicken cheese steak and you know, we all just got different things and it really helped kind of taper off, you know, just seeing, okay, here's a couple of people I get to say goodbye to. And then on Monday, Indra and I went out for breakfast with Christina and then she took me back to my hotel and then, you know, I thought Indra was gonna break my back, hugging me when she was saying goodbye.
[00:50:30] Kirk: And it really helped kind of lessen the emotional shock. Of saying goodbye.
[00:50:38] Wouter: Yeah, you may. Originally the plan was that EDRA and I were af after Sunday. We we kind of wanted to go to Orlando for a couple days to just go to the Universal studio thing and have the whole Harry Potter thing, [00:51:00] just such nerds and but even before.
[00:51:05] Wouter: The whole thing started or well, basically finished for me, but we already decided not to do that because of all the testing and we, we Yeah, that was, well, the moment
[00:51:16] Kirk: you said foot in Florida, your risk goes up.
[00:51:21] Wouter: That's
[00:51:21] Kirk: true. So, yeah. Oh, well, don't mean to offend Florida, but they've been really bad about the whole COVID thing.
[00:51:28] Wouter: Yeah, that's kind of what we figured out when we were trying to figure out testing facilities that were foreigner friendly, kind of. So, yeah. So yeah, we decided not to do this anyway, but
[00:51:45] Music: yeah.
[00:51:46] Wouter: Oh, well this happened. Well, we have a
[00:51:50] Kirk: Harry Potter world, you know, in la so, yeah. So that's, that's, we'll do.
[00:51:55] Wouter: Exactly. And let's hope what we can find a couple more people that want to do that [00:52:00]won't be hard.
[00:52:01] Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. That won't be hard. Yeah. So Andrea was a little upset that, you know, we were gonna do two American fill of Paloozas in a row and, you know, Chris and I wanna host again in, in Seattle at some point, but we, you know, we've come to enjoy the American International, but COVID really screwed that up.
[00:52:21] Kirk: And Michael and Leanne in LA said, we really want to host again. And the la film of Paloozas are fantastic. I mean, you're literally on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There's the Chinese theater and everything, and it's, it's always a great film of palooza. They put on a fantastic event. I think that's the one city I would make the exception for.
[00:52:44] Kirk: Yeah. If it was any other city next year in the States, I'd completely be with Indra saying, no, no, no. We gotta go international. We gotta go international. But no, the LA ones are great.
[00:52:55] Wouter: Yeah. But I think that it would be a good idea too, for 2024 [00:53:00] to, Oh, yeah, yeah. To go back.
[00:53:03] Kirk: Well, I've been, we were, we were bugging Ricardo.
[00:53:06] Kirk: It's like, all right, let's bring it to Lisbon. And I've also been bugging David. I wanna go back to Prague. I think, I think he'd put on a good, he'd put on a good film of palooza. Yeah. Yeah. I love
[00:53:15] Wouter: Prague.
[00:53:15] Kirk: I
[00:53:15] Wouter: love that city. Yeah. Never been, but I've but that would be a good reason to go. Yeah,
[00:53:21] Kirk: exactly.
[00:53:22] Kirk: Yeah. That's, I mean, that's the funny thing is so, okay, the drive that we're gonna make
[00:53:27] Kirk: Is equivalent to, I don't know, quite the math, but.
[00:53:31] Wouter: Yeah, I think it's, it's from where I live basically to the south of Spain, which I, I, I drove quite a distance for that couple years ago for a, a holiday with, with, with a friend.
[00:53:46] Wouter: So, so yeah it's quite a drive. Yeah.
[00:53:49] Kirk: Well, if you're on the West Coast, things are so much more spread out than they are, say, even over on the East Coast or anywhere in Europe. So to us, [00:54:00] you know, just the idea of Prague is probably, let's see here, to my brother's place in Montana, it's the equivalent of driving Paris to Berlin.
[00:54:09] Kirk: So tack on a couple more hours after that to get to Prague. So those distances to us over here on the West Coast are kind of nothing.
[00:54:20] Wouter: I think that's another part of it is gas prices. I mean, oh yeah.
[00:54:24] Kirk: But
[00:54:25] Wouter: you guys have
[00:54:25] Kirk: great trains. You have fantastic trains there. Yeah,
[00:54:28] Wouter: yeah, yeah. True. But I mean, if we're talking about a road trip, I mean, yeah.
[00:54:32] Wouter: That, I mean yeah. But yeah, I've been, I mean, I, I my, my aunt, she lives in, in, in Paris, so I've been with the train loads of time.
[00:54:42] Kirk: Yeah. I miss travel. Mm. Because ASHA's parents live in Woods, Poland, and they're kind of freaking out right now because where is only 500 kilometers from them at this point, a little over 500 kilometers in, is it Lviv?
[00:54:57] Kirk: So they're kind of freaking out. I just can't wait until [00:55:00] things calm down enough that, pandemic wise, that we can go visit her parents. She hasn't seen 'em in three years or almost four, which is just crazy. Yeah. And yeah, just can't wait to see all my friends again.
[00:55:12] Wouter: For me, film Palooza was supposed to be
[00:55:15] Kirk: Yeah, exactly.
[00:55:16] Kirk: I wanted to see you badly, you know? Yeah, I know, I know. It'll happen next year. Yeah. Well, 'cause we, you know, we spent. A good amount of time hanging out in Rotterdam, but not enough. But since the pandemic, I mean, a lot of time on Zoom calls together. Oh. Oh God, I gotta see my buddy. I wanna see my buddy.
[00:55:38] Kirk: Well, hey, we're, we're at an hour, so, wow. You know, I got a dog that needs to pee really badly. Yeah. But it's so good to to chat with you, and I'm glad you're feeling better. Yeah. So that's the most important thing that you're, you're getting healthy.
[00:55:57] Wouter: Maybe we should do this again. When, when the new [00:56:00] website is is, yeah.
[00:56:00] Wouter: Totally. For time. So I can talk a little bit about things going forward when there Yeah. Set in motion, but bit too free for that. But
[00:56:09] Kirk: well, thank you so much and I'm sure I'll be talking to you soon. Sure. All right. Thank you.
[00:56:27] Kirk: 48 Hour Heroes Origin Stories is a production of Media Without Borders and the Seattle 48 hour film project.