Karl Bushby isn’t just a hiking enthusiast. In fact, the former paratrooper is in the 15th year of attempting to walk a path around the entire globe! For National Geographic documentary “The Walk Around the World,” posted at Company 3 in Chicago, Bushby documented what for him is a quick jaunt – from California to Washington, DC. Tyler Roth of Company 3 Chicago did the color grading for the doc.

During the long hike, Bushby would send footage to director Jordan Tappis would communicate his ideas to Bushby about what and how to shoot for the next leg of the trip. Bushby sent material he’d shot using a vast assortment of small, portable cameras, including iPhones, Flip cameras, GoPros and Canon DSLRs. Tappis and the editorial team would put sequences together and then supervise color sessions with the Chicago-based Roth remotely so that Tappis could see corrections take shape and offer input from a theater at Company 3’s Los Angeles location.

Roth notes that while Bushby’s material was “amazing,” – especially as Tappis’s coaching took hold – it did come with some technical challenges. “There were so many different cameras and he was shooting outdoors in completely uncontrolled lighting situations.”

But Roth notes that he was still able to make creative use of color to help tell the story of the trip. “He walked to the Grand Canyon through the Midwest and finally to Washington, DC. We pushed each region to have its own distinct feel. So when he starts in LA, it’s sunny, warm and vibrant. He’s optimistic. By the middle of the journey, the weather and his outlook get somewhat gloomy and we went with a more desaturated look. We played a lot to the tone of his mindset for each section of the trip.

“The footage really conveys the enormity of his commitment,” Roth adds. “Just watching the first week of material of him walking 20-plus miles a day with all this gear shows so much about his pain and determination. This is his passion. He’s been doing it for 15 years and will keep going for another five! And that was definitely an inspiration to all of us working on this project.”