Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/10459
Participants: TIM MCGUIRE President/Founder Cutters Chicago www.cuttersinc.com TERENCE CURREN President AlphaDogs Burbank www.alphadogs.tv ROB HENNINGER President/CEO Henninger Media Services Arlington www.henninger.com GRETCHEN PRAEGER Executive Producer/ Managing Director Optimus Chicago www.optimus.com CRISTINA MCGINNISS President Broadway Video Editorial New York City www.broadwayvideo.com Busch.The current team of owners bought the company back in ‘96, and in the past 15 years we’ve seen a lot of changes.We were early proponents of HD finishing, which is now standard.The biggest recent change has been around workflow issues. Data jobs are becoming more and more prevalent, and we're seeing lots of different formats — Red, Phantom, P2, the Canon 5D and 7D. Ingesting files on Avid and Final Cut varies by format, and then there’s the ques- tion of whether you finish in the box or opt for a standard finish with online, color correction and graphics. Each job is its own puzzle to figure out.” TERRY CURREN: “I opened AlphaDogs in 2002 after spending 16 years at Matchframe Video in Burbank, where I had been their first employee.When Avid introduced un- compressed SD computer editing with Symphony, the vi- sion of the future didn’t look rosy for traditional post houses as equipment prices would just come down from there. I had to decide what I wanted to do with myself — I didn’t want to be one of a ton of editors looking for work when larger post houses closed. So I looked at desktop publishing as the best comparison and came away with the idea that you should sell talent, not the gear. I was originally going to buy a Symphony and four-wall a room, but in TV you need redundancy, so I got two Symphonies and was joined by friends who are designers and audio mixers, and we were able to offer all the finishing services. But because we didn’t have a huge overhead we could be very flex- ible in pricing.” CHRISTINA MCGINNISS: “Broadway Video was founded in ‘79 by Lorne Michaels. In the fourth season of Saturday Night Live, he was asked to deliver a series of SNL home videos to RCA. He rented space on the 10th floor in the Brill Building and hired edi- tor Randy Cohen from EUE.The SNL franchise provided a foundation for our business and Randy had a following that migrated to his new location, so we grew from there.Today,we do a lot of work for NBC, USA Network and Syfy.We’re also editing the new pilot, Beach Lane for NBC, and the movie MacGruber, which was shot on Red, is being edited here on Final Cut. “We have responded to the changes by remaining con- CURREN: “Most production companies who have taken editing in-house do their own offline because the equipment is so cheap. But finishing TV requires the moni- tors, the scopes and the people who know how to deal with all that — it’s a different toolset and skill set. So we haven’t been hurt as much by clients going in-house with editing.We also realized that even if clients had their own editing systems, they wouldn’t have all the decks, so we cre- ated Digital Service Station, a Kinko’s of digitizing for Final Cut and Avid systems. It’s become so popular that we have branches in Culver City, San Francisco, Chicago, Columbus, Ohio and Largo, Florida.” PRAEGER: “There’s certainly more competition these days, with editing and graphics platforms and software more accessible than ever. However, even so, there is no substi- tute for the expertise, teamwork and horsepower unique to a full-service post facility such as ours.” MCGUIRE:“Agencies bringing work in-house makes for a smaller pie, so there’s more competition for this smaller pie, but at this point agencies aren’t going after the top-level creative work — they’re doing more retail spots and ver- sioning.We recognize the changing economics of the busi- ness, but at the end of the day, people don’t hire us because we undercut someone by a $1,000 but for the creative product we offer.” Editor Herrianne Cayabyab in AlphaDogs’ Symphony Nitris suite. MCGINNESS: “Some of our clients have taken on Final sistent with our founding principals: talent and service. At the same time we have continued to change with the tech- nology: HD, Final Cut Pro, Smoke/Flame. Our model as a classic facility has changed in that we now offer space to in- dependent production companies whose involvement in shows feed our core post business; we are accommodating MSG as a four-wall tenant as they build their new facility;we are adding an in-house producer to package the post busi- ness as a one-stop shop — sound, graphics and audio; we will take jobs in supervised or unsupervised, man them with staff, freelancers or bring-your-own editors.We have be- come imaginative in terms of our model. Our model now is totally dictated by the circumstances of the client.” POST: How have the democratization of post and reducing the barriers to entry in the industry affected your business? Cut but have relied on our expertise to take full advantage of its tools and workflow.We have one of the best Mac spe- cialists around, Joe Procopio, who has helped [them] inte- grate and become comfortable with the technology, and we are happy to accommodate our clients in that way.We first adopted Final Cut at Broadway Video to edit a series of Webisodes called The Line for Seth Meyers.We provided soup-to-nuts service, and that gave us a great start with the system.We have not balkanized ourselves into a boutique business, but we have amended our original facilities model. We can provide everything in between.” HENNINGER:“The power of desktop systems today is awesome and the distinction between offline and online has less to do with equipment these days and more about the operator’s skill set.We rent editing rooms to producers and editors on a four-wall basis — anything from a few days to a www.postmagazine.com May 2010 • Post 17