Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/40055
Getting the Work,Making a Profit in being competitive. "It's been business as usual in terms of this environment. Other people and colleagues talk about 'the good old days.' For us, that did- n't exist, at least as Futuristic.We've been able to make this environ- ment work for us. The margins aren't as high as they used to be. You have to fight harder to get the work and show more to get the work than required in the past. For us, we don't know any differently. It's always been this way." LOYALTY IN FASHION Max Nova is the owner of bou- Shellac's Max Nova: Fashion videos for clients such as Bloomingdale's keep the studio flush with work. layed that into some great reel material.That has allowed us to go after other clients that have a little more budget and get additional work that is a lot more profitable." Relationships, positive experiences and trust can go a long way, he notes. "When someone has decided that they want to work with you, they tend to be more open about what they actually have to spend and then you can be realistic about what can be achieved within that budget. Futuristic has grown up in a tough econ- omy, which Kiernan says has given them skills tique editorial house Shellac (http://shellac- nyc.com) in New York City.The studio has two client-configured rooms and additional open space with systems running Final Cut Pro and the Adobe Creative Suite. Shellac works on many different types of projects, but a big part of the company's clientele comes from high-end fashion brands, which typically advertise in print but are now embracing video as a way to ex- tend their marketing reach. This fashion work unexpectedly grew out of Nova's love for cutting documentaries. One of those docu- mentaries, for AMC back in 2005, focused on the life of actor Dennis Hopper. The program was sup- posed to help launch the network's Autobiography series, but never actually aired. Still, it was shown at different festivals gaining Nova exposure. He also credits a 2007 project for VH1, titled NY77, with helping to bring in advertising work. The program focused on New York City in 1977, where the birth of hip- hop, the rise of punk and the peak of disco were taking place, in addition to the Yankees winning the World Series, and the infa- mous city-wide blackout. "That got a couple of Emmy nods and got no- ticed," recalls Nova."At the same time I was doing this, I was getting these little in- house fashion videos.The first one was a spec spot 36 Post • August 2011 www.postmagazine.com for a little agency here called Lloyd & Co." Nova describes his fashion work as "mood pieces and videos that piggyback on photo shoots for magazines, but are meant to be style pieces and not necessarily a commercial. It doesn't have a tag on it or say the product at the end." He refers to many of these projects as headless productions — no director, just DPs shooting behind-the-scenes footage during print photo shoots. Nova and crew then cut them together in an artistic way. One such project was for fragrance com- pany Coty out of agency Laird + Partners. Nova cut a behind-the-scenes video for the company's "Reveal" shoot starring actress Halle Berry. The relationship with Laird has also led to work with brands such as Gap, DKNY and Kenneth Cole."There is a lot of lateral move- ment in advertising and fashion in general," Nova notes."The art directors and creative directors we deal with in these agencies, if they can't move any higher up in their agency, they usually move laterally to another com- pany.With all that movement, they tend to be loyal to vendors they have relationships with." Nova finds profitability in the speed he achieves using his NLE, as well as with the fact that he can send clients material for re- view via FTP, rather than having them sit in on a session. "By being able to edit and post via FTP, I can work on four different edits in one day," he explains, "and no client knows any differ- ent.They are all getting their cuts via FTP and getting serviced. In the old days it was one job, one client, one edit, one day, and sit- ting around working together all day, and rather slowly." Shellac's decentralized post model allows the studio to work with other editors out- side of its four walls. Nova can supervise by phone or email and still take advantage of opportunities to work on the long-form projects he finds of interest, without the risk of losing his fashion work. "At the end of the day, it's about the qual- ity of the labor and the artistic talent," he notes."Speed is the key quality of a good edi- tor.The faster you get, the more intuitive your understanding of the software is…the more things you can try. It's a self-fulfilling cycle, and ultimately it's a definition of ability when it comes to editing, and it's the most important thing when it comes to profitability. "The profit exists based on speed," he continues."We tend to negotiate almost exclusively flat rates at the beginning of the job, based on our own experience and knowing what a job is going to require…