Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/69535
editor's note R By RANDI ALTMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF raltman@postmagazine.com Staying successful in post unning a post house these days is not easy — the economy is shaky, clients and staff need to be happy and engaged, and thanks to affordable pro tools, competition has increased… sometimes even from clients. This month, a handful of long-standing studios share the secrets of their success. A couple of others kindly offered up some tips for this space as well. Bob Nelson, executive producer at NYC's QuietMan, says there are three guiding principles that frame their approach to this business. "The first is to understand what sets QuietMan apart from our competitors. The second is to under- stand the marketplace, and accept that it will define us as well. The third is to respect the importance of relationships and trust." To be successful, he says, they need to offer a complete range of services. "Since you can't antici- pate the specifics of the next opportunity, Quiet- Man needs to provide appropriate talent and skills for whatever comes along. QuietMan is all about our talent and our longevity. We maintain our core staff of designers, producers and 3D artists." Being multi-disciplined helps them attract a wide range of projects. "Variety keeps the com- pany financially healthy and also keeps our artists interested and motivated. We care as much about a photoreal product demo as we do about a POST SCRIPT Source Audio's solution S ource Audio recently launched a new search and distribution platform for sound By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR mloftus@postmagazine.com effects and music licensing that's designed to serve the creators of production music as well as the agencies, production companies and post houses that use them. Post caught up with Andrew Harding, who is one of five founders of the LA-based company. Harding says they started Source Audio three years ago in an effort to solve the fragmented nature of the sync licensing business. Their solution takes a cloud-based approach, and since its beta launch a year ago, has signed up 118 different libraries, representing more than 2.5 million songs for license. Some of the providers include Cutting Edge, Vanacore Music, X-ray Dog, Pro Sound Effects and Elias Arts. To get involved, libraries simply contact Source Audio for the initial set-up, which involves sending a library on a hard drive. The libraries then pay a monthly subscription fee that ranges from $99 to $1,000, based on the number of tracks hosted. The price scale 2 Post • June 2012 encourages libraries to curate their collections, making only their strongest offerings available. On the user side, studios, agencies and post houses can set up their own site — at no cost — giving them access to any of the member libraries and creating a one-stop resource for all of their music needs. In a demo, Harding showed a Mocean- branded page that serves as the design stu- dio's central resource for production music. Users can browse libraries, preview tracks and ultimately download selections in any number of audio formats. They can also send out a request to their preferred libraries, detailing an upcoming job and their music needs. The libraries receive an alert and can respond with suggestions. Source Audio targeted the theatrical market- ing during its beta phase, but the company has agencies in its sites. If you're a library that would like to get involved, or a music user who could benefit from a central resource, check out their site: www.sourceaudio.com. www.postmagazine.com high-profile music video. We are as challenged by a live-action shoot as we are by a 2D graphics project. We flex all of these muscles." I reached out to Hollywood DI's managing director Neil Smith with the question, "How do you evaluate gear? Both ROI and necessity?" He said he asks himself that question every day. "As digital content workflow becomes the norm in the post world, Hollywood DI has embraced the relentless wave of technological change that Moore's Law drives before it. With a Moore's Law impacted purchase you have to assess the ROI in terms of months rather than years. For example, in our Da Vinci Resolve grading suites we invest in high-end gaming cards rather than high-end profes- sional video cards. Why? There are millions of gam- ers worldwide all clamoring for the latest and greatest (i.e., fastest, cheapest) video cards from Nvidia and ATI. As a consequence, the price of CUDA and Open CL gaming GPUs continues to drop dramatically while the power keeps going up. But it's not all about tools. "The most valuable ele- EDITORIAL Senior Editor/Director of Web Content (516) 376-1087 raltman@postmagazine.com MARC LOFTUS RANDI ALTMAN Editor-in-Chief (516) 797-0884 mloftus@postmagazine.com CHRISTINE BUNISH Film& Video JENNIFER WALDEN Audio European Correspondent bob.pank@virgin.net BOB PANK DANIEL RESTUCCIO West Coast Bureau dansweb451@aol.com West Coast Blogger/Reporter BARRY GOCH IAIN BLAIR Film mviggiano@postmagazine.com MICHAEL VIGGIANO Art Director " ment for us is the talent we have in-house. All our artists are multi-tasking, and they all want the latest software tools to get their job done quickly and easily. Providing them with the tools they need to get their job done in the most efficient and creative manner is part of the ROI assessment equation." 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