Nate Hubbard, senior editor at Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues Studios, has left that house to launch Migrant Editors, a Manhattan Beach shop offering portable editorial services for location jobs.
"I’ve been going on location with big Avid systems for six years with Rhythm & Hues to start the editorial process, doing test comps and checking motion-control setups," related Hubbard. "It’s a natural step to use the Avid Express DV system with its portability of running on a Dell laptop. With eight layers of video, it can handle any situation."
Rhythm & Hues director Randy Roberts, who has worked with Hubbard for nine years, said, "Nate has saved us hours of production time by quickly editing and comping scenes. Our Advantage ‘Rumors’ spot was eighty-five percent cut on location, relieving a lot of anguish from clients who had no idea how a bunch of animals shot on blue screen would turn into four dogs gossiping in a beauty parlor."
During his tenure at Rhythm & Hues, Hubbard—who continues to work as an offline editor—worked on high-profile national campaigns for such clients as Mazda, Anderson Consulting and Post-It Notes. His Los Angeles Times Calendar trailers are well known to Southern California moviegoers. Before Rhythm & Hues, he edited at Graying & Balding, Santa Monica, and Red Car, also in Santa Monica. While at the latter, Hubbard cut the trend-setting minimalist campaign for Infiniti automobiles via Hill Holiday Connors Cosmopulos, Boston.
Hubbard recently finished three days on location with bicoastal Zooma Zooma Productions and director Todd Bellanca. "Our Sherwin-Williams spots were a complicated series of motion-control moves that would have been impossible to complete without having Nate with his Avid constantly cutting and comping the scenes," stated Simon Mowbray, co-founder/ creative director of Radium, San Francisco and Santa Monica. Mowbray, who did the compositing and finishing of the spots, added, "Nate’s work on location helped figure out the timing of the motion control. After editing rehearsals, we adjusted the motion control accordingly." Hubbard provided Radium with a Quicktime movie of each cut, along with an Avid bin containing a sequence on a zip disk. Using an Avid Symphony, Radium worked with the location cut. "It was then just a matter of swapping takes and adjusting timings to finish the offline," Mowbray said.
Along with location editing, Migrant Editors is also going to agencies and production companies to produce animatics. "All we need is a space to set up," explained Hubbard. "We can create animatics from computer files or scan in storyboards. We record voiceover or input from DAT or CD. We provide a Quicktime movie, half-inch or DV of the finished animatic. The cut can be posted on our password-protected Web site, and we can even make changes by phone."
