In an era of mergers and acquisitions, when bigger seems to mean better, New York-based postproduction house Nice Shoes is bucking the trend. For the owners of the company, smaller is better. "Many [people] believe that when you are successful, you should expand," observes managing director/partner Dominic Pandolfino. "If you’re successful on one floor with thirteen thousand square feet of space, then why not take another floor and double your size? [But] large companies can become factory-like. Clients like to come to small companies where they are treated with special care. I’ve been in small companies, and I’ve been in large ones, so I know."
That’s not to say that Nice Shoes hasn’t expanded, or that it doesn’t plan to do so. Nine months after opening its doors in April ’96, Nice Shoes moved from a space of 1,700 square feet to 13,000 square feet. There were 39 employees in ’97; now there are 50. But the shop’s expansion has been carefully calibrated. "The thing we want to make sure of is that our growth is slow and steady, rather than frenetic and out of control," Pandolfino explains. "It is very easy to expand very quickly right now. That mistake has been made before. We want slow and steady growth, following a well thought-out plan."
Oh Henry!
Part of that strategy can be traced to the company’s origins. Nice Shoes started out looking for the next big innovation. The five partners—Pandolfino, Scott Burch, Howie Burch, Joe Bottazzi and Ed Patrowicz—all worked together at Manhattan Transfer, New York, and later created Nice Shoes partly as a "way of changing how editing was done," Pandolfino says. "We wanted to use the Henry as an editing device." Patrowicz, a veteran Henry operator, felt that using it for nonlinear editing would save time and offer more flexibility.
"We almost single-handedly won clients to the Henry as an editing device," Pandolfino claims. "People in New York were not used to using it as such. We like to think of our editors as both editors and graphic designers. We don’t want to do just a quick edit job. It’s more than just redoing what was done on the Avid."
Gift.com’s "Barbecue Lovers," directed by David Kellogg of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films, via Young & Rubicam, New York, demonstrates the Henry’s flexibility. The spot features a group of men standing around a smoky barbecue. As it was originally shot, orange smoke came from the barbecue, but the client later decided to replace that with grayish-blue color. A problem arose in the color change because two men were waving their arms through the smoke. Since an alternate color correction was used on the men’s arms, the Henry operator couldn’t use the same color correction technique on the men that was used on the smoke. The tricky task was accomplished with a Henry feature called the Fettle color corrector.
Pandolfino attributes Nice Shoe’s quick rise to its clientele—New York-based agencies such as Young & Rubicam, BBDO and Leo Burnett USA. Nice Shoes has also worked closely with a number of editorial houses, including the New York offices of bicoastal shops Mad River Post, Lost Planet and Crew Cuts, as well as New York-based Consulate. Recent projects include the aforementioned gift.com ad; "White Room" for NorthernLights.com, directed by Steve Ramser of Unscented, Los Angeles, via Mullen, Wenham, Mass.; "Holiday Greetings" for Dell computers, directed by Craig Worsham of SunSpots, Hollywood, out of Lowe Lintas & Partners, New York; and "Web Connections" for IBM, directed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif., out of Ogilvy & Mather, New York.
Nice Shoe’s busiest period is between December and February, when spots for soft drinks, beauty products and cars are all aimed at the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards. "We work around the clock in January," Pandolfino says, adding that Nice Shoes worked on 13 of the commercials that aired during last year’s Super Bowl.
Getting and finishing such work has meant updating and upgrading the equipment. In ’97, Nice Shoes had four editing suites, complete with a digital online linear room, two film-to-tape rooms with a pair of Cintel URSA Golds, and the mainstay of the operation: two Henry version 8s. In ’99, the company did away with the linear room and added two more Henrys, along with a Discreet Logic Inferno. The Cintel URSAs, which were upgraded to Diamonds in ’98, are being replaced by two Philips Spirit Datacines. The four Henrys now include the Infinite layer package, which enables the machines to composite with an infinite number of layers.
A third telecine room, which is set to open in mid-December, will boast a third Spirit Datacine. "That will give us the ability to transfer to film," Pandolfino notes. "We can take transfer into high-definition and do film effects. We want to be ready for digital television. That’s why we went into great debt buying the Spirit Datacines. By having Inferno, we can do special effects or graphic work."
Pandolfino says that Nice Shoes is strong in both the equipment and personnel departments, as well as in having a good company philosophy. He attributes the operation’s success to its homegrown talent and to its boutique approach. "Our plans right now are to finish growth at Nice Shoes," he says. "We will have eight studios by next year. We are [also] thinking about expanding to London and Los Angeles. When it comes to our kind of work, being on the East Coast puts us in a nice position between the West Coast and Great Britain.
"But we must always keep it personal," Pandolfino adds. "I think the trend is [moving] away from those bigger, one-stop shops. You get attention in a boutique like ours because it’s owner-operated. Four of the five owners are here every day. Problems that occur are dealt with immediately. The client doesn’t have to deal with different layers of management. Things are done quickly. Our clients are more comfortable with that. … It’s a matter of servicing them. When the client asks a question and [it] takes a few days to get back to them, the creative juices may not be flowing as well—[or] as B.B. King said, ‘The thrill is gone.’ We try to keep up the excitement."i
