When editors were editing on Moviolas with splicers and synchronizers, the Chinagraph was one of the few tools an editor had," says Kane Platt, founding partner and editor at the New York-based editorial house Chinagraph, talking about the grease pencil that was once widely used to indicate where dissolves and cuts were to be made on film. "The real idea behind using the name Chinagraph was to reference the essential art of editing, which has become very technical, but it used to be a hands-on craft like carpentry."
Chinagraph is made up of three editors-Nick Martin, Eric Carlson and Platt-as well as two executive producers, Anne Gordon and Rosemary Quigley. All the partners in Chinagraph are alumni of now defunct Dennis Hayes & Associates. They formed a partnership when Hayes made the decision to retire and shutter his firm in ’97. "You can’t really sell a company like that unless you’re willing to stay. Potential buyers would be interested in the people with it, and Dennis was ready to move on," says Platt, whose first steady job was as a messenger at Dennis Hayes. He eventually moved up to become one of the company’s nine editors.
Quigley originally came from the agency side-she was with Scali, McCabe, Sloves (now Lowe & Partners/SMS)-and had worked at Dennis Hayes for nine years as a business manager, a producer, and finally executive producer. "We have a combined collective experience of over 3,000 years," quips Martin. "Rosemary kept hiring me as a freelance assistant with the understanding that if I kept coming back, I could eventually be editing. So really, my whole apprenticeship career started at Dennis Hayes."
Executive producer Gordon, originally an editor herself, got her start in Australia and moved into production in England before finally moving on to Hayes’ company. The third editing partner, Carlson, had worked at various post houses in London and ended up at Dennis Hayes in ’92. "Sometimes we get requests from British companies for editors and I ask, ‘Do you want the American?’ " laughs Quigley, who claims Irish heritage, as she points to Platt, who is the token "gringo" at Chinagraph.
"Nicholas, Eric and I were not partners in Dennis Hayes & Associates, and when you don’t own the company, you always fantasize about what it would be like if you could do some things differently," says Kane. It wasn’t long before these speculations started including Gordon and Quigley as well as original Dennis Hayes controller Francine Braxton who holds the same position at Chinagraph. After Dennis Hayes’ doors closed to clients, the editors found themselves facing a number of "pretty good options," according to Martin, as a result of the company’s excellent reputation. Hayes himself offered the group the use of his space until the remainder of his lease ran out, allowing the editors to stay on and accept the steady flow of work which eventually enabled them to form Chinagraph.
"We had been thinking about [starting a company] for a long time and we realized that by the time we were talking to people about financing, we didn’t need financing anymore," says Kane. "We just worked really hard and everyone made big sacrifices, but it seems to have worked out." After several months of renting the original space, the partners moved into their present location in March of ’98. The spacious office, located in the Flatiron District, has four airy Avid suites and one graphics room, and is currently expanding with three more rooms.
Good Works
"The company was born out of the unexpected coincidence of the closure of Dennis Hayes-but it also began with the best of talent," says Gordon. "And we were very fortunate with our supply of clients for immediate work." Some of the more notable directors who worked with them during the transition were Michael Cuesta and Skip D’Amico of bicoastal production company The A+R Group, and Paul Cade, then with now defunct Lovinger/ Cohn, who is now with Cohn & Co., New York.
Since then, Chinagraph has worked on spots such as "Portraits," for The New York Times, via Bozell Worldwide, New York, and directed by Anouk Besson of bicoastal/international The End; Sprite’s "Kung Fu," out of Lowe & Partners/SMS, New York, and directed by Baker Smith of Tate & Partners, Santa Monica; and Bell South’s "Babysitting," via Merkley Newman Harty, New York, and helmed by Cade. These spots, among others, have not only kept the company alive and well, but have indirectly helped it see through its original vision. "We have a commitment to work on longer format projects, such as documentaries and we’re also very proactive in working on community-based pieces. It’s a way to help to give back," says Gordon.
"Part of the goal of doing this was to say ‘Look, as long as we’re solvent, why can’t we do anything we want?’ " adds Kane. "Yes, in small ways we’re trying to make a difference but also on a selfish level we all got excited about working with people in different disciplines and having an open environment. Everything you do enhances you creatively, so the results are pleasing all around."
In addition to spots and some electronic press kits, the current roster of projects includes an as yet untitled three-part series about Tibet-directed by Sylvia Faddis a homeopathic doctor- which was edited by Martin. Martin is also co-directing a film with photographer Steve Shanes called Pursuing the Dream, edited by a staff assistant, Garret Savage, with music from Hayes Greenfield. The movie is about inner city programs throughout the country and their effect on turning communities around.
As for future plans, the edit house intends to continue as a "creative collective," says Gordon, while exploring new options. With the steady flow of work coming in, prospects are good they’ll be able to bring in more finishing tools sometime in the near future. Although this is a move the company would certainly like to see, they insist it would be strictly creatively driven. "It is a reality in today’s marketplace and in terms of competition, that this is a more profitable area. So it would be an incentive in terms of allowing us to keep our doors open to other creative possibilities," says Platt. "We were originally hoping the champagne bar would finance everything, but it hasn’t worked out that way."
