With the arrival of nonlinear finishing systems, a number of creative editorial boutiques are now providing online editing for their clients. Some of the new nonlinear systems, such as Avid Technology’s Symphony, Discreet Logic’s Smoke and Softimage’s DS, are available at prices attractive to creative boutiques, an arena in which talent more than technology is paramount in winning clients.
Running on Windows NT (Symphony and DS) or Silicon Graphics Octane (Smoke), these computer-based systems enable the nonlinear editing of uncompressed D-1 quality video, thus combining the creativity inherent to offline editorial with the technical requirements of broadcast-quality video.
Some of the issues that arise with this new approach to finishing include how to sell the technology to clients used to booking online editing time at high-end postproduction facilities. Also, how does an editorial shop-in which charging by the hour is unheard of-bill for finishing services? Most importantly, since the systems are all new, where do editorial companies find trained personnel, people with nonlinear online skills?
To get a sense of how they fit into the editorial domain, SHOOT spoke with Red Car, Santa Monica (the company also has offices in New York, Chicago and most recently Dallas [see separate story, p. 7]), which is a beta site for Smoke; 89 Greene Editorial, New York, a beta site for DS; and Symphony-user New York Post Works.
"With Smoke, we are finally able to do our finishing in-house," states Red Car editor Adam Lobel, who has used Smoke to finish spots such as "Truherb," for Twin Lab via Hanft Byrne Raboy Abrams & Partners, New York, and "Test Track," a Uniroyal Tires ad for Trone Advertising, High Point, N.C. "It’s exciting just to be able to maintain the creative control. It has been frustrating for me over the last several years-since Avid gave editors the capability to be designers of type and complex graphics-in an offline sense to have to release that creative control. It was not very cost-effective because you had to teach somebody what was already in your head. Whether a job is cut by myself or by another editor in the shop, by the time the job comes to be, I’m very familiar with it. It’s a job that has been in-house for a few weeks, and I’ve gotten to go into the edit room when it’s materialized so that when the job has walked into me, in the hours that have been booked, I’m not starting from scratch."
Lobel says he got most of his online editing experience from his years participating in the editorial process. "I’ve been a creative offline editor, so my training is that I have been to a lot of online sessions and watched the finishing process. And feeling a bit frustrated, I have said to myself, "If only I knew how to use the box, I would be better and faster at this.’ Not to put down online editors, but when you go to a session, you’ll want the editor to add something. And for a lot of them it’s "if it’s not in the EDL [Edit Decision List], it’s not in the cut.’ Smoke helps make sure that the creative process doesn’t stop at the online stage. My approach to new equipment is: Let me sit in front of it. I have never been much of a manual reader. Fortunately, Red Car gave me the opportunity. They were willing to essentially let me come in and play on the machine."
According to Lobel, the process is far from complicated with the company’s five Avid suites and Smoke bay networked together. "Typically, what happens is, when a job is ready to go, they send me the EDL over the network, and I pull into Smoke," he explains. "It is the same kind of box, but instead of a compressed Avid image, it’s completely uncompressed. And so a straight-cuts-only or cuts-and-dissolve is largely automatic."
Lobel has also learned to use Flame, from Montreal-based Discreet Logic, which also runs on the Silicon Graphics Octane, for sophisticated compositing and effects. "Smoke is a great editing tool, but if I’m doing heavy effects, and realistically more than five layers, I need Flame," he says. "I don’t need to go to another room, or even get out of the chair. I quit one program and open the other, and they are completely cross-compatible. Having that flexibility is the beauty of the box."
"I’m a self-taught Flame artist," he adds. "Last week I did a job with 87 layers, and I’m just going to get better and better. The jobs that I cut as an offline editor tended to be very effects-heavy, so I’m not afraid of it."
Lobel notes that the business model leans more toward what is traditional in the creative editorial domain, making it attractive to many clients. "Some clients aren’t comfortable doing online here; they feel they need the comfort level of finishing at a big facility," he says. "Every job I’ve had in here has been really thrilled with the mentality of it. There is a different approach because we’re not a facility. We are not sitting in here watching the clock. I can be more flexible. It’s about getting the job done right, which is more of the offline mentality."
Symphony Space
With the Symphony, from Tewksbury, Mass.-based Avid Technology, New York Post Works is also providing finishing services to its creative editorial client base. New York Post Works owner Billy Baldwin is especially enamored with the Symphony because transition between it and the Avid Media Composer is so easy. "The Avid Media Composer and Symphony have the same interface, and editors can be up and running with almost no additional training," says Baldwin, whose company has already completed a client-direct VH1 Fashion Awards promo on Symphony.
Baldwin acknowledges that while nonlinear finishing is not a difficult sell, it requires a new bidding approach. "While some clients are hesitant, most are attracted to using nonlinear finishing because it is new and different," he says. "In terms of charging for the service, it is somewhere between the project orientation of creative editorial and the hourly rate approach of traditional online editing."
Sue Wladar, general manager at 89 Greene Editorial, agrees that billing for nonlinear finishing requires creative thinking. The shop is doing most of its finishing on Softimage DS, utilizing the Montreal-based company’s system in particular for heavy compositing jobs. Already, 89 Greene has completed jobs with DS for spots such as "Everybody Loves Fruit" for Fruit of the Loom and Panasonic’s "Sonic Shaving," both via Warwick Baker O’Neill, New York. And 89 Greene Editorial also recently finished a Pop Secret popcorn ad, "Operation Butter," out of Campbell Mithun Esty, Minneapolis.
"Our clients like the convenience of having everything at one facility," she says. "To make it more attractive to them we’ve tried to make things a bit more friendly. We didn’t want to work so much on an hourly basis. We wanted the client to come and feel comfortable with the clock not ticking away like at a traditional facility. So I meet with the editor regarding the project beforehand, and we either do a flat rate or we do an hourly rate, and we stick to it. If there is more tweaking that needs to be done, we have some leeway, however, because it is our room."
89 Greene Editorial trained assistant editor Michael Colao to take over as DS online operator. "I started here assisting in offline creative," he recalls. "When we were beta-testing DS, I took a liking to the machine and learned it little by little by working with the manual and tutorials. Then I went to Future Media Concepts, here in New York, for a week of training, and got my official certificate. It is the same as offline, but with a completely different interface. Technically, the most important thing is making sure that your blanking is correct and that your video levels are constant on all the machines. But D-1 uncompressed doesn’t lie, so there is a lot less room for error."9
