Just what is an editorial boutique in 2001? An outfit with a couple of cutters on staff? An established editing shop with sister companies that offer audio mixing, graphics and special effects? A multifaceted post house with offices in five different cities? Depending on whom you talk to, a boutique can be all of those things, and much more. Defining a boutique can be a slippery task. But clearly all editorial houses that call themselves boutiques value certain qualities: service, focus, intimacy and dedication to the craft of editing.
Arc.light, New York; Edit Sweet, Chicago; and Bob ‘n Sheila’s Edit World, San Francisco, are one-office shops, each with a handful of editors on staff; all three certainly qualify as boutiques. The Lookinglass Company, which has offices in Chicago and Santa Monica, is a medium-sized outfit that considers itself a boutique. FilmCore, which has shops in Santa Monica and San Francisco, thinks of itself as a boutique in spirit, if not in size. Large companies such as Red Car, with offices in Santa Monica, New York, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco; and Crew Cuts, which has offices in New York, Santa Monica, and San Francisco, offer services beyond creative editorial, but both also call themselves boutiques.
"Right now, we’re still a boutique in the truest sense of the word," says Jason Mayo, executive producer at arc.light, which moved into its current digs a year ago. "We have six people here: two editors, two assistants, a coordinator and myself. You walk in here and it’s kind of like you’re walking into an apartment. It’s really cozy and homey; that’s the kind of feel we like."
When asked if size or approach defines a boutique, arc.light founder/editor Dana Bol responds, "It’s an approach. It really does come down to the quality of the service that you’re able to give when you stay at a certain size."
Mayo points out that one feature distinguishing boutiques from other types of editorial facilities is easy access to personnel. "We don’t have voicemail," he notes. "Anybody who calls can get somebody on the phone." Recent arc.light jobs include Peanut Butter Twix’s "Schmeer," co-directed by John Lindauer through his former roost Fuel, Santa Monica (he has since shifted to bicoastal Believe Media), and Santiago Suarez of Santiago, New York, for Grey Worldwide, New York; and Major League Soccer’s "It’s Your Game," a stock footage ad out of One World Communications, Westport, Conn. Both spots were cut by Bol.
Beyond
Cutting
Crew Cuts isn’t a small outfit—the company employs 16 editors in three different offices, and has an audio mixing shop, Buzz, New York, as well as a graphics and special effects unit called Quiet Man, also in New York. Partner/ editor Chuck Willis says that Crew Cuts’ intimate vibe, rather than its size, is one reason the shop is still defined as a boutique. Willis, with his pet dog, Ringo, at his feet, thinks that Crew Cuts’ office is more like a big old country house than an impersonal facility.
"Everyone who works here starts as a receptionist or a messenger," Willis explains. "Everyone here is home-grown. What that does is create an amazing infrastructure of people that know each other and are familiar with how the place works. It really creates a family.
"I think ’boutique’ comes down to service and how intimate it is," continues Willis. "I used to believe that intimacy and service had to do with size. Now I would not say that because I think we’re as intimate as any small editorial house."
Commenting on why his company started to offer more services, Willis says, "We feel that sound-mixing is critical to the process [of editing]. We also feel that handling graphics and special effects is integral to that process. Our philosophy has always been to find the person first. We found an excellent mixer in Michael Marinelli, and built Buzz around that. And we found an excellent graphics/special effects guy in Johnnie Semerad, and built Quiet Man around him." Recent credits include spots for Federal Express, such as "Fierce Snake," helmed by John Stainton of The Best Picture Show Company, Brisbane, Australia, out of BBDO, New York, and edited by Sherri Margulies, partner/editor, who works out of the New York office of Crew Cuts; and ads for FT.com, the Financial Times Web site.
Willis believes that a company must grow if it wants to accommodate staffers ready to move into being full-fledged editors. "The natural tendency is to expand," says Willis, who notes that if his shop didn’t create those positions, people would look elsewhere for opportunities. "In those cases we’ve created opportunities for people; it has been a very natural, organic thing. Either you do the natural thing, which is to allow your company to expand, or you stop it," he states.
Bol of arc.light echoes Willis’ comments when she says that the main reason her shop would expand in the future would be to create editing positions for assistants and others. "We really want to have them stay with arc.light, and bring in their own creativity, their own vision to editing," she says.
A number of other people at editorial houses concur with Willis’ feeling that growth occurs naturally, rather than as a part of a larger plan. Jeanne Bonansinga, who opened Edit Sweet, Chicago, as a one-person shop in 1989, says she now has six editors at her outfit. "I remember when I started the company, my intention was that I would never have more than two editors," she laughs. (In addition to operating Edit Sweet, Bonansinga is also the national president of the Association of Independent Creative Editors.) "The ball starts rolling and sometimes it just keeps rolling. We are as big as we need to be right now, and if we need to be bigger to accommodate business and our personnel, we’ll continue to push forward."
Bonansinga also points out that technological changes have made it possible for boutiques to offer services they wouldn’t have previously been able to supply. "We offer more services in terms of graphic design and completion in the offline process than any boutique would have in the past," she says. Edit Sweet’s recent work includes spots for Oldsmobile, cut by Jan Maitland, and Illinois Tourism, edited by Tim Kloehn.
State Of Mind
Larry Bridges, president/editor of Red Car, thinks of his company as "a boutique that has achieved a brand status. An editorial boutique is generally defined as an environment where a client has a one-to-one relationship with the editor. What we try to do to maintain that on a larger scale is to have no bureaucracy; no administration other than the managing director and producers."
Despite Red Car’s numerous offices and editors—there are 30 on staff at the various sites—Bridges says there is not that much difference between his shop and a one-person operation. (Red Car also recently entered into a relationship with eight London-based editors for U.S. representation. Five of the cutters are from OBE Partnership, London, with the remaining three being Sam Sneade of Sam Sneade Editorial; Mark Alchin of Ruthless; and Christophe Williams of Derek Williams Editorial; all three shops are in London.) "If you went to a boutique, you’d see five people: the receptionist, the runner, the editor, the producer and the assistant editor," he says. "When you come into a Red Car office, you see the producer, the editor, the assistant editor and the runner, and that’s all you see. So it’s the same thing." Recent credits include a three-spot package of Ford ads comprising "You’ve Got Mail," "Fight Club" and "The A-Team," all of which were directed by Robert Logevall of Bruce Dowad Associates, Los Angeles. Jonathan Del Gatto of Red Car, Los Angeles, edited the commercials.
When Bridges refers to a conventionally sized boutique he might be thinking of a place like Bob ‘n Sheila’s Edit World in San Francisco. The shop has five editors, including founding partners Bob Spector and Sheila Sweeney, who opened shop in ’94.
When asked to define a boutique, Sweeney says, "Years ago, production companies had editorial in-house. Then the editors from those companies sprang off and started up their own companies—which was, at the time, the true meaning of the boutique editorial company. Now what it’s grown into today are companies like ours, where there are three or four editors."
Editors at Bob ‘n Shelia’s are encouraged to take on non-spot jobs on the side, but the shop mostly cuts commercials; a recent package being Tech TV’s "Loft" and "Counter," helmed by Brent Thomas of Green Dot Films, Santa Monica, out of Tonic 360, San Francisco, and cut by Sweeney. (Tech TV is a television network and Web site dedicated to technology.) "I think it’s very important to keep your focus," notes Sweeney. "It’s a very competitive climate right now for commercial editorial. A lot of new shops are opening all the time. If you’re not attentive to what your business is, you can lose sight of it."
Sweeney thinks the number of editors at her shop is just right. "I like the size that it is; you can be close with the people who work for you. I don’t want it to turn into a factory environment," she explains. "It would be a very simple thing to staff up with a few more editors and take on more projects. Maybe that’s where the boutique aspect comes into it—I like the feeling of a family. Your editors get personal attention from you, and the clients do too."
Steve McCoy, president of FilmCore, says his company, which opened for business in ’74 in Los Angeles, and then launched a San Francisco office 20 years later, isn’t a boutique in the classic sense. "Part of the reason why we’re not still a so-called boutique is that none of the principals ever put their names on the door," says McCoy. "We always really wanted it to be identified as a creative company, and not embodied as an individual. I think that a lot of editing companies, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, are at the behest of the owner. This is not the only reason why some boutiques stay boutiques, but a lot of companies really just want to stay small in size because [the owners] want them to always be their babies.
"I always viewed FilmCore as being as strong as its people," continues McCoy. "We’re very sensitive to the fact that we’re a service company. Anyone can buy Avids and rent space and do this from a hardware/logistics point of view. It’s really the talent and the support that make the difference. We don’t take our clients or our staff for granted. One of the ways that we actually grew was by sharing our clients with developing talent. And in turn, talent within our company has done that with other [up-and-coming] talent."
Like Willis at Crew Cuts and Bonansinga at Edit Sweet, McCoy describes his company’s growth process as natural: He wanted to accommodate people moving up from the ranks. "We’ve really tried to have a nurturing, supportive environment. I put that at the top of why we grew to a larger company," McCoy explains. "We didn’t have a goal in terms of billing or volume or editing rooms. Our goal was to try to give everyone the best shot we could. In doing that, we became bigger." Recent jobs include Nike’s "Horror," directed by Phil Joanou of Villains, bicoastal and Chicago, for Wieden+ Kennedy, Portland, Ore, and edited by Paul Norling of FilmCore, Santa Monica.
Charles Day is founder/partner at Lookinglass, which, like FilmCore, has two offices. "[Lookinglass is] very much a boutique. I think being a boutique is a matter of perspective and focus," contends Day. "In terms of the vernacular, which is understood by the industry, anyone who focuses on the craft of film editing is a boutique. I think that size may play a role in that definition, but I think that size is a secondary issue compared to focus of business." The popular Budweiser "Whassup" campaign, directed by Charles Stone III of Storm Films, Brooklyn, N.Y., for DDB Chicago, was cut by editor Livio Sanchez out of Lookinglass’ Santa Monica office.
Lookinglass was opened in Chicago in ’95 by founder/president Christine Tardio and Day; the company opened an outpost in Santa Monica in ’98. The third partner at Lookinglass is David Brixton, partner/editor. Talking about the expansion, Day says, "I think it is possible to grow too large in any one location and lose your focus on the craft of editing. You can maintain that sort of focus and still be a broad company in terms of how many different places you choose to do business.
"Obviously L.A. provides you with the very best opportunities to create lasting relationships with directors as well as agencies," he continues. "And there is access to the finishing business and the postproduction world that I think broadens editors’ perspectives."
Developing relationships, especially with directors, goes back to Day’s and Brixton’s European backgrounds—both are from London. "We wanted to make sure that we were giving the editors access to the best quality of work and the best quality of relationships. We have a very European sort of sensibility. We’ve always believed that relationships with directors, as well as relationships with agencies, are fundamentally important to developing editors’ careers."
"What’s interesting about America is that every marketplace is so different," states Day. "To be a complete editor, you need to understand and experience as many of those differences as you possibly can. We’ve always thought that moving talent, whether it’s editors, assistants, or even producers, from market to market made us the most well-rounded company we could possibly be."g
