The big news around Chicago lately is the merger of the Leo Group, which owns Chicago-headquartered agency Leo Burnett Co., and New York-based The MacManus Group. Tokyo-based Dentsu is the largest shareholder in the new entity, dubbed BDM, which is now the world’s fourth largest advertising company.
But all that’s new in the Chicago ad community isn’t confined to the agency arena. On a smaller scale, there are developments in the Windy City’s postproduction community on several fronts. First, two post houses have made considerable investments in high definition (HD) equipment that should position them well for the future. Second, Chicagoan Jeanne Bonansinga, editor/owner of Chicago-based creative editorial house Edit Sweet, was elected to a two-year term as national president of the Association of Independent Commercial Editors (AICE). "Chicago is seen as a smaller market than New York and L.A.; that’s why I think [my election to head the AICE] is significant," Bonansinga says.
Effecting Changes
Chicago-based Post Effects was the first post house in town to embrace HD. The shop now offers both full HD online finishing as well as HD production. Post Effects’ $1.5 million investment in high definition equipment included a Sony 7150 HD production switcher and DVE. The 7150 has the ability to switch between 1080/60I and 1080/24P. Other key components include HD-CAM 500 VTRs, an HD color corrector integrated into the switcher, an HD scan rate converter and the Sierra Design Labs 1.5 HD disk array. The Sierra is the heart of Post Effects HD graphics department; it permits users to interface with Discreet Logic, AfterEffects, Alias and other 3-D tools, and allows material to be output in HD.
Post Effects also bought several HDW-700A cameras and HD monitors. Its HD production offerings also include a HD Orad CyberSet. Post Effects’ president Mike Fayette was initially skeptical that HD would be a worthwhile investment. But, as he told SHOOT, he was persuaded after HD demo tests revealed that shooting and finishing material in the HD format—even after it was dubbed back into standard definition—resulted in a visibly improved picture.
The decision for Post Effects to make these investments was based in part on its clientele: One-third of its business comes from the corporate/industrial sector (the other two-thirds are evenly split among commercials, long form and television programming). Fayette says he’s found the corporate market to be the most receptive to the HD format. For its first job in HD, Post Effects edited a trade show video created by CVC Communications, a Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Chicago-based marketing firm specializing in corporate events, for its client CTD, a local distributor of audio/video equipment. Other projects include a corporate presentation piece for the U.S. Postal Service, created by Chicago-based marketing company Frankel & Co. The post facility also completed four HD spots—"Intro 1," "Intro 2," "Intro 3" and "Intro 4"—directed by Rick Thompson of RichmarC Productions, Indianapolis, for Angie’s List, a regional firm that supplies home services referrals, via Indianapolis-based Pearson Crahan Fletcher England.
Optimum Capability
Chicago-based Optimus is another postproduction house that’s significantly gearing up for HD. The company made the decision after attending the ’98 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, says Optimus president/partner Tom Duff. At that point last summer, Duff relates, he and others at Optimus were blown away by the sharpness of the image, and then committed to being a fully equipped HD shop within a year’s time.
"We came out of NAB in ’98 really excited about being a full hi-def shop," Duff says. "All the post houses are going to have to get there. Is the demand there yet? No. Is it going to happen anyday? Yes. What day, I don’t know. But when agencies call us up and say they need to do an HD spot, we can say we’re ready. Right now, we’re getting everyone mentally prepared, and physically experienced, in cutting in HD."
It’s taken them a bit longer than a year—Optimus is now slated to be HD-ready by Jan. 1, 2000. The process began last December when the shop took delivery on a Philips Spirit Datacine. In the last few months, it added a HD-equipped Inferno for HD graphics, which will be operated by editor Mike Ciacciarelli, and a Fire for online HD finishing, to be run by editor Mike Weber. "We’re essentially a hi-def shop now," Duff says. "We have the Panasonic D-5 VTR, all of the monitors and all the infrastructure—the routers [and] the Sony HD 7100 switcher. The last piece will be the [2K upgrade for] the daVinci color corrector, and that will be delivered in a few weeks."
Duff estimates the cost of the company’s HD investment to be nearly $4 million. He stresses that Optimus had to buy new telecine and graphics equipment to replace its outmoded gear. "It was time for us to upgrade and buy equipment anyway. So making the decision to go hi-def wasn’t that much more of a huge investment that we needed [to make] in order to stay competitive in standard-def. And we’re working on all three boxes—the Fire, Inferno and Spirit—in standard-def right now; it’s not like we bought equipment that’s just sitting around, not being used."
Optimus has not yet fielded any requests from agencies to do a full spot in HD. Up to now, the shop hasn’t really marketed its HD tools to anyone, relates Duff, as Optimus prefers to wait until its setup is complete. It hasn’t set a pricing structure yet; for the time being, it will work out costs on a job-by-job basis, although Duff observes that the increased cost of the gear—which runs around 30-50 percent higher than similar standard-def equipment—will likely be reflected on the rate card.
Optimus partner/colorist Craig Leffel isn’t troubled by the fact that for now, any spots he colorizes in HD may not be broadcast in high definition. When the D1 component digital format debuted around 10 years ago, Leffel says, "nobody ever saw those pictures [at their original quality] on the air. But all of us in the industry decided to make [D1] the choice because of quality.
"So many of my colleagues worry about whether HD is ever going to make it to air, or what it’s going to look like once it’s decoded," Leffel continues. "I try to stay away from that argument. We should concern ourselves with the highest quality image we can possibly make. Let everything else that’s going to happen to the image happen from there. If you start at the absolute top of what you can do, you’re in the best place you can be in."
"I don’t think enough agency people or advertisers have seen the [HD] pictures," Duff says. "I can’t help but get excited when I look at the pictures; they’re just so strikingly clear. To me, hi-def pictures look clearer than real life itself." Citing the HD broadcasts of ABC’s Monday Night Football and the upcoming Super Bowl on ABC, Duff thinks that sports advertisers will lead the charge into producing HD commercials.
He also believes that HD acceptance will occur like a domino effect: Once one major fast food, beer or cola advertiser produces a spot in HD, its competitors will follow. "I think that [for Optimus,] the spots will start to trickle in early next year," Duff says. "I think it’ll take off like wildfire."
Problems
Although things are looking up relative to increased HD availability in Chicago, the market is also experiencing a shakeout of sorts, starting with the closure of longtime Chicago post mainstay Skyview Studios, which had a troubled existence over the past year. A proposed purchase agreement with a Chicago businessman did not come to pass after he failed to come up with the necessary funding. The company’s equipment and assets are slated to be auctioned off in mid-December.
Company founder/editor Jack Tohtz launched finishing house Skyview 10 years ago. In the mid-’70s, he and former partner/editor David Szabo (who is now at Swell Pictures, Chicago) teamed to open Szabo Tohtz Editing as a creative cut shop. At one time, Skyview was regarded as one of the premiere Chicago post houses, but business declined over the years. Industry observers attribute its closure to a number of factors, including a perceived lack of key talent, an ill-advised physical expansion several years ago, and large overhead due to high rent.
Some also say that Skyview hadn’t kept up with the ever-changing business climate. For example, some of Skyview’s Chicago competitors—Avenue Edit and Cutters, among them—opened up West Coast branches to accommodate Chicago agencies who opt to edit and finish there. As Tohtz recently told SHOOT, he doubted whether the need existed for facilities like Skyview, which had multiple capabilities in almost every traditional area.
As for the aforementioned election of Bonansinga to head the AICE, which maintains local chapters in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Dallas, many industry executives share the sentiments of Tim McGuire: "I don’t think the AICE could have made a better choice." President/editor at Chicago-based post house Cutters, McGuire also served as president of the Chicago AICE chapter for the past two years.
Bonansinga, who was treasurer of the national AICE for the past two years, was nominated for the presidency by incumbent national AICE president John Palestrini, CEO of The Blue Rock Editing Company, New York, and by AICE national executive director John Held.
"I think that Jeanne is the right person to take us to the next level," McGuire says. "I think she has the respect of her peers; that, and her keen sense of diplomacy, should bode well for the national group. In the creative business you have a lot of strong personalities, and Jeanne has shown in the past that she can work with them."
Bonansinga’s mission, she explains, is to "unify the national editorial community to exchange ideas, and to broaden that by increasing membership and branching into smaller markets," such as Minneapolis, Detroit and Orlando, Fla.
"I think the sharing of information will trickle down to all of the local chapters," Bonansinga says, "and [it] can’t help but have an impact on the Chicago chapter as well. The more the AICE does on a national and a local level, the more it brings to the forefront the importance of the editor to our clients. I’m hoping that the strength of the organization as a whole will spotlight not only the Chicago editorial community, but the editorial community at large.
"Of course, we’d love to spotlight Chicago," Bonansinga adds. "It’s a postproduction mecca here. We do great work and lots of it. If my being the national president can help hit that home with our current clients, that’s great."i
