Before teaming up with bicoastal Lost Planet in March of 2002, executive producer Betsy Beale worked with TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, for two years. It was during that time as an agency producer that she collaborated with Lost Planet editors Hank Corwin and Paul Martinez on the famous Fox Sports campaign (“Nailgun” cut by Corwin, “Leaf Blower” and “Boat” edited by Martinez) promoting Major League Baseball, which racked up a Cannes Lion, an AICP Show Best Campaign and an Emmy nomination (for “Nailgun”). The experience taught her how an editorial company can be what she describes as “a great partner in the process.”
That’s why a few years later, when she had an opportunity to bring her agency experience to the mix at Lost Planet and help to make the shop an even greater partner, she couldn’t resist.
“When I joined Lost Planet, it was a company with a stellar reputation editing and I thought it was my role to enhance the client experience at Lost Planet, to raise the level of service here to help agencies’ producers with the editorial and post production challenges they face every day,” Beale says. “I think my experience as an agency producer and client at Lost Planet really helped. I knew what it was like on ‘the other side’ and I was already familiar with all of the editors here.”
She explained that the challenges facing agency producers in post include tighter budgets; faster schedules; producing for mediums other than TV, such as cinema, the Internet, cell phones, screens on airplanes, etc.; and producing projects in HD.
“As a company we have responded to these challenges by sending editors on location where they can edit on a laptop while the agency is shooting; sending editors to cities outside of New York and Los Angeles to edit in order to help work with agency budgets and schedules; and forming an alliance with a European company (WORK editorial in London) to help service our international clients and U.S. agencies working with London-based editors. We will also be doing HD online sessions in house to help clients who need to deliver their projects in HD.”
Beale is not alone in transitioning from the agency side to edit house management. With more editing houses popping up, there are more opportunities to make the switch. “It is definitely becoming more prevalent,” she says. “I have heard of a bunch of people I know who have switched over. An agency producer has been a client. So they understand what clients need, what they like, what the pressures are on our clients inside the agency from their clients. So it is a very natural transition to try to form a post company that can really serve a client’s needs.”
Rob Van, executive producer of Butcher Editorial, Santa Monica, Calif., says it is comforting for agencies to work with edit houses managed by someone who’s been in the trenches like them. “If there is a mutual understanding of what’s going on, I think it just makes it easier,” says Van, who came from Fallon, Minneaopolis.
For example, he was working with an agency producer and he got to the point in the cuts where he was ready to work with the agency’s sound house. “She said, ‘We don’t really have one on this. And the spot really demanded a really good sound designer and music, and that was really a mistake that had occurred in her preparation,” Van explains.
“I made a lot of calls with a lot of music houses and sound designers that I still knew when I was an agency producer. I just kind of called in a favor. We seamlessly corrected the problem and they’ve been back a couple times since. They know they can count on us.”
Stephanie Apt, president of Final Cut, New York, says her agency experience at J. Walter Thompson, New York, gave her awareness of how agency producers would like to work given the opportunity.
“I thought increasingly that we were working with directors all over the world and that there was an interest in the editors that were working with those directors,” Apt says. “I noticed that it is hard for an agency to have its people in another country for an extended period of time when they come to the editing phase of post production.”
When she decided to head up London-based Final Cut’s New York expansion, it was to provide a structure wherein its editing talent could travel to the United States to be available to their director clients, as well as to American directors.
“I thought it was a very interesting business opportunity to be able to bring that talent to the United States and to make it possible to be able to work with editors from the U.K .and subsequently from other countries,” she said. “I am absolutely ecstatic I made the switch.”
Tommy Murov, executive producer at the New York office of bicoastal Spot Welders. is also thrilled he made the transition. He brings with his agency experience at Fallon, Minneapolis an ability to anticipate, giving Spot Welders a competitive edge.
“Coming from the agency side and its process, I understand the many tiers my clients have to report to. I can help them prepare for different scenarios, such as what happens if we don’t get client approval when we expect, can we proceed with our sessions? Without having to bother my client, I can make scheduling alternatives, have my staff ready to work when the client needs or call my vendors to let them know the variables that might come into play so that whatever does happen, we’re prepared to serve the agency. Then we can act without much notice knowing that we’re prepared.”
Likewise Sybil McCarthy-Hadfield, former senior producer at TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles, who joined Los Angeles-based Jigsaw as executive producer in April, is utilizing her ability to anticipate clients’ needs and help them problem solve on a project the company is working on for Rolex.
“We’re finishing this in October, but since we are shooting in HD we are already having meetings with specialists in HD and HD sound, making sure we understand how we are going to cut the job. It’s being a week or two ahead of a job. It’s a skill that really helps to translate and help my clients.
“There’s an expectation from our clients that we understand all the technical aspects of HD and what’s coming next. So that’s been a challenge for me. As an agency producer you have to understand it on a certain level but you don’t have to be able to explain it to a client, and I think on this side you have to be right there next to it.”
Helping agency producers deal with the ramifications of HD is something Sue Dawson, executive producer at The Whitehouse’s Santa Monica shop, is happy to do since she knows they already have so much on their plate from her stint at Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
“By the time the agency gets here, they have been so beaten. We get to be nice and take care of them. Even in the bidding process we ask if they are going to finish HD. You’ve got to make the producers ask those questions and make them get information because it does affect your post,” says Dawson. “I think because they are pulled in so many directions that they aren’t realizing this.”
For Dawson, the most satisfying part of the transition from the agency side to postproduction is seeing young assistants grow and become young editors. “In the last year The Whitehouse promoted seven assistant editors to editors. My role is nurturing that, and helping them along and making sure once it happens they are supported with sales and a great reel. At an agency you are helping the director and the writer see their vision and it’s about the spot. Here it’s still about the work, but it’s also about the people. It took me a long time to figure that out.”
While her career move proved to be rewarding, Dawson suggests talking to people who have made the transition before switching because things are not always simpler on the post side.
“I think there is a perception that the post side is easier and it’s not,” adds McCarthy-Hadfield. “In this climate right now, it is much more competitive and any executive producer who jumps from the agency side has to be invested in the sales and growth of the company and going after forms other than commercials. They have to be open to younger talent and to longer format that doesn’t have a lot of money. And then the challenge when you broaden yourself, which you have to, is keeping the brand strong, staying creative and having your company run profitably.”
The End of The “Rust” Criminal Case Against Alec Baldwin May Unlock A Civil Lawsuit
The conclusion of a criminal case against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer clears the way for a related civil lawsuit by relatives of the deceased woman and efforts to depose the actor under oath, attorneys for plaintiffs in the civil suit said Tuesday.
At a news conference in Los Angeles, victims' rights attorney Gloria Allred said that the parents and younger sister of deceased cinematographer Halyna Hutchins were disappointed that prosecutors won't appeal the dismissal of an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. The criminal charge against Baldwin was dismissed halfway through trial in July on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.
Hutchins died shortly after being wounded during a rehearsal in the movie "Rust" in October 2021 at a film-set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Baldwin, the lead actor and coproducer, was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when it discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
Allred said Hutchins' relatives are determined to pursue damages and compensation from Baldwin and "Rust" producers in New Mexico civil court, and want Baldwin to answer questions under oath in the proceedings. Hutchins' widower and son previously reached a separate legal settlement.
"With the withdrawal that was made public yesterday, we are now able to proceed with our civil case," Allred said. "Clearly, the rights of Alec Baldwin were protected, but the due process rights of the victims — Halyna Hutchins and her parents and her sister — were violated."
Allred said she's ready to prove that Hutchins had a close relationship... Read More