How these Windy City post houses had a profitable 2001 - Post News - post production companies in Chicago, Illinois - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Post, March, 2002 by Ruth K. Ratny

CHICAGO -- You can't blame Mike Fayette for grinning these days. His Post Effects had the best year ever in 2001 by growing 15 percent, and he anticipates a spike in the second quarter that should carry through to another good year. And Fayette is not alone in his outlook.

Owner/operators of Chicago's top, full-service post houses reported overall 2001 sales gains, albeit some slight, some grand, remarkable even to them considering the lengthy actors strike, a wobbling economy and the aftermath of Sept. 11.

"I'm optimistic," says Tim McGuire of Cutters, echoing a sentiment by the owner/operators of the "Big Six" post houses.

Full-service, long-established Avenue, Cutters, Filmworkers Club, Optimus, Post Effects and Swell, serving commercial production, had total estimated gross sales of $65 million in 2001.

Chicago, a $15 billion advertising market and the second largest in North America, is a strong and unfaltering post market. As its mega-billing agencies rebound and prosper, so do its post facilities.

Now, with business apparently pumping up, operators are discovering that the face of Chicago post production is evolving to respond to the faster-better needs of an advertising clientele under pressure.

"This means we have to reinvent ourselves and adjust," observes Del Hall of 23-year-old Del Hall Video, whose business is a mix of commercials and corporate. He believes the hey-day of post is over. "It's never going to go away," he concedes, "but its glory days have faded."

After a decade of exhausting multi-million-dollar equipment-buying sprees, the trick now is to find new ways to give clients reasons to work close to home.

Avenue, Chicago's top-billing post house with estimated sales of $17 million and a staff of 82, made the single largest facility-equipment investment last year when it spent $1.7 million for a new audio/sound design department. The new Foley stage, Chicago's second, has proven to be a popular addition and a source of new revenue.

"Pre-recorded sound effects don't do it for our clients, so we can now offer them the creation of sound effects," says Avenue operations manager Ed Huerta, a former agency producer who understands first hand the ever-increasing needs of his clientele. "If the spot calls for a man walking, we can determine how tall, how heavy how fast or slow he's walking and immediately create that exact sound," he says.

As a service resulting from its da Vinci 2K color corrector, Avenue and others with 2K have the ability to deliver prints. One company prices them at $1,500 per frame, while another charges $2,000 an hour.

Swell, the granddaddy of Chicago post, upgraded its Avids -- as did the others -- while Avenue and Cutters added Unity to send files to Santa Monica offices.

Optimus replaced its six Avids with Symphonies to use for finishing. "Clients are asking to see more, sooner," says Optimus president Tom Duff. "By using the Symphonies at the offline stage, we can provide more color more audio and be closer to the finished product at the rough cut stage," he says.

Duff is president of a five-person partnership that bought old-line Optimus six years ago. With its recent acquisition of Edit Sweet, an editing boutique, Optimus has gross sales of $14 million, a staff of 70 and a LA branch, called Co-Op. With expansion plans in mind prior to the Edit Sweet purchase last fall, Optimus bought the 32,000-square-foot Optimus building off Michigan Avenue.

Dell Hall points out, "The price of entry has changed: it is lower, and you don't need millions of dollars to go into business anymore."

Fayette also acknowledges the array of low-cost software that does the same job as the hardware that initially defined the post industry. "Back then, an Alias 3D system cost $500,000, now you buy an even better product for $5,000. With Final Cut Pro or a low-end Avid, you can install a $30,000 to $40,000 editing bay instead of the $1 million suites of earlier times."

Still, Fayette did not hesitate to plunk down $500,000 in 1998 for an Orad Cyberset Model 0 virtual set system that has more than paid for itself by having created the set for producer/narrator Bill Kurtis's A&E documentaries and other clients' shows.

An early HD proponent, in 2000 Fayette spent $1 million to build Chicago's only true HD editing room: an all-Sony 24p suite. Post Effects also branched out into cable programming and interactive games, finding these areas creatively stimulating as well as profitable.

The hope is that these areas outside of traditional post services will pay off as Chicago's post business continues to evolve.

Ruth L. Ratny is the former owner/editor of Chicago's Screen Magazine. ruthlratny@hotmail.com