The democratization of post: the proliferation of tools like final cut Pro and after effects has enabled many new players to enter the post business. post's roundtable panel examines this trend's impact on their companies—and yours

Post, May, 2004 by Christine Bunish

POST: Do you think the democratization of the post industry due to lower-cost, professional-quality equipment (e.g., Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects) is helping or hurting the industry? Why?

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DOMINIC PANDOLFINO: "The 'democratization' of the post industry is changing the industry in irreversible ways, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. Change, like most things in life, has a double edge. For example, the fact that equipment is more affordable allows more people to be a part of the creative process, employing those people who otherwise might be excluded from the equation. This could have the effect of increasing overall productivity while allowing people who are working on low-budget jobs to be able to complete their projects.

"Where it may hurt the industry is that there will be many people who claim to be something they are not: every college kid looking for a job can now claim to be an editor. Additionally, many small, new boutiques are typically not equipped with the proper gear to always do what is necessary for the client. Furthermore, they don't always have the experience or expertise to do the job without creating a problem for the client. Established houses that expand into this [low-cost tools] arena may have an advantage because clients will be familiar with their work ethic and know what to expect."

KRISTIN O'CONNOR: "It's absolutely helping the industry. Today the business is more about creativity than conformity. It's about placing a higher value on the creative and having a critical mass of creative individuals rather than being a big organization with a lot of overhead. This model adds more stylistic flexibility to the marketplace."

RANDY MAGALSKI: "I wholeheartedly say it's helping the industry. When you have more players in the game, it's inevitable that you have more ideas and more innovation. The downside is that people don't have the big picture; they may have no idea how what they do will impact others further down the pipeline. But not knowing the rules sometimes is great. People who are more entrenched in the industry, and with the way things have always been done, don't tend to break the rules. But people outside the circle have always had different ways of approaching things."

BILL FORTNEY: "All in all, it's helping the industry. I know it's a concern when anyone can get access to really professional-quality equipment, but since we primarily represent creative editorial talent it's not an issue, as long as we have the best people managing projects. Lower-cost technology allows us to integrate some things to serve clients better and permits younger creative people to show what they can do sooner than they might have in the past. Barriers to entry used to be financial; now it's about talent and experience."

KIM TIERNEY: "It's actually expanding the industry by giving a chance to people who never thought they could get into the business because of the high price of technology. Is it taking work away from us? People who are buying Final Cut for their laptops probably weren't going to come here for Fire and Inferno sessions. But they're contacting us about providing other services for them like audio sweetening. These are people who never would have called us before."

POST: What has been your company's response to this trend?

O'CONNOR: "Greybox exists because of this trend. We have uncompressed Avid and Final Cut Pro suites and After Effects. Our senior editor and producer Scott Witthaus knows Avid and everything that goes into managing an edit really well while editor Devin Bousquet grew up on Final Cut. So we built our business model around both of them and really rockin' customer service. Some younger clients gravitate to Final Cut and others stay with Avid because Final Cut is still a new thing. We made a safe decision and an investment in the future by offering both platforms. Greybox just opened last year and we were extremely successful. It was interesting to see that our Final Cut/After Effects and uncompressed Avid Xpress Meridien rooms had equal billings."

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PANDOLFINO: "It's ultimately being welcomed in Nice Shoes and Guava. Our foundation is talent, experience, a conducive environment for creativity and the ability to deliver on time. Often, with lower-end equipment, the issue is throughput. We are looking forward to including that technology when needed or required and making those tools available to our own talent pool. We presently employ After Effects in all our graphics and editing rooms and have a sister company. Freestyle Collective, a design and branding company that works almost exclusively at this level. They are extremely talented and add a dimension to Guava and Nice Shoes that otherwise wouldn't exist. So we're able to integrate what Freestyle Collective does with Nice Shoes and Guava for greater flexibility and attention to cost."