Democratizing the post process: if the digital revolution is complete, who won? Looks like the little guy

Post, Sept, 2004 by Ken McGorry

"Democratization" has become a growing buzzword--at NAB and then at SIGGRAPH the industry has been emphasizing that more people, even civilians in some cases, can learn to operate new, low-cost software systems and get into the post/digital content game. But just because software and hardware cost less doesn't mean we're not headed toward a video version of the "desktop publishing" bonanza that spawned so many unsavory newsletters 20 years ago.

Here's what a number of noted industry figures had to say about this trend.

STEPHEN KILISKY

Group Product Manager Adobe

www.adobe.com

POST: How has democratization changed the way the post industry works?

"In the early days of democratization, the quality and affordability of tools like After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator reduced the barriers to entry for doing high quality post production. However, because Moore's Law was still a few generations away from matching the processing power of dedicated hardware, a new way of working arose. Instead of working in a client-supervised session, the effects artist or motion graphics designer would have periodic check-ins with the client as the project developed.

"While this workflow emerged out of necessity, it was soon recognized by many designers as a preferred way of working because it empowered them to have more control of the creative process and provided more flexibility in the workflow. Clients also began to prefer it as it freed up more of their time and allowed them to deliver innovative results at a lower cost.

"The rise of the Internet and broadband fueled the democratization and growth of the "boutique" post house, as now clients sometimes never even met face-to-face with the designers.

"By 1999/2000 traditional post facilities, whose business model [and capital investment] was based primarily on client-supervised sessions, saw innovative work being done by these After Effects-based shops and took notice. Post facilities started setting up After Effects systems in back rooms and designers creating elements in After Effects sent them over the network to the Flame for final tweaking.

"As CPU processing power increased and technologies like RAM previewing, disk caching, OpenGL, network rendering and most recently grid rendering using X-Factor from Gridlron are incorporated into desktop products like After Effects, post shops now have the flexibility to allow the client to sit in on a session if needed.

POST: How is democratization changing the post business model?

"There is a trend away from charging per hour to charging per project. There appears to be a trend--except in film post--moving away from specialization. Today we are seeing an increase in the number of editors who first expanded into learning Photoshop to now doing bread-and-butter motion graphics and effects work as well. In the 'old' days, if you looked at a rate card, it was all about promoting the tools a facility offered as opposed to the talent behind the tools. This is changing, especially as the talent now has the option to be part of the democratization process and go out on their own."

RICHARD KERRIS

Senior Director

Pro Applications Marketing Apple

www.apple.com

"Democratization is real and it's changing the post production workflow in that a lot of smaller companies and a lot of independents are able to do things that are on par with the higher-end facilities. In the past, a groundbreaking movie with visual effects had to be done by a very massive post production facility because it required a lot of high-end hardware, software, users, artists and infrastructure that could support that. It was a major undertaking. But as we've seen, the prices of hardware have come down, as have the prices of great graphics. The software applications have really been what's led the democratization. We started with Final Cut, we've now got Motion. [Apple's Motion app lists at $299 and offers motion graphics with realtime previews, procedural behavior animation and Final Cut Pro HD integration.] Even Shake, our high-end compositor, is very cost-competitive in that high-end film space.

"The result is that you see work done by six- and eight-man shops in the same film that has work done by 300- or 400-man shops.

"It's not just [major] films. In television, independent film, the new wave that's upon us is that the talent that's out there does not have to be held back because they were not part of a large organization. Now they don't have to work on their personal projects using their employers' post system after hours. They can now, for under $5,000, have a turnkey Macintosh system with display and software and go make a movie.

"We started this with Final Cut Pro and taking very high-end technology and making it available at a very aggressive price. We feel the customer buys into the product and the product grows with them; from DV to SD to HD to film. With our support of FireWire and DVCProHD, this year at NAB we renamed our product Final Cut Pro HD and all our FCP 4.0

customers got the upgrade to FCP HD free. You shouldn't have to go out and get a brand new application. The software you used yesterday is the same you'll use tomorrow."