FCP rumors fly; postproduction takes another blow
Posted by DocumentaryTech on April 6, 2011 · 5 Comments
Weaving two different stories together here, in that rumors are afoot from Pro Video Coalition that Apple is about to make a major announcement about a new Final Cut Pro that will represent a quantum leap.
At the same time, a Wall Street Journal piece lists “Video Postproduction Services” as one of the “Top Ten Dying Industries,” along with record stores, photofinishing services, and formalwear rentals. Postproduction services are tagged with 43 percent negative growth from 2000 to 2010, and forecast for the same in the next five years.
Remember postproduction houses, those nerve centers for local filmmaking, with their unattainably expensive equipment that even renting by the hour would put you into hock? Apple, Avid, Sony and others have made video editing accessible, both in terms of the size of the package and the cost at which it comes.
And, perhaps sadly, all those college students learning to edit video on laptops, who may have set their sights on the postproduction jobs their laptops and FCP have both prepared them for and diminished.
As we discussed with a commenter a few posts back, we wonder if there is a place in the field to take the place of postproduction houses in one crucial area – wisdom. Editing on laptops means we all work in our different rooms; the social and educational nature of the postproduction environment was at a time not unlike what Matthew B. Crawford writes about in his excellent book “Shop Class As Soulcraft,” as it related to so-called “speed shops” for car and motorcycle enthusiasts – the notion of initiates. When the 16-year-old kid who bought the muffler in the front of the shop got to go around back and install with a grizzled mechanic’s gruff supervision, wisdom was passed on.
Saving the community moments of postproduction houses while losing the equipment/software aspect seems a bit stalled. We’ll see if something new emerges on the WSJ’s top ten growth industries.
What about the internet? There was a time where if you wanted to learn this stuff you either went to school or swept the floors at a production company, or both. Those were also the ways to meet other people who had the same interests and passions as you. Now you can go online and learn from blogs, tutorials, and discussion forums, find people to collaborate with, etc. Now that the post house is your house you can practice the stuff you’ve been learning whenever you want, as much as you want, alone or with those you’ve found online. And you can share your work with the world, get instant feedback and fold it immediately back into the next project. You have a massive pool of resources and community at your fingertips – and the learning process becomes one of hands on experimentation and rapid iteration. You always lose something in a transition from one way of doing things to another, but I’d argue that we’ve gained far more than we’ve lost, at least on the macro level. If your business is running a post house, on the other hand, the future’s not looking bright…
Evan
Yes, you’re absolutely right – I’d like to think blogs such as this are at least a nod toward that (although I’m no guru). What’s missing is that face-to-face. As an example, no idea where you reside. Let me know and I’ll buy you a beer at a DocumentaryTech meetup. Can’t do that on the internet!
The “post house” of the past may be endangered, but is that a bad thing? The costs associated with all the gear and the staff to operate it was huge, and that was also a huge expense for a filmmaker. Now that nearly everything you need is in a software package that you can afford and run on your own computer that “overhead” is greatly diminished and you can afford to be your own editor. ?That is good and bad. I always liked working with an editor, I found it a very stimulating experience, unfortunately with the budgets I am now working with I bought my own system and have to do all my own post. Post is very time consuming, and expensive, but I look at it as a two part process now. I have to synch and log all my footage, put together an assembly cut, then rough cut myself. For cheap jobs I will have to finish it as well, but for jobs with a “post-budget” I can take a drive and go to someone more experienced than myself and get a better fine cut.
I have spoken with two friends recently who are full time editors and they use outside vendors as well; grading or coloring is a specialty that they generally farm out. I am sure advanced CG using Aftereffects or another package is another sub-contractor that can be hired by the project. Music, that was always a specialty service. The “post-house” of the past may be on the way out, but there will be a need for collaboration with specialty artists who have their own companies to finish a film at a high level.
Work that is done on a tight schedule may still need the “post-house” environment; commercials and episodic television come to mind, it is more convenient to have everything in one place for a producer meeting a dead-line; but for independent filmmakers, documentarians, etc doing much of your own work and subbing out the parts you are not good at is more efficient and perhaps more creative as well. I have found editing my own footage has helped me to make sure I get all the elements on set I need for post, because I will be the one complaining to myself for forgetting to shoot it!
The ability for insomniac filmmakers to work through their edits at 3 am, or jump in between meetings to edit a sequence is something unimaginable not very log ago. On the other hand some of the post houses were willing to lend equipment to young filmmakers gratis to try to build community and try to (eventually) get their business. It really is a different ball game.
….Postproduction may not be the most glamorous sector of the film industry but in the United Kingdom it is one of the most important revenue generators.According to industry sources postproduction which includes everything from sound visual effects and editing to dubbing and coloring brings in more than 100 million 160 million annually.The figure represents about one-third of the estimated annual revenue of the British film industry as a whole according to industry experts.Additionally current information from U.K. government-backed research body Skillset shows that more than 7 000 people are employed across 150 companies at any one time in the sector.The state of postproduction is currently being analyzed and researched by the British Film Commission for a report to the Film Council. It is not an off-the-shelf business soft- and hardware-wise and it takes a lot of investment to keep up. The Mills withdrawal caused other players to worry that it might send out a negative message about an industry that is by most accounts on the cusp of expansion. On the surface it seems to be a strange decision for the Mill because this year looks set to be an extremely buoyant one for postproduction houses in London says Double Negative co-founder Matthew Holben.