-
From a business point of view, can I justify the purchase of an Avid adrenaline instead of an FCP system? Discussion
-
[Samuel A. Martin] “To be frank with you I don’t care really that much about the editors (I am talking purely as a business man here and not as a colleague, so don’t get me wrong) and whether they like the fact I might go FCP or not”
Samuel,
I think this statement could be your downfall. Editing kit is getting so cheap that editors are buying it in numbers. This puts them in direct competition with you. What do they have that you don’t? – the skill to work it.
Where are you going to go to get a brochure designed? A graphic designer right? Not a man with a Mac who doesn’t care what freelancers he hires.
However I’m all for you and similar companies buying FCP as it will probably mean I can put my rates up.
Peter
In Paris editing The French Open for ESPN
-
Hi Peter, I think you have got me wrong (may be I didn’t choose the right words). It is not that I don’t care about the editors, which I do. I am thinking this problem from a business mentality, purely as a business decision. I can’t allow anything else to distort my decision. I am a business man but I also work as an editor as a trade. But this decision is purely financial. I have very good Avid editors at the moment that I would be gutted to lose, especially 2 of them. However this cannot interfere in this decision, a business decision and that is why I am asking around people’s thoughts and opinions.
What I meant by what I said is that great editors are not just something limited to Avid. I know 2 really good editors that cut on FCP and would be willing to come onboard. My avid editors will have to make a decision as to whether they want to switch and learn FCP or go and I cannot based my decision on this or that person saying they will or won’t.
I hope this makes my words a little easier to understand.
Sam
-
Samuel,
OK, I now understand, but I think your business model from Avid days is crumbling fast and the figures don’t extrapolate. As I said, kit is getting so cheap these days people are buying rather than renting – look at the scary post from Nick B above!
Pure business angle? Get into a part of TV where you cant do 60% of it on a laptop. Studio, OB or specialist service. Either that or own a bar.
Peter
In Paris editing The French Open for ESPN
-
‘look at the scary post from Nick B above! ‘
LOL !
I was being provocative !!
However i would imagine 99% of pro freelance editors will within the next year own an edit system Avid XPRO or FCP (x vtr)
Q How can a hire company compete with an editor with there own kit, i would hope ‘the client’ would prefer to hire the editor + own kit rather than make the editor edit on hire kit.
Should the editor charge for a ‘basic system’ ?
You could say that as a ‘tradesman’ the client would assume i come with the tools of the trade if i hire a plumber i assume he will turn up with the tools and he wont charge me extra for the use of his tools (at the rate plumbers charge i should think not !) that may happen in freelance editing.
At the London show one place had an offer of
Apple G5 Dual 2.0GHz with 2Gb RAM
Final Cut Studio
23inch Apple Cinema Display
G raid 320GB
DecklinkCardNot bad SD system apart from maybe low storage
Price
-
[NICK B] “However i would imagine 99% of pro freelance editors will within the next year own an edit system Avid XPRO or FCP (x vtr)
“Count me in as the 1%, SDI Grade 1 monitor too. If you are doing ‘online’ you still need all the ancillary kit. My PPM’s were
-
[NICK B] “he problem as i see it for the ‘lone freelancer with kit’ is the lack of back up that he needs, hire companies should look at that side of the business ie looking after the needs of freelance editors. “
Nick – this is a good point. In the ad world, almost every one of my agency clients has at least 1 FCP system in-house. What used to be good revenue for us in business ptiches, animatics, etc., is now all being done in the agency by agency producers. So, what do we do? What does the ‘lone freelancer’ or agency need?
Infrastructure. Machines, scopes, decks, replication, etc.,. So now, instead of getting revenue off of the boring biz ptich and the like, it has shifted to up rez, ingest, DVD’s, etc. The expensive part of the business these days is in the ‘goo’ that goes around the cheap editing systems. That is one avenue that established companies can still leverage into revenue.
my humble 2 cents.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
Greybox, LLC
Richmond, VA USA
http://www.greybox.cc -
Mark, your points are valid and well taken. However, I don’t believe the company you’re involved with is a business catering to outside clients. You don’t have to be concerned with work coming in from outside editors working on whatever system they’re working on, nor do you have to be concerned with client perception of what it is you do and how you do it. When you have a closed shop, basically an “in house” situation, you can do whatever you want because everything is set up for that one, homogeneous system. When you have a business that takes in outside work, compatibility, speed, flexibility, and efficiency are primary. If I were setting up an in house editing unit, I might very well go the same route you did. If, however, I was setting up a business to cater to network television programs (the vast bulk of which are cut on Avid systems, regardless of the current hype) and/or commercial clients, I would likely go with Avid for all the reasons I mentioned previously.
-
Scott thats right, you need to provide the infrastucture, the traditional post house has that but does not realy want to help the editor or producer who is not using their expensive edit rooms.
The modern business model maybe
Digitize rushes onto removable drives ‘ready to edit’ for the editor to take away, extra rushes that come in late could be sent at low quality offline over the internet and full quality sent via blue ray dvd next day.
A safety net provided of a back up system if total failure of the editors /producers system.
Final quality tech check to master tape
make dvd’s vhs etc.Tomorrows facility may be just a giant machine room, any format in any format out with a massive server sitting in the middle which you can talk to over the internet but the facility will have few if any edit rooms or editors (just a thought)
Anyway whatever happens the kit might be cheap but the work people have todo to make a video has not gone away !
-
>would you say that all the points you mentioned before justify a >$30000/40000 (depending on trade-in offers) price difference between them?
Any answer to a question like that requires context. If you were a post house serving high end episodic television programs, or support for feature editorial and previews, the answer would likely be yes, because you would have a very, very hard time convincing these clients that you can be as efficient on a Final Cut system in finishing their Avid-cut, 24 frame material, as you could on, say, a Symphony (if you were SD, not likely today) or even a DS, at an even higher cost of entry. If you are serving a different clientele, one that isn’t quite so tied to any particular offline system, it would be a different scenario in which the answer to that question might be different.
My point is that if you were to listen to the statements being made here, not surprisingly they seem to indicate that people here favor Final Cut, for various reasons, and feel that anyone who chooses anything else, particularly something more costly, must be either blind or dumb, because, after all, why spend more when you can spend less? I think you and I know that on a purely business level, it’s not that simple. Things that might on the surface appear equal are not always equal.
-
jerry-
one exception to your thoughts on FCP vs. Avid. yes, there probably are 10 FCP editors out there now to 1 avid but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. anyone with a brain and some computer acumen can learn how to edit in FCP or Avid but a much smaller number of people are storytelling artists. And a talented editor can work on any box-it’s all just bells whistles and shortcut keys.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up