[John Grote, jr.]

I understand and agree with most of what has been said. That being said I am a damn good editor who has over the years honed my craft and my skills of story telling, wether its spots or long form. Along the way I have learned more editing systems then I had ever imagined, such is keeping up with technology, and in doing so I have become quite proficient in my After Effects skills. (As an aside I do love AE) I love AE for all the things I used to be able to do with a K-Scope (Okay, I know I dated myself on that one). But even then we had graphic designers or the agencies did and most of them still do. I have surrounded myself with very talented designers that I work with and trust and at the end of the day I do what I am good at doing.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Mark,

This is a little tongue and cheek posting, but you know as well as I do there are way to many video editorial job postings with what I said in the first post.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

I totally agree with Shane and Mark, it becomes pointless as it goes on.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Thank you for the reply. I work in the DC metro area and there seems to be a void all together.

I’m really not sure why we as a collective group in this country, do not seem to have some sort of Editor peer organization?

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Old guy, well not that old, but old in this business.
”
Too many arts schools, even the best ones, don’t teach you how to make a living with your craft. They don’t want to cross that line into ” trade” school. Shame on them,and on you for not demanding it. Just look at Columbia College’s course list. Any classes on the business side of production? I didn’t see any last time I looked. They are one of the top colleges to churn out working pros too!”

Yes colleges and trade schools alike are not teaching the basic fundamentals at all for the video world. Not in AVID or Final Cut, not in Photoshop, and sure as hell not in After Effects. Plus on top of that our industry has all but done away with the assistant position for almost all of the jobs in on the video side.

No more E2’s or even A2’s. So what we have now is no structure what so ever. We have people that have no idea or act like they have no idea that someone else may and probably will have to work on the project they are working on. It may be to add, fix, recreate or revise at some point what they have worked on or are working on and their organizational skills suck!!! They think they are the only damn person on the planet and act with complete and are oblivious to their surroundings. So when you are asked to fix or change something in their project, it takes hours just to figure out what the hell they did or better yet, “Oh yeah, I forgot it is on my hard drive at home.” REALLY, Well that is just great, but it doesn’t do me a hell of a lot of good sitting here wasting everyone’s time, because you thought you were they only damn editor on the planet!!!

Sorry for the rant there, but it is frustrating what our industry has become at this point. More flash than substance, but I do have many clients that actually do care about their projects and are willing to work within my rate range. I see some kids that have potential and talent and I try to foster and mentor them, just as the people I learned from did. But for the ones that think they know it all and think their crap doesn’t stink, guess what you won’t get a lick of help from me. I don’t have time for that arrogance, I know how good I am at my craft, but I don’t stick it under peoples noses or act like I am better. I have and continue to improve what I do because I know there are people much better than I am at what they do and would rather be humble and learn from them. This makes me a better editor and also one day I hope that I can return the favor.

In closing, lol, always wanted to say that. Our industry will always be forever in flux with new people and new technology, so make the best of it and no one would fault you for making a career change.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

My point is that I don’t have to go through these hoops with Red Giant or a lot of the other plugin makers. When I pay my money I get the codes/serial numbers in an email and I don’t have to take two extra steps to have the software work.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Shane is so right. Why, why, why does everyone think that there is a magic bullet for this craft? Why? Is it because for a couple thousand dollars you can purchase equipment? Really? Hell does that mean if I go out and spend a couple grand on a really nice fender strat that I can play like Eddie Van Halen?

People editing is a craft!!! It is a craft that needs to be honed like any other craft. Apprenticeships, watch other editors, flow, pacing, timing, nat sound, when to use an effect and when not too, how to save the client from themselves and most of all how to make the best product possible. Let me tell you, pushing buttons isn’t gonna cut it at all.

I see the pendulum swings back to quality creative work, so what that means is that clients are now realizing that there are button pushers and then there are editors who can craft a piece. And guess what they are starting to pay for that again.

So in the end there is no magic bullet or book for dummies. It takes some actual time and effort to learn the craft that a lot of us love so dearly and paid our dues from the creative people who came before us so that we became good if not better editors.

Cheers,

John

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Well the all the little guys and up to the bigger guys have had to conform to survive, so why haven’t the stations? 5 years ago you could have delivered a show to Discovery on Digibeta and supplied them with a DA88. The next year it changed to IMX 8 tracks of audio to do away with the DA88. The year after that HDCam and then HDCam SR. That is for the network you are suppling a show to and then don’t care how you get it there just get it to them in the format that they are “paying you to deliver in”.

These network stations that I am delivering spots to are being paid by the company I work for to air these spots in the correct HD format. It is not my clients responsibility to make 4 different flavors to supply to the big 4 to be broadcast. Last time I checked, 2009 is when the switch over to HD happened. I have had to update/upgrade my skills to excel in this industry and my clients have had to spend money to upgrade their facilities to move into the HD world. Then why should I or anyone else for that matter, care that the stations need to spend money to upgrade and get their act together?

We used to have standards and I’m not sure why we shouldn’t now still have them. Yes technology is ever changing, but National Geographic for example had to put a stop to having people shoot with the newest flavor of camera because the infrastructure isn’t capable of supporting the new codecs and most of the times the codecs haven’t even been written yet for them to work in any of the systems either AVID, FCP, Quantel, Media 100 or pick your poison.

Seems to me that at some point the stations need to take responsibility for what they should be airing. Stop making excuses for the sales guy, the traffic person or anyone else at the station. They, they need to do their damn job and know what the hell their station needs. That is complete an utter bullshit that they don’t take responsibility. And a lot of people let them get away with that. Screw that, as a professional I work to had to do it right the first damn time. My clients pay a good amount of money to have what they produced aired correctly. It is not my problem that the people at the stations are incompetent.

All I’m saying is as the end supplier to the stations, they have some onus to get their acts together and stop putting the responsibility of 25 different versions on the supplier.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Hey Guys,

The reason you are not getting a straight answer is they don’t have a damn clue themselves. Welcome to the HD world.

J. Grote, Jr.

[John Grote, jr.]

Mark, you are missing the point, the company that i work for, i.e. the production company as you are calling it, is also the company in this case, the media firm who is buying the time and spending the money to air the spots. So in my case the company I am working for is purchasing the media buy at the station. So we are spending the $250,000 to $500,000 to have the commercial air on their station.

You’d be surprised that I got all the way up to the VP of operations, so trust me I was able to rattle some cages. Also, I had to inform DG that the Pdfs that they were sending out were incorrect, because the tech people would rather have a ProRes (HQ) file and not an H.264. I found this out because the TE people at DG had rejected the spot because of the text being soft. After a conversation with their tech people, no wonder it was soft, they were up-converting to a ProRes (HQ) file.

J. Grote, Jr.