Scott Sheriff
Forum Replies Created
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“Let’s remember that Apple’s business model is to use software to sell hardware. They’re thinking about all the MacPro they’re going to sell to push all this real time and background render to the max as we aim for the fastest possible workflows on impossibly tighter client deadlines (and tighter budgets).”
There is no free lunch. No transcoding for long GOP formats takes horsepower. 64 bit, and using all the cores is great. Unless you don’t have a lot of cores to start with.
All that background rendering is going to kill all those that cheaped out and didn’t buy the biggest, baddest machine they could get.
Snow Leopard means all those non-Intel machines are boat anchors.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Walter Biscardi kicks ass and doesn’t stop to take names.
He is tweeting the new FCP hi-lites from the super-meet.
https://twitter.com/walterbiscardiScott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
To all my colleagues:
Great discussion, with as much diversity as the industry itself.
I wish us all much good fortune despite my never ending doom and gloom attitude.
Just remember this debate started over not letting the tool define who you are as an editor. And I doesn’t matter what Apple, Avid or any vendor does. If you’re an editor today, you’ll still be one tomorrow.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Walter S,
Every time anyone points out the 800 pound gorilla in the room (either here, Business and Marketing, or Art of Edit) of low rates, and over-saturation of the workforce, somebody pipes up with how their talent and story telling skills are going to stop this from happening.
My point is simply all those businesses that cater to the higher end market of story tellers are dropping out of business for what seems to be lack of demand. And the trend seems to be towards cheap run ‘n gun productions where story telling isn’t at a premium. So I see that argument as something of a straw man, and not any disrespect for anyone’s skills.
It just doesn’t seem like there is enough demand for ‘story telling’ to support a million plus editors at a traditional wage.
I get that Bob Z is super busy. But as you point out, he is busy selling/installing gear, not editing. Walter B, Shane, David and the rest of the big guns have plenty of work. How about the rest of the million plus FCP users? Is everybody getting as much work as they want? Getting the best rate?
Great debate, no doubt. Would make a better panel discussion. The dynamic of the thread doesn’t convey the true spirit of this discussion.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Phil,
“Fast food hasn’t sent every restaurant out of business just because their product is cheaper and faster, a lot restaurants survive very successfully because their is a profitable market in serving a quality dining experience to people that can see the value in paying a premium for excellent cuisine served in a wonderful environment by a friendly waiter / waitress.”I’m guessing you’re not in America. My inlaws are in the food biz here in the states and your statement is 180 degrees out of phase with our reality.
Here is a paragraph from an article I pulled from one of the trade mags they get:The total number of restaurant locations in the United States shrunk during the past year, as smaller chains and independents in particular had difficulty weathering the economic storm.
The hardest-hit categories were fine-dining independents, which saw unit counts fall 7 percent. Smaller family-dining chains were close behind, with a 6-percent drop in locations among chains of between 50 and 99 units and a 5-percent drop in locations among chains that numbered between 100 and 499 locations.
Restaurants have been battling such economic pressures as slowed sales from reduced consumer spending and increased operating costs, especially for commodities, as well as higher rent and labor expenses.
The largest posted unit growth was a 1-percent uptick in quick-service locations and family dining, growth remained flat.
The sky may not be falling where you are at, but it looks like it is here.If you think there is this huge demand for quality then why are all the giant post houses closed? Why is Hollywood seeing a 25% drop in location shoots and a 50% decrease in feature production? Prop houses, labs, rental companies are closing left and right. For every quality high production value drama produced, there are10 contest shows, 15-20 cheap reality shows and another 20 cheap ‘how-to’ shows.
Five years ago you could have never got a green light for a show like ‘Storage Wars’, or ‘Hoarders’. Now shows like this not only get aired, but produce 3-5 clones each within a month of their premier. There are dozens of channels that air nothing but these type of shows.
For everyone that keeps going on and on about quality, and storytelling why are those traits not dominating the market if that is what is supposedly in demand?Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Ron,
“That is why we use two or more hard drives to back up our work. Not scary at all.”Ron, no disrespect but that is not archiving. That is backing-up, and at best only a short term solution. HD’s can die, be damaged, become corrupt, or be stolen. They can also become obsolete.
What do you do when they are full? Pull them and store them somewhere? If you do that, they need to be spun up at least every six months. Every time you do that you risk damage or corruption. A small risk, but it is still there.
While tapes do not have an infinite life, most will be able to sit in proper storage undisturbed for decades and still play back reliably.
A quick look at people that are serious about archiving material like museums, banks and government agencies all use tapes not HD’s.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Zane,
“You cannot be serious. Think about it a little, use your head.”I’m as serious as a heart attack. When the client can shoot and edit his own stuff, why does he need you?
Did the fact that professionally printed business cards (or whatever) looked better than DIY done stuff keep print shops in business?
This business is transitioning from an art or craft, to nothing more than an ordinary job, to something as common as shooting your own stills.
You can think your mad skillz can magically stop this trend if you want to.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Rob,
“It probably will become just as common, but I don’t think it will pay the same. You still have to know how to tell a story to be a good editor. As we all know, simply having the software doesn’t make you good at it.People aren’t better writers just because they have Microsoft Word…”
There is some truth to that. But the reality seems to be that standards have significantly been lowered in the past 5-7 years. At the same time so have rates.
Your example of Word is only partially correct. I agree that having easy access to Word didn’t make everyone that has it the next Stephen King. But what it did do is kill thousands of neighborhood print shops, and lower wages for the few remaining employees. It also lowered wages and eliminated jobs for high skill secretarial employees. The digital camera and photoshop is another example. It didn’t hurt Annie Leibovitz, but Kodak and the millions of film developing shops, and camera stores felt the market decline. And there are certainly fewer ‘no name’ professional photographers today, then ten years ago. And the survivors are making less money.
To see this happen time and time again, and say it won’t happen to us is living in denial.
Right now there are a few well established guys making the majority of the money in this business. And everyone else is working for wages that could be had at any no skill job, if they are working at all.
That is in sharp contrast to ten or more years ago.
Your statement of “It probably will become just as common, but I don’t think it will pay the same.” is just not how it works. And an objective look at average wages and rates show either a flat line, or a decline depending on the market. The laws of supply and demand don’t care what version of FCP you have, or how good you edit. When there is a glut of workers in any industry, the majority suffer from loss of work, and low wages. And there is a glut of workers in this industry, and more coming every day.
The writing is on the wall. Some will choose to ignore it for various reasons, mostly ego. But for the average person in ‘the media’, in five years this business is going to be just another job, and that is probably a best case scenario.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
Dave,
“Well, here’s the conundrum with that: how are you going to ARCHIVE that footage when the project’s done?
I’d presume you’d want to keep it, and your editing system probably doesn’t have infinite, bulletproof storage.”That is one of the downsides of tapeless. For some folks it doesn’t matter because they don’t need to save their stuff.
I look at the cost of a archive system, vs the cost and self-archiving aspect of shooting tape and for me shooting tape is a clear winner.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed… -
“I learned on AVID Media Composer 6.5.3 in 1997. I am the kind of person who constantly hones his workflow, and my AVID workflow was razor-sharp. To that end, when I was forced to start using Final Cut, in Final Cut Pro version 2 (before “Studio” existed), I hated it. Eventually though, I stopped trying to run it like an AVID, honed a very different workflow, and became a Final Cut Studio devotee. I have used it exclusively for years now. After tomorrow’s announcement, however, I suspect my biggest question will be:”
I don’t get why you let the software define who you are as an editor?????
You sound like an equipment operator, not an editor.
If Apple goes out of business tomorrow, I’ll still be cutting. I was editing long before NLE’s came along, and will still be an editor on the next thing that comes along.
And if FCS goes the way of dinosaurs, so what? Maybe I’ll still be using FCP. I have a version that works, is stable, and does what I need. If some unseen thing comes along I have to do that my system won’t work on, then I’ll worry about “what if”.
And the way this industry is going, in five years it won’t matter anyway because this type of work will be as common as knowing how to use a word processor. And will probably pay the same.
For now, I’d rather spend my time shooting good footage and editing.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…