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THE BRIEF: A post on post and an interview with Rooster
Tuesday March 01st 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
We’ll fix it in post. Remember that? We knew that the storyboard didn’t exactly jump off the page, but that’s because the client couldn’t envision what it would look like when you’d actually see… the old, mundane 4×4 blows up into tiny molecules that morph into a source of light which circles across the entire universe, until it beams down on the top of Mt. Everest where we see a Land Rover. The Land Rover drives down the mount. Cut to SUPER in a b/g of Matisse-like blue.
But post now has its own blues. For empathy and a clear overview, The Brief spoke with Lesley Parrott of Lesley Parrott Consulting, who has forty years of Canadian commercial production under her belt. Parrott, who was ex-head of production at JWT and MacLaren McCann also helped create MacLaren’s in-house post company, Edge Productions. She currently consults with many of the top ad agencies and clients in Toronto. But today she’s with The Brief.
I ask Parrott about the lay of the land of post, and she tells me that since 2009, the shrinkage in post-production activity is around 10% per year.* There are several reasons why:
1. Duh! Economics.
2. Smaller budgets dictate less costly ideas – less big production. (I’m thinking that perhaps this is why ideas are making a comeback.).
3 Campaign dollars need to be stretched across a variety of platforms – siphoning from television.
4. Toronto is getting more adaptations from the U.S. and globally, and much of this type of work can be done by an agency’s in-house post facilities. (Which is partially why they built them.)
Who’s getting the most post? Once again, if you work for a large agency you may be saving the client money by posting in-house. (Though not necessarily the big brand commercials.) If you want onestop shopping you can bid the collective called Section 8 which are seven companies that offer production, editing and post. Or, you can send your bid to one of the top independents in Toronto… such as Rooster Post. And fortunately for The Brief, Richard Unruh, Partner and Senior Editor of Rooster, happens to be with us right now.
The Brief: May I call you Rooster? It’s very “True Grit-ish.”
Rooster: Go for it.
The Brief: Okay. Always wondered. You changed your name from Third Floor to Rooster, was that a re-branding, or about less stairs?
Rooster: Re-branding. Third Floor Editing was a company I owned for over a decade, and when we merged with another editing company called Flashcut we merged both companies under the name “Rooster.” Rooster now has a sister company called Track and Field for online.
The Brief: How would you position Rooster juxtaposed to your competition?
Rooster: I’d say we’re among the leading edge commercial editing and post production companies as far as understanding and implementing new technology. Rooster has established senior editors and highly skilled younger editors, and Track and Field is one of the best online companies in Toronto. They do compositing, design, graphics and 3D animation, and they’ve recently added the capability of full colour correction, which is a service we’re offering using top freelance colourists.
The Brief: I’ve been told that this is the trend, merging editing with online.
Rooster: Well, one of the advantages of having editing and online within one facility is the ability to integrate them creatively throughout the entire editorial process. Being in the same space saves our client’s time and it’s cost efficient for them. And though we often work independently of one another, combined we bring an extraordinary level of detail to our clients both during the rough cut and the finishing stage.
The Brief: Okay. That was the crowing part of the interview. Now for some tougher stuff.
Rooster: Bring it on.
The Brief: Have the new budgets been a killer?
Rooster: The budgets are challenging. No question about it, we’re working in a more competitive environment and clients are looking for the most they can get.
The Brief: How competitive is it?
Rooster: There are a lot of independent post companies in Toronto, and fewer jobs to go around. There are also the phenomena of in-house post companies.
The Brief: Yes, I was speaking earlier with Lesley Parrott about JWT’s The Sauce, and BBD&O’s Ricochet and MacLaren’s Edge Productions. She says that they mostly do fast adaptations, revisions, supers, package changes – those things that can be handled so cost-effectively in-house. Also, creatives only have to go down the hall to make minor changes and that can save the time and cost of having people out of the office.
Rooster: Yes, but imagine any amount of work staying inside the agency and no longer competitively available to outside creative suppliers. The absence of that work has impacted on all of us. That being said, there’s still a good amount of work that’s tendered out by agencies with in-house post.
The Brief: Very politic of you. Moving on, how have the changes in technology (film to digital) impacted editing and post?
Rooster: Our workflow has changed considerably. With many digital formats being introduced people shooting much more on the Red and Arri’s new Alexa camera, and these promising new Digital SLR formats we’re probably seeing a huge increase in the amount of jobs that are shot on digital as opposed to film, and we’ve had to react to that. Everything in our office is now High Definition.
The Brief: Isn’t it costly just keeping up with technology?
Rooster: You have to! Rooster is continuously upgrading our equipment and our workflow which is effected by those changes. And today with people shooting in digital formats the amount of footage shot is quite large as compared to the economics of shooting on film. So while it’s an exciting time for editors – having more visual options is powerful, but it impacts time. Time is money.
The Brief: Have the relationships between your clients and Rooster been strained by economics?
Rooster: Agencies are still looking for people who will execute their idea the best. That’s the team the agency wants to put together. They have a lot of choices. But it’s still about “trust” and relationship. You come off a shoot and you want your footage to land in a place where you know your creative is going to be looked after.
The Brief: I hear that the expectations vs. budget are over-the-moon. Is that so?
Rooster: We want them to be. The expectations of creative teams should be high. We want them to come in, for example, and see an edit that explores possibilities they haven’t thought of. We take the film we’re given… Have a relationship with the director. Encourage the director’s point of view… Then we like to present an edit that isn’t literally the board – maybe it explores a creative direction that is different from what they expect and that should be the starting point. Fresh eyes. Of course we also edit the board if required!
The Brief: So basically, though technology has changed everything, and the economy has changed everything, Rooster has, at its core, not changed at all.
Rooster: Yes! We’ve always believed that you set the bar high. We need to set the bar high. Personally, we love collaboration. When people put their ideas together it’s no different than a few great musicians playing together. You come up with new ways of expressing the idea of the spot. You come up with different ways of looking at things. It’s not about the budget. It’s about inspiration.
The Brief: Speaking of inspiration, I think we’ve come to our end. But… has anybody ever told you that you look a little bit like Jeff Bridges?
Rooster: Don’t edit that!
Sources:
*10% post-production attrition per year is an approximate percentage.
Lesley Parrott, Lesley Parrott Consulting http://www.lesleyparrott.ca/
Richard Unruh, Partner, Sr. Editor Rooster Post
Sean Atkinson Head of Sales, Rooster Post sean@rooster.ca
Rooster Post http://www.rooster.ca
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
http://to411daily.com/catalog/the-brief/
Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: A post on post and an interview with Rooster
Tuesday March 01st 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
We’ll fix it in post. Remember that? We knew that the storyboard didn’t exactly jump off the page, but that’s because the client couldn’t envision what it would look like when you’d actually see… the old, mundane 4×4 blows up into tiny molecules that morph into a source of light which circles across the entire universe, until it beams down on the top of Mt. Everest where we see a Land Rover. The Land Rover drives down the mount. Cut to SUPER in a b/g of Matisse-like blue.
But post now has its own blues. For empathy and a clear overview, The Brief spoke with Lesley Parrott of Lesley Parrott Consulting, who has forty years of Canadian commercial production under her belt. Parrott, who was ex-head of production at JWT and MacLaren McCann also helped create MacLaren’s in-house post company, Edge Productions. She currently consults with many of the top ad agencies and clients in Toronto. But today she’s with The Brief.
I ask Parrott about the lay of the land of post, and she tells me that since 2009, the shrinkage in post-production activity is around 10% per year.* There are several reasons why:
1. Duh! Economics.
2. Smaller budgets dictate less costly ideas – less big production. (I’m thinking that perhaps this is why ideas are making a comeback.).
3 Campaign dollars need to be stretched across a variety of platforms – siphoning from television.
4. Toronto is getting more adaptations from the U.S. and globally, and much of this type of work can be done by an agency’s in-house post facilities. (Which is partially why they built them.)
Who’s getting the most post? Once again, if you work for a large agency you may be saving the client money by posting in-house. (Though not necessarily the big brand commercials.) If you want onestop shopping you can bid the collective called Section 8 which are seven companies that offer production, editing and post. Or, you can send your bid to one of the top independents in Toronto… such as Rooster Post. And fortunately for The Brief, Richard Unruh, Partner and Senior Editor of Rooster, happens to be with us right now.
The Brief: May I call you Rooster? It’s very “True Grit-ish.”
Rooster: Go for it.
The Brief: Okay. Always wondered. You changed your name from Third Floor to Rooster, was that a re-branding, or about less stairs?
Rooster: Re-branding. Third Floor Editing was a company I owned for over a decade, and when we merged with another editing company called Flashcut we merged both companies under the name “Rooster.” Rooster now has a sister company called Track and Field for online.
The Brief: How would you position Rooster juxtaposed to your competition?
Rooster: I’d say we’re among the leading edge commercial editing and post production companies as far as understanding and implementing new technology. Rooster has established senior editors and highly skilled younger editors, and Track and Field is one of the best online companies in Toronto. They do compositing, design, graphics and 3D animation, and they’ve recently added the capability of full colour correction, which is a service we’re offering using top freelance colourists.
The Brief: I’ve been told that this is the trend, merging editing with online.
Rooster: Well, one of the advantages of having editing and online within one facility is the ability to integrate them creatively throughout the entire editorial process. Being in the same space saves our client’s time and it’s cost efficient for them. And though we often work independently of one another, combined we bring an extraordinary level of detail to our clients both during the rough cut and the finishing stage.
The Brief: Okay. That was the crowing part of the interview. Now for some tougher stuff.
Rooster: Bring it on.
The Brief: Have the new budgets been a killer?
Rooster: The budgets are challenging. No question about it, we’re working in a more competitive environment and clients are looking for the most they can get.
The Brief: How competitive is it?
Rooster: There are a lot of independent post companies in Toronto, and fewer jobs to go around. There are also the phenomena of in-house post companies.
The Brief: Yes, I was speaking earlier with Lesley Parrott about JWT’s The Sauce, and BBD&O’s Ricochet and MacLaren’s Edge Productions. She says that they mostly do fast adaptations, revisions, supers, package changes – those things that can be handled so cost-effectively in-house. Also, creatives only have to go down the hall to make minor changes and that can save the time and cost of having people out of the office.
Rooster: Yes, but imagine any amount of work staying inside the agency and no longer competitively available to outside creative suppliers. The absence of that work has impacted on all of us. That being said, there’s still a good amount of work that’s tendered out by agencies with in-house post.
The Brief: Very politic of you. Moving on, how have the changes in technology (film to digital) impacted editing and post?
Rooster: Our workflow has changed considerably. With many digital formats being introduced people shooting much more on the Red and Arri’s new Alexa camera, and these promising new Digital SLR formats we’re probably seeing a huge increase in the amount of jobs that are shot on digital as opposed to film, and we’ve had to react to that. Everything in our office is now High Definition.
The Brief: Isn’t it costly just keeping up with technology?
Rooster: You have to! Rooster is continuously upgrading our equipment and our workflow which is effected by those changes. And today with people shooting in digital formats the amount of footage shot is quite large as compared to the economics of shooting on film. So while it’s an exciting time for editors – having more visual options is powerful, but it impacts time. Time is money.
The Brief: Have the relationships between your clients and Rooster been strained by economics?
Rooster: Agencies are still looking for people who will execute their idea the best. That’s the team the agency wants to put together. They have a lot of choices. But it’s still about “trust” and relationship. You come off a shoot and you want your footage to land in a place where you know your creative is going to be looked after.
The Brief: I hear that the expectations vs. budget are over-the-moon. Is that so?
Rooster: We want them to be. The expectations of creative teams should be high. We want them to come in, for example, and see an edit that explores possibilities they haven’t thought of. We take the film we’re given… Have a relationship with the director. Encourage the director’s point of view… Then we like to present an edit that isn’t literally the board – maybe it explores a creative direction that is different from what they expect and that should be the starting point. Fresh eyes. Of course we also edit the board if required!
The Brief: So basically, though technology has changed everything, and the economy has changed everything, Rooster has, at its core, not changed at all.
Rooster: Yes! We’ve always believed that you set the bar high. We need to set the bar high. Personally, we love collaboration. When people put their ideas together it’s no different than a few great musicians playing together. You come up with new ways of expressing the idea of the spot. You come up with different ways of looking at things. It’s not about the budget. It’s about inspiration.
The Brief: Speaking of inspiration, I think we’ve come to our end. But… has anybody ever told you that you look a little bit like Jeff Bridges?
Rooster: Don’t edit that!
Sources:
*10% post-production attrition per year is an approximate percentage.
Lesley Parrott, Lesley Parrott Consulting http://www.lesleyparrott.ca/
Richard Unruh, Partner, Sr. Editor Rooster Post
Sean Atkinson Head of Sales, Rooster Post sean@rooster.ca
Rooster Post http://www.rooster.ca
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
http://to411daily.com/catalog/the-brief/
Leave a Reply
Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: A post on post and an interview with Rooster
Tuesday March 01st 2011By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler
We’ll fix it in post. Remember that? We knew that the storyboard didn’t exactly jump off the page, but that’s because the client couldn’t envision what it would look like when you’d actually see… the old, mundane 4×4 blows up into tiny molecules that morph into a source of light which circles across the entire universe, until it beams down on the top of Mt. Everest where we see a Land Rover. The Land Rover drives down the mount. Cut to SUPER in a b/g of Matisse-like blue.
But post now has its own blues. For empathy and a clear overview, The Brief spoke with Lesley Parrott of Lesley Parrott Consulting, who has forty years of Canadian commercial production under her belt. Parrott, who was ex-head of production at JWT and MacLaren McCann also helped create MacLaren’s in-house post company, Edge Productions. She currently consults with many of the top ad agencies and clients in Toronto. But today she’s with The Brief.
I ask Parrott about the lay of the land of post, and she tells me that since 2009, the shrinkage in post-production activity is around 10% per year.* There are several reasons why:
1. Duh! Economics.
2. Smaller budgets dictate less costly ideas – less big production. (I’m thinking that perhaps this is why ideas are making a comeback.).
3 Campaign dollars need to be stretched across a variety of platforms – siphoning from television.
4. Toronto is getting more adaptations from the U.S. and globally, and much of this type of work can be done by an agency’s in-house post facilities. (Which is partially why they built them.)
Who’s getting the most post? Once again, if you work for a large agency you may be saving the client money by posting in-house. (Though not necessarily the big brand commercials.) If you want onestop shopping you can bid the collective called Section 8 which are seven companies that offer production, editing and post. Or, you can send your bid to one of the top independents in Toronto… such as Rooster Post. And fortunately for The Brief, Richard Unruh, Partner and Senior Editor of Rooster, happens to be with us right now.
The Brief: May I call you Rooster? It’s very “True Grit-ish.”
Rooster: Go for it.
The Brief: Okay. Always wondered. You changed your name from Third Floor to Rooster, was that a re-branding, or about less stairs?
Rooster: Re-branding. Third Floor Editing was a company I owned for over a decade, and when we merged with another editing company called Flashcut we merged both companies under the name “Rooster.” Rooster now has a sister company called Track and Field for online.
The Brief: How would you position Rooster juxtaposed to your competition?
Rooster: I’d say we’re among the leading edge commercial editing and post production companies as far as understanding and implementing new technology. Rooster has established senior editors and highly skilled younger editors, and Track and Field is one of the best online companies in Toronto. They do compositing, design, graphics and 3D animation, and they’ve recently added the capability of full colour correction, which is a service we’re offering using top freelance colourists.
The Brief: I’ve been told that this is the trend, merging editing with online.
Rooster: Well, one of the advantages of having editing and online within one facility is the ability to integrate them creatively throughout the entire editorial process. Being in the same space saves our client’s time and it’s cost efficient for them. And though we often work independently of one another, combined we bring an extraordinary level of detail to our clients both during the rough cut and the finishing stage.
The Brief: Okay. That was the crowing part of the interview. Now for some tougher stuff.
Rooster: Bring it on.
The Brief: Have the new budgets been a killer?
Rooster: The budgets are challenging. No question about it, we’re working in a more competitive environment and clients are looking for the most they can get.
The Brief: How competitive is it?
Rooster: There are a lot of independent post companies in Toronto, and fewer jobs to go around. There are also the phenomena of in-house post companies.
The Brief: Yes, I was speaking earlier with Lesley Parrott about JWT’s The Sauce, and BBD&O’s Ricochet and MacLaren’s Edge Productions. She says that they mostly do fast adaptations, revisions, supers, package changes – those things that can be handled so cost-effectively in-house. Also, creatives only have to go down the hall to make minor changes and that can save the time and cost of having people out of the office.
Rooster: Yes, but imagine any amount of work staying inside the agency and no longer competitively available to outside creative suppliers. The absence of that work has impacted on all of us. That being said, there’s still a good amount of work that’s tendered out by agencies with in-house post.
The Brief: Very politic of you. Moving on, how have the changes in technology (film to digital) impacted editing and post?
Rooster: Our workflow has changed considerably. With many digital formats being introduced people shooting much more on the Red and Arri’s new Alexa camera, and these promising new Digital SLR formats we’re probably seeing a huge increase in the amount of jobs that are shot on digital as opposed to film, and we’ve had to react to that. Everything in our office is now High Definition.
The Brief: Isn’t it costly just keeping up with technology?
Rooster: You have to! Rooster is continuously upgrading our equipment and our workflow which is effected by those changes. And today with people shooting in digital formats the amount of footage shot is quite large as compared to the economics of shooting on film. So while it’s an exciting time for editors – having more visual options is powerful, but it impacts time. Time is money.
The Brief: Have the relationships between your clients and Rooster been strained by economics?
Rooster: Agencies are still looking for people who will execute their idea the best. That’s the team the agency wants to put together. They have a lot of choices. But it’s still about “trust” and relationship. You come off a shoot and you want your footage to land in a place where you know your creative is going to be looked after.
The Brief: I hear that the expectations vs. budget are over-the-moon. Is that so?
Rooster: We want them to be. The expectations of creative teams should be high. We want them to come in, for example, and see an edit that explores possibilities they haven’t thought of. We take the film we’re given… Have a relationship with the director. Encourage the director’s point of view… Then we like to present an edit that isn’t literally the board – maybe it explores a creative direction that is different from what they expect and that should be the starting point. Fresh eyes. Of course we also edit the board if required!
The Brief: So basically, though technology has changed everything, and the economy has changed everything, Rooster has, at its core, not changed at all.
Rooster: Yes! We’ve always believed that you set the bar high. We need to set the bar high. Personally, we love collaboration. When people put their ideas together it’s no different than a few great musicians playing together. You come up with new ways of expressing the idea of the spot. You come up with different ways of looking at things. It’s not about the budget. It’s about inspiration.
The Brief: Speaking of inspiration, I think we’ve come to our end. But… has anybody ever told you that you look a little bit like Jeff Bridges?
Rooster: Don’t edit that!
Sources:
*10% post-production attrition per year is an approximate percentage.
Lesley Parrott, Lesley Parrott Consulting http://www.lesleyparrott.ca/
Richard Unruh, Partner, Sr. Editor Rooster Post
Sean Atkinson Head of Sales, Rooster Post sean@rooster.ca
Rooster Post http://www.rooster.ca
—–
Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter
http://to411daily.com/catalog/the-brief/
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