JamieG Analysis

Recently I was reading Encore, a industry mag about the media and production industry here in Australia.  The story in question talked about how the Post Production industry in Australia has developed into fewer smaller boutique businesses with the larger companies becoming even more dominant.

The reasons for this where said to be many, however, as a person who was a part owner of a largish post facility in Melbourne until a fire ended all that, the “real” reasons for the larger player becoming so dominant is quite simple.

I like to call it the “Rate card, Mate Card factor”.

If you are going to make a movie you have two expensive factors of the post production portion.  This is either the Telecine/Film scanner at the beginning, or the Film Printer/duplication at the end.  These are very expensive processes.  As a larger player who has built up to these hi-value parts of the production chain, you can offer a full end to end solution.

Now, if you use the end-to-end offering, you get the Mate-Card rates (Never published) on the hi-value portions.  If you choose to use an external boutique (and usually much cheaper) post house to do anything in the middle, well then you get the Full-Rate Card, usually 40-50% more then the Mate-Card.

These practices have protected the incumbent players by killing of man of the boutique post houses.  Only the larger and more powerful post houses remain.

This, however, may all soon change.  Both ends of the hi-value chain are changing.  Digital Cameras like the RED are cheap and the boutique post house or even the film maker can afford to purchase this kit themselves.  With the use of digital cameras, the need for the hi-value telecine/film scanner portion of the chain is removed.

Digital cinema projection is starting to get reasonable traction and the capability to export a DCP (A file used by digital projectors in cinemas) is available for very little if not soon to be built into editing systems like Final Cut Pro or Premiere.  This removes the need for the film recording and duplication costs.

In the very near future, a film maker will likely to able to purchase all the kit they need (Digital Camera system and online editing and effects system) plus contract all the labour for the same amount as going to a big post house to do the same job. At the end of the production, you have all the kit ready to go on the next job, more then halving your typical Post costs you expect from a big post house on that net job.

Unfortunately is is not as simply as that, but a smart film maker could make this happen.  Its all about building the right team.

What a big post house bring to the table is more then just services, they bring know how and knowledge.  You KNOW it is going to work.  This is especially important on special effects films where a lot of visual effects and 3D integration is required. Doing it yourself could be very risky. Can you trust the contractors to do the right job?  What if you hire the wrong guy and everything you shoot is unusable?

The DO-IT-YOURSELF nirvana is very definitely here, and is likely to lead to a contraction in large post house dominance.  Especially in Australia.  However, for more complex and specialised films, there will still be a need.

Still, I am keen for this future of ease of production. To many times I have seen the larger post houses take advantage of smaller independent film makers.  Film makers are very passionate and are easily convinced they need many deliverables, they simply don’t need but end up paying 50-100K more to obtain.