Boutique Video Production: Burkewood / Deep Post
    (5/2005)

    by Douglas Dixon

Boutique Production
Expanding Markets
New York to Princeton
Editing Technology
Learning Production
Growing the Business - The Gloss
Selling Creativity and Quality
References

In the 1980s, the Apple Macintosh popularized graphical interfaces, and professional graphics designers were horrified to discover that ink-jet and laser printers had magically transformed us all into instant experts in typography and document layout.

Then in the 1990s, professional photographers and graphics artists saw their expertise similarly devalued as powerful computers and consumer software, combined with inexpensive digital cameras and scanners, allowed us all to become photo enhancers and image artists.

Now the march of progress has reached video producers and editors, as any kid in the basement can use consumer-accessible equipment to shoot and edit commercials, corporate events, and even independent films.

In the face of the unstoppable digital revolution, and with this kind of low-cost competition, why has Burkewood Communications chosen to expand its Princeton, N.J. video production business (www.burkewood.com)? And since everyone knows that you need to be in L.A. or New York to do high-end broadcast and film production, why would Burkewood also be adding a new post-production facility, Deep Post (www.deeppost.com)?

What Burkewood is doing is to position itself as a high-end facility, offering New York or L.A. quality talent supported by appropriate investments in professional tools, for clients including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

"It is not about technology," says Burke Wood, president, "It's about talent. Clients will invariably try something different, something cheaper, but it's the talent that will keep them coming back. You have to stay on top of technology, but it's really about coming up with something that makes your client look good."

"We help them distinguish themselves," he says. "Editing is one thing, but then putting the polish on it is another. We can take a project that looks pretty straightforward, and we can put the gloss on and then all of a sudden it looks like it belongs on [ABC News] 20/20. We're all about providing clients with a very high-quality looking project. We're not about the Madison Avenue or L.A. sticker shock."

Boutique Production

The trick, then, is to be able to provide that high level of creative talent when clients demand it, but without needing to maintain a large permanent staff. The typical solution for production companies is to have a pool of local freelancers that can be called in for specific jobs. Burkewood has a deeper approach, building relationships with creative talent that it can represent when bringing in new work.

Burkewood starts with five people on staff: Burke Wood as president and director, Gregg Suskin as executive producer and writer, Peter Casale as production manager, David Stone as hands-on video editor and artist, and Matt Pona, assistant producer / editor.
Then develops relationships with other directors and visual effects artists to add to its roster.

        Burke Wood

"Burke is an extremely talented director," says Suskin. "He does really good jobs on interviewing people, on getting performances. He's particularly good in comedy. We brought in another director who brings in a more youthful element, so we're adding talent and are not conflicting with ourselves."

"It's a symbiotic relationship through representation," says Wood. "You have the rapport and relationship with this guy, and he becomes like a family member. He's also getting jobs on his own, and bringing his jobs into our house for production support. It's like how a general contractor builds a house."

Expanding Markets

But how can you do business outside the major cities, when clients are used to coming in to the edit suite to oversee their productions? Burkewood uses the Internet to stream videos of the edited clips, or even live videos of the editing sessions, for example, to clients in Washington, D.C.

"People are trying to run leaner and meaner these days," says Wood, "and I think we dovetail right into that. We do it a little smarter, a little more cost-effective. We stream right from the edit monitor while we are editing, and we have the client on the phone at the same time."

"The boundaries used to be at Madison Avenue," says Suskin. "Those barriers are gone with live streaming." After all, it's a huge cost to the client to have four or five people visiting the edit studio all day.

"The clients love it," says Suskin. "We have a relationship with them; the most important thing is that they trust us, and they know we do good work. But often clients are testing themselves and asking whether it really makes sense to work with a company up there in Princeton. So they go across the street for a project, and they find out that it's more of a hassle than just turning on your computer and watching." And clients are traveling all across the country, so it's more efficient to have the edits available anywhere, on a desktop or laptop.

New York to Princeton

But why Princeton? For Suskin, his New York City company had grown too large, and now he can start over with a smaller company closer to his home, but still in a premier location.

"I was a founding principal of Blue Rock Editing in New York," says Suskin (www.bluerockny.com). "But I lived down here, and I found Burke, and thought he was on a great track here. He has a really good client base of his own, and had made a really good commitment into making good choices in the high-end equipment he was putting in. He didn't go the cheap route, and that excited me. So instead of doing my own thing, I came over here."

"At my company in New York, we started with three people, and when I left we had 88. I sold my stock in that company, I couldn't do it anymore. I would walk down the hall and people wouldn't know who I was."

Moving outside New York also provides huge cost savings. "The prices in New York are based on companies spending $40 a square foot," says Suskin, "and that's just for starters, just to open up in the morning. Our place was featured in Architectural Digest. It was five stories in midtown Manhattan, with a circular staircase."

"One of the big differences that enables us to stay cost-effective is that you are not dealing with that flavor of the month mentality," he says. "If you are a New York ad agency, you feel an obligation to go with the hip name of the month, which brings the prices up. Our postproduction prices consistently start at least 25 percent lower, and sometimes much more than that. A major 30-second television commercial would be in the $10,000 range, where a comparable New York City facility would be in a $25,000 range. In the city you could pay $1500 an hour for a top editor."

But if you're after cost savings, and the Internet allows you to be located anywhere, why set up shop in Princeton, rather than Podunk? "We like the quality of life out here." says Wood. "We want our facility to be the kind of place where people enjoy coming. Princeton is very special, and there's a lot of very intelligent and cultured people down here. People all over the country recognize that when I'm traveling, that it's beautiful, and you can get out of the rat race. We can go out to lunch in downtown Princeton, or relax and go for a long walk along the canal. It's very creative; it's a great way to build a relationship with people. You're not armed to the teeth."

The location is also great for attracting talent. "You go over to Princeton Junction in the morning," says Wood, "and there are a lot of people in our business getting on the trains in the morning."

"We pride ourselves on the creative edge that we have with the New York talent," says Suskin, "There are people in this area that have won every award. They're fed up with the way things have been done in the past, and they're looking to go smaller, not bigger, and looking to remain creative."

Editing Technology

Burkewood uses its high-end creative talent to attract high-end customers, which in turn helps to retain that talent. But the staff also needs the appropriate technology to work efficiently, to separate Burkewood from the proverbial kid in the garage with a Macintosh.

Over the past few years, Burkewood has made significant investments in professional-grade tools. Burkewood now has four Media 100 i/xs video editing systems (www.media100.com). These work with full-quality uncompressed video (too much data for desktop systems), providing a faster and more efficient workflow for quick rough cuts or editing of long form material (for around $30,000 to $50,000). And Burkewood has acquired two Discreet Smoke video editing and finishing systems (www4.discreet.com/smoke), which provide real-time response for building visual effects, including keying, lighting, 3D positioning, and color correction of multiple layers of motion video, graphics, and text. The Discreet systems cost around $150,000, but a full edit suite more like $250,000, with consoles, tape decks, air conditioning, etc.

"It's not just a matter of buying the right technology," says Wood. "There are not many people working with Discreet products in this area, because all the best talent pursues Discreet products, and they have been traditionally based in very high end post facilities. Our attitude was that we bought Discreet products because they're the best, and the best people want to work on them. And then we attract people of like mind, that don't necessarily get off on the whole New York or L.A. thing."

More responsive equipment also provides more creative flexibility. "When you have this equipment you're not limited by anything," says Suskin. "If you have an idea that you want to try out, you can go in there and just experiment." In comparison, when you're working at an outside facility and paying a hourly rate for the edit suite, "the editor or the producer are very cautious about what they say," he says. "If they come out with a great idea, the clients say 'I can't pay for that,' but they still want to see it. A lot of times, editors just keep their mouth shut. And that's just not fair to the project, and it's not fair to the client."

"We take it to a different level," says Wood. "We do things to make the clients happy. The clients see how much you put into it, that you went the extra mile, and they come back for more."

And the kid in the garage? Yes, a really creative person can create great work with a desktop tool like Adobe After Effects, even in a garage. But, says Wood, "our machines are so much faster, and so much more responsive. With After Effects, it's come back tomorrow. Our clients have tight deadlines; they want to see the change in an hour. After Effects is a great tool, very powerful, but very time consuming. We were getting fairly decent results, but something that takes us a day now used to take four to five days. We were working around the clock trying to compress time. We were dying."

"We would leave at six or seven o'clock and start it rendering," says Suskin, "and then come back in the morning and then, 'whoops, oh my God, we have to start all over again.' These are things that start-up companies face, the learning curve. But you only get one shot with a client. Then you're on the phone trying to explain to somebody that doesn't know an f-stop from an F train. They don't care -- they have the meeting, a client is going to be here. You can't work that way."

"People don't know the commitment that it takes to get into this industry," he says. "They think that because the price of some of these technologies has come down that I can buy a box and I am in business. That's not what business is about. I don't care how good a lawyer, or a doctor, or an editor, or a director you are, it takes 10 years to be great at something. These colleges are turning out communications majors by the truckload. They think that they're going to get a camera and a Mac, and they think they're in business. 'If you give me this job, I'll go out and get the camera and the insurance.'"

"It doesn't work that way, you have to be for real. Companies that are willing to make a commitment to you, they want to see the commitment from you. They want to see that you are going to be there tomorrow, and the day after."

Learning Production

Burkewood Communications was founded in 1986 by Kate Burke Wood, Burke's mother, to focus on producing programs for corporate and institutional clients. Burke's father, John Wood, then left a marketing position with Merrill Lynch to join the company to manage the finances.

Kate Wood had begun her career in education after graduating from Wellesley College, serving as college placement advisor and head of the upper school at the Kent Place School in Summit, N.J. "She got into production out of necessity," says Wood. "She wanted to do some cable programming for families." In 1979 she founded and served as executive director of the Educational Consortium for Cable, producing award-winning programs on family issues.

As his mother was re-focusing on commercial production, Burke completed his degree from Skidmore College in political science, and joined Burkewood in 1987, when the company also relocated from Summit to Princeton. "I was always interested in the creative side," he says, "and studied photography in college. We were busy with corporate work. I got involved as a production assistant, and slowly learned what was going on."

In 1994, the Woods decided to focus more on higher end commercial projects under the name Burkewood Films. "Communications seemed like such a vague word," says Wood. "I was well into directing, and I was so longing to work in film. Everyone wanted to shoot film: the people doing corporate want to do film, and the people doing 35mm wanted to do features. Everyone wants to climb up the ladder. No one is happy doing the same thing for too long, because you want to grow."

But now, he says, "film is not such a cool word. People are more progressive, and it sounds a little old-fashioned. We're going back to our roots in Burkewood Communications; it can incorporate everything that we're doing, including our postproduction side as Deep Post."

In 2002, Kate Wood produced Alphabet Road, a children's programming series developed in a joint venture with GoBabies, Inc. (www.gobabies.com). This was the first American children's program aired on Afghan Television. Kate also is a producer of FireDancer, the first Afghan film to be admitted for an Academy Award nomination, and a 2003 Tribeca Film Festival selection (www.firedancerthemovie.com).

Kate Wood and Burke Wood are involved in the "big picture" development of the company, and working on Alphabet Road. "I try to keep her out of the nitty-gritty," says Wood. "We go for triples and home runs with her, and Greg and I work on the singles and doubles."

In January 2005, Burkewood opened its Deep Post video post-production editing and finishing 'boutique.' "I had always relied on outside companies for post," says Wood. "They charged $75 or $50 an hour, and if you're not working on a big budget to begin with, that's soaking up a lot of bucks. After beating my head against the scheduling board at local facilities I finally said, this is silly, the Media 100 isn't all that expensive, I'll pay it back in a year, and I'll be able to work as much as I need. I bought a second one about three years ago."

But even with the editing systems, Burkewood was still going out of house for post-production finishing work. "We had such a volume of work," says Wood, "and were sending so many dollars out the door. I finally figured I had to make the leap and bought the Discreet finishing technology."

"When you get your own system," he says, "you can put a lot more attention to it. You really are able to put love into a project, and not feel like every hour it's money down the drain."

Growing the Business - The Gloss

The next challenge for Burkewood is growing the business, the old fashioned way. "It's the toughest thing," says Wood, "just growing the business and finding clients. If it was easy everyone would be successful and wealthy. I've been in this market for 15 years battling it out and building this company. We need to get the word out, that we are here, and we are ready."

And that takes persistence. "With my best clients," says Suskin, "it took me two, three, four years of calls to get in the door. The plant your seeds, you water them, and then six to eight months later something sprouts out of the ground. You have to get your name out there, get your credentials out there. You call people; they may not have something for me today, but they'll go to the website. And the next time they have an assignment, they'll call and say 'I need a favor.' They don't call you because you have great talent or great equipment; they call when they need you. And when they call and you perform, then you're in business. You've got to pick up the phone; you've got to meet with people, talk with people."

But what Burkewood is selling is the quality of the results, the look, the "gloss" that takes a straightforward video edit to a whole new level.

"It has to do with experience and taste and talent," says Wood, "It takes artistry. You can look at something mediocre, and say it's good enough, just put a little glow on it. But I want the glow to emanate from here, and I want the light source to be here, so the shadow kicks this way."

"If you look at my 1-800-Flowers spot," he says, "you'll see the gloss on it. First, the cuts are good, I chose the content very carefully, and then on top of it, the gloss. Then you really have something. That can take something that looks straight and make it look gorgeous."

For example, Burkewood was working on a political spot with the typical scenes of the politician meeting voters, combined with overlaid text to emphasize the message. A customer would then ask for the spot to look better, using instructions like: "make it high-end looking," or "give it a graphic look," or "elegant or clean," or "beautiful and readable, accessible, with artistic design."

In the Burkewood spot, the result was a feeling of dimension, as multiple layers of video and text elements were composited together, in motion, into the final effect. The central video scene was framed by motion graphics and video backgrounds, and emphasized by the text, also in motion. And all the elements were subtlety improved, from color-correcting the different video clips to match visually, fading and framing the background video, adding shadows and glints to the overlays, and the careful composition so that the motion elements never obscured the important elements in the main video. Gloss also can include other behind-the-scene video clean-up and enhancement, including rig removal to "erase" unwanted elements from a scene, even while the camera is in motion.

"You can look at workmanship and craftsmanship that you know from your life," says Suskin. "If your car gets in an accident, you could just spray paint it, but you would know the difference. I'm the biggest pain for any craftsman who does work for me. Someone puts tiles down in the bathroom, and I look at it and see something. And they'll say, 'who's going to see that?' Well, I see that, and I'll see it every time. You, who is doing this for me, should have seen it."

"It makes such a difference when you look at a finely built house," says Wood. "You look at a certain houses, and there's no finishing trim. But if you look at a really nice house, it has the details, the dentals, the cove molding, the crown. It's not a piece of junk, with an asphalt roof and 2 X 6 finishing. You can tell they put a lot of TLC in it."

Selling Creativity and Quality

So the challenge now for Burkewood is to position itself as a small but premium facility, based in Princeton.

"We don't have to be huge to be successful," says Wood. "Everything is right here. If the customer has a question about pricing or service, I know exactly what's going on. In this business clients get nervous when you're choking away at an hourly rate, especially with a smaller budget. Being small and focused on service serves us well."

"We are involved in really high level projects," says Suskin, "like IMAX film, children's programming, political work, and corporate work. We're doing it across the board, at the highest levels. When you get repeat clients, then you know you're doing something well. It's human nature to try something else, something new. When they come back, you know."

References

Burkewood Communications Corp.
    www.burkewood.com

Deep Post
    www.deeppost.com

Blue Rock NY
    www.bluerockny.com

GoBabies, Inc.
    www.gobabies.com

FireDancer
    www.firedancerthemovie.com

Media 100 - i/xs video editing systems
    www.media100.com

Discreet - Smoke video editing and finishing systems
    www4.discreet.com/smoke