The barrier for entry in owning professional editing equipment has become low enough that even student filmmakers can load up their home computers without breaking the bank. Yet making the transition from a workable hobbyist setup to developing an editing bay that can earn a freelancer profit on a job requires some research. And when it comes to building a boutique editing studio, the eternal question arises: Do I rent or do I buy? Magnet Media discussed these issues with Dave Marcus, a freelance editor and Final Cut Pro instructor, and with Dickie Plofker of Roadside Entertainment, a New York City based post-production facility.
Before deciding to invest in equipment, Marcus stressed the importance of evaluating the type of freelance work you plan to be doing. “An editor who mainly is called in by other production companies for broadcast, commercial or episodic work will most likely be editing in post-production facility and will have little use for a home setup. Freelance editors who do more corporate work or independent features or documentaries will probably find it useful to have their own equipment.” Marcus has a home setup that he can offer to a production company if they choose, but has generally found that companies with their own equipment will want him to work on site.
In some cases, having a boutique edit suite to rent that can compete with professional spaces may make you more desirable to companies that don’t own their own equipment. After all, if your client is planning to rent an edit suite, why shouldn’t it be yours? The key is that your set up needs to surpass the basic computer-and-software configuration that any producer may have at home. Marcus says, “If you have pretty basic set-up, such as a G4 loaded with Final Cut Pro, and maybe a deck, billing an extra charge for renting your ‘edit room’ might cost you the job, since nowadays NYC-based editors with a very basic setup are a dime a dozen.”
Roadside Entertainment is a production company and post-production facility that Plofker and his colleagues built from the ground up. Plofker says, “We moved into a space that was a pre-configured 3000 feet. We have 4 closed door conventional edit rooms, 2 production areas and a large central living room which we use as overflow work space. Every other computer in the joint works as an edit workstation for everything from screening (no additional decks needed), transcribing, and pre-editing (stringing out sequences).” Roadside serves many clients who are working with HD, and even as a boutique, they need to accommodate high definition formats. As for equipment, Plofker says,“The most indispensable piece of equipment we've been using is Sony's JH3 HDCAM play deck to downconvert for editing. On the edit front we are working on Avid on our Apple Xsan server. We also use Adobe After Effects because it still produces our finest work, although our 12 Avid workstations do the most work.” Plofker reports that they purchased most of the equipment they own secondhand online, “$25 monitors, $400 G4s etc,” and are leasing the Xsan server and the three G5s.
With projects as varied as a Monday Night Football countdown show, a training series for Clinique, the ABC All America Football Show, and the 2006 ESPY awards, Roadside finds itself depending on freelancers. As Plofker put it, “By relying on so many freelancers we have the luxury of their experiences. By the nature of the biz, they need to keep up to remain viable.”
I asked freelance editor and Zoom In instructor Dave Marcus to list some of the pros and cons of owning your own equipment as a freelance editor.
Pros:
- You’re more valuable in the competitive post-production marketplace
- You can practice your trade at your own leisure
- Owning equipment allows you to stay on top of cutting your reel on your own time without having to rent a room
- The cost of equipment continually drops in price
Cons:
- It starts to get expensive as you build up your own suite. For example, after purchasing a fully loaded G5, with software and monitors, you'll need to purchase a deck, a broadcast video monitor, ideally that supports digital and analog, quality speakers, hard drives, and, depending on the work you do, video capture cards or an AJA Breakout Box. The price range for an edit set-up can start on the low end at $5,000, and at the high end over $50,000.
- Computers and software often devalue pretty quickly. Expect to purchase software upgrades yearly, and a new computer every 2 years.
Marcus does have a vision for his “dream machine” set up, telling us that as of 2005 it would include:
- Dual 2.7 GHz G5 fully loaded with RAM
- AJA Kona 2 card
- Apple’s Final Cut Studio
- DV deck, like the Sony DSR-11
- HD decks (Panasonic and/or Sony)
- Fibre or SCSI RAID Hard Drive
- One 23''and one 20” Cinema display
- One NTSC broadcast monitor and one HD Broadcast monitor – these rarely go out of style and are worth the investment
- Mackie mixing board
- External video scopes
- One good speaker system
- An Aeron chair for the editor, and cushy couch for the client.
He adds, “I've seen people purchase extra equipment they never use, like WACOM tablets or DVD duplication systems. These can be very useful pieces of equipment if you plan on using them regularly, but far too often, people get eager and buy every piece of ancillary equipment in the shop but they never use it.”
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September 21, 2006 - 3:55pm
