The microprocessor has put a virtual
movie or production studio in a single room,
and one trade that has particularly benefited
from the technology's advancements is the
creative industry.
Anyone from advertisers to movie and
music producers, novice to professional,
has been quick to seize the advantages of
the latest tools available, allowing them to
create the rich sound and moving picture
productions.
Reno creative types are among them.
Systems and software available to creative
staffs range from simple packages such as
Apple's iTunes and iMovie, which come
standard with all new Apple desktops and
laptops (except the iMac), to more advanced
programs such as Adobe's Premiere (retail
$550) and Apple's Final Cut Pro (retail
$1,000), to even more powerful professional
systems such as the Avid Media Composer
9000LX, a desktop computer that is made
specifically for broadcast-quality video production.
It can retail for more than $75,000.
The cross-compatibility of many software
programs also give creatives the ability
to animate pictures using programs such as
Adobe's Photoshop (retail $600) and
Macromedia's Flash (retail $550). Both
software packages allow the user to export
their work as video files (.avi for Windows
machines and .mov for Macintosh), rendering
them usable in other, perhaps more
advanced, video authoring applications.
"It's seamless now," said Edward
Estipona of EstiponaVialpando Partners in
Reno. "You're able to integrate everything."
Estipona created a 30-second television
spot for the Reno-Sparks Chamber
Orchestra, which features animated silhouettes
of music conductors moving their
wands in time with the background music,
using Adobe Image Ready - a software
package that comes with Photoshop - and
iMovie; the "most basics of basics," according
to Estipona.
Estipona used several silhouettes of conductors
of different shapes and sizes. To get
the conductor's correct motion, he filmed a
music appreciation professor's movements
with a mini digital video camera as he
played the selected background music.
Estipona then captured the video to his
computer and mimicked the movements
frame-by-frame in his animaton. This was
particularly time consuming because he had
to make an individual picture for each frame
of the animation, as well as for each conductor,
in video time. Video's standard frame
rate is 30 frames per second.
"I just wanted to see if I could do it,"
Estipona said.
More typically, agencies aren't able to use
desktop technolology to provide the quality
of broadcast that most of their clients are
looking for. It's this reason, adds Marc
Nannini, production manager for Reno's
Bayer Bauserman & Co. office, that basic
desktop technology is best used in the middle
of a job to give the client a good visual of
their ideas.
"We're able to save money by not hiring
professional videographers to shoot rehearsal
pieces,"Nannini said. "Instead we can create
mock pieces, see how the clients like it, and
then hire the professionals to shoot the
final scenes."
Most agencies, according to Estipona,
contract with professional camera people
and editors because of their professional eye
and the increased value of specialization, and
the quality that comes with it.
"At our agency we do everything from
creative to PR," Estipona said, "but video
people do video as their livelihood, and you
can't put a price on that talent and skill."
Zhap! Productions, a Reno-based postproduction
facility, is the premiere video
editing firm in northern Nevada, and it uses
the Avid Media Composer ' the same
system that was used to edit the first two
movie installments of J.R.R.Tolkien's "Lord
of the Rings."
"This is the best system around," said
Zhap! editor Tim Hosfeldt. "This system
has been built from the motherboard up
for video."
The Avid system features a one-gigabyte
processor, one-gigabyte of random access
memory, over 430 gigabytes of hard drive
space, which can hold eight hours of
uncompressed broadcast-quality video and
two 21-inch monitors. The system can edit
film and video, maintain the proper waveforms
for broadcast standards as well as
export any movie to VHS cassette,DVD or
even the broadcast standard Beta SP.
Music producers have access to the same
high quality equipment available to video
producers. The industry-standard equipment
for audio is DigiDesign's Pro Tools,
which can retail in the tens of thousands
of dollars.
Michael Eardley, president of Reno's
Tanglewood Productions, which has several
sound and recording studios in his offices
featuring Pro Tools equipment, added that
technology is making it tough for some in
the marketplace.
"It's easy for anyone to record music on
their desktop," Eardley said. "It would
threaten me a lot if I didn't have talent."
Eardley offered a recurring theme among
agency and production professionals about
the addition of new tools and technologies,
one that Eardley said will be posted all over
his offices.
"Technology is absolutely wonderful, but
there is absolutely no substitute for talent."
