In a Padded Cell. Olympic silver medal snowboarder Danny Kass appears in the Vans “American Nightmare” TV commercial created by Windowseat.

Powerful Mobile Platform
Throughout the creative and production process, Windowseat’s mobile and collaborative approach is Apple-powered. “You never know what to be ready for,” explains John. “So our PowerBooks are the resource for whatever we need. They give us the freedom and portability to manage the entire project wherever we are. And everyone — even the bean counter — has the same programs, so we can answer questions very fast.”

A project begins with sketches, storyboards and scripts. Even now, the team still hand-draws story and set ideas because, says John, “You need the randomness of the hand, the human quirky stuff that comes out of your body.” They scan the concepts into Photoshop for further development and toss script versions among their PowerBooks via email.

Clients are involved from the outset. “It’s essential to be able to communicate with our clients about what we want to do,” says John. “We email PDFs of our shooting boards, showing everything we plan to capture on film. If there are questions or problems, we work them out until our vision matches theirs — before we roll any film.”

Laptop Editing
Once film has been shot and developed, it’s transferred to MiniDV, a portable digital format well suited for laptop editing. “Using Final Cut Pro on our PowerBooks gives us the freedom to edit anywhere,” says John. “And I love the ease of Final Cut Pro. I can immediately see what my clip will look like, or get an idea for timing it out. It lets me experiment quickly so I can decide what I want to do, and how.”

During editing, Windowseat presents or emails QuickTime files to clients for feedback on different versions. “Our clients are busy, and they travel a lot,” says John. “We may meet them in a hotel lobby, bust open our PowerBooks and show them the newest cut. We’ve even had final versions approved in that manner.”

Forget relying on the client’s equipment to show work-in-progress. “They always seem to have a DVD player with no remote, or a crummy old VCR, or a TV with the colour settings all wrong,” sighs John. “But when we present on our PowerBooks, we play the QuickTime files full screen and they look exactly the way we want. We get the thumbs-up on a version and leave ready for the next step in the post process. When you’re on deadline to get a project done, especially when the client has already bought and scheduled airtime, that’s a lifesaver.”

No More Rewinding
Windowseat doesn’t miss the old days one bit. “It was very hard to show multiple versions of a project to a client,” relates John. “We had to go to a separate facility to make tape dubs, which could take several days to process. Then we’d try to present them, and we’d always be rewinding the tape to find the right spot.

“Now, we can make a bunch of versions that range from riskier to safer, with several that are only subtly different, and based on the client’s reaction we can decide to show — or not show — any of them, in any order.”

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