HD Facility Profile: Crew Cuts
Clayton Hemmert, Partner, Editor
Christopher Keenan, Director of Technology
Every year, people tune into the Super Bowl — to watch commercials. The spots garner almost as much fanfare as the game itself. The editors at Crew Cuts, a New York edit house, wouldn’t have it any other way. They brew a special brand of mischievous, sometimes slapstick spots that captivate, intrigue and entertain. A Pepsi commercial they worked on has a vacuum cleaner robot eating Dave Chappelle’s pants. Their commercials for other giants like Verizon, Visa, General Electric, CNN, Progressive Insurance, Pizza Hut, Gillette, Dr. Pepper, Toys R Us, MasterCard and L’Oreal are the stuff of Super Bowl halftime legend.
Crew Cuts recently dropped Avid for Final Cut Pro HD, in part to prepare for high-definition broadcasting. The company has recently cut two high-def commercials and a short film for the Sony Dreams Festival by director Alison Maclean of Park Pictures.
Since the edit house was founded in 1986, it’s been on the cutting edge of technology. “You could edit at that point on film or on tape,” says Clayton Hemmert, one of Crew Cuts’ original members. “The same editor was doing both. It was more important to have that editor executing ideas, not being hand-tied by the technology. It was about being platform agnostic. The technology was not the important thing. The important part of what we do is the style and the storytelling that we bring to a project. There are certain tools that help that and Final Cut Pro is one of them.”
What were your first HD projects?
Clayton Hemmert: We’ve done a Pringle’s spot for NASCAR and a public service announcement for the National Coalition for the Homeless. We rented an HD deck and loaded the footage in, cut it and used the finishing capabilities of another house. We’ve also just completed a film for the Sony Dreams Festival. That was an HD project but cut in SD on Final Cut Pro and conformed in HD. The Sony Dreams project has been a joint venture of Y&R Advertising in New York and Sony. Y&R taps different directors to do this assignment, a four- or five-minute film. This year’s theme was flight. Sony gives the directors HD equipment to use so they can familiarize themselves with the technology. One of our partners, Karen Kourtessis, did the editing for director Alison Maclean.
What challenges do filmmakers face with HD commercials?
Christopher Keenan: Every channel will have a different HD format. Which format are you going to go with? There are two flavors: 1080i and 720p. And TVs are different sizes. Your regular television is very close to square and most high definition TVs are 16:9 wide-screen format. Once advertisers decide to go into the HD world, the commercials have to be designed for both the square TV set and the rectangular TV set. And if there are any computer graphics, any rendered elements or 3D elements, they have to be rendered out in high definition. Luckily, it’s very easy to go from high-definition to standard-definition. Right now, while things are in transition, you’re basically finishing two products. But you get something that you can air beautifully in high definition and standard definition.
Is there a demand for HD commercials?
CH: In the commercial world, we’ve seen some movement towards HD. There is a comfort level with film, with its grayscale and color spacing. I’m not quite sure of the fluency level that some directors of photography and assistant cameramen have with HD cameras. Consequently, I’m not sure HD has reached a level of confidence yet among the advertising community. It will, but it’s a question of how closely HD can replicate the look and feel of film.
Why Final Cut Pro for HD?
CH: We were considering Avid Adrenalins, but we saw that Apple was offering Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 and it seemed to do everything that we’re looking for. So we installed a Mac in one of our editing rooms and it became the laboratory. We threw everything we could think of at that system — any effect, any type of audio plug-in. We were trying to find reasons not to go with Final Cut Pro. We couldn’t find a good reason. I think every editor here is thrilled with the new system. Another reason we made the switch was it provided an architecture so that if HD blossoms this year or next year, we have that flexibility to go with either HD or SD and do it seamlessly. We have the hardware and software that can handle HD without too much of a problem. We’ve set up the backbone to just plug HD in.
How has Final Cut Pro changed the way you work?
CH: It’s very smooth. Especially in graphics, especially with LiveType and Motion. Our workflow has become wider — as in what we can do in the edit room. Now we can do more — we don’t have to send as much work out to graphic houses. Consequently, we can offer broader services and a greater degree of creativity. It’s also very portable. If you have to work a weekend or work late at night, you can just take your job home. Or if you have to go cut on location, you can just grab your LaCie drive and your Final Cut Pro on a laptop and go. It’s just so much easier now.
What’s next for Crew Cuts?
CH: Xsan. We’ve laid the fiber and we’re installing Xsan. It’s going to be very beneficial to have a centralized storage medium where different editors can tap into different footage. That’s our next step with Apple. And hopefully, we’re going to cut more in HD.
CK: I watch as much HDTV as I can at home, but there are almost no commercials in HD. We’d like to see that change, we want to try to get the word out. More people are getting HD TVs. They’re watching these beautiful shows and when the commercials come on they ask, “Why does it look so bad?” Advertisers will start to hear that more and more. Some have already taken the leap and others are slow to adopt the technology, but it will happen.
