“Job freedom” typically implies a relaxed dress code, movie posters in your cubicle, or maybe even time off when you really need it. But true job freedom is post-producing TV shows about doggy mansions and drunken motorcycle burnouts from the comfort of your own den. Just ask Knoxville, Tennessee, filmmaker Dario Gildrie. His company, Leaping Waters, post-produces the shows “Barkitecture” and “Yokel” for DIY and Turner South using Final Cut Pro, Power Mac G5s, and PowerBook G4s. He and a small cadre of editors crank out about 30 episodes a year from their home studios.

“Everyone I work with uses Apple laptops on location or Apple desktops in their homes,” he says. “There is no overhead and we pull in almost a million dollars a year in business, collectively. And we’re working out of our basements — we’re pulling video equipment out of the back of our trucks and producing cable TV shows.”

“That’s what turned me onto Final Cut — it’s set up the way I work; it’s very intuitive.”

True Independence

Gildrie has three freelancers to help edit, color-correct, and process all the footage from “Barkitecture” and “Yokel.” On average, the crew distills 22 hours of tape for each episode of “Yokel” and 10 hours of footage for each episode of “Barkitecture.” The four meet before each project, but rarely see each other while they’re actively editing. “It’s important for us to remain independent,” says Gildrie. “Everybody should be able to work with their own equipment their own way on their own time and still deliver high-quality work.”

All of the team members use Final Cut Pro and Power Macs. Gildrie wouldn’t have it any other way. “I couldn’t do it without the G5 and Final Cut,” he says.

In the early days, Gildrie shot, edited, and directed documentaries and independent films. When he needed a non-linear editing suite, he looked for something familiar — and something that could juggle multiple projects. “That’s what turned me onto Final Cut,” he says. “It’s set up the way I work; it’s very intuitive. It’s also very easy for me to split up my projects because I know where all the files are stored. The transition to Final Cut has been very easy.”

In the Doghouse

Man’s best friend has inspired a lot, but groundbreaking architecture? It’s not a stretch. Canines have clawed their way into our hearts and we’ll build just about anything for them, including spectacular homes.

“On ‘Barkitecture,’ the cast builds these really tricked-out doghouses for people who get dogs from the Humane Society,” says Gildrie. “They are designed by the producers at Field of Vision Entertainment and the host Kenny Alfonso.” The houses are hammered together, then presented to the lucky pooch and its family. The show airs on the DIY cable television network.

Thanks to Gildrie, “Barkitecture” is shot in 720p high definition with Panasonic Varicams. The filmmaker persuaded the producers to ditch its digital beta cameras and Avid for Varicams and Final Cut Pro. “We could shoot it in high definition and down-covert it to digital beta for standard definition broadcast,” says Gildrie. The resulting footage looked so good that DIY sold the show in high definition and standard definition for cable TV broadcast.

Gildrie captures all the footage on tape, uncompressed, then hands it off to another editor for offlining. He frees all the footage back in his home studio, dumping the data onto an Xserve RAID for editing. Graphics come ready made from a team at DIY and Gildrie stitches the various bits together to make a final cut. The episode is ripped to a portable hard drive, shipped to a colleague for final color correction and then sent to a sound studio to be mixed. Gildrie masters the episodes in digital beta and 1080i high definition and sends them to the network for broadcast.

“I do an up-convert from 720p to 1080i through a DeckLink card to a Panasonic deck, then loop into the high-def cam for a copy and then down-covert it for standard definition. It takes me an hour a show to make three versions. It’s amazing, really, and I’m doing it all with Final Cut.”

Next page: Making “Yokel”