The edit suite: cockpit of political spot post-production - Cover Story

As graphics become more important in campaign ads and technology improves, political consultants should ask what kind of online editing, 3-D type fonts, special effects and audio capabilities a post-production house has to offer.

It could be said that post-production of political television spots is not for the squeamish.

As anyone in the business can attest, that segment of the market is rife with peril, due in part to the head-spinningly fast turnaround and the mounds of mud that are constantly slung back and forth.

It's so intense that seemingly minor events, like a consultant leaving a script behind in an edit suite, can provide surprise fodder for the opposition.

On the other hand, if the producer that worked in a suite prior to your session leaves a script behind, you still have to think twice about reading it - since it may not be the real deal, but a decoy left to throw a rival off stride.

Pretty crafty, huh?

It may also be wise to double-check who that fellow working down the hall is. It just might be your opponent. Or a rival consultant who's ticked off that you're working with his former client. Then there's The Dulles Run, but that's another story.

Does the term cutthroat come to mind?

If so, a novice candidate, consultant and campaign manager should read on and take in a few pointers before selecting a post house. It could help turn a maiden voyage into a post-production bon voyage.

What to Find Out

The requirements of political work are indeed unique, said Spence Burton, director of marketing at Henninger Media Services in Arlington, Virginia. And that, he said, makes a post house having a wealth of political experience a must.

Burton has his reasons. "Spots are often completed in a day, which makes the creative side tough. So the political producers often can't design complicated visuals. It boils down to type, voice-over and copy."

As insinuated, the security issue looms large in that segment of the business as well, since no one ever knows who might hear or see something that could alter an advertising plan of attack. "That's unique in the post business," explains Burton. "With regular ads, no one has those concerns."

Bob Fahringer is a senior editor at Henninger. An eight-year man with the company, he has toiled, at various hours of the day and night, during a few election seasons. "It often happens that people just come in at the last minute, so they're running to the edit suite, then the audio suite," he said. "We just try to match up pictures to create the final edit and get the spot delivered to a station or a candidate's office-locally or in another state - by the next morning."

The spots that are usually the toughest, he said, are the negative ads at the end of the campaign. That's due to the turnaround they require. "They are often a response to a first negative ad," he observed.

When selecting a house, Fahringer offers these tips:

Consultants should ask what online editing, graphics and audio the house has to offer, he suggested, as graphics have become more of a part of the process as technology has improved in recent years. They may incorporate 3-D type styles or special effects.

But, plenty of times, it's just smash 'n go. "Depending on the complexity of the spot, we can edit from the Avid (a computer editor), online (tape-to-tape editing) or Henry (a graphics and editing box often used for more complicated work) suites."

To save time and money, he offers this advice. "Think about what your message really is, try to be prepared with a script and what shots you want included from the stock footage of your candidate before you enter the suite."

Time is Money

There's an old saying in the industry: "Fix it in post." And while whatever is lacking in a spot can often be fixed in the edit suite, it still takes time and money to do so.

Holding that thought, Fahringer's advice was echoed by Henry Holdren, technical operations manager for the Interface Group in Washington, which opened 21 years ago as the political arena emerged as a staple market in Washington.

Holdren offers another key tip in holding down costs. "In 1996, there was a big transformation in the field. It happened when the consultants started realizing the importance of completing their offline edit (the initial phase of editing footage) before they got here" to use the pricier online suites.

"At that point, what had been taking them eight hours in an online (final phase of editing) suite began to take half as long, since the consultants had their offline done before they came into the online suite. They were doing the offline on their own Avids, or using ours here."

Another advantage of doing the offline beforehand is consultants can send a rough edit to their client for their review, then go into the online suite knowing exactly what is necessary. That saves time and money.

Holdren also offered some intriguing comments on the security issue.

Our biggest struggle is keeping the political people separated," he said. "Ironically, it isn't a Republican-Democratic thing. It's keeping the common-party consultants away from each other. They go after the same candidates from the same parties, so they tend to be very cut-throat. They're very anxious about making sure someone from their own party doesn't see what they are doing."

It is also important to note that some post houses are non-partisan while others are.

The Consultant's View

The post houses have their own way of accommodating the consultants, but the consultants have their own ideas of what they need.

Ronna Romney, production manager for Stevens Reed Curcio & Co., also in Alexandria, Virginia, said her firm needs production facilities that are accommodating to political work. "Booking eight hours in advance is a long time for us," she says. "They get a lot of midnight calls."

She said her employer purchases a suite from around Labor Day to the November election for two eight-hour shifts. There are times they take up six suites at once.

What would she tell someone new to the business? "Find out how many suites a house has and what's inside of each," she explained. "You may need a certain editing machine, audio suite, sound design capability, a narration booth and tape duplication. And one stop shopping is great. It saves time when you don't have to run around town for the different elements."

Chris Kepferle is a senior producer with Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns & Associates in Washington, the firm that produced much of the Clinton campaign media in 1992. He said his firm looks for a facility with good engineering, good editors and a good staff.

"Good engineering is important because you are paying a couple of hundred dollars an hour for an edit suite and you want the time to be used efficiently," he said, noting what his firm pays varies from $250 to $500 an hour.

"Good editors make it quicker and they bring a new perspective to material you've been working with," Kepferle continued. "You may be working on a campaign for six-to-eight months, but they may add a new twist. An extra creative eye is always helpful, given the flurry of other political and regular ads on TV."

Ed Blakely, vice president with Smith & Harroff in Alexandria, Virginia, is quick to expand on that point. "Your spot has to stand up along side all the other ads you see on TV. Essentially, we are competing with Madison Avenue."

That can result in many of the higher profile people having spots shot on film. "Presidential spots are just about all film," Blakely said. "It takes a bigger budget, but the look is much richer. But if you shoot on film, you have to make sure the post house can transfer the footage to video."

Kepferle also hit on a good point about the cost, Holdren said.

"They also need to be realistic about candidates budgets. The range from the Avid to online editing can run from $200 to $750 per hour. Therefore, you have to know the budget and find out where a candidate falls in that range.

"To make the high-end range work, they really have to be prepared. The most money I've ever seen wasted in the suite was by political consultants."

Kepferle is excited about a new technical development this year that makes spot distribution more efficient: electronic distribution. The technology can upload and send TV and radio spots across fiber lines.

"Henninger and Interface use this technology for spot distribution. It's an all digital path. If a station doesn't have the box to download it, they make a tape copy and send it overnight," observed Kepferle.

Of course, these days, the impact of the Internet is being felt everywhere, and the post field is no exception.

"The other thing consultants need to do," stated Holdren, is take advantage of the new computer technology. Specifically, they can send an AVI or MPEG files, or Quick Time movies, of a spot to their candidates' email address.

They also need to know the Internet's capabilities. They can post a spot to a secure Web site for their clients, who can down load it immediately and make changes within an hour."

Off to the Races

That's the kind of turnaround that can help reduce some of the stress. But to operate in the pressure cooker, Holdren said that it's a good idea for aspiring consultants to do some kind of apprenticeship while they learn the ropes. "That's a great help in learning some of the technical aspects of the post business," he said.

If sending the spots via fiber isn't an option for one reason or another, there's always The Dulles Run.

"What happens in that case," said Romney, "is you take your spots and hope you'll make it to the Dulles Airport (in Northern Virginia) Federal Express drop off by the 10 p.m. deadline."

It's like an rite of initiation, she explained. "We do it virtually every night during political season. Around much of our area in Northern Virginia, it's only 8:30."

There is no overtime in this case. If you missed the plane, you've missed the boat. And a few hearts have indeed sunk at the drop off, to be sure.

After all, Kepferle concluded, "If you can't get the spots out on time and on the air, all of your work is for naught."

COPYRIGHT 1998 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group