General Post is definitely busier than this time last year and ever optimistic that the trend will continue. Interestingly the company is securing a lot of work from North and West Africa.
Says Kirsty Galliard: “As an agency that supplies freelance digital media and post-production personnel to the industry, we seem to play more in the corporate and TV space, but definitely reality is on the up as is corporate work, which has been quieter in the past few years as a result of the recession.
“The increase in work from the rest of Africa is due to the relationships that I’ve spent some time building. I think we could probably get more international work but in our environment directors and producers like to work with people they know, so it’s a case of building relationships more than anything else.’
There definitely seems to be a move towards using more skilled post-production crew. At one point anyone who could operate Final Cut Pro (FCP) was an editor and cost was the major factor. Recently clients have become more selective about who they will use and require more skilled personnel. Rates are still quite low though.
Galliard continues: “I’ve heard quite well substantiated rumours that Apple is discontinuing the Mac Pro Towers in favour of iMacs,’ says Galliard. “If they do that it will kill FCP edit suites running on Apple as it will make it very difficult to use the various peripherals and cards and will result in less processor power. This is important when dealing with HD and multi-cam projects. Also FCP X is unimpressive – one of my editors described it as iMovie on steroids.
“Adobe Premiere looks likely to become the next standard. While I think larger facilities may stick to Avid, the cost is prohibitive to smaller facilities because you have to use Avid approved peripherals (as it’s a closed system) and the support is not as good as it could be.
“In contrast the new Premiere Pro allows a lot of flexibility depending on which machine you run it on and what peripherals you use. It’s also easier to use now with a redesigned, simplified and highly customisable interface and support for keyboard shortcuts (a must for professional editors).
Filters and effects can now be applied using layers and masks not unlike photoshop and of course the biggest advantage is that Premiere will take in just about any codec and format. I think 2012 will be an interesting year.’
By Andy Stead
Screen Africa magazine – May 2012
