HOT HOUSE: Nice Shoes Steps Out
with HD

Nice Shoes isn't just experienced with HD, they are HD evangelists. The New York post house has not only been working with high definition for at least six years on high-end commercial spots for such clients as MTV, Pepsi, IBM and Kodak but the facility has also taken HD on the road-literally. Nice Shoes has been bringing its knowledge of the technology to its clients to help teach them the ins and outs of HD production and post.

WHAT'S THEIR GIG

The company, which was formed in 1996 when founding partners Dominic Pandolfino, Scott Burch, Howie Burch, Joe Bottazzi and Ed Patrowitz left their prior gig at Manhattan Transfer to pursue their own collective dream of running a business the way they thought it should be run, wants its clients to understand HD technology, style and technique and how it relates to the entire production process.

According to Managing Director Kristen Kupjian, "One of our strengths is that we're always looking toward the future and always trying to help bring our clients there with us. It's obvious that HD is the direction we're going in and we've been at the forefront of it."

The company has been sending a team made up of Executive Producer Pat Portela, Colorist Chris Ryan and Aron Baxter, digital effects artist at sister visual effects company Guava, on the road to visit its various clients around the country to run educational seminars on HD-related issues from shooting, editing and color correction to final delivery.

"We realized from many of the phone calls we were getting that people really needed more information about how HD works," says Biz Lynskey, managing director at Nice Shoes. "The directors weren't shooting the projects correctly and then we'd have to fix it in post. We've been showing our clients how things should be shot, how to deal with things that come up while you're finishing, titling, framing, etc. We've received amazing feedback from our clients. The seminars have really helped with our credibility, too. It's really helped our reputation." Kupjian adds, "A lot of our clients didn't know they could shoot an HD commercial with film, which I found very surprising. They thought it had to be done with video. I think that many of our clients are intimidated by HD and feel they should already know more about it than they actually do. But part of our message is that there is no right way when you're dealing with HD. There are many different circumstances. The solutions are really on a case-by-case basis, and I think that's comforting to our clients when they hear that."

THE COOL FACTOR

Not only is Nice Shoes keeping its clients well educated, but it's also adhering to its corporate philosophy of promoting from within. About twice a year, the studio holds nighttime classes, from about 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., for its newer employees, teaching them how to use the gear the company uses to produce some of its most successful projects. "We're probably the only company that still does this in New York," says Lynskey. "We hire entry-level people for positions in shipping, reception or client services to start at the bottom and run the business. Then we eventually enroll them into our training program at night where they learn all about video, from start to finish."

"It's a great program," says Pandolfino. "While other companies train their employees as they're on the job, we run the training as if it's a totally separate department." In other words, once one of their staff goes into the training program, that's all they do. They don't have to worry about other projects and deadlines looming over their heads. "When these kids come out of that class," he says, "they know their stuff inside and out."

In addition to training, the company recently introduced Nice Spots, a Web-based system designed for sharing media (see studiomonthly.com/5870.html). John DiMaggio, manager of Nice Spots, says he spent about two years developing the system and says all you need to run it is Macromedia Flash and ShockWave, as well as QuickTime. "This is actually the first time Nice Shoes has created a piece of software," he says. The system is ideal for client approval on various projects. Explains DiMaggio, "You can upload spots during the approval process and then other users, from anywhere in the world, can make comments on certain frames on a spot so everyone involved with that project can see them. There's actually a chalkboard function designed for users to be able to mark up a frame if, let's say, there's something's wrong or there's something someone wants to address. But the approval part is just one aspect of it. It can also be used for archival and retrieval purposes. You can put your whole library on there," he says, which means you won't have to pay for storage, dubbing or shipping.

(Below is a spot Nice Shoes worked on for Pepsi.It was transferred with the Spirit and color corrected with the Davinci 2K.)

Watch The Video:   [High]   [Low]   Download Flash 9 Player

THE GEEK FACTOR

Although they never said it in so many words, the team's love of their Grass Valley Specter FS virtual datacine is obvious. And while they work with a long list of impressive gear that includes Discreet Smoke, Flame and Inferno, Mac G5 workstations, DaVinci 2K color correctors, a Grass Valley Spirit datacine and Sony 32-inch HD monitors throughout the entire studio, it's the Specter they just can't seem to stop talking about.

"We started out with one around December 2004 that our engineers in research and development and our colorists worked together with to make sure it was customized for our needs," says Kupjian. Since the Specter is a server-based system, it can store each scene of a project that needs to be color corrected, allowing the team at Nice Shoes to load a client's entire project onto it the night before that client is scheduled to come in for a color-correction session. "That way, when the client comes in to work on their project, they don't have to worry about reel changes. Their scenes have already been scanned in and are in order. It saves our clients a lot of time and money. A typical eight-hour session can now take half that time. It's a new workflow that we developed that really is unique. We just bought our third Specter because our clients love it. And that's just the kind of thing we like to do here at Nice Shoes: Come up with unique workflows that benefit our clients."

WHAT THEY DO

Full-service post-production, specializing in high-end commercial finishing

WHO THEY ARE

Kristen Kupjian, Managing Director
Biz Lynskey, Managing Director
John DiMaggio, Manager of Nice Spots
Dominic Pandolfino, Partner
Joe Bottazzi, Partner/Chief Engineer
Scott Burch, Partner/Colorist
Howie Burch, Partner
Lez Rudge, Colorist
Chris Ryan, Colorist
Lenny Mastrandrea, Colorist
Russ Bigsby, Editor
Rich Schreck, Editor
Eric Gelgand, Editor
Ed Skupeen, Editor
John Shea, Editor

TECHNOLOGY

Grass Valley Specter FS virtual datacine
Grass Valley Spirit datacine
Discreet Smoke, Flame and Inferno
Mac G5 workstations
DaVinci 2K color correctors
Quantel Henry Infinity
Sony 32-inch HD monitors

Nice Shoes
www.niceshoes.com
352 Park Ave. South, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10010
212.683.1704