Chip Eberhart DVD Author & Film Editor High Level Productions, USA
DVDA Advisory Council Member  Chip Eberhart
"Everything becomes old and nostalgic at some point. Anything and everything is going to become nostalgic. Even some of the music we hear today that we hate going by homes, and in our cars even that in twenty to thirty years is going to be nostalgic. Time-Life and other smart companies will be there to repackage that music"
"People should be involved in the DVD Association because camaraderie, the exchange of ideas, the exchange of information, that is the only way we are going to grow as professionals.... The motto that I always try to promote to people is what I call co-opitition."
Dec. 1, 2004
DVDA (Bernie Mitchell, President): Let me just test my tape recorder and make sure we are recording.
Chip Eberhart: (in an official sounding voice) "This is a test of the emergency DVD System. Had this been an actual DVD, you would have been told where to find trailers and other advertisements unwanted by the consumer." (laughter)
DVDA: Chip, thank you, for that official warning, the official start. What is the most exciting thing happening in the DVD world that you are involved in right now. What is really floating your boat?
Chip: Right now, what is really floating my boat is I think the music industry is finally starting to get charged up and starting to understand what DVD means to them; how it can really help the artist of today. It can help promote them and repurpose the music catalogs that are so valuable to all these various record labels.
DVDA: Are you speaking about music DVDs on DVD-Video, DVD-Video and Audio, or DVD-Audio?
Chip: I am speaking primarily about DVD-Video. I think the public still doesn't understand DVD-Audio and I think that because of the additional cost of the machines, there are still not any really inexpensive audio players and the discs are more expensive. We are talking about a public today that prefers low bandwidth MP3 files for a dollar. They prefer to download a low bandwidth MP3 rather than go out and buy a high quality CD. So, I don't think we are going see a real growth in DVD Audio anytime soon. Unfortunately, I am calling DVD-Audio players the 8 track tape players of the year 2000.
DVDA: How are the music labels seeing the benefit of DVD-Video?
Chip: A lot of them are finding that it is a different way to market their artists. We know it is a visual world, MTV taught us that 20 years ago. They are finding that it is a good tool, and it is a viable tool, especially with the cost of replication. I mean it is so low, it is incredible. They can take chances that they couldn't before.
DVDA: Are you seeing a push towards repackaging content from established artists, or a push towards new artists?
Chip: I am seeing both, but I think a bigger trend towards repurposing and taking advantage of the older catalog. It is material that is proven, there are existing an proven markets and audiences for it. So, what they are doing they are saying "what kind of graphics can we put with this, what kind of video do we have, how can we put this package together." Because going back to costs, literally today to manufacture a DVD costs less money than it did to, 20 years ago when you have to manufacture an album. It is just incredible and obviously you can get so much more content on DVD.
DVDA: Are you saying that the labels are willing to take the time and money to dig thru archives and find stuff they can add on the DVD?
Chip: Absolutely, what they are doing, is the Time-Life model. Everything becomes old and nostalgic at some point. Anything and everything is going to become nostalgic. Even some of the music we hear today that we hate going by homes, and in our cars even that in twenty to thirty years is going to be nostalgic. Time-Life and other smart companies will be there to repackage that music and sell it as a DVD, or probably by then Zeon laser disc, HD+ Hologram disc. They are taking the older catalog because they know that not only is their an existing audience, but that the audiences for this bands, for instance, The Grateful Dead, the existing audience actually has discretionary income. Maybe when they were originally fans, when the band first came out, maybe they were hippies and they didn't have a lot of money. But now we are talking about people, 20, 30 40 years later, and now they have money and they don't know what to do with it. So, record labels are saying " Guess what? Here is something you can do with it you can try to recapture your past." Everybody is trying to recapture their youth, those were the greatest times of your life, those were the times you didn't have any bills, you didn't have many headaches, you did have to worry about the mortgage. It is really sights and sounds that bring you back to that and DVD is the best vehicle for going back to those nostalgic times.
DVDA: You see Chjp, I grew up in the 60's and early 70's so I don't remember those times.
Chip: (Laughs) I understand
DVDA: An interesting parallel, in the past the success of CD audio discs was based on the publishing model. It is when the labels realized that they could take back catalog where the royalties were very low and repackage those into boxed sets and sell them for a much higher premium than vinyl albums.
Chip: Exactly, just like you said, the labels have already put out the capital, they have already made back their money from these artists and a lot of them, depending on the licensing and publishing models, they don't have a lot, it is a no brainer.
DVDA: How long have you personally been in DVD?
Chip: I have been in DVD for about 5 years. I am a late bloomer, I came in about 1999.
DVDA: What was the pathway that brought you to DVD.
Chip: I started off as a consumer, a home theatre lover. The first time I saw a DVD player, was at the consumer electronics show and it was being played off a computer. And I thought, wow, that's cool you can watch a movie on your computer. And it was like, no, I would rather watch a movie in my home on my TV, so I didn't get it. And then a friend of mine had a really nice TV set and got this DVD player, and I thought "yeah, it looks nice and sounds really good" but I still didn't get it. Then we moved into a new house and had a little extra money left over, so we picked up a 50" TV and of course, we had to get a 50" sound system. One you have a 50" TV and a 50" sound system, you say, "well let me try this new DVD thing." And when I hooked up the 50" DVD with the 50" TV and the 50" sound system, I got it! (Laughs) This is cool, this is the future, this is how people are going to enjoy movies.
DVDA: What is your background? Were you in the music field before DVD?
Chip: Yeah, 20 years ago I started off in the music industry, so going over to video, what happened was it was a round about way. From music production, because I was working in the production area, it was no longer a hobby. So, I needed a new hobby and it became amateur auto racing, and with that came a lot of in-car video. So, I needed to edit the in-car video and I started editing and I jumped real quick from iMovie to Final Cut Pro. I found out that I really enjoyed it and thought I had a talent for it and some of my early clients felt that fortunately. I segued from music production to video production. The DVD stuff, once I understood what DVD was, I jumped with both feet into it. Early on I got a Sonic Creator system and read Jim Taylor's book from cover to cover. And started doing it.
DVDA: Talk about some of the clients and some of the projects that you have worked on.
Chip: I work primarily with music related projects. I have worked with artists from Sting, to the Grateful Dead, to Michael McDonald. I just finished up a Christmas album with Chris Isaak, and 50th anniversary DVD for country western legend George Jones.
DVDA: Looking at that list, what was the most difficult project and why?
Chip: Hmmm....the most difficult project was a disc with did for Anthrax, the rock band. It was the most difficult because we had to do not only the authoring, but also all the creative. It was challenging. Usually as a DVD author, everything is handed to us, you know we get artists in the rights of compression, navigation and maybe even some of the menu content. But this disc, actually it didn't even start off as a disc. I was given a box of tapes and told, make a movie, make a DVD.
DVDA: How long did the project take?
Chip: 3 months.
DVDA: Give us the tour of your shop, in terms of the equipment, the tools. How does a project move thru the shop and how do you make it happen?
Chip: Ok, the tour first. My home studio which is called The Bridge, I have 3 primary systems. My Sonic Creator is connected to an 8" NTSC monitor and a couple of 20" Mitsubishi CRTs. I have a new baby, a G5 with dual 2.5Ghz machine which runs DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, Shake, Motion and Photoshop. That is connected to a 20" Apple Cinema Display as well an Aja IO. The Aja IO routes that video up to a 26" Samsung monitor that is hung on the wall. Then we have a portable system, an Apple PowerBook 1.5Ghz, which has everything installed that the G5 has installed, it just runs it slower. Everything goes to a Tascam MM1 mixer for audio monitor. Because of my audio background and DJ'ing, I still have a pair of Technics turntables. And also there is a facility in the downtown Chicago area that I work out of, KI Edit Design, where I have access to a DigiBeta machine as well a Sonic SD2000 encoder and Optibase MovieMaker encoder. My clients, typically 99 percent of my clients don't care how I create a disc. The day that my clients start dictating what tools I use that is probably the day I am going to get out of this business. My Sonic System is valued at $15,000. I've got one of them. Add a DVD Studio Pro System $500. I've 3 of them. So, essentially I can have 3 different DVD projects going at the same time. So, I have that flexibility. The DVD Studio Pro System is just as capable as a Sonic System and sure there are some things that happen in the extraction layer that makes the tools like DVDEdit and even the donation ware tool MyDVDEdit where you can go into these DVD Studio Pro projects and we can dismantle them and take out the overhead that has been created by the extraction layer. So, there is no reason not to use another application, it should be completely agnostic. When you are a carpenter and you have to put a nail into the wall, you reach for a hammer. You just want to make sure that it is a good working hammer and that it is not going to fall apart on you. All of the systems I use are good hammers.
DVDA: What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
Chip: I have actually been asked this question a couple of times, specifically at the MacWorld shows and at NAB. The way it was posed is, "I am a college educator and I want to put together a program for DVD authoring, what are some of the things a DVD author needs on his tool belt?" You need to understand audio production, at a basic level, you need to understand the differences between 48K and 44K. You need to understand what distortion is and where it comes from. So, you can interface with audio engineers, the guys that are going to give you the audio files to go to DVD. You have to understand graphics because even if you don't shoot the menus yourself you are going to have to integrate with people who work with PhotoShop and Illustrator. So, I would put those kind of classes into DVD author program. You will have to understand non-linear editing to some extent. Even if you don't actually do the editing, you need to be able to interface with those people. This is a business where you are going to be interfacing with a lot of people and if you don't understand what their role is and what your role is, and when the fingers get pointed they are all going to get pointed at you.
DVDA: There are certainly a lot of DVD production tools available from very high end tools, to very low end, even $39 consumer tools. How do you position your services and your company? Is your business increasing? Is their price erosion?
Chip: The market is definitely increasing, I am getting new clients on a daily basis. I have been able to hold my pricing. If you believe in quality service then there is no reason to lower your price to match a guy who has just started yesterday and has bought a $39 package or even a $500 package. It becomes not about the package, it is not about being able to burn a DVD. The value you add as an author goes beyond that as a professional, as a member of the DVD Association. You are a professional DVD Author who understands more than just hitting a button that says "Burn" or "Record". You understand everything that is involved with the disc, how it operates. You know the DVD spec, or if you don't know it religiously, at least you know where to look and find the answers. You have copies of Ralph LaBarge's book and Jim Taylor's book sitting next to you.
DVDA: You have just launched the Chicago Chapter of the DVD Association. What should people in Chicago expect to get out of being in the DVD Association?
Chip: People should be involved in the DVD Association because camaraderie, the exchange of ideas, the exchange of information, that is the only way we are going to grow as professionals. And that is the only way we are going to grow the DVD business in the MidWest. If we all try to do it separately, it is going to hurt us more than help us. The motto that I always try to promote to people is what I call co-opitition. I think it can be very successful of what is going on. Knowledge of the industry trends, knowledge of techniques. Even knowledge of projects that are coming up. Maybe there is a project that I can' t handle, but if I can pass it off to one of my associates in the DVD Association, I think we all benefit from that. Then they might be able to send me a project and I think it keeps things moving forward.
DVDA: What is your take on next generation DVDs?
Chip: I think the next generation is going to be much slower to take off than DVD was originally. Almost 20 years for VHS to get to the point where DVD was in 2 years. But I don't think we will see the next generation move quite as fast as DVD, because a lot of people just invested in their DVD players. And a lot of people have invested in their DVD libraries and they are not going to be real fast to invest in this new technology and new players and new discs. Sadly in the United States we are still seeing a very slow growth in terms High Definition Television sets, or Television sets with component inputs. It is just now to a point where a lot of people are just getting a television set with A/V inputs, instead of just coaxial. For this new technology to grow, a lot of people will have to get a new TV set, a new player and a new library. That is what is going to slow it down, people have just got to that point on this current technology. It is not going to be gangbusters like DVD. It is going to be a niche market.
DVDA: If you woke up tomorrow and there was not DVD what would you be doing?
Chip: An alternative, or parallel universe, with no DVD. What would I be doing? Ohhh....I have no idea.
DVDA: That's interesting, I guess since we are all so involved in DVD, everybody is passionately involved in what we are doing, and that is good.
Chip: Yeah, absolutely.
DVDA: Thank you, Chip Eberhart and continued success with High Level Productions
Interview conducted by: Bernie Mitchell, President, DVDA
|
