AudioMedia - June 2008 - (Page 23)

Special Report > industry. “Section 42 and 48 of the tax rules, were coming to an end,” says Weinreich. “The government felt that the old tax rules were being applied in a fashion which was being used for tax avoidance, and that was unacceptable to them, but they still wanted to give support to the film industry The new rules were announced on Dec 5, 2006, in the autumn statement by the Chancellor, but they hadn’t been approved by the EC. They had to be watered down, and the net result, cutting to the chase, is that a picture that in 2005 that would have had a budget of maybe $10 million, has now got a budget of maybe $4 million.” Weinreich notes the story of a British Director who, at around that time, had a $25 million film in waiting. That was soon curtailed to $8 million – and you can bet that the sound budget took a big hit. However, Videosonics still went ahead and did the movie, but where do you save? Weinreich: “How do you tell a guy who’s sitting in his room with his Pro Tools and his sound effects, ‘do less, be less creative, don’t do as good a job’. You can’t do that, it doesn’t work. We were never able to fundamentally reduce our costs down to the budgets that our clients had. Eventually that was going to catch up to us. And it did.” Interestingly, Weinreich believes that in the earlier days of the facility’s evolution, Videosonics had the agility that would have been required to cope with such a change in circumstances. Unfortunately, he also recognises that the agility had waned even before the film boomtime. “There came a moment, probably in 2000,” Weinreich relates. “In which I remember saying very, very clearly to Li, and a few of the other senior people around, that it felt like we’d lost that agility. Now everything we’d do was going to be like turning an oil tanker. You felt that people were becoming a little bit compartmentalised – ‘this is what I do, I do that well’. It was a little harder to say to someone, ‘I know your senior-self is this really, really creative sound effects creator and all that stuff, but I really want you to go and do this documentary’. There were more BAFTA nominations, there were more Emmys, there were more awards – there were more senses of self. I think I knew at that moment that we were in trouble. “ None of the changes that were needed were a surprise. But somehow or other, the ability to create the change that was needed was too difficult. You come into work in the morning, and maybe you’re on the bus and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do this, this, and this ’, and then you come in and there’s a problem. So all of the stuff you’ve planned gets put aside and you’re not taking care of this other thing that’s lurking in the background.” Some might say that location had its hand in the eventual failure of Videosonics – that ‘not in Soho’ thing that accompanies raised eyebrows at every discussion about a studio outside the hallowed streets. However, Dennis Weinreich does not see it as a particularly significant contributor. While he acknowledges that Camden Town has lost its thriving media community to a large extent, he also says that Soho has both enemies and devotees in the client pool. Th e Agi l i t y O f An O i l Ta n ke r The failure of a business is hardly ever a simple thing, and these things only touch the surface of a complex road to the day that Videosonics had to close its doors. Weinreich maintains that a piecemeal reduction of costs, with staff losses and short cuts that might have kept the ship afloat a while longer was unacceptable to him – better to bow out gracefully than hang on until an inevitably bitter end. There are still issues to resolve – the fate of the building is the most obvious, with Weinreich very aware that while a big building is a potential sweetener, a big building split into bespoke audio studios is a more difficult matter. Weinreich’s future is certainly not going to be desperate, as even he acknowledges: “What’s clear is that I’ve got lots of options. I didn’t realise how many options I really had until the last couple of weeks I will stay in the industry.” I’d like to thank Dennis Weinreich for his candor in discussing the Videosonics liquidation and the circumstances surrounding it, so soon after the event. ∫ A U D I O M E D I A j U n E A2U0 D I8 O M E D I A 0 NOVEMBER 2005 Th e R o a d To Cl o s e d D o o r s http://www.merging.com http://www.merging.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AudioMedia - June 2008

AudioMedia - June 2008 Contents Recording Post Broadcast AES Review What's Up UK? Geofocus: Australia For the Record Special Report: Videosonics Newstalk: DPA New Microphones Novation SL Compact Allen & Heath IDR-8 Eastwest Quantum Leap SD2 & Goliath Final Cut: Indiana Jones Merging ADR Module Koolworld SSL Duende Good Product Sampler: Microphones Video Guide AMSR Meyer Sound The Blue Planet Live! Royer Labs Mics R-121 & R-122

AudioMedia - June 2008

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