ATLANTA – Its adjoining art gallery is just one of the things that makes TUBE Creative (tubecreative.com) just a little bit different from its Atlanta neighbors. Here are a few others: a soundstage with hard cyc, full interactive services, complete audio capabilities and, of course, the end-of-the-week “tube tub” (a.k.a. happy hour) for clients who are so inclined. Diversity has served this post production, graphic design and interactive media company well. Founded in 1999 by owner/editor Chris Downs, TUBE offers the more traditional audio/video and graphic design post services, along with that stage, but clients kept asking for interactive add-ons like CD-ROMS, DVDs and Web projects. Now, 30 to 40 percent of the business is interactive; the rest is project-focused post that uses many of the other services. “When people were pulling back on video budgets, we were doing interactive or we would approach local agencies who didn’t have any work and suggest redoing their DVD demo for their lobby,” says Downs. “That’s how we’re a little different than traditional post houses. A lot of those guys survive by opening their doors and saying ‘We have three Avids’ and all of a sudden they’d get booked. And maybe that’s the case in other cities but Atlanta’s a different market. We don’t have the TV shows and films being done here, and we know it. There’s great creative talent here – you just have to find different avenues for that.” The economy is still not yet robust, he adds, but TUBE has been lucky to get two long-format, multi-week booking shows this year. And some corporate and broadcast clients aren’t as particular about budgets as they used to be. Diverse talents have helped in-house, too. “I don’t need nine guys to do the dozen things we offer. We’re a small group, there are five of us, who offer everything from Flash design to DVD to audio to video, the couple main guys here can do it all,” he says.

THE GEAR
TUBE’S strong audio department has also proven to be a plus, Downs emphasizes, since “for a lot of video post houses here in town, audio is foreign.” The facility houses a Digidesign Pro Tools 24 audio suite with 5.1 surround sound; an automatic digital mixing console; two voiceover booths; a library music; and an on-network searchable sound library.

TUBE’S newest equipment is the addition of a Final Cut Pro suite with a Pinnacle CineWave uncompressed card, now the house online room. “The Avid Media Composer 9000 was only 2:1 and even though that was fine for a lot of corporate things, we picked up Rich’s [a regional department store chain] as a broadcast client and immediately we needed to output things that were uncompressed,” says Downs. Future plans include obtaining Apple’s Shake as a new compositing tool.

Downs says that in a small market like Atlanta, he couldn’t find a way to justify buying a Flame. “A handful of houses in town have it, and they specialize in only that.” he explains, “We really like to have our hands in doing the full project — taking on a client and being able to maintain their branding throughout all the different mediums. We have the good, solid tools to create a product that will stand up to the other guys. It’s in the Avid that we’re still offlining everything and onlining corporate, and with the addition of Final Cut, we’re a heavy After Effects [running on a Mac G4] house. Especially with desktops getting so much quicker, we feel we’ve got a lot of the capacity that perhaps a Flint would have. For what our clients are needing, it’s great.” And then there’s that soundstage, which always comes in handy. “The stage has proven to be a good tool because it’s introduced us to some new folks who just need a quick chromakey stage who then consider posting it here,” he adds.

THE WORK
This year, TUBE has been working on two children’s shows, both full service projects using just about everything but Web design. ‘Superconductor,’ a PBS pilot that has been greenlighted, is a music education program hosted by New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine. TUBE did chromakey shots for two different music videos used within the show, created ‘Electric Company’ style graphics bumpers that run throughout, completed editorial and sound design for the entire show, and performed color correct and online.

The original one-hour pilot also had to be cut down to a 1/2-hour pilot for the client’s pitch. The client was The Imagination Gang (Atlanta). Another show, ‘Feelin’ Good’ by Laughing Pizza Productions (Atlanta), is a direct-to-video and direct-to-DVD family-oriented entertainment show that features interviews with kids and songs. For that, TUBE completed a stage shoot, created graphics and provided off and online post. These shows should be out this summer.

The Rich’s broadcast spots, highlighting the department store’s holiday sales, are graphics heavy. TUBE starts work at the shooting stage of the production, cuts offline, creates graphics and then masters to Digi Beta. The client is the internal broadcast group at Rich’s/Lazarus/Goldsmith. Corporate work has included quarterly video newsletters for Randstad North America, the global staffing firm, which abandoned its printed newsletters for these. TUBE cut the initial 20-minute edition of ‘In Focus’ this spring, providing full post and a full graphics package. The videos are sent to all employees. TUBE also does corporate work for Coca-Cola. A great example of its interactive work has been for Habitat for Humanity, the Americus, GA-based non-profit organization. TUBE made an interactive/marketing CD-ROM for fund raising. It created a two-minute introduction in Macromedia Director with moving text and pictures, music and stories that segues into a clip of former HUD director Jack Kemp, then leads into an interactive interface to the Web. It hooks on to a 10-minute marketing video that Tube cut for the client last year. The CDs are sent out year round.

So in this TUBE, they’re doing much more than just television work. On the one side of its historic pre-Civil War-era warehouse loft, in a bevy of editorial suites, the future looks much more diverse. On the other side of that warehouse, christened ArtSpot, the future will take many forms as local and national art shows fill its walls.