We made big shows happen with small crews and tiny budgets. Formed in late 2010, we quickly gained attention for our do anything attitude and abilities beyond filming and editing. A look around the market supplying creative work to the music industry saw we had an opportunity to compete, we knew we had what it would take to upend the stage visual industry.
RadioEditAV’s Film & Edit Reel – produced, edited, and sound design by Scott Edwards
When you’re small, everyone has to do a bit of everything. Not only was I producing and project managing, on any given project you’d find me animating, filming, editing, and anything else the project needed.
We really started with a contract to produce the first iteration of Pretty Lights’ pillars stage for its debut on New Year’s Eve 2010. With less than a month to deliver an entire show’s worth of video playback content for display on the massive LED encrusted pillars, we built a computer powerful enough to handle the 3D workflow, moved into a basement and got to work.
It was 24-7 for that month, and many more to come as we expanded and took on more clients. We quickly had to hire on additional filmers and editors to meet the demand for our intimate show-recap videos and stage designs.
Creating the application specific templates that the rest of our crew applied their creativity through, and output the formats needed to make the complex stage designs display correctly.
We were never afraid to try experiment in the newest technology, or to take inspiration from old techniques to make something new.
Our mastery of LEDs coincided with price reductions bringing the technology into reach of even mid-range acts. Now its everywhere.
We developed projection mapping capabilities just as the technique was gaining popular attention.
Analog visual synthesis and other old-school visual styles were integrated to keep shows from feeling too digital or clean.
Writing code to interface digital and analog video, we created walls of CRT televisions multiplexing and individually assigning signal.
With a growing customer list and forays into more corporate work for Fortune 500 brands, the projects got increasingly complicated and the relationships became closer. We were becoming the go-to company to finish 3D product showcases in super-short turnarounds. During that time show visuals were becoming a necessary part of any mid-sized act’s performance. RadioEditAV played a major role in bringing the price and time-investment down to levels affordable for up-and-coming acts.
With this growth, I had to take an increasing role in the administration side of the business. Everything from contracts, payroll, insurance, logistics, to staffing.
My role in the business had expanded to include the full suite of small business management needs, in addition to client relationship management and my usual production roles
I’m proudest of the careers that RadioEditAV helped start, the community we helped foster, and the work. I’m always proud of our work.
Including the website I built… in a responsive landscape design… it was really hard, but it mostly holds up.