SWOT: Deliverables, standards & predatory pricing
Larry Cheroff
Issue: December 1, 2015

SWOT: Deliverables, standards & predatory pricing

The post industry can only be described as a labor of love — you hope to be rewarded for exceptional service and innovative solutions. When you're a service provider in this business, your ideal scenario is 90 percent utilization of your facility assets and personnel with the same workflow and deliverables for each client with pricing that allows for a reasonable profit margin. Here's how we see it:
 
STRENGTHS: The increasing demand for content is having a positive effect on our industry.
 
WEAKNESSES: The proliferation of deliverables required by a growing base of customers and end-users and the lack of standards in many instances invites inconsistency and duplication of effort.
 
OPPORTUNITIES: A high bar for execution and service creates opportunity in the land mine. Innovative development and engineering efforts that streamline workflows in response to the ever increasing demands of post production can be rewarding.
 
THREATS: There is the constant threat that predatory pricing in the marketplace will have long term effects on margin that are not sustainable. The financial barrier to entry for new competition continues to fall creating threats to "traditional" providers.

Larry Chernoff is the CEO of MTI Film in Hollywood (www.mtifilm.com). MTI Film is a unique company committed to the cutting edge of post production technology and services. Their industry-leading digital film restoration, dailies workflow and transcoding software are used by top tier studios, productions, post houses and film archives around the globe. MTI’s full service facility has the experience and tools to handle today's demanding production requirements. And their premier film restoration services have worked on some of the most cherished classic and modern titles.