The makers of products that revolutionized postproduction are doing it again. And to promote and sell its newly-engineered GenerationQ systems, Quantel has signed an exclusive sales partnership with Fletcher Chicago.
Fletcher now represents Quantel’s GenerationQ post systems in 13 Midwest states, an alliance that necessitates an immediate expansion of Fletcher’s sales department.
This is the first time in Fletcher Chicago’s 18-year history that it will sell dedicated postproduction equipment, and the first time that it represents Quantel products.
With Quantel products, “this is the first time our sales operation has been involved–enthusiastically, I might add,” said president Archie Fletcher, who in 1987 co-founded Fletcher Chicago with son Tom Fletcher, VP/sales. “We’ve always been a production equipment sales and rental company.”
Fletcher said his company moved “from selling camera equipment accessories, to cameras themselves, and now the entire workflow?production through post.”
In addition to GenerationQ products, Fletcher will sell Quantel Paintboxes and ultimately its new Newsbox for broadcast news environments.
The Fletcher organization’s enthusiasm for GenerationQ products is based on seeing the future, “how they will change the way post is done,” Fletcher commented.
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| Just plug in keyboard, monitor and use |
“Where a post house historically has had different rooms for each different post function, this machine performs all of them and stays in one room,” he added.
eQ and iQ functions are multi-res editing, effects, color correction, editorial and deliverables. “Each system is robust, flexible and fast and combined together to form a single profit center for a post facility,” commented Fletcher.
Mark Northeast, Quantel’s VP/sales, described GenerationQ “as a series of systems that offer total scalability in hardware and software across digital postproduction, graphics and broadcast.
“Each system handles input and output of multiple resolution types and is designed specifically for simultaneous team-working environments. eQ is designed for post and broadcast clients; iQ is a Digital Intermediate system for long form, feature film post (the standard in Los Angeles), and sQ targets broadcast news and sports.”
All GenerationQ systems have HD capability, which ties in with Fletcher’s pioneering experience with HD cameras and accessories.
Fletcher will sell eQ editing systems with HD capabilities at the standard definition price, and the user only pays for HD as they need it. Delivery time is estimated at about two weeks.
Plans are also underway for a road show to introduce and demonstrate GenerationQ products between July and the end of August in 12 cities within the Midwest region.
Quantel invited Archie and Tom Fletcher to its headquarters outside of London last January. “We went to evaluate the opportunities, to see what would be good for Chicago,” said Fletcher. “We only deal with top-of-the-line products and Quantel met our standards.”
Fletcher is located at 1000 N. North Branch, phone, 312/932-2700; Email tom@fletch.com. See www.fletch.com.
