Member Profile:

Pat DeFillippo:

Pat DeFilippo has been a professional in the media field for over 23 years and primarily uses Final Cut Studio for video/audio/ graphics/DVD creation. Starting his college years in radio at Triton College’s WRRG-FM in August of 1978, Pat moved on to Western Illinois University and announced at WIUM-FM from 1980 to 1983.

In 1981, Pat was on the board that started up a second student radio station, WIUS-FM, at which he was the first Public Affairs Director and first full-term Station Manager, overseeing 14 self-created and -hired managerial positions and a total staff of over 70 including disc jockeys, newspeople and public affairs announcers. Pat was also a news anchor with TV2, the WIU student-run cable television station, and a co-host of a half-hour weekly variety show.

Pat got his professional start at KHQA-TV (CBS) in Quincy, Illinois in March of 1983. There, his primary responsibilities included directing/technical directing/audio/CG/slides (all simultaneously!) half of the twelve weekly 6pm and 10pm newscasts. He also operated master control for local and network programming and linearly edited local commercials, public affairs and sports programming manually using two (master and playback) ¾” decks and three 2” decks via a video switcher and audio board.

In 1985, Pat moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado and edited at Channel One Film & Video. There, he first worked in computerized editing with the linear Sony BVE-5000. He edited local and regional spots, corporate videos and also directed and edited “Hit City”, a nationally syndicated half-hour soul-oriented music-hits television show that, at its peak, was aired weekly in 54 U.S. markets including the top 14. In Chicago, it aired weekly on WLS-TV (ABC) on Saturday night right after “Casey Kasum”. Directing “Hit City” consisted of traveling monthly to a studio in Los Angeles (that also taped “Night Court” and “Golden Girls” at the time) and meeting the “Hit City” producer from Denver and the host from Dallas. Host segments for five episodes were shot monthly over a weekend, and included five interviews with dozens of musicians including Anita Baker, Kenny G, Boys To Men and George Benson. Pat would then take the 1” originals back to Colorado Springs and complete the editing of the five episodes within three days, each show primarily consisting of six host segments, four music videos, one five-minute three-camera interview (switched in post) and a top 10 list graphic-based segment..

In 1987, Pat moved back to Chicago and initially worked as an editor at Astro Film & Video for a few months before moving on to CinemaVideo Center. There, Pat edited local, regional and national commercials and corporate videos using a Mach One linear editor. Agency clients included Leo Burnett (Maytag), Campbell-Mithun-Esty (Corona), Burrell (Coke) and Unimar (Jewel). Pat also edited several pilot television programs.

In 1990, Pat started P D Post Productions, Inc. and has been self-employed ever since. He quickly learned other linear editing equipment including the Grass Valley, CMX, Emme, Ampex and Axial edit controllers and a host of support switchers, DVEs, CGs, still stores, audio boards and decks while freelance editing at dozens of Chicagoland facilities including Square D, Ameritech, McDonalds, Arthur Andersen, Allstate and Kemper in the corporate world and Harpo and Post Pro in the post world. Pat also edits roll-ins and technical directs live and taped corporate programs.
In 1996, Pat’s P D Post purchased the non-linear ImMix VideoCube and quickly upgraded it to the TurboCube. In 1997, Pat upgraded to the Accom StrataSphere. In the mid to late 1990s, these were the only real-time editing systems available (no rendering at all required even for DVE moves including lighting effects, although compositing was required if more than two motion streams and one graphics stream were used) which also stayed true to his video editing roots. Pat primarily used the StrataSphere for the majority of his projects through 2005.

In December, after years of research, Pat concluded that Final Cut Studio had evolved to where he needed it to be for daily professional use. Final Cut Studio is now the primary suite at P D Post with the Accom StrataSphere as the secondary suite. Since buying the pictured equipment, Pat has edited all of his projects with it including several corporate videos and spots. Several of Pat’s clients enjoy working with him virtually, where they can review and revise videos when their schedule permits from anywhere in the world via the internet. Clients no longer have no need to go to the P D Post facility to do this, although some still prefer to do so..

More information about Pat and P D Post can be found at http://www.pdpost.com. Pat can be contacted at PD@PDPost.com or 847-275-5671.