Once upon a time, in the pre-digital days, actors would call a recording/editing facility and request an aircheck. It's a word that's fallen out of popular usage, but it meant you wanted a TV show that you'd appeared in recorded and saved to tape. Then you'd book time with the facility editor to pull out your scenes and add them to your reel. Ah, I remember it well but not fondly: It was time-consuming and expensive.
- Fast-forward into the present, when many of us can do a variation of this ourselves. We can record and burn a show to a DVD (a recordable DVD player can be had for as little as $100 these days). Or we can save the show via TiVo, then, using Roxio's Toast software, burn it to a DVD and convert it to a format good for editing or uploading to the Internet (Toast is Mac-only software; Microsoft's DirectShow is a similar product for Windows users). Then you can edit your scenes extracted from the show on your computer.
Simple, eh? Not really.
But the news is good for the nontechnically inclined: You have excellent options for achieving the same result without getting up from your chair.
- Try Carey-It-Off (www.carey-it-off.com), a company in Van Nuys, Calif., that does airchecks, saved for you to a DVD, VHS tape, or a mini-DV. The great thing about its service: If you missed a show when it aired, the company has archives that include nearly every episode of every original network or cable series from 1997 to now. Pricing varies depending on when you request an aircheck: If it's before the airdate, a DVD of the show is $30; after the airdate it's $50. The company will also give you the show in a Web-ready format for an additional $25. It offers editing services for an additional fee. If you're thinking it's a bit pricey, I agree. If you're not a do-it-yourselfer, however, it's worth the money.
- Actors Access (www.actorsaccess.com) also offers airchecks. Though more limited than Carey-It-Off, the service might work for some actors. The basic aircheck is $30 (provided on a DVD); for $47, the company will also extract one minute of the show ($22 for each additional minute). But here's the best part: The service also uploads it to your Actors Access account. If that's where you already keep your reel or clips of your work, this could be an ideal solution.
- The chief disadvantage of this service is that it doesn't offer any editing of your extracted scene. For that, Actors Access suggests the company it outsources airchecks to: EditPlus (www.editplus.tv). But whether you use EditPlus, Carey-It-Off, or someone else, it's worth your money to get your scene edited just the way you like.
Paul Haber can be reached at editorpaul@gmail.com.