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Beta Sight: Avid Media Composer 2.6.3

Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Sean Albertson
Fat Free Film

While working on a short-lived 2005 TV series called E-Ring, I invested in an Avid Xpress Pro system to have on my laptop. My plan was to carry a 250GB FireWire drive with me at all times to have the ability to edit anywhere, anytime. Given the long hours, tight deadlines, and unpredictable commute, having a portable editing solution was very intriguing.

In practice, however, I found the smaller feature set in Xpress Pro somewhat limiting for what I needed — especially for my work with Warner Bros. Television on CBS' Cold Case. For example, 3D Warp is a staple for me, and I use it for everything from simple blowups to all kinds of complicated effects. On Cold Case, I also used Animatte a lot for flashing to younger versions of our characters. These effects aren't available in Xpress Pro. Time Warp is another effect I rely on — it's available in Xpress Pro, but as a preset. If I build these effects in a Media Composer Adrenaline project, they can't come across to my portable Xpress Pro system, which limits its utility for me. The system's interface is also different enough from Media Composer that I have to rethink what my hands do naturally in terms of keystrokes and muscle memory.

I recently had the opportunity to edit Rocky Balboa, the final installment of the Rocky franchise. Having worked in postproduction since 1986, I can attest that the demands of the job can make it difficult to strike an ideal balance between work and home life. Therefore, when I started on Rocky Balboa, I was determined to make this work for the sake of my kids. I knew that once I was in the thick of it with Sylvester Stallone, having a home setup would be the only way I would ever be able to see them.

So, I invested in a Dell Precision 670 workstation with all the appropriate bells and whistles. Suddenly, sitting in my tiny home office was an Avid editing setup that looked very familiar to me — three monitors, my Wacom tablet, and an Avid keyboard. While I was able to transfer projects back and forth with ease, I still found myself frustrated with the basic software differences between my Xpress Pro system at home and the Media Composer Adrenaline system in the production cutting room.

When my crew and I called Avid for potential workarounds, all they could offer was, “Just wait until you see software-only Media Composer.” While this did me little good at the time, I soon understood that Media Composer version 2.6.3 software was the answer to my problems — and thank you, Avid gods, for a portable editing tool that can complement full Adrenaline systems, and outperform the older Meridien systems.

I received the Media Composer software toward the end of my work on Rocky Balboa. Installation on my PC went smoothly, and I found the user interface to be identical to that of the Media Composer Adrenaline in my cutting room. For editing, I mostly work with DVCAM SD downconverts digitized at 14:1. I don't have a deck at home, so I simply transfer all of my material into the system from a FireWire drive.

Upon loading a project, all of my user settings, work palettes, and keyboard settings came right over, and I had access to the complete Media Composer creative toolset. Functions such as center duration, two rows of clip and sequence information, two rows of buttons, fully mappable keyboard, timeline buttons, and top and tail buttons were all available in Media Composer software. These are key features that film editors rely on, and they're practically second nature. Now if Sly called me on a Sunday morning with an idea, I could get into it after the kids were in bed that night and get a head start on Monday.

Having completed Rocky Balboa, I went on to Cold Case, continuing to use Media Composer software. In terms of overall performance, the software system outperforms the Meridien at the office in many ways. It's more responsive and its functions are more accessible, and more 3D effects and more powerful color correction tools are available.

As an example, I cut an episode of Cold Case called “The Red and the Blue” that had two full musical numbers in it. Each number was shot several times using as many as four cameras, so we had approximately 24 cameras/takes for each performance. When using multicam to edit feature film or long-form television, editors work with 14:1 compression rather than the old, heavily compressed, Meridien-oriented “M” resolutions, but Meridien supports playback of only one camera at a time at 14:1. Therefore, if I were to try and cut these musical numbers together on our Meridiens at the office, I could have spent a week on those sequences alone. Conversely, on my Media Composer software system at home, I could watch as many as nine cameras at a time at 14:1. Bottom line, I could not have edited those musical numbers on the Meridien systems in the office with my expected level of quality and delivered a cut the day after shooting wrapped.

Media Composer made a lot of sense for me as an individual editor, but it would also make sense for a multi-editor production such as on Cold Case. That show was a 3:3 configuration — three editors and three assistant editors — and we would “round robin” the shows, each editing every third episode. They had four Media Composer Meridien systems, one system for each editor, and the fourth for the three assistants to share. With three episodes constantly at different stages of postproduction, time was very tight on that shared system.

I had Media Composer software at home, so I could edit my episode and allow my assistant to have his own Avid to work on all day long. Often I would walk through our office and see the bullpen filled with assistant editors sitting at desks without an editing system for the majority of their time. An assistant editor without an Avid is not a good use of time and money.

We didn't have software-only systems for the assistants on that production, but Media Composer software would have been an affordable way to keep the three assistants busy. I know that adding my system to the mix ultimately saved money. Over the course of a season, it could cut down on literally hundreds of hours of overtime for both me and my assistant.

There are many important factors for feature and television editors when it comes to choosing an editing system: familiarity of features, powerful tools, good technical support, and the backing of a company that changes and grows with its users. As technology and creative tools evolve rapidly, editors face more demands than just shorter turnaround times. Picture editors have now become sound editors, music editors, music supervisors, sound mixers, and visual effects artists as well.

It is no longer acceptable to present an editor's cut without music, sound effects, and VFX to anyone. The fact that I'll get sound notes on my editor's cut just shows how expectations have changed. Directors, producers, and studio/network executives will no longer tolerate being shown something that is not almost ready to be aired or shown in theaters. We as editors need more capable tools and greater flexibility.

Film editing has changed more in the past 15 years than in the preceding hundred or so years, and Avid has had a primary role in that revolution. In the case of Media Composer specifically, the software-only release has changed the world of editing for me by allowing me to be both an involved parent and as devoted to the craft of filmmaking as I want to be.

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Sean Albertson is a freelance editor for theatrical features, dramatic television series, and the fading dinosaur of a format known as the movie of the week. Most recently, he edited Rocky Balboa and episodes of CBS' Cold Case. Albertson began his career when editors were still cutting on film, and was first introduced to Avid in 1992, as an assistant editor for Sam O'Steen on the Mike Nichols movie Wolf.

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