Nonlinear edit decisions: these days, editors have more and more choices. But is what's good for them good for you?

Post, August, 2002 by Edmond M. Rosenthal

The marriages between editors and their nonlinear editing systems are thriving. Most editing facilities interviewed claim to have found the right match for their needs. If they want anything more, it's mostly an expansion of what they already have. At least that's the story until manufacturers turn their heads with a new glamour product.

BETTER EDITING THROUGH OPTIONS

For Jim Rubino, film editor at Slingshot Post in New York City (www.slingshotpost.com), the Avid Symphony 3.1 continues to do the job. He comments, "When it first came out, most editors were using it as an online tool. I always used it offline as well. It has the realtime effects, the speed and the amount of storage I need. The effects palette gives you so many controls you can manipulate anything you want. With 24 video tracks, I can do multiple layering. So the effects and the speed makes you a better editor by giving you more options."

The Symphony was recently used in a Gucci commercial via agency Lloyd & Co., New York. Destined for Europe, the spot required multiple layering, with a number of split screens involved. Says Rubino, "With the speed of the Avid, I could see the effects almost immediately and we could decide then and there if we liked them or wanted to change them."

He advises future Symphony users: "Press all the buttons and see what they do. Just playing around with it can give you some ideas. Some of the better edits l've made were mistakes -- just hitting something by accident."

Meanwhile, Rubino's fellow film editor at Slingshot. Billy Senia, is using the PC-based Avid Media Composer 10.3, vs. the Mac-based Symphony 3.1. He notes that the features are fairly similar, except the 10.3 allows color correction.

"These systems allow a filmic look that gives you more production value," Senia holds.

WISH LIST: Senia's includes more uncompressed video layers for better quality and speed. Also, more realtime effects, meaning less rendering.

THE BENEFITS OF SPEED

Already owning two Media 100 XRs, Drive-Thru Productions in Minneapolis (www.drive-thru.tv) recently installed an 844X system. Director/cameraman/editor Bob George likes its four streams of uncompressed, 10-bit video, all with alpha channels.

"It allows me to work almost as fast as I can think because of the realtime nature of all of the video streams," he says. "I can have eight streams of uncompressed video going on, and the time it takes to process them together is the time it takes to play through once in realtime. Clients can now sit here and say, 'Let's move that up a frame,' and you can take care of that in realtime and see it instantaneously. This is as close as you can get to Fire and Flame work at half the cost -- maybe a third. You have all that realtime ability at your offline rate."

A recent project was a spot out of Nelson Henry, Minneapolis for Fiber Choice, a chewable fiber supplement. With a tight turnaround, the commercial was shot in high definition for a film effect and transferred to Digital Beta. Offlining in 844X, the facility worked with some product-comparison graphics that added up to about seven layers.

George recalls, "We were able to put it all together in front of the client in realtime, and the agency took it to the client after a day and a half of cutting. That same day, they wanted to rework the spot, and we did it in about an hour and 15 minutes."

He notes users of the 844X have to think differently: "When you're also working in After Effects, Combustion and Commotion, you don't marry your graphics layers to your video layers anymore. You're dealing with a faster workflow, so you no longer have time to check your e-mail while you're working.'

WISH LIST: "It would be nice to see one program have more of everything you need in terms of tracking, layering, vector paint and wire removal tools. But I think the 844X is on its way to being that."

SUPPORT IS A HOT ISSUE

Finish Editorial (wwwfinishedit.com) in Boston continues on its upgrade path. In addition to having the SGI Octane, it recently upgraded its Onyx 1 to an Onyx 2. Both Discreet Smoke, on the former, and Discreet Fire, on the latter, have also been upgraded. Editor Eamonn Conway reports that Fire affords greater speed and is used on the more graphics-intensive edits. Upgrades were made in anticipation of more HD work.

In a facility where each editor can work in all of the suites, handling a job from beginning to end, both Smoke and Fire permit timeline editing for longer form programs. "We do that rarely," Conway interjects, "because you come up against storage issues, with Smoke and Fire being uncompressed."

Fire's spark packages and motion graphics came in handy in a spot for ATI Radeon, maker of graphic accelerators for PCs. The spot showed flaming arrows being shot from a computer at its operator. Fire allowed compositing of multiple layers in one operating system while using third-party effects and adding motion-tracked elements.

There's a lot of support out there for Smoke and Fire, Conway points out. In addition to Discreet's reachable, well-qualified support people, he notes, there's a helpful user-originated Web site: www.fxguide.com.