Splice Now

Post-production was the first Hollywood craft to face the digital revolution. It felt crazy and chaotic at the time, but in hindsight, we did pretty well with it. Just about everybody was able to make the jump to lightspeed, as it were. We worked hard to learn the new tools and, as a result, we were able to continue to do the work we love.

That first big wave of change has now spread out into the rest of the production chain and, today, camera seems to be going through a process similar to what we experienced a decade ago.

The wave has also moved out into the society at large. Not only does every teenager have access to post-production tools that are more sophisticated than what we had access to just a few years ago, but every couch potato can record shows with a DVR that would put our old Avids to shame. And everybody with a bit of internet savvy can get their short videos distributed free via YouTube.

In short, all audiovisual media is becoming digital and everybody can control it in unprecedented ways. Which means the changes have just begun — again.

We’ve been looking one way, at the tools, but the wave is coming from a different direction now, from the society at large. These are some of the issues:

• The first digital editing rooms were based on monolithic software/hardware combinations that did everything you needed. More and more, today’s cutting rooms rely on a wider range of inexpensive, software-only applications.
• In the past, entry into our field was limited via an apprenticeship program. Today, the barriers to entrance are much lower. You can learn a great deal not just in college, but in high school.
• Editing used to mean lots of heavy gear. Now you can set up an adequate cutting room in your spare bedroom.
• Getting film from one place to another used to mean driving or flying it there. Now it means moving it around on the internet.

How is all this going to affect us? What do we do to prepare for it? How do we shape these forces so they work for us? As I said at the Eddie awards, we have to put our heads together, come up with a picture of the post-production landscape of the future, and start thinking about solutions. And we have to put renewed emphasis on education, not just about the tools, but about that dreaded subject, workflow.

This 2nd wave is coming. When it hits, we need to be prepared.

Technorati Tags: edit, film editing, video

Last night I received the Robert Wise Award for “Journalistic Illumination of the Art of Editing,” at the American Cinema Editors’ 57th annual Eddie Awards banquet. It was a wonderful night for me, the culmination of nearly 20 years of work in this community. This morning, I’m still basking in the glow of the support I felt from so many friends and colleagues.

ACE president Alan Heim presented me with the award and mentioned this site, so I expect that at least of few of you will be here today for the first time. Welcome!

I encourage you to browse around and get a sense of what’s here. The content is bit more perennial than on some blogs. There are Avid tips, discussions of Avid problems, talk about the changing world of editing, and notes about the growing influence of media in society. Your way into this material is through the links in the right hand column: “top posts,” “recent posts” and “categories.” If you want to read it all you can do that via the archives.

I hope you’ll add your ideas via the comment links at the end of each post. A blog is a conversation, and I’m eager to hear your thoughts.

My acceptance speech took off from some of the recent postings here. The editing revolution of the ’90s was about tools. We saw our Moviolas and KEMs replaced with computers and hard drives. Things seem to have settled down in the last few years, but my contention is that there’s another revolution brewing, one that is stealthier because a lot of it is taking place outside our editing rooms, but in the long run, no less disruptive. That’s the workflow revolution, the many changes that together will soon result in all the materials of our work, from camera to screen, turning into zeros and ones. The effects of that transformation: inexpensive, desktop software, internet based post-production, portable editing rooms and increasing competition, are going to rock our world just as much or more than the first phase did.

We did a lot of things right in the 1990s. In particular, we focused on two things: education and community support. Today, I think we need to take another hard look at the changes around us and push our educational programs aggressively to cover these new issues. I know we can handle it. Our strength as a community served us so well in the first phase, and we’re wiser now, but we’ve gotta get moving.

Technorati Tags: edit, film editing, video

I’ve been following Steve Lopez’ LA Times columns and his blog about LA traffic. The more I drive in this city the more I want to stop doing so.

LA recently “improved” an intersection in my neighborhood, adding a left turn lane and re-timing the light. The result, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, has all but ruined the intersection, increasing wait times for everybody and causing a blocks-long backup during rush hour. With improvements like this, the city will be gridlocked in no time. The “cure” is killing the patient.

But this summer I bicycled to work — and I’ve never had a happier commute. I arrived every day feeling invigorated and every night looked forward to the trip home.

In LA, where bike lanes are few and distances are long, the luxury of being able to do this is rare. And that makes me think our salvation will be in “remote collaboration.”

The relative simplicity of our new editing equipment, the shift to file-based workflows and the growing availability of fast internet connections, are making it possible to do all kinds of things from home. This is going to get even more appealing once AT&T and Verizon get their fast new fiber networks installed.

But there are disadvantages, too. Here are some of the pros and cons as I see them:

The Good

• Working at home means functioning in a congenial, comfortable environment.
• Skipping the commute means you’re fresher all day long. You experience less stress and less exposure to highway smog.
• You can work more flexible hours, so it’s easier to deal with kids and family.
• You’re more productive because you’re not wasting precious hours in traffic.
• Staying out of your car means you’re reducing your “carbon footprint” and doing your part for global warming.

The Bad

• Figuring out how to work at home and getting producers comfortable with the idea means that we’re making it easier for people all over the world to do exactly the same thing — and thus compete with us from afar.
• Working at home means that there’s no social interaction at work.
• You’re probably going to own at least some of your own equipment and you’re going to have to do more of your own tech support.
• When you’re working from home, employers tend to think you’re available 24/7. You’re more likely to work extra hours and not charge for it.
• Work rules like meal penalty and turnaround are harder to enforce.
• Work and life tend to get intermixed. You can’t go home at the end of the day — you’re already there.

Whether we like it or not, this new internet-enabled, portable workplace of the future is coming at us. Are we prepared for it technically? Institutionally? Contractually? My feeling is that we need to get ahead of this trend and start figuring out how it’s going to affect us — now while we can still exercise a little control.

Technorati Tags: avid, edit, film, media composer, video