Events Rewind - See What You Missed, Artist and Industry Expert Presentations Podcast - Avid

Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - Avid Qualifies Final Cut Pro to Run on Avid Unity MediaNetwork and ISIS Shared Storage Systems

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:32:00 GMT

Avid has tools to help you get your best work done in a fast-paced environment, even integrating competitive products into open and flexible workflows. We recently announced that Avid has qualified Apple Final Cut Pro editing solutions to run on Avid Unity™ MediaNetwork and ISIS® shared storage systems. To prove it, application editors Corey Tedrow and Michael Krulik showed off the integration during "Television on a Deadline" main stage presentation at NAB. Here's a clip.

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Download the Podcast: Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - Avid Qualifies Final Cut Pro to Run on Avid Unity MediaNetwork and ISIS Shared Storage Systems (M4V) Running time: 02:39

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Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - Chris Dickens and A.R. Rahman the Film Editor and Music Composer behind Slumdog Millionaire

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:04:00 GMT

Joining us on the main stage late Monday were Chris Dickens and A.R. Rahman – Oscar®-winning Film Editor and Oscar-winning Music Composer behind the film Slumdog Millionaire. Together they presented an engaging look at their collaborative efforts and the creative process behind the film’s audio and video workflows. Here's a clip from the presentation.

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Download the Podcast: Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - Chris Dickens and A.R. Rahman the Film Editor and Music Composer behind Slumdog Millionaire (M4V) Running time: 24:13

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Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - How Avid is supporting the latest innovations in post production workflows

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:30:00 GMT

Running throughout the three exhibit days of NAB 2009 was our main stage presentation "Creative Tools". With help from Big Picture Post we demonstrated RED, XDCAM HD and P2 workflows, 3D stereoscopy and ICON surround sound mixing in post production workflows. Here's a clip from one of the presentations.

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Download the Podcast: Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - How Avid is supporting the latest innovations in post production workflows (M4V) Running time: 24:13

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Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - A.R. Rahman performs Jai Ho at Avid Customer Event

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:04:00 GMT

The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel held our 2009 Customer Event on Monday night and it was PACKED to the rafters. Oscar®-winning Music Composer - behind the film Slumdog Millionaire - A.R. Rahman performed his original piece Jai Ho.

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Download the Podcast: Events Rewind - NAB 2009 - A.R. Rahman performs Jai Ho at Avid Customer Event (M4V) Running time: 4:17

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Events Rewind - Boston Avid User Group - Managing Client Expectations (Part 2 of 2)

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:48:00 GMT

Sid Levin presented a humorous look at working with clients throughout the past 20-25 years. It was fun to reminisce about the products and prices of the past and see how client's expectations have evolved. Sid gave some insight into how to be successful. It takes focus, discipline, ability to work under stressful situations and timelines. The important thing is to make everything work faster, smoother and better. And then bring something special to the table – a value add that the client was not expecting. A text transcript of Sid's presentation follows the video.

Clients...I would say for the last...20...25 of those 30 years I worked with clients in the edit suite. I don’t even think I can count on one finger, how many times they’ve asked…”so what is it that you work on?” They really didn’t care what equipment I used. I thought that was a great thing. They really cared what I was doing. The process, collaboration, making them happy, making them feel good. One other thing. Always give the client something they can do. Always leave a bad cut in the show. Let them be the one to say, “you know what, I think that’s a bad cut.” And you go, “Oh my god, you’re right.” They feel so good about themselves that they were actually part of that creative process, that they found a bad edit.

We teach our clients along the way, don’t we. We teach them the process, we teach them the technology, in the hopes that we’ll learn a few things along the way as well. I feel like I’m constantly teaching my clients. This is why we do it this way. Not all of them understand it all, some of them do. Some of their kids just cut their field trip to the Museum of Science with HD on iMovie and now they’re coming in here and saying, “you know, my kid does this.” And I’m like, yeah I know. Bring them in. Let them cut it on iMovie.

But a lot of them know now. You can’t pull the wool over their eyes any more, they are savvy. They know just about as much as I do about what’s going on out there. They’re not shy about telling you.

In the early days my clients were more concerned about the tape formats. They wanted to know, how are we going to deliver this, what are we going to shoot on. They were never really concerned about the equipment or the process. I don’t know how many of you are still working with Betacam, Betacam SP. That was probably the last format that had any real longevity in the marketplace. I don’t know if we’ll ever see another format that will have lasted almost twenty years. Which meant I could actually recoup my investment before it became outdated. Maybe DV, DVCAM might have a long run but I’m not sure if that will happen.

You know what’s nice about acquiring on “no tape?” No drop-outs. Clients hate drop-outs. They don’t understand how they get there. They don’t understand that they can’t be removed. We have to go in an fix them, and that’s more time. So I’m loving, I’m just trying to adopt this whole solid-state field recording technology for a client. And what I’m doing now and what I think I will continue to do is…I’m offering a client a harddrive at the end of a session. Here’s a harddrive with your name on it. I will take everything you’ve worked on and put it on this harddrive for you. It is your’s it stays here. Guess what? For the cost of the harddrive, it will save you all the re-digitizing if we ever have to go back and do it again. And how much is a harddrive now…200, 300 dollars…for enough to get a consolidated sequence. Even if you have just a limited amount of raw material that you want to save for the client. By them two drives. Or don’t even charge them for it. But maybe if they want to take it out of house, maybe you make them pay for it then. Make it easy for that transition. I’m thinking that’s probably the only way I can get them to sort of migrate over to this tapeless workflow. I love the tapeless workflow. I love the fact that I can take something and not digitize it. I hate digitizing. Does anybody love digitizing? I used to love it when I could charge money for it. Now clients go, “you’re not going to charge me for digitizing?” I have too, I’m in the room.

So how did I offset the trauma to my clients that I have to digitize my material, I have to render my material to show you dissolves, I have to ingest every bit of material I’m going to work with and then when we’re done, and we’re offlining, because we didn’t have terabytes. We had six gigabytes, nine gigabytes drives, and then they came up with eighteen gigabyte drives. So we couldn’t bring in eight hours of material in high res, no one was doing that. And then we have to batch digitize. “So you’re going to charge me for digitizing, we’re going to render, and then we’re going to batch digitize in an online res, and that’s better than what we used to do?” Because in the old days, we worked in high res, right? The dissolves were in real-time the CG was real-time, the DVE was real-time, everything was real-time. Now I have to go to the client and say, it’s not real-time anymore. It’s changing.

I always build into my budgets a half a day for my client. It’s a two-day edit with a half day of fixes. Do we really need it? Yes. Always. That half-day is yours, you do with it as you wish. So if I feel it’s a two day edit, it’s a half-day and that’s their time to make big changes. If it’s more than a half-day…four, five hours…then it goes beyond the budget of the project.

Sit down with them, get a true understanding. Say, look if you really want me to budget this out, let me do it right. I don’t want to quote you something now, that’s going to scare you away. When in reality, it’s a half-day edit. So I’m going to quote you two days, three days a week? Is there a review process involved? Is there a producer involved? Is there a director involved? How long does it take?

One quick thing…one resolution I did make, I stopped bitching to Avid about everything they do. I’m not blaming them for my life’s sorrows, I’m not blaming them because I can’t get work, I’ve stopped blaming them because it’s not their fault. It’s my fault. I am in control. If I’m not getting enough work, maybe it’s because I didn’t make the phone call at the end of the day to follow up on the project I just finished. Or I didn’t nuture that client just a little bit better. Or I didn’t take them out to coffee and just say hey, how did the last edit go. We have to be our own salespeople. And I think if we can retain a small niche of clients to keep you busy if you’re working independently, I think we can get through this.

I tried to edit a pro-bono project on Premiere…my wife’s going “you still cutting that? You gotta be kidding me.” I said, I don’t even now how to collapse the tracks. It’s like OK, with Avid if you have two tracks on your source material and you only want to use one of them you can do that. And if you want to use one of those tracks and mono them out to the stereo, both left and right, you can do that fairly easily. Premiere Pro, I have no clue. I have read the books, and I don’t know how you do that.

Special Thanks:
Kenneth Herbet & Arnie Harchik of WGBH
for production and post-production services.

Events Rewind - Boston Avid User Group - Managing Client Expectations (Part 1 of 2)

AvidEvents@avid.com (Avid) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:43:00 GMT

Do you remember planning your dissolve renders during lunch? Do you feel like you are not only an editor but also a color corrector, graphics designer, special effects expert and DVD author to name a few added specialties and you now charge less! Have you had clients tell you their son can do what you do on iMovie? If so then you could really relate to Sid Levin's humorous presentation on "Managing Client Expectations: past, present and future". A transcription of Sid's presentation follows the video.

My first Avid had serial number 500001. Which meant that it was the first version of the Gold release of the software on the AVBV system, version 5.

It was a great time to be in this business back then. It was just a great time. Nobody knew any more about this stuff, it was just so new, and really exciting. I don’t know if any of you remember these days but, you planned your dissolves on your ABVB system during lunch. There were no real-time dissolves. So the client would say, “OK, aren’t we going to do a dissolve here?” “Yeah, why don’t we do it when we come back from lunch.” And while you’re at lunch, the thing is rendering out your dissolves. That was how you did it. And the nice thing is, you weren’t charging the client for that time. Which made it a little easier on them. Of course, when you came back from lunch and saw the little red stop sign on your computer and you go, the next hours on me.

But somehow the client saw the magic in all of it as well. They could not believe that in one session. I could give them three different scenarios of a project, where before we could barely show them one. Because in the linear world, you don’t go in and make a change. You either have to dub down a good portion of the show you’ve already done. Because you can’t move things around. You can record over them, but then you have half a show is a second generation where the first half is first generation, well that doesn’t work. So if you had a great editing system, maybe you just go ahead and take the EDL and start from scratch and rebuild it.

But what are we today? Today we’re editors, we’re graphic designers. We upconvert, we downconvert. We create web files. We do CG. We do After Effects…compression, authoring. How many do all that. I mean, look at this. Audio mix-to-pics. Color correction, look at us, a room full of color correctors. So, how much do we charge now for all of that? Less. I don’t get that, that’s what still stymies me. How is it that I have to learn DVD authoring, rendering. All that time and I can’t charge any more money for it. It’s because we’ve taken the magic out of the process. I don’t know if anyone in this room knows how a TV works. Anybody? How it scans? Anyone know how zeros and ones make video? I don’t know. It was still magic to me. But now that the clients know this…now we’re in trouble. And that’s a real dilemma now.

You know, I’ve been out there for a long time. My clients that I’ve nurtured see the value add that experience brings to a project and I hope that they will continue to see that kind of experience and continue to want to pay for that experience. That I’m a human being and that I can tell a good story, and I can sort of figure these problems out for you. Let me do that for you. And as long as we understand that this is a service that we are providing…I’m willing to give back. I’m not going to take every last dime, just to get a project done. But I think we all have to understand, this is how we plan on making a living. And if we can’t do that…what are we gonna do.

Know what I did? I did value adding. That’s another thing I did. I said you know what, for just a little bit more, I can give you something else. Getting back to the whole editing thing…I think we have to figure that in. What’s the apple pie with the burger. What is that extra thing you can bring to the table and actually charge for. Maybe it is the harddrive at the end of the session. For me it is anyways, and charging my client some sort of fee for that. What ever that is. I’m trying to think of the value add.

I spent a gazillion dollars on equipment to create an edit suite and an editing environment for clients. I expect it to get paid value added with all this equipment in house. How do we substantiate that right now? And I think this value added thing that Mark was saying is the same thing I do when I’m shooting. You know for a hundred dollars more, I’ll bring a jib arm on the shoot. I’ll put it in the car. We don’t use it, I won’t charge you. But if you want it, it’s a hundred dollars if I pull it out of the car. Most of the time, I’m pulling the jib arm out of the car. It’s an extra hundred bucks. Well the jib arm cost me a thousand, eleven-hundred bucks. If I pull it out ten times, I’ve made my money. If I pull it out twenty times, I’m starting to make money. How do we value add in the edit suite? A lot of us won’t get that opportunity. But some of us might.

Focus, discipline, work under stressful situations, timelines. I need it done by the end of today. Figure out ways to make things faster, smoother, better. And then bring something special to the table. Something they never expected you to bring to the table. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what you have inside. But you need to find that one thing the other guy doesn’t have…to make you the guy they’re going to call that day. Absolutely. I’m not saying you have to be great every time you put a piece together but you have to be good every time you put a piece together. Once you’re bad…they’re gone. And there’s thousands of us waiting to grab a client that isn’t happy with their last project. They go fast.

One thing that I’ve started doing many, many years ago is I ask my clients what they’re favorite food items were. And when the next day they came into the edit suite, the next session, the refrigerator and the candy jars were stocked with their favorite food items. They thought that was the best thing since non-linear editing. The fact that when they came into the suite, they were actually having the foods that they wanted. And it pretty much made them fat.

Special Thanks:
Kenneth Herbet & Arnie Harchik of WGBH
for production and post-production services.