I originally posted this to the Avid Community Forums, but I thought it might be useful to a more general audience. Since the release of Final Cut Pro X last summer, people are taking a second look at Avid Media Composer. And there’s a lot that the application does right. But in many ways, it feels like a piece of software from the late 90s.
There are five major limitations that I see in Media Composer that are in none of its competitors. These limitations are taken for granted by the rest of the editing world, and badly need to be addressed. As users take a second look at Avid, these seemingly ‘small’ issues may quickly turn them off; and of course, they constantly slow down the work that people like me do, which means that in a way they cost our companies money.
Here is what I think is needed to move Media Composer forward.
1. We need more than 16 voices.
The 16 active track limitation has been a major pain point for those of us in animation, as we constantly juggle audio between tracks and create mixdowns, having to often resync and update those mixdowns when changes are made to the sequence. Given the power of current hardware, this is a limitation that doesn’t make sense, and one that Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere do not have.
2. We need more than 24 audio tracks.
While 24 audio tracks may seem like a lot, when editing a major feature, they quickly fill to the brim. Walter Murch uses 50 audio tracks in his Final Cut Pro projects, and indeed Final Cut Pro has supported up to 99 audio tracks for many many years. This limitation seems silly and arbitrary.
This is also related to point number one, as more audio tracks won’t help too much unless you can actually hear them play back; that said, even if there are still only 16 voices, having more than 24 audio tracks would at least allow you to keep the tracks you mixdown in the same sequence, saving time when updating mixdowns.
3. We need to be able to non-destructively stack AudioSuite effects.
AudioSuite effects are great, but the fact that they only work destructively is a huge problem. For example, I want to add reverb to a clip of dialogue that I pitched down. Simple, create new media, then apply the reverb. What if later I need to adjust the pitch effect? The entire process needs to be repeated.
Stackable audio effects are common in nearly every editing application, save Media Composer. This costs us time, which in turn diminishes quality—since iterating is difficult, we will do less of it, and the end result will suffer.
4. We need to be able to intuitively and simply stack video effects.
Like audio effects, video effects are often used in conjunction with one another. While Media Composer does allow you to stack video effects, the implementation is confusing, hidden, and doesn’t always seem to work. Again, this is handled quite simply and effectively in every other editing application.
5. We need true long filename support.
It pained me to discover that the “Allow filenames to exceed 27 characters” feature is still functionally broken in Media Composer 6. This is obviously a known bug, as I was warned about it by a dialogue box when I enabled the feature. This lack of polish makes Avid feel old, and really should not be difficult to fix. It also would save editors time when naming bins and exporting files. Both the Mac and Windows have had support for 255-character filenames since the 90s; there’s no reason for this.
Were the above limitations addressed, Media Composer would finally proudly cross the threshold into the Modern Age of editing—and many assistants and editors throughout the industry would be able to work faster and better, giving Media Composer an even stronger position in the world of editing.
Now, to be honest, I don’t know that I want Media Composer to be in a stronger position. I’m still not a fan of some of its editing philosophy, and Avid’s UI designers don’t seem to ‘get it.’ But it’s still the standard, and I have to use it every day, so I would love to see it improve.
But these are tumultuous days in the editing world; who knows what lurks around the next corner…
I’ve been reading Nicholas Meyer’s memoir The View From the Bridge, a book that drew me in with the promise of behind-the-scenes stories from Star Trek, and then handed me an insightful look at a life spent writing and directing in Hollywood. Meyer writes with humor and intelligence, and it’s been a terrific read.
Not only has the book challenged my vocabulary (seriously—his use of the English language is adventurous), it has challenged my understanding of screenwriting. Here are a few choice excerpts I found insightful.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that being ‘on the lot’ is not a thrill. I was part of the circus at last.”
Once you’re ‘part of the circus,’ it’s easy to take walking onto studio lots for granted. But the truth is it’s a privilege. We’re in a fun business, one that few have the opportunity to be part of. This small bit reminded me of that.
“Resolving artistic questions is akin to revealing the secrets behind the magician’s trick. The audience won’t thank you for it.”
Often answers can not live up to the questions that beg them. As Spock once said, “You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting.” That’s extremely true of filmmaking: a little bit of mystery and a few unresolved elements can add a large amount of depth, and make the audience’s imaginations part of the storytelling. JJ Abrams does this masterfully.
“When I began to focus on work, I made myself a new rule: no speech in a screenplay by me was going to be more than ten lines long. This restriction was a killer. I was going to have to learn to write all over again, write in a way where literacy itself was a disadvantage.”
“Later, watching the work of Steven Spielberg, I understand how much my verbal facility worked against me. It’s better if you can think in pictures. What happens to your scene when you turn off the sound in your head?”
“Another rule: how many pages can you write of a screenplay before it is absolutely necessary for someone to speak?”
Meyer is something of a literary filmmaker. His movies are peppered with references to Shakespeare and Doyle, and his dialogue has a literary quality to it which is in some ways delightful. In others, it’s a disadvantage. But even for those of us not as well-versed in literature, his thoughts above can improve our writing. When is dialogue necessary? After all…
“Movies aren’t dialogue, they’re pictures!”
This was a rebuke spoken to Meyer early in his career by his boss at the time, and it’s one that resonates with me. It’s easy to get stuck in the writing of a film—playing with structure, tweaking the dialogue, being immersed in letters and language—and forget that in the end, the audience will be seeing pictures, not words. But…
“Movies must move, and faces as well as actions can often do the work of words.”
Screenwriting and filmmaking are both in many ways about economy; it’s the simplest and most basic that often touches us in the deepest of ways. Our job is to strip away everything that’s unnecessary, so that what remains is the core, the essence of the story. That is what will keep us thinking long after we’ve left the theater.
Or,
How I’m Trying to Stop Being a Mouse.
I have a few goals for 2012, and one big one is to stop consuming and start creating. Specifically, to become a screenwriter.
My hope is to alternate months between writing short films and outlining/writing features. In January, I wrote a short, in February I took a third stab at outlining my second feature, and today I wrote the first draft of my next short.
So far, so good!
It’s ironic that we need to learn about ourselves, but we do, and one thing I’ve discovered over the years is that I need outside motivation to actually get anything done. The 48 Hour Film Project is a great example of this: over four years, I wrote or directed four short films, all done as part of the “make a film in a weekend” competition. It was energizing, and it got me to stop talking about making movies and actually do something. Every year after the competition, my friends and I would talk about making more films throughout the year, but we never did. It seems we needed a hard deadline hanging over our heads.
Screenwriting has proven to be no different. In 2008 I took a screenwriting class through UCLA, which resulted in the first 20 pages or so of a script, along with an outline for the whole thing. Yet even though I was freelancing through the rest of the year and well into 2009, I never found the drive to get past page 50. But once I signed up for a pitchfest that was happening in two weeks, I quickly threw out 20 pages and wrote another 80 over the course of a week, while still working full-time.
That taught me that I have a problem with motivation. It also taught me that I actually can write an entire feature film.
That’s an inspiring thing, and after writing that script in the summer of 2009, I tried to get the rights to adapt a book, which ended up falling through. But a new idea came to me, and slowly, off and on, I developed it into a rough outline by sometime in early-mid 2011.
Which brings me to today. It’s now early 2012, and that outline has gone through a few revisions, but a single page of script has yet to be written based on the idea which had its genesis in the fall of 2009. Over two and a half years. Something has to be done!
Enter Script Frenzy.
Script Frenzy is a competition of sorts, but one in which you compete only against yourself. The challenge is to write an entire 100-page screenplay in the course of a month, April to be exact. You don’t actually win anything, but you do get to write alongside thousands of others who also need the not-so-gentle push to actually get their ideas down on paper. It feels a lot like the 48 Hour Film Project, and it’s exactly what I need to get my feature written.
After all, I only need to write a little more than three pages a day. How hard can it be?
Self-control is really hard. So is nearly anything worth doing. Maybe that’s a by-product of the Fall, that creating anything, reflecting God in that way, is so much more difficult and unappealing (on the surface) than simply consuming things. It goes against entropy; it’s like defying gravity and flying.
“All writers hate writing, but all writers love having written.” I think Richard Walter said that, but it’s an old sentiment that applies to any great endeavor. We work hard to avoid taking that first step and actually going through it, but the reward at the end is great. Life is like that, especially the life of a Christian.
So maybe my struggle to be a prolific screenwriter is a microcosm of my struggle as a Christian, the constant battle to discard my selfish self and live for God.
It’s not easy, but it’s so worth doing.
“It’s never about the setting, it’s always about what’s going on with more intimate characters in front of you.” —
Jim Morris, Producer of John Carter
Filmmakers may beckon us with the promise of a strange new world, but what they really want to give us is characters—people that we can relate to, cheer for, and love. That’s what makes movies meaningful. That’s also the strength of Pixar: their stories touch us on a human level. Whether we’re underwater, in Paris, or riding in a flying house, it’s the characters on the screen that make the story worth experiencing.
So it is with our lives.
(Source: slashfilm.com)
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“Go and make disciples of all nations…” – Jesus
We would be foolish to assume that mass media can do the job of sharing the Gospel.
Let me back up.
The Great Commission is likely the most difficult and critical mission ever entrusted to human beings. It’s a matter of the gravest importance, one of eternal consequence—and one to which little time is devoted by the majority of Christians (myself included).
Instead of going out into the world, we spend our time placing blame. We blame the media, we blame politicians, we blame schools, and of course, we blame Hollywood. We look on dissapprovingly, engage in rousing debates, and generally make ourselves known by what we hate, rather than Who we love.
We need to stop.
Sin is pervasive. Sin is evil. Evil must be fought. Yes, yes, and yes. But what about making disciples? What if the best way to fight evil and sin was to change hearts rather than change laws? What if, by following Jesus’ final command, we could redeem the culture?
It’s not too big an exaggeration to say that mass media is today’s greatest driver of cultural change. It’s an excellent tool, one that many Christians want to embrace so that we can fix things. But we would be foolish to assume that mass media can do the job of sharing the Gospel. Jesus didn’t ask us to beam His message into people’s living rooms; He told us to go. There’s a big difference.
That being said, I do think mass media can help plant seeds.
Here’s where we start talking about movies.
Movies aren’t great at getting people to actually do things, but they are good at starting discussions, and Christians rightly see an opportunity to use filmmaking for imparting hope. The problem is that we’re usually so focused on the message that we forget to actually do a good job sharing it.
I once wrote a couple of lengthy articles on what’s wrong with Christian cinema. They were full of statistics, analyses, and were too long. All of us know what’s wrong with Christian films: they’re badly made. And we all know the problem with Hollywood films: they’re full of garbage. Those are both oversimplifications, but you know what I mean.
But what if in the midst of the detritus lay the key to improving Christian films? Here’s the truth: most Hollywood films do not send bad messages intentionally. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Hollywood is, in some ways, a conservative community; they can’t push the envelope too far, because they need you and I to go to the local cinema and part with our money. There are exceptions, but generally they aren’t consciously pushing an agenda.
The messages in mainstream movies come from the hearts of their filmmakers. And that’s the big difference between us and them.
Now don’t get me wrong, we are definitely in earnest when we use our films to preach; we believe people need to hear the message. But while the message is from the heart, the story is not. Do you see the difference?
Messages need to come out of stories organically (for lack of a less cliché term). People can sense a “message movie” right away, and will turn on multiple filters of skepticism and (increasingly) snark to combat it. The message devours the medium, and that’s why those kinds of movies don’t work. They’re not honest.
Jesus used stories to illuminate truth, not to manipulate people into following Him. Like in everything else, we would do well to follow His example.
I believe that if we are going to use cinema to help redeem the culture, we need to tell stories from the heart. And to do that effectively, we need to be great screenwriters.
Screenplays are the foundation for every movie. They give order to the story, voice to the characters, and map out the emotional journey. If we’re serious about filmmaking, this is where to begin. And just like any profession, if we want people to pay attention, we need to be good at what we do. Writing a screenplay isn’t enough; we need to write a GREAT screenplay. We need to devour books on screenwriting (like this, this, and this), attend lectures, read great screenplays. We need to write, rewrite, and rewrite some more (something I’m just now finding the courage to do).
Along the way, we need to do it all from a place of honesty. Our stories need to be populated with real people facing real questions. They need to come from our hearts, not forced from a desire to make sure that at the end of the film every person in the audience knows what they must do to be saved (for the record, here it is). That honesty will glorify God far more than a cinematic tract.
That’s because the most crucial part of all of this comes after the lights come up. After all, the most we can expect our cinematic masterpiece to do is plant a seed, raise a question in the viewers mind. After that begins the real work of sharing the Gospel. It’s time to play Philip to the audience’s Ethiopian.
900 words in, here’s what I’m really trying to say. Creating impactful art always has the same two rules: do it from the heart, and do it well. What makes Christian art different is that our hearts are different. We don’t need to try to send a message; our art will plant seeds because that is who we are.
God will take care of the rest.
“Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg.” —
J.K. Rowling
(Shamelessly stolen from Advice to Writers, a great inspirational blog. Follow them on Twitter.)
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“
The world needs artists who are Christians. People who will start with an honest perspective of the world as it is, but refuse to leave the story clinging to the status quo. They need fresh voices who can paint or show or sing about hope in the midst of deep sorrow.
The world needs to see the Art of Lament.
” — Jonathan Storment(Source: stormented.com)
When I accepted my new position at Pixar, I came home to find a spread of Pixar toys on the kitchen table, with a large card that said “Can!” on the front. It was an echo of the words of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, and an affirmation that I can fly. I’ll always cherish that card and that moment.
I’ve now spent one week at Pixar Animation Studios. An editor I recently worked with called it “the Valhalla of animation”, and he was right. Though I’ve only been there a week, I can already see how special a place it is, and indeed what a privilege it is to be there. The culture, the environment, even the work itself is so different and infused with creativity and meaning. It’s palpable, something you can see in the brick and taste in the water.
A place like Pixar is a place where one can learn. Steve Jobs once told a potential employee, “You’re like a small sapling, and we can take you and make you into a great tree.” Pixar is a place where that can happen, if you let it. And I’m determined to let it, soaking in everything I possibly can.
Here is a sample swatch of the color Pixar is painting in my life:
This merely scratches the surface of the densely rotating mass of Pixar that my brain is still attempting to sort out. But it’s a solid foundation for anyone in any line of work.
To infinity…
