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Is it me?
Is it me or do todays editors not take the time to read the manual when something is wrong or they don’t understand. I can remember when “figuring it out” was the best way to learn and tinkering with different effects until you got the look you wanted helped you to think “outside the box”. Todays editors have it easy. What do you suppose would happen if we were still in a linear world? Editing tape to tape with a CMX editor, Chyron operator, etc…..
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19 Replies
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And back then editors made a lot more money…. 🙂
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My favorite posts are…
It’s not working, translation, it is not doing what I think it should or I don’t know how to do something but it still cannot be MY fault.
It is not in the manual… or The manual is horrible.
Please give me step by step instructions while I give you no useful info.
People getting mad on forum leaders telling them to read threads, manual or do a google search before posting something that is asked once a week.
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Clients will get seriously concerned if a guy pulls out a manual in the middle of editing session, but if they come here to ask how to do stuff the clients will still think they’ve got everything under control.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Aaron Neitz] “And back then editors made a lot more money…. :)”
Uh… no.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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[David Roth Weiss] “Clients will get seriously concerned if a guy pulls out a manual in the middle of editing session, but if they come here to ask how to do stuff the clients will still think they’ve got everything under control.”
So it’s better to surf a website in front of the client instead of checking the manual? Either way, bad form in front of a client.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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[Greg Prinkey] “What do you suppose would happen if we were still in a linear world? Editing tape to tape with a CMX editor, Chyron operator, etc…..”
There would be a lot of projects out there with straight cut editing.
Ok, here’s what we need to…. An A,B,C,D Roll, run the Inifini! through ME2 to overlay it on the B Roll, cross dissolve to C then fire the A-53 at 3 seconds in to do the push back of C onto D and then push all of that back into a split with A. Don’t forget the bug on the DSK.
Ah, the good ol’ days……..
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!
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“Ah, the good ol’ days…….. ”
When men were men and if the machines didn’t do it, It was the engineers fault..
‘Where’s that damn engineer when you need him’
“Was that a drop out on the b roll?’
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And to make it even worse, years ago I worked in a large post house in Chicago. We had four on-line editing rooms and we editors needed to be comfortable working in each one. Two edit rooms had CMX-3600 editors. One had an early CMX Omni. The forth room had an Ampex ACE rig. Each room had a different switcher. Edit one had a Grass 300, edit two had a Grass 200-2, edit three had an old Grass 1600 and edit four had an Ampex Century 330. Each room had access to four channels of ADO. We also had two channels of K-Scope. Each room had a Chyron SuperScribe. We also had a pair of Abekas A-66 disc recorders. Add to all this a camera lane with a Hot-Head pan/tilt head and also a motion control rig. We then got four very early model Avid Media Composers that we needed to learn.
Every editor needed to be proficient with using ALL of this on-line, everyday while sitting in a room with several people from the agency all firing “suggestions” to the editor to “help” him edit. Depending on just what was dragged into an edit session, it was not at all uncommon for the hourly rates to go WAY north of the $1000/hour mark.
We were all very good at operating all of this stuff. We had no options of consulting a manual while in a session. We simply HAD to know the ins and outs of the equipment we were operating. We had some VERY specific work flows for a given project. Me might do a cut in Edit One with a particular editor on Monday and then do revisions in Edit Four with a different editor later. We had to generate a very concise paper trail of everything done in a session so that that information could be transfered onto a different session and then pick it up and continue with no interruptions-EVER! The work flows I had to learn have been invaluable in later years. I see myself as being very organized in the area of project management because of this past experience.
At the risk of sounding like one of those “Old Guys” we HAD to learn how to trouble shoot any given situation and to find a suitable solution to ANY problem that came up.
There are vastly more resources available today when a problem arises. It’s much easier to find solutions in a very short time when necessary. Almost too easy. There are times when it seems (to me) that the ability to solve problems by actually THINKING is going by the wayside. I still love to look at a situation or at some effect that I saw on a show the night before and then actually FIGURE out how it was done! Not to just to post an entry on the COW asking what plug-in can I buy to do this?
Read the manual, ask your self question and push yourself into finding a solution. If you do this and get a basic idea of what’s going on under the hood of the software…most of your problems will “magically” disappear. It takes time and hard work but, Hey!, we do this for a living. You wouldn’t want to go to the hospital and have the doctor pull out the manual for some piece of equipment while you’re in surgery. I wouldn’t.
OK, getting off of my soapbox and getting back to work now…
Tom -
In the defense of our modern day editor they are asked to do more than back in the good old days. And on a tighter schedule on for less money. I remember when I first got into the industry as an editor you would be asked to off line the project and then an online editor would conform and make small changes and a graphics person would add graphics and the whole lot would go to a sound mixer. Now it’s ALL in the hands of the editor.
And that’s why I’m a camera operator!
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Greg
Back in the day I set up one of the first CMX340 systems in Boston. All we had was a manual, if that! We stumbled along to get it running, figured out a few shortcuts, did time code calculations on paper and got it all to happen
Then 3 months after we were up and running the demo training rep would come through and show us how to do it right. by that time we knew enough to be dangerous and had answered all the simple questions ourselves, so we only had need for advanced info from this rep, thereby making our time with him more valuable, and his time more efficient (i was a demo rep for GVG later in life as well, and I found it better if the users had spent some time with the gear)
now you can go to school to learn how to operate avid, fcp, fire, whatever. OR you can got to your favorite forum and ask the same questions many before you have asked.
Maybe its time to republish those “rules of the forum” that i think walter came up with some time ago?
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.
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