Pixar uses Avid??

I was watching the excellent online series, "A Day in the Life of John Lasseter", and was taken aback during today's installment when they showed the editing room and a dual screen setup running Avid MC. This can't be right, right?

Here's a screengrab:

> I was watching the excellent online series, "A Day in the Life of John Lasseter", and was taken
> aback during today's installment when they showed the editing room and a dual screen setup
> running Avid MC. This can't be right, right?

Why wouldn't they? Avid has always been the overwhelmingly predominant editing system for big-budget features. And given Apple's recent moves, which alienated so many professional parties, Avid's share in the professional world will probably increase. There have always been Avid editors who were reluctant to learn Final Cut Pro because the language was alien to them. FCPX will increase that reluctance tenfold.


www.derekmok.com

Well, I figured since Steve Jobs owns the place...

They never used Xserves or any of the other Apple rendering products. I think the credits for Incredibles mentions HP render stations and tons of other non Apple tech.
They use what's best for a wide, networked workplace (Lasseter's iPad based shot approval system that he uses on the commute to work is pretty cool). Apple never got FCP Server into wide use, and AVIDs Unity, can link plenty of seats together with very little hassle.

ak

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Avid has never fully left Hollywood and based on the recent surveys going around, FCP has been losing marketshare pretty quickly over the past two years out there.

They will use what's best for their workflow, not just something that the owner might say you MUST use. Quite smart.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

I am not familiar with FCP server. Can you share projects like the Unity or just share media?

You can share projects and media with a lockout system. It's been killed though, and at least one more revision would have been nice.

Ah, I'd ask if sharing projects meant everyone works out of the same project or if that meant the ability to toss projects back and forth but if it's been killed than I guess it doesn't matter. I did a job on media share but they were sharing media but not projects. Supposedly everyone can all work out of the same project "unity style" on that but have yet to hear anyone who has done it. I've just seen people tossing projects back and forth on common shared drives but never anyone all working out of a unified project file. Would be cool to know if anyone has seen this happen on the FCP side.

Final cut server is for media asset management. Unity (from what I have seen) is more of a SAN, a little like XSAN, but with better handling of user privileges. Editshare has a system that works a little like sharing bins on the Unity. Basically they treat an FCP project like an avid bin, and treat a folder of FCP projects like an avid project. They function a little similar anyway (FCP projects use up RAM kinda like Avid bins).



www.strypesinpost.com

So two editors can't work out of the same project in mediashare? If one editor wanted to cut act three of Episode 112 and another wanted to cut act four of episode 112 and access the same b roll, interviews etc out of the same Episode 112 project with the project updating with changes made by both editors when they hit save? Meaning two editors updating the same project simultaneously? Meaning if an editor says can you cover this scene for me and you say wait an hour, hit save and it will be there. That can't be done?

You won't be able to do that per se. In an FCP environment, you will have a folder of FCP projects. What I do is I have an FCP project of interviews, another for music and sound fx, and another for graphic elements. All the rushes relevant to the editor will be imported into his project (eg. Ep 1 editors get all the rushes from ep 1). And they can either toss sequences around between FCP projects or pass the project file to another editor. FCP projects can function like avid bins.



www.strypesinpost.com

Got it.

Gotta admit. It would be nice if Avid lets you create folders within a bin.



www.strypesinpost.com

That would be nice. You can create bins within folders but not folders within bins. It would also be nice if you could see the markers/locators drop down as well. If I could steal one thing it would be the real time audio mixer and the ability to adjust the size of the timeline while playing and maybe the way FCP treats dead space as dead space and not content when moving clips around. Nothing more annoying than selecting an entire section to move and it won't budge because you didn't select the black between clips.

This no longer has anything to do with the original post. My bad.

The most important thing to remember with UNITY was that Media Composer had all the hooks built in to work with UNITY. It's not a special version of MC on UNITY. Your bins get a lock icon in the bottom left corner and that's almost it. Whoever opens a bin first has write access everyone after is read only. Very simple.
UNITY isn't cheap and some rental houses were able to roll their own versions for less with out the AVID hardware, not sure how that worked but I remember working on them.

I can see how in a CGI animation workflow UNITY would be an ideal solution. Give the animators write access to bins on the server. As renders are done they pop up in the editors view of the bin and get cut in. With careful TC/Reel tracking a new render of an existing shot would just be replaced wherever it was used.


And FCServer is dead now, IIRC.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

FCServer was a pretty good piece of software, although a little pricey which reduced adoption rate. Or rather the whole fact that SANs aren't exactly cheap and for FCServer to work, you need a SAN, and producers access to the content (which is cheaper on a NAS. Lion could have addressed some of that cost.

The year they released FCS 2 and FCServer was when I thought Apple was going after the big boys. They introduced Color and an asset management system and they still had Shake (with Phenomenon in the works). Those were big steps towards introducing a Final Cut System that was capable of fitting into the high end. FCS 09 did little in that regard, so I was a little disappointed. And FCP X shows that they are moving towards a different direction.



www.strypesinpost.com