Avid News
Avid 'Hollywood Council' Meets
"Anybody who thinks that we are not committed to the Hollywood community is 100% wrong," said Bill Miller, CEO of Avid Technology. "We have made some mistakes in the past... but we are hear to listen to what we can do better to make us a better servant to your community."
And so began the opening remarks of the first Avid Hollywood Council meeting, held June 12th in Avid's new Burbank office.
The Avid Hollywood Council was spearheaded by the Editors Guild and Avid Technology after talks earlier this year demonstrated a mutual interest in holding regular meetings. June's event, which is to be the first in a series, was orchestrated to bring the Avid engineers and administrators together with selected representatives of the Hollywood community to make progress on film related problems with Avid products.
Guild members who will be serving on the Avid Technology Council for a two-year period are Steve Cohen, John Axelrad, Skip Collector, Jeanine Payne, Paul Huntsman and Randy Morgan. Donn Cambern and Ron Kutak also attended the first meeting.
After initial presentations from Avid representatives, Steve Cohen addressed the group and handed out an eight-page list to everyone present. The list, a compilation of requests and bug fixes from members of the Editors Guild (and which can be accessed on Steve Cohen's website), ranged from the general to the specific. It received a lot of serious attention at the meeting and sparked an extended question and answer session.
The top request on the list, "Begin beta testing in Hollywood," generated a lot of feedback, including comments from an Avid software engineer who expressed amazement that testing did not go on in Hollywood. Assistant editor John Axelrad stressed that many cutting rooms in Los Angeles would welcome field representatives and engineers visiting to get a first-hand account of some of the day-to-day problems associated with the Film Composer. "Avid should make more of an effort to reach out to the 24fps community instead of us having to get frustrated trying to chase them down," he said.
Guild members using the Avid are encouraged to call Avid's 800 number or to go on-line with the Avid Bulletin Board when they encounter problems. Although the solution may not be immediately attainable through these methods, Avid representatives stress that this communication is instrumental in helping them identify bugs in the niche 24fps market.
With the Guild's list in hand, the Avid representatives head back to Tewkesbury and will return to Los Angeles in September for the next scheduled Hollywood Council meeting. "There are many, many things on our list that could be tackled in three months," said Steve Cohen. "But more than any specific software fix, what I'd be looking for is a continued commitment to improved communication. That's what was started in the meeting and, hopefully, that will continue."
