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Digital Steering Committee Seminar |
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Assistants Focus on the Future |
by Todd Busch and Carol Littleton
What a difference six years makes! The first of many Guild seminars for assistant editors was held in 1994. A look at the agenda for that historic meeting seems quaint by today’s standards. It included an "exploration of the treacherous territories" of digitizing, telecine, change notes and picture conforming. Today this sounds like ancient history.
The agenda for this year’s seminar, held on April 26th, was a revelation in how far we have progressed in six short years. Panel members included assistants Stacey Clipp, Patrick Gregston, Jennifer Krouse and Asim Matin, as well as Eric Rigney, Manager of Digital Picture Editorial at Sony Pictures.
Patrick Gregston started the discussion with a colorful sketch of his personal baptism-by-fire in the cutting room. Patrick’s advice to new assistants: keep ahead of the learning curve by teaching yourself as much as you can about computers, the Avid and all its outboard equipment. Eric Rigney followed with an account of his humble beginnings as ‘food man’ for the Sony sound department. His secret to success: read the manuals from cover to cover, even if it puts you to sleep. Somehow the assistant’s unconscious mind has the miraculous power to automatically retrieve valuable information in a crisis. Stacey Clipp’s baptism-by-fire reinforced her belief in the simple maxim: educate thyself. Jennifer Krouse came to editing from a career as an architectural draftsman and found that both jobs require the same kind of discipline. Asim Matin may not have been born an assistant, but he knew at an early age that he wanted to be a filmmaker. With disarming honesty, he said, "I didn’t go around saying I want to digitize dailies, I want to sync film. I learn because I have to."
The panel stressed the old adage: necessity is the mother of invention. For better or worse, their knowledge of digital technology was self-taught. After a lively question and answer session, it was evident that the assistants in attendance had a broad range of computer skills. Some talked about their needs with confidence while others revealed a fear of jumping into the deep end of the digital pool. The comments of the panel revealed an interesting, if perplexing situation: in the past, if a film assistant were to leave the business for a stretch of time he or she could get back up to speed in a matter of days. But today, because things are changing so quickly, if you drop out for even a little while, you will have to retrieve your old skills and learn new ones as well.
The panel then began to look at the future. Rigney distributed a handout illustrating the network that Sony post-production will be using in the near future. It is based on the Avid Unity hardware and allows picture and sound editorial to share media and EDLs. Gregston and Rigney also took a look at the 24P offerings at this year’s NAB. The group broke into a discussion about using third party software tools and the Internet. 'Dawson’s Creek' assistant Jennifer Krouse commented that "we wouldn’t be serving our editors if we didn’t have our Macs." With one Avid shared by each assistant/editor pair, the assistants use iMacs to search for music on the Internet. They digitize and maintain a database of music in FileMaker Pro which all the assistants on the show can share. Matin also explained how he had sent a cut of a show to a director in Australia in just five hours via the Internet while normal air freight would have taken a couple of days. "Know your tools," Gregston stressed. "They can make your life miserable, or they can save you in the end." Rigney concluded by saying, "technology isn’t what’s going to make or break the cutting room, its the people. It’s the talent that’s going to make the picture not the hardware." The panel concurred: it is our "people skills" in the editing room that make the difference.
Guild staff trainer Dieter Rozek was on hand to remind members to sign up for practice time at the Guild office. Current versions of Avid, Lightworks and ProTools are available five days a week in our training rooms. He also told the attendees that the Guild is working to acquire the new Windows NT-based Film Composer and ProTools systems.
The seminar was a resounding success. It was reassuring to know that this generation of assistants is savvy, articulate, and confident. You can listen to the panel, via RealAudio, on our web site.
The Digital Steering Committee has other events planned for the near future. For the first time, the Board of Directors will be conducting a survey of our membership. Understanding each member’s career expectations and hopes for a heightened quality of life will help us devise a plan of action for the future. You’ll receive a questionnaire in the mail soon.
Todd Busch is an assistant editor. He is a member of the Board of Directors and
the Digital Steering Committee. He organized and moderated the New Digital Assistant Seminar.
Her recent credits include 'Twilight', 'Beloved' and 'Mumford'.
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine
Vol. 21, No. 3 - MayJune 2000
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