Avid and Lightworks
Execs Meet With Guild

Advisory Committees Formed

In March, Guild President Donn Cambern, Executive Director Ron Kutak, and Board member Steve Cohen met with the CEO of Avid Technology, William Miller. As a result of that meeting an advisory committee has been formed. Named the "Hollywood Council," it will consist of engineers, support personnel and a film person from Avid, and picture and sound editors, assistants and other interested parties in Hollywood. It will discuss the major problems that editors, particularly in film, are having with Avid. This is the first time that Avid has come to the table with the Guild. Mr. Miller assured us that Avid has no intention of abandoning Hollywood and that it wants to develop solutions for problems that exist at the moment. One suggestion from the Guild was that Avid resume beta testing here with our people.

Meetings of the new council are tentatively scheduled to begin in June.

On April 4th Guild President Donn Cambern, Guild VP Carol Littleton, Board members Patrick Gregston, Paul Huntsman, and Alan Bell, plus sound editor Rob Nokes met with Paul O'Mara, COO of Tektronix Video & Net-working Division and Trevor Morecraft, General Manager of Lightworks Editing Systems. A Hollywood Council was set up to discuss problems our members experience with Lightworks, for instance with change lists, and will be meeting regularly.

Guild President Donn Cambern is very pleased that the Guild has been instrumental in creating these advisory groups and expects both companies to be more responsive to the needs of the Hollywood community in the future. New technologies evolve rather than exist unchanging like a Moviola and Guild members need to make their needs known in order to influence that evolution. Please write to either council in care of the Editors Guild or join one of the discussion groups on our new web site at www.editorsguild.com.