Lightworks Update Networked Heavyworks' Used on Moulin Rouge by Patrick Gregston Last year, Tektronix sold Lightworks to Lightworks Inc., a firm led by Mark Pounds, the former distributor of Lightworks in Canada. The company showed a new, Windows NT-based prototype at NAB (the VOX 1000) and was present at September’s IBC conference (sharing space with Fairlight). Features of the new system include a redesigned console, 4 tracks of digital audio I/O, real-time effects, titles and color correction and support for shared RAID storage. The company is predicting that the system will be available in the first quarter of 2001 with an improved version, apparently aimed at the online market, available later in the year. At press time, Lightworks announced that version 6.5 software for Turbo and Heavyworks systems would ship late this year, with some useful new features including a trim window. The announcements offer a rosy view of the future of Lightworks, but editors have waited a long time for improvements and the company is offering nothing that can be used today. As a result, some Lightworks users have taken it upon themselves to modernize the existing system and use it in ways that were once considered impossible. One example is 20th Century Fox’s 'Moulin Rouge', a musical set in post-revolutionary France. The picture stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor, is directed by Baz Luhrmann ('Romeo & Juliet' , 'Strictly Ballroom') and mixes contemporary music with period design. Editor Jill Bilcock ('Elizabeth', 'Romeo & Juliet') is working on one of four Heavyworks II workstations networked to 630 gigabytes of LVD drives in redundant (RAID 5) storage. The production is using Ready Raid, an application developed to enable users of existing Lightworks machines to apply modern networking and redundancy to the DOS-based editing system. Other productions that have used it include 'The Replacements' and the series 'Law & Order'. "Lightworks is the tool that allows me to have a proper rhythm," Jill said when asked about her choice of tools. Aaron Downing, Executive Director of Fox Feature Post-Production indicated that, "the networking system is allowing us to finish the film with Lightworks. I will admit I was concerned about networking going into this project. My experience with Heavyworks and shared storage had not been great. However, Ready Raid provides Jill with flexibility in equipment that was never before possible." In addition to the editor’s system, a second machine is shared by three assistants (each has a standalone PC, as well). A third is used fulltime by an assistant handling the music and the fourth system, originally brought on for visual effects and additional assistant tasks, now hosts a second editor. A fifth, non-networked, Heavyworks, with serial digital I/O (SDI card – 5-min resolution), is used to create screening tapes. The effects department has two non-networked Avids. Although the show finished principal photography over six months ago, visual effects, music and a reshoot have kept the volume of input high. Film screenings began once a significant proportion of visual effects had been approved on film. The picture is using other unusual techniques, as well. Produced totally in Australia, dailies were shot at 24 fps, but were synched in telecine at 25 fps for PAL transfer. The production used Heavyworks’ PAL24 feature to slow the picture and sound down to 24 fps. Production sound was output to an MMR8 via OMF2 for dailies screenings. The system was set up by Roger Savage, sound supervisor and owner of Soundfirm, which is supplying most post services. For post sound, EDLs from the editing system are conformed using Post Conform 2 on Pro Tools stations. An application developed in house converts Heavyworks change-lists into instructions for use in Pro Tools’ Session Cutter. The picture editors employ a MacIntosh G4 with a Miro video card to digitize outputs from the Heavyworks into Quicktime files for use by the sound department over a network. "This film has not stopped shooting in one form or another since October of 1999." Adds Downing. "We’ve gone from principal photography to motion control miniatures to pickups and inserts and back to shooting with the principals. It went from a handful of opticals to over four hundred opticals. Without this network, I don’t think Jill and her assistants would have been able to handle the number of changes while meeting our severe deadlines." 'Moulin Rouge' is the largest project to be edited on Lightworks in several years. Market forces and Lightworks’ new owners will determine the system’s future. But Jill Bilcock, among others, isn’t waiting for improvements. She summed up by saying, "It’s a great splicer, and the one I intend to keep using".   Patrick Gregston is a former Guild board member. He can be reached via email   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine Vol. 21, No. 5 - September/October 2000   Guild Home | Magazine Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700