Avid Tips:
Keep It Simple!
A Streamlined Way to Use the
Avid
by Steven Cohen
SECTIONS:
The Media Composer keeps changing. Powerful features are added with every new release, but because the people at Avid don't want to alienate existing editors, old features never seem to get retired. The result is that there are many, many ways to do nearly every task, and this can be confusing. Fortunately, since the system is designed to be customized, it's easy to make it suit your needs. Many people have asked me to describe my own way of using the system. The following is a brief overview of my working methods.
The most basic choice I've made is to use the keyboard for playing and marking video and to use the mouse for everything else. This has the advantage of completely simplifying the keyboard and restricting it's use to things that are rhythmic, that I do by feel. I prefer to use the keyboard without looking down--this lets me keep my eyes on the film. I use the mouse for all editing functions, and for quickly moving through dailies and edited material. I never use the Avid hand controllers.
To make the keyboard work as much like as a KEM as possible, I've organized it around what Avid calls the 'Three Button Player' (sometimes called 'JKL'). It's been vastly improved since version 5.0. With just three buttons you can play forward or backward at any of several speeds, and you can move at slow speed or a frame at a time with good-sounding audio. Not only that, but if you use the three button player in trim mode, you can move and trim at the same time--absolutely the most intuitive way to adjust a cut. As a result, my hand is constantly on those three buttons.
Since I don't use most keyboard functions, I've removed the confusing Avid molded keycaps and put back the original Mac keys. The Mac keys have one big advantage: they've got bumps on the D and K keys so you can find the 'home' position without looking down. Avid makes stick-on labels that you can use to identify the few keys in use.
Most of what I do with the keyboard is exactly what I did with the three buttons on a KEM Universal. The difference is that I do it with my left hand. This seemed awkward at first, but I'm right handed and incapable of using the mouse with my left. So if I'm to have one hand on the keyboard, moving and marking video, and one hand on the mouse, I've got to operate the keyboard with my left hand. I think you'll find that with a little practice this will become quite intuitive.
To move quickly through lots of material I drag through the timeline with the mouse. To jump to head frames I hold down the command key. To jump to tail frames I hold down the command and option keys.
Here's how I set up the keyboard:
One advantage of a simple key layout is that you'll actually use the few functions that are there. This means that you won't need to duplicate those functions with on-screen buttons, and you'll be able to simplify your editing windows as well. I use only one row of buttons under the source and record monitors, arranged as follows:
Note that the 'GoTo Next/Previous Transition' keys don't appear anywhere. That's because I lasso transitions with the mouse to get into trim mode and I click in a time track to get back to normal editing. This is much quicker and more direct than the older method, especially since you can easily select an overlap in one step.
Finally, in the Film Composer, I hide the timecode tracks under the timeline. I'm rarely interested in timecode, and certainly never want to see two nearly identical timecode tracks.
You can easily create new settings like these without disturbing your existing configuration. Select the setting you want to change, duplicate it and customize the copy. You can then switch between the old and new setting by clicking to the left of the setting name. If you're like me you'll find these new settings to be simple, intuitive and powerful. If you don't, then by all means keep using the system in your own preferred way--it's designed to be customized to your preferences, not mine.
Steven Cohen is an editor and the author of
Avid Media Composer Techniques and Tips
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 16, No. 5 - Sept/Oct 1995
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