The film "Back to Cold Mountain" is an epic two-hour, 25-minute film that was edited with Final Cut Pro, a creative, professional and extensible tool used for editing and completion in SD and HD formats, by film editor Walter Murch.
During the editing process, which lasted 16 months, Murch edited more than 182.88 meters of film using four dual-processor Power Mac G4s, Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools (formerly Film Logic), DVD Studio Pro, Aurora IgniterRT 311, and Rorke Galaxy 60 Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN), which provided the four linked systems of 1.2 terabytes of Seagate disk storage.
Two of the Power Mac G4 units were used by Murch and his assistant, Sean Cullen, as individual editing stations, while the third was designated as a scanning station to synchronize daily tasks. The fourth system was used to export files and burn material to DVD.
Murch, winner of three Oscars for film and sound editing, and whose credits include "Apocalypse Now," "The English Patient" and "The Godfather," always uses the tools at his disposal to the fullest and pursues the perfect cut. That's why he surprised the industry by deciding to cut "Back to Cold Mountain," an $80 million movie, using Final Cut Pro and several commercial Power Mac G4s. Murch did this work on the other side of the world, in the rural landscapes of Romania, where the film was filmed to capture the essence and image of North Carolina in the nineteenth century.
In a recent interview with Apple, Murch talked about his experience editing this film: "One of the most significant things about Final Cut is that it's not a hybrid software-hardware system. That means it almost completely eliminates the natural tendency of editing systems to create bottlenecks," Murch said. "In 'Back to Cold Mountain' we were able to have four stations with Final Cut Pro, fully equipped, at a lower cost than a single Avid station. And having four seasons working on a movie is a significant improvement over what you generally have, which is two. Additionally, we were able to create what can be called satellite stations on four laptops equipped with Final Cut, download the material from various sequences and continue working. So if we were faced with a situation where suddenly there was a huge amount of filming, we could expand to eight workstations." The interview can be read in its entirety in http://www.apple.com/la/creativo/murch/
About "Return to Cold Mountain"
Writer-director Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Charles Frazier's book covers the arduous and extensive journey of Inman (Jude Law), a wounded Confederate soldier, in his attempt to return from the war into the arms of his beloved, Ada (Nicole Kidman) in Cold Mountain, where she manages her late father's farm with the help of a wanderer, Ruby (Renée Zellweger). "The Return to Cold Mountain" won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress (Renée Zellweger), and has been nominated for seven Oscars including Best Actor (Jude Law), Best Music, Best Original Song (Two Songs), Best Cinematography and Best Editing.
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