15 years ago my world was linear. At that time my routine took me to three or four different editing rooms every week. The days were spent between traversing with tapes, adjusting equipment and manipulating editing lists. Producing sequences of effects required million-dollar installations, and one of the editors' favorite activities was telling horror stories about our technical problems.
And in five years everything changed. In the early 90s real-time non-linear editing was almost a myth, but by the end of the decade the DV revolution made it possible for anyone to mount a non-linear editing system in their living room. On the TV and Video pages we talked about how to choose hard drives, how to manage heavily compressed material and how to take advantage of the availability of so many audio channels.
Five years later it was possible to handle DV material on almost any computer. High-end editing systems were beginning to offer the possibility of handling SD material without compression. Working in non-linear environments no longer represents low quality. News production changed dramatically. Personal computers took the world of audio and graphics by storm, and engineers realized it was a good time to start studying networks.
Today the world of publishing is a world of software. Dedicated hardware is an option, and increasingly its use is limited to ingest and playout tasks. We talk seriously about forgetting tapes and editing in the cloud. Examples? In the last four months of last year I worked every day on editing a novel, and I never touched a VTR. I spent entire days editing complex multi-camera sequences without using a client monitor. The finished episodes were set to music without having gone through tape. And if it was necessary to retouch an image, I could do it without moving from my chair.
Now my world is non-linear. We have to think fast and work (more) fast. We produce volumes of material that 15 years ago were simply inconceivable... but editors' favorite activity is still telling horror stories about our technical problems. Now we talk about render times, format mixing, corrupt files and unstable PCs. But one thing we are sure of: We don't want to go back.
As we go, we are going well
What's next in the next few years? Today it is possible to have viable installations without conventional peripherals such as VTRs or measuring instruments. Much of the content that is published today is only converted into baseband signals when broadcast on TV. Content production is based entirely on IT technology.
At one extreme we find that the project study model of the late nineties has become a reality for many filmmakers. A few networked workstations equipped with the right software can efficiently replace editing rooms, audio studios and graphics systems. And if portable equipment is used, it is possible to take the edition to the site, an increasingly frequent case in the world of events, corporate video and production with cinematographic dyes.
The other extreme is that of large post-production centers, where workstations increasingly operate as terminals. Usually the axis of a complex system is a storage area, but this model tends to disappear. Regardless of whether it is newscasts, service houses, post-production boutiques or soap opera factories, it is necessary to have platforms that allow you to manage content, not files.
What does this mean? If the focus of the operation is to generate content, it makes more sense that the axis is asset management. It makes more sense to handle a structure of interrelated descriptions than a gigantic list of files.
That is why large operations tend to be structured around a MAM (Media Asset Management) system, and if you have a really efficient MAM system it is possible to make the post-production operation depend directly on the MAM. This model has the potential for each instance of material manipulation to contribute to the enrichment of the content, either by the opportunity to add metadata or simply by the added value of being able to find the material that is needed, when it is needed.
Parenthesis: Doesn't a small production operation need a MAM? On the market there are options that allow you to manage content on a small scale – such as Final Cut Server, for example. I have recently known two or three workstation installations that benefit immensely from centralized storage and a well-indexed filing system.
If an operation is based on an IT platform, and has IT clients for visualization tasks, for example, it makes a lot of sense to install MAM clients with editing capability. It is possible that many of the editing tasks that need a channel or a news operation can be performed on desktop computers with very simple tools, which directly use the material of a MAM installation; for the most complex tasks the material is simply handed over to specialists, editors by trade.
Who is the publisher?
20 years ago the emblematic tool of the online editor was the calibrator, that small screwdriver that allowed to make the tiny adjustments that made it possible to keep in optimal conditions the rooms full of equipment that at that time were the editing rooms. And the truth is that an online linear system we spent a good part of our time doing more engineering than art.
The editor has become a content maker rather than an editor or a second-rate engineer. In non-linear environments we must operate as "real" editors, graphic artists, sound designers, compressionists, multimedia authors and – from time to time – as specialists in PC support.
It is not easy to find people with the skills required by the editor of the twenty-first century, and unfortunately in many cases the front in which there are more deficiencies is, precisely, the edition.
The distinction between the editor who does editing work and the "ex officio" editor who was so in vogue at the beginning of the last decade tends to be blurred, with some exceptions on fronts such as audio work or high-level composition.
The editing specialist must then be an "all-rounder" capable of managing workflows and executing tasks on many fronts. Is it possible to master such a broad spectrum of competences? Obviously not. We can assume that a competent editor must handle the rudiments of all areas, but to be competitive he must also seek specialization.
What is the market's response to this situation? In the case of the American market, it is the mobilization of a large part of the workforce to the freelance market. This opens up the possibility for each project to have the editor it deserves, and creates significant pressure for the professionalization of editors.
Everyone must decide what their strength is. I must worry about acquiring the skills that allow me to continue in the market in the area that interests me. Do I edit drama, documentary, video clips or corporate? I now define myself as an editor based on products, not teams – with the possible exception of the news editor, who is usually employed in a large operation. However, we must not forget that the news editor is a species in danger of extinction: The current production models assume that the bulk of video news must be edited, titled and published by the journalists themselves.
And this leads us to a final reflection: One of the indispensable skills for a filmmaker is audio and video editing. It is as important as training to write, to make camera or record sound. We can call it "pre-edition" or "thick cut", but in any case, the filmmaker who is not able to address at least the initial part of the edition of his pieces is not competitive, regardless of whether he operates in independent or corporate environments.
The industry has long looked to content rather than technology toys. Each of us must decide where it is convenient for us to insert ourselves into the new business models. And being a moderately competent editor is the least we can expect from any content producer. It is part of the basic level of literacy in this industry.
And this pressure extends to organizations. Post-production is one of the sectors of the industry that must make greater efforts to constantly reinvent itself. In recent years it has faced major changes in terms of demand and platforms. It's getting closer and closer to distribution channels, and in a digital world that represents the burden of managing the data flows of the tapeless production world.
In less than twenty years we went from the world of black boxes and dedicated hardware to the management of monumental volumes of data. That's reason enough for survivors of the calibrator era to keep gathering around a café to share horror stories only suitable for editors.
| Edit in the Cloud |
Vendors like Quantel and Avid have been talking about handling low-resolution proxies in remote installations for several years. In fact, these manufacturers of post-production systems, and surely many others, have viable platforms for deploying remote editing applications over open networks. In the consumer world there are several tools for editing material online, which work very well as long as the final piece remains around 300Kbps. What these platforms have in common is that they depend on the available bandwidth: In practical terms, the "cloud" edition has been based more on the transfer of proxies to satellite stations than on the remote and online use of the material. It is usually more productive to transfer all the required material before starting to assemble, and in the end send back a metadata package describing the work done, which in most cases will be immediately linked to the original that has always been on the base. For now, the only operations that handle remote editing models with some frequency are the commercial producers, which however in many cases prefer to handle models based on videoconferencing to accompany the editing processes. In the case of correspondents who produce their material in the field, it is still more productive to send the finished pieces over the network or by satellite and then deliver the original material for final archiving. This is still the preferred model for major news organizations. Does this mean that cloud editing is not viable? No way. That it becomes functional is a matter of time, and it is first and foremost an IT problem. In fact, customers of a MAM (Media Asset Management) system handle material in the cloud of their own organization. It is likely that in a few years we will begin to see asset management facilities with content replicated in several locations and with the ability to support production operations remotely. In this sense, each job would become part of an atomized and very flexible MAM system. |
| 2010: A brief review of the offer of editing systems |
The supply of editing systems is being segmented. On the one hand there are the traditional suppliers that continue to compete furiously for the usual market, and on the other hand there are the providers of integrated production platforms and MAM systems, who as a routine thing usually offer client software that allows to manipulate the stored content. Although this proposal may seem bizarre, it really makes a lot of sense. After all, it is nothing more than an extension of the model proposed by most news production systems, in which the journalist can cut and title his pieces from his desk. In the real world, many news organizations resist this model, and continue to hand over the assembly of the pieces to specialized publishers. But we can agree that the model will prevail over time and economic pressure... On the other hand we find traditional providers, who now tend to focus their offer more on their software model than on the concept of "system" or "room" of editing. The trends of recent years are still valid. Apple has managed to position Final Cut Pro as a general-purpose tool thanks to its open architecture and flexibility for handling material in different formats, and has simultaneously managed to establish itself very strongly in the traditional post-production market. Avid continues to offer very robust products based on a mature but revamped interface, and offers some very robust shared storage options and support for collaborative workflows. Grass Valley opened its doors to the integration of customers from any supplier, but continues to promote its Edius system, a really interesting product for critical applications. Sony Software has in Vegas Pro a simply magnificent product in terms of technological efficiency. Adobe Premiere offers a lot of flexibility and the power of integration with other products of the brand. High-profile vendors like Quantel and Autodesk continue to attack the market for film and commercial production companies, operating on the blurred boundaries between the digital and television industries, and making great efforts to bring their costs closer to those of normal humans and facilitate the integration of their products with those of other manufacturers. And what do we have left of this review, in which we have surely left out many important players in the post-production market? More than ever, you have to evaluate the options according to needs, not continuity or brand loyalty. What we really need may not be where we've always found it. The key recommendation is to avoid qualifying products in a prejudiced manner. It's a mistake to assume that Avid is expensive, that Final Cut doesn't play well with other products, that Edius only works with specialized hardware , that Vegas can't handle baseband material, or that Premiere doesn't support broadcast formats . The explosion of sentences in the previous paragraph can be documented in ten minutes using Google. The worst thing we can do is make decisions about editing systems before informing ourselves well. Competition has changed the offering, and more than ever we must "do the homework" before making decisions that can compromise our workflows for several years. The important thing is not which is the best editing system, but which is the best for me.
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