The Global Rivers Project

Avid Podcasts

Want to hear our very own Norman Hollyn (editor on Global Rivers Project documentary and Head of Editing at the other USC) tell about preparing students for the real world? Want to listen to Avid editors discuss their work on indie films, dramatic television, documentaries,and reality TV? Go to the iTunes Store and download the free podcasts of interviews with educators, directors and editors. Just type "Avid Podcast" in the search window of iTunes. As of today, there are 18 episodes posted over the last year.

I listen to these podcasts when I walk my dogs in the morning. They are a great way to stay current with trends and personalities in the media industry. They also make great assignments for students. Living in South Carolina, I don't have thousands of practicing Hollywood filmmakers in my backyard. Now, through the magic of podcasts, I can listen in on interviews and panel discussions about editing, made possible by Avid. And... I make my students listen too. And... the podcasts are archived on iTunes. I just discovered one podcast from the 2007 Sundance Festival that I missed last year. I know that Norman Hollyn and Michael Phillips of Avid Technology (and Global Rivers Project consultant) are presenting on a panel this week at Sundance 2008. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Hey Norm. Will I be able to hear your presentation on iTunes soon?
Hey Avid. What do you have planned for upcoming podcasts?

Help with Avid

How do you teach your students to begin editing in Avid?

I know many of the Rivers Project partners are experienced Avid editors and trainers. How do you teach them to manage their projects?

How do you begin a project? I don't mean how do you start... but how do set up your hard drives, etc. when you start a new project?

Waiting for your advice and suggestions.

How to Manage Avid

An American friend recently told me that when she started to learn Japanese, she already knew some Spanish. When she would try to speak Japanese, she would speak it with a Spanish accent.

I have not used Avid Media Composer in about ten years. I have been editing with FCP since the very first version. Now, learning Avid MC again, I feel like my friend speaking Japanese with a Spanish accent. I keep reverting to habits learned using FCP.

What is the best way to start a project in Avid MC?

The hardest part of this for me is understanding where the media files are... And how to manage them... And how to keep track of them... And how to find them and select only certain media files to upload with Digidelivery. Several of our Global Rivers Project partners are experience Avid editors. I hope you can list some of your suggestions here. I am using Sam Kauffman's book, Avid Editing. Can you suggest other publications? The manuals have not provided the kind of information I seek.

Signing On and All Aboard!!

I wanted to introduce myself to everyone, since I've only recently come on board here, on the Rivers boat.

I am a professor of cinema at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and I specialize in editing.  But, more importantly to us, I am a UFVA member who has now gotten involved with RIVERS.

I will be editing what I am fondly calling the "metamovie."  This will be a movie, separate (but hopefully drawing on) your own individual river films, which will attempt to draw relationships between all of the rivers and all of the films about the rivers.

The challenge of this piece will be twofold -- one, will be to find a story that unites all of your disparate stories. The second challenge will be to get all of your footage and make it all live together technically.  I will be working with Karla, Suzanne and Melinda to help both of these things to happen.

To help us all along, I will be putting together a calendar and a series of cuts.  In order to move along at a pace which will see us premiere this meta-movie at Beijing, it would be very helpful if you all could send me your dailies, as you get them.  The best way would be to DigiDelivery it to me and to Michael Phillips at Avid, who will be storing the P2 files as a backup.  For those of you who have slower Internet connections, you could put everything on a hard drive and send it to me at school.

One of the things that we want to do is to figure out some Best Practices for long distance collaboration, so I am assuming that you will have your preferences on how and when to send everything.  Let me say, from the point of view of making the November 2008 deadline, I'd love everything you have and I'd love you to send it to me last month!!

There will be a lot of details to work out -- how I'll get translations of material you are working on, how you can send me cuts, etc. etc.  But that's one of the points of this project.  Yes, it's going to be fun.  A lot of fun.

Thanks for letting me hop aboard the boat.