Avid Assistant

When starting out as an Avid Assistant you will need to practice your skills constantly. So what are the essentials you need to be able to practice your skills and use on your first projects? Here's a short look at what you can get for free and a few items you may have to buy, but all of them under $25! I'll be making one (rather large) assumption here. I am assuming you already have a laptop, Mac or PC it doesn't really matter. I don't however, assume that it can run Media Composer, but if it is the right specification then great as this means you can practice your Media Composer skills anywhere! But if your laptop has seen better days it still has a place. Use it as your nerve centre in co-ordinating and researching projects. Ideally, you will have access to a computer that runs Media Composer in some way shape and form, even if it is at a facility that will allow you access to their system outside of business hours. Make sure you have a laptop bag too, you...

For a lot of smaller productions, typically documentary makers, their projects will shoot with smaller format cameras such as DSLR or small hand-held cameras like the Panasonic AJ-PX270 or Canon XF305. All these cameras can produce stunning quality pictures and produce relatively small files for storing and editing with. This means these productions could work with rushes in their 'Native' format removing the need to carry out a more complex offline and online conform and can help streamline the editing process and more importantly save money and time. This approach still needs some planning as you need to ensure camera rushes are presented in similar, if not identical formats (raster size, framerate and colour space). This can still be challenging, especially when some productions have little experience and may have little technical understanding of camera equipment and formats. So what can we, as assistants, do to ensure the project runs smoothly and can be edited in its ...

Avid had to create a set of high-quality High Definition codecs back in the mid-2000's to allow them to move High Definition video content over their I/O connection pipe of choice for the time, a domestic 400Mbs Firewire cable! This was the birth of DNxHD codecs. DNxHD became a very popular finishing and editing codec as it was a Media Composer friendly format and the compression also allowed users to store HD content on drives which, at the time, had limited performance and capacity. With recent UHD formats becoming more widely used in cameras, users now need to edit in 2K, 4K and even 8K. As a result, Avid revised its codecs in line with this demand and released an updated DNxHR codec set. While this new codec has been released this does not mean the end of DNxHD. Let's look at them both and what they are suitable for. Avid DNxHD As we have mentioned already DNxHD is widely used by video editors but it is also used by other manufacturers and is supported within the ...

Media Management is not a widely taught subject but is an important skill to master especially if you are managing multiple projects on a single editing system. Even with large storage capacity at some stage, you will have to delete material! This post looks at the basics of deleting media from within Media Composer (or Symphony) we have other posts that look at managing content while ingesting which also helps maintain a tidy system, which in turn means a responsive editing system. Basic deletions Deleting media is relatively straightforward within Media Composer. You can delete material directly from your bin by simply selecting a clip and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. You're then presented with the Deletion window asking what you would like to delete the master clip, its associated media files, or indeed both. Choosing Master clip(s) (shown top left) simply deletes the clip information from the bin, but keeps the media (pictures and sound) on the drive...

One of the key roles of the Avid Assistant to ingest media, at the right Avid Codec , into the Project. It's important that you understand how Avid uses Media and how it is stored. Leaving the idea of AMA and linking to source files to one side for now here we will be looking at how Avid stores media it actually creates through either Consolidation, Transcode, Import or even Digitising. Media Types  Avid has been around for almost 30 years and has seen a number of formats come and go, but the 2 main formats that Avid has and still usee are listed below. OMFI Open Media Framework Interchange - OMFI - is now a legacy digital format that was introduced by Avid in the Mid 90's on its ABVB systems, when most media was ingested by digitizing from tape. This format is limited to PAL and NTSC ratios and sizes. For example in PAL, OMFI media can be stored as 4x3 or 16x9 Anamorphic with a frame size of 720x576. It does NOT support High Definition Formats. All current Avid editin...

Every Avid operator should have a thorough understanding of Media Composers Attic. At some stage in your editing career, you will need to rescue an edit from within the Attic, either owing to accidental deletion or plain old-fashioned corruption not allowing a bin to be opened. The Attic is your friend, so let's get to know it a little better. What does the Attic do? Avid editing systems allow you to organise your edits and clips into 'Bins.' If these bins become damaged or content accidently deleted from it then thsi can cause and issue. Avid saves a copy of your opened bins and after a fixed period of time (usually every 15mins by deafult) the bin is saved into a specific location, the Attic. Where is the Attic? On standalone Avid systems the Avid Attic is usually found in one location. PC: \users\public\documents\avid media composer\avid attic\ Mac: /users/shared/avid media composer/avid attic/ What's in the Attic? There is a folder inside the Avi...

This is an essential skill but often overlooked or completely forgotten on many projects.  As an Editor or an Assistant on smaller projects especially, it will be down to you to ensure that project remains on course, losing the project would be catastrophic and almost impossible to recreate in a short period of time. You did back it up? Right? As the Avid Project holds ALL your bins containing your Edits, rushes, effects, music, VO, and Titles it is essential that it is backed up on a regular basis, ideally every day. Remember the Avid Project is merely metadata (descriptive data) and so is relatively small as it does not contain the actual video itself. The process is very simple and takes little time and should be completed daily through the life of the project. Equipment needed Blank USB Memory Stick - 8GB min Where does the Avid Project live? When using a stand-alone Avid editing system the Avid Project can be located in one of three places described by...