A Message From the Avid Media Composer
- Nov 14, 2017
- 2 min read
Today was the day! We received our very first introduction into Avid Media Composer!
Avid as a high-end industry editing software for diverse TV and film productions like, e.g. Sherlock, Star Wars and Batman, was the first editing software to allow the integration of external plugins into its own software.
Starting off with opening a new project, we were introduced to the settings and bins and learned that you can not only create several bins for diverse media like video, audio and effects, for example, but that you can also create folders within the bins for better organisation of your data.
Coming now to importing data, this is safely achieved by right-clicking into the relevant bin and clicking ‚link to media’ instead of ‚file import’, since it creates another copy of your source data to work with instead of directly altering your files.
As soon as the linked versions are imported, they should be transcoded by first selecting them and then choosing Consolidate/Transcode for an optimal display of the footage in real time.
After that, we were introduced tot he shortcuts for moving forwards or backwards through the footage, setting in- and out-points and ‚lifting’ or rather extracting footage from the timeline. Afterwards, we were shown the different modes located left of the timeline for the actual trimming and splicing tools as well as how to sync and unsync audio and video clips.
With this in mind, we started editing the message-task we were given a couple of weeks ago by our lecturer and what shall I say?
It went smoother than expected.
Even if Avid MC is considered the hell of editing systems, I personally found it easier to learn, much more intuitive to use and safer in execution than the Master Suites from Premiere Pro that I have used so far. Even after our lecturer left, we were able to edit our footage into a decent short film in less than two hours (notwithstanding sound or transitions).
When we were finally finished with our product, we started exporting by setting an in- and an out-point on the beginning and end of the whole sequence and highlighted it before exporting it with the basic settings. With the edit for our message-task being the very first, our group decided to choose an easier setting, instead of customising it with H.264 or multipass-settings.
And what shall I say? This is the result:
And while being at it, I already booked out editing time for my 'Me, Myself, and I' at the end of November and beginning of December. With this positive experience in Avid, I cannot wait to get started!
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