The company I work for (when I’m not busy doing latenite films related work) recently purchased a brand new MacPro. Nothing too fancy, just something that can easily handle offline editing in Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro. Here are the specs:

One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
4GB RAM (4 x 1GB)
640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB Graphics Card

And so, once it arrived, I open up the box, took out the tower, and hooked it up to some monitors we already had. It booted fine, and loaded Snow Leopard. “Ah, no” I thought to myself, and added a mental note that the first thing I will need to do it get rid of Snow Leopard. But, while it’s up and running, I might as well check out some of the new Snow Leopard features. Then I noticed it. Something was not right. For about half a second every five seconds the computer seemed to “stall”. It would just stop for half a second. It was almost as if it had a faulty heart and was missing a beat every now and again. I’ve never seen this before, so I was a little bit scared that maybe this brand new machine might had serious hardware problems. Either that – or Snow Leopard was causing the poor machine some major, major grief. So first thing I did after a diagnostics test (in which the machine passed all tests), was try and dump Snow Leopard and put on Leopard 10.5. I put in the Retail DVD of Leopard we have, clicked install, and waited for the machine to reboot. Then nothing happened. Ummm… Strange! Why wasn’t it booting? I tried another Retail DVD of Leopard we have. Same problem. Ummm… very strange! Time for Google. I hit my first major stumbling block – you can only install Leopard 10.5.6 or later on these new MacPro’s and all our Retail DVDs are 10.5. With no copy of Leopard 10.5.6 on DVD, and no dealers stocking 10.5.6 on the shelves, it was time to sent it back to the retailer so that they can install 10.5.6 and work out what’s going on with the strange freezing issue. We can always grab another copy of 10.5.6 on DVD from Apple’s discontinued software division later (as we’ll need to install the OS again on other partitions anyway).

And so, the Mac went back to the shop. The weird thing however was that the machine worked perfectly once they received it. No lagging, no freezing – it worked perfectly. So they installed 10.5.6, ran the diagnostics tool, swapped out the RAM as a precaution, and sent it back to us. They did say however that they have come across this issue once before, and put it down to electromagnetic interference in the room it was being used in – putting the machine in another room seemed to fix the problem. Very strange!

I got it back, plugged it in, and the same issue occurred. It would freeze for about half a second every five or so seconds. And so, as a test, I tried it in a different room. It worked fine. Very strange! So I tried it in another room. Same freezing issue. In another room. Same freezing issue. In another room. It worked fine! So it seemed that this silly machine would only work in specific locations, and I had no idea why!

Not convinced that electromagnetic interference would do this, I tried swapping out cables, the keyboard, the mouse, and then finally, I tried different combinations of monitors.

And then I found the solution. For some reason certain monitors connected via the DVI port cause the system to lag (i.e. literally freeze for half a second every five or so seconds) if connected via the DVI or Mini DisplayPort. However, all monitors seem to work fine over VGA using adapters.

I’ve tried every single possible combination of screen resolutions and refresh rates – so that’s not the issue.

I’ve tried Googling similar issues, but apart from finding a whole heap of issues with the 4870 graphics card, I couldn’t seem to find anything like this.

Here is a list of monitors I tried:

Works over DVI, Mini DisplayPort & VGA:

Samsung 205BW 16:9 LCD
Benq G2420 HD (Model: ET-0027-B) 16:9 LCD

Works over VGA:
Kogan X19WB 16:9 LCD
Sony LMD-2030W 16:9 LCD
Sony KLV-325200A 16:9 LCD
Sony KDL-2054000 16:9 LCD

Doesn’t Work over DVI or Mini DisplayPort:
Samsung 940B 4:3 LCD
Benq T2200HD (Model: W2108) 16:9 LCD
Benq G2200W (Model: ET-0016-N) 16:9 LCD

When I get the time, I’ll also try a few other monitors we’ve got lying around including some big old CRTs!

So, to cut a long story short, if you get a new MacPro and it looks like it’s lagging – try a different screen! If anyone has a reason as to why this happens, I’d also love to hear it!

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris !

If you have read any of my previous blog entries here you would know that I am a long time Final Cut Pro user, but since the beginning of this year I have been working at an offline edit house (in addition to the time I spend doing latenite things!) that primarily uses Avid on Macs. As we solely do offline editing here and all of the grading and online is done at other more specialised post production facilities, generally speaking we don’t have to worry too much about gamma, colour spaces and getting files in and out of various programs. Most of our jobs are shot on 35mm, and get telecined to DVCAM which we then edit in DV-PAL, export an EDL + OMF and we’re done. For RED Projects we normally get dumped a hard drive full of R3Ds which we convert to DNxHD using RED Rushes and bring all these files in Avid via an ALE. Everything is fairly simple and straight forward.

However, I tend to do a lot more things that fall outside of the offline banner. Sometime there might be some visual effects elements I’ll throw together in After Effects or Shake, other times I might want to do some hardcore grading in Color, or maybe I just want to export out a really high quality DVD.

Unlike in Final Cut Pro, getting consistent images into and out of Avid seems to be kind of a black art. The RGB vs 601 terminology is at times confusing, and despite the wealth of information out there on the World Wide Web – there still seems to be a lot of misinformation and head scratching. Even creating a dead simple DVD via DVD Studio Pro using Avid footage seems to be a real challenge (the solution on forums normally tends to be use one of Avid’s Sonic products).

Well, rather than spend even more time trying to find answers on the various Avid forums, I thought I’d do some tests and see how things actually work in the real world. This isn’t a formal experiment, nor is it anything like a technical white paper – all I’m really doing is having a bit of a muck-around and documenting what I do for future reference. It’s more for myself than anything else, to try and help get my head around everything. So apologies in advance if this blog entry is a bit of a mess!

To start things off, here are my system specifications. Now, before you all drill me, yes I know I’m running an older version of Avid, and yes I know that technically speaking I’m running a newer version of Quicktime than I should be (as you can see by reviewing the Avid Version Matrix). But as more and more people tend to run Avid and Final Cut Pro on the same system, the more I see Avid running alongside newer versions of Quicktime that what the developers originally intended. As Avid is completely backwards compatible (which is both amazing and EXTREMELY handy!), the less often people tend to upgrade the Avid software. If it ain’t broke – why fix it?

Here are the system specifications of the machine I will be using for these tests:

System Specs:
Processor: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Mac OS X: 10.5.7
Quicktime: 7.6.2 (1327)
Avid: 3.0.5
Final Cut Pro: 7.0
Photoshop: 11.0

For the purposes of these tests I will be using a 720 x 576 PAL test chart from Belle Nuit.

Once I had a test chart the next step was to convert it to a Quicktime file. To do this I opened up Final Cut Pro, and set up a new Sequence with the following settings:

I also set the Motion Filtering Quality to Best for good measure (in the Video Processing tab).

I then imported the test chart TIFF into the timeline and exported it as a Quicktime Movie.

To make sure something weird wasn’t going on, I then opened up the original TIFF file and the Quicktime File in Photoshop. Using the eye dropper tool I then double checked that all of the value were correct. They were…!

OK… So now I had a Quicktime file that identically matched the TIFF test chart.

The next step was to do some experiments with Avid. First up I created a new 25p PAL project. I then imported the Quicktime Test Chart, as well as the straight TIFF Test Chart a few different ways:

Method 1
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (0-255)

Method 2
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours)

Method 3
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: 601 SD or 709 HD (16-235)

Method 4
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (0-255)

Method 5
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours)

Method 6
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: 601 SD or 709 HD (16-235)

Now that the test charts were successfully in the Avid, it was already time to try and get them back out again!

To export out of Avid I used these settings:

For each method, I exported out a Quicktime movie using both the 601 and RGB Colour Levels.

Here are the results in regards to bringing in the Quicktime Files (with the Compression type set to None) and exporting them out of Avid.

Please be aware that to generate the images shown below I opened the exported Quicktimes in Photoshop, resized them to fit in with the blog design, and then saved them as a JPEG. They are only displayed here as a general guide.

Method 1

601:

RGB:

Method 2

601:

RGB:

Method 3

601:

RGB:

Method 4

601:

RGB:

Method 5

601:

RGB:

Method 6

601:

RGB:

Here are the results in regards to bringing in the original TIFF file and exporting it out of Avid:

Method 1

601:

RGB:

Method 2

601:

RGB:

Method 3

601:

RGB:

Method 4

601:

RGB:

Method 5

601:

RGB:

Method 6

601:

RGB:

OK… So now what? What’s the result of all of these tables and charts?

Hint #1: If you brought in your footage into Avid as RGB – then export as RGB. If you brought in your footage into Avid as 601, then export as 601.

If you look at all the different methods – this certainly seems to be the case. When using the same file pixel to video mapping setting for both import and export the file coming in is very SIMILAR to the file coming out – not EXACTLY – but very similar.

Hint #2: I hate to state the obvious, but Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours) only applies when you import still images. If you import a Quicktime movie using this option, it will just export as regular Computer RGB.

According to the Media Composer ReadMe file:

RGB (Computer RGB (0–255)): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses RGB graphics levels. Most computer-generated graphics use RGB graphics levels. The RGB color values are remapped to ITU-R 601 (formerly CCIR 601) or ITU-R709 video color values appropriate for the Avid system.

RGB, dithered (Computer RGB, dither image colors): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses complex color effects, such as a gradation, and you are importing at a high resolution (2:1). Do not use this option to reimport an image that has already been imported with dithering.

601/709 (601 SD or 709 HD (16–235)): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses video levels based on the ITU-R 601 (formerly CCIR 601) or ITU-R709 (HD) standard. These graphics include Avid color bars or images that include superblack (zero black) for keying purposes.

Now with this new found knowledge, it was time to do some further, more detailed tests. First up let have a closer look at what happens to an image if we import it in as 601, and export it as 601.

Original Test Chart:

601 to 601:

Apart from a few very minor differences where the values are off by one (highlighted in bold), the import is basically exactly the same as the output.

Interestingly however, if you use the DigitalColor Meter to measure the values directly from the preview monitors in Avid, the white (255) section reads exactly 255, despite the fact that the output file reads 254. Apart from that using the meter everything else matches the above table.

The only different is the resolution.

Original Test Chart:

601 to 601:

As the test chart was originally 8bit in RGB space,

So now we know that if you import footage as 601 and export as 601 the colours pretty much stay the same. But it’s one thing to do these kind of tests – it’s another thing to try it with real footage. So that’s what we’ll try next…

In Final Cut Pro I created a new sequence with the following settings:

…and everything set to best quality:

I then dragged in a FCP Bars & Tone generator for a second, then the test chart we’ve been using for another second, and then some 4K RED footage. I threw a quick 3-way Colour Correction filter on top of the footage to tweak it a bit and then exported out a Quicktime Movie. This Quicktime will become our test footage.

After I exported out the Quicktime Movie I then opened it up in Photoshop to have a look at the values on the chart:

Obviously all of these values had some kind of gamma/luma shift applied to them. Just to double check I then exported out the same timeline but with the Compressor set to None to see what would happen:

OK… so obviously Quicktime is doing something funky behind the scenes. This is something we’ll have to look into later, but for now the purpose of this test is to try and get footage into and back out of Avid without any nasty changes. As long as we know what the values are of the chart before the footage gets into Avid, it doesn’t really matter if the values aren’t “correct” (i.e. Grey 71 on the chart doesn’t have to equal 71 using the eye dropper).

I then brought the test footage into the Avid as OMF, 1:1, 601. Using the DigitalColor Meter, I then checked the values of the preview monitor:

Then I noticed that something wasn’t right. Turns out that for whatever reason the DigitalColor Meter tool and the Photoshop Eyedropper don’t match up!

After a slight panic, and a bit of hair pulling, I opened up Color Settings in Photoshop and changed the RGB Working Space from sRGB IEC61966-2.1 to my monitor working space. And with a quick click of the OK button, all of a sudden everything started working as per normal. It seems that I just completely forgot about display profiles for a second there! Thanks also to Cail Young at Inspiration Studios for his almost instant Twitter reply!

Hint #3: Don’t forget about display profiles!

I then compared what was in the Avid to the original file as viewed in the Quicktime Player. When “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility” was selected in the Quicktime Preferences, using DigitalColor Meter I obtained the following results:

When you turn off Final Cut Studio colour compatibility you obtain these results:

I then went to a specific frame on both Avid and Quicktime Player. I took a screen shot, and compared the two images side by side in Photoshop. So far so good – the image in Quicktime Player looks visually identical to the video in Avid when Final Cut Studio colour compatibility is turned on. So the media looks good whilst IN the Avid – what about when it comes out again? To test this I exported a “Same as Source” 601 Quicktime file from Avid.

I then opened up the newly exported Quicktime movie in Photoshop for review:

Interestingly, the Avid seems to have “corrected” the bars so that they more closely match where they’re supposed to be. At this stage I have no idea why this is or how it’s being done – but all I can assume for now is that the data out of Final Cut Pro was always correct – it just wasn’t being handled correctly in Photoshop or Quicktime Player.

Visually comparing the original file to the file exported out of Avid, what I can say is that they are identical in terms of colour and tone. You cannot tell the difference between the two:

OK – so it seems that it is possible to get footage into and out of Avid without the image being degraded.

Here’s an interesting bit of information I found on the Avid forum:

I have done some fairly extensive testing (with an oscilloscope and vectorscope….)…. It seems impossible to get certain footage with certain codecs to go through transparently through Compressor (or be imported correctly into FCP). A good test to do is the following: Import a testcard such as the one here:

http://www.belle-nuit.com/testchart.html

into Avid with 601 levels.

Export with your chosen codec then import the QT file into FCP. Observe the results in FCP’s waveform monitor, noting in particular the gray scale ramp which should be linear and have no curve. The patches marked 16 and 235 should be correctly positioned in the waveform.

DV footage with the Avid codec consistently has gamma issues (even though with RGB levels the black and 235 white levels are correct).

DV footage without the Avid codec works as from FCP 6.0 but had problems in 5.1.4 as Avid does not insert the image description extensions that describe the colorimetry (primaries, transfer fn and matrix). FCP 6.0 (and the version of compressor that comes with it) appears to deduce the correct primaries, xfer fn and matrix from the image size and codec (at least in the case of DV pal) if the ‘nclc’ QT extension is absent (which it always is from avid).

I have had little luck with the other codecs (prores, and native avid codecs) which are not transparent with a Avid->Compressor (or FCP) workflow. I think something is up with how Avid presents the image samples to the quicktime compression session. I suspect that given the absence of the ‘nclc’ extension which describes the colorimetry in the output QT file, Media Composer gives the codec no information as to the colorimetry of the samples, so the codec makes a best guess. Of course with the Avid codecs this works (the problem is with decode on FCP and not in the encoding), but with third-party codecs such as Apple ProRes there is a problem. As a result gamma correction is incorrectly applied to the source samples when it should not be. It would be nice if this would be addressed for greater compatibility with other software…..

This is also another interesting bit of information I found on the same forums:

Well the main difference between RGB and 601 color space is the ability to have super white and negative black.

If you were to create a black and white image in say Photoshop with the black being 0 and the white being 255 and then brought it into the Avid using RGB, the black part of the screen would be, in an analog world, 7.5IRE and the white would be 100IRE just what you’d expect. However if you brought it it in as 601, your levels would be about 0IRE and 107IRE.

An image created in Photoshop with “black” being 16 and “white” being 235 and then brought into an Avid in the 601 color space would then have correct black and white levels. Obviously this is very handy if you want to key something.

If you want to export a tiff sequence you can use either color space you want, just make note of which you use and make sure that whoever you give it to knows which you use. If you create it in 601 and bring it back into an Avid as RGB, it will look very washed out.

Here is some other information I found which is really interesting:

When I export your sample to Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2:[4] with QuickTime Player, QuickTime Player feeds the images to the Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] encoder in the RGB 8bf ‘ARGB’ pixel format. I find this odd, since the Avid Meridien Uncompressed (AVUI) codec purportedly stores the data in Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] format. On inspecting the AvidAVUICodec, I see that ARGB is the only pixel format that the AVUI codec supports for input and output; it lacks the ‘cpix’ resource used to list other supported pixel formats.

For the last few frames in the movie (Silicon Artists presenta El Último Deseo), the “black” ARGB pixels passed to the Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] encoder have the value:

ARGB = {0xFF,0×10,0×10,0×10} (hexadecimal)
ARGB = {255,16,16,16} (decimal)

When encoding to the Avid Meridien Uncompressed (AVUI) codec the settings dialog (‘Avid Meridien Uncompressed Codec Configuration – v1.8.0′) lets you specify the input color range as either ITU-R 601 video-range [16..235] or full-range [0..255]. However, QuickTime does not provide any mechanism to specify settings for a decoder. QuickTime unequivocally defines the ARGB pixel format as having full-range components, so the fact that AVID’s AVUI decompressor outputs video-range ARGB is just wrong.

OK… so now what I want to have a quick look at is the difference between the vector scopes in Avid and Final Cut Pro using the same source footage.

Avid 3.0.5:

Final Cut Pro 7:

With this knowledge, it was now time to try and bring the test footage that was exported out of Avid back into Final Cut Pro. Just to re-cap, I originally created the Quicktime Movie in Final Cut Pro, exported as a 10-Bit Uncompressed QT, brought it into Avid as OMF 1:1, 601 and then exported out as 601.

Amazingly, the export from Avid almost perfectly matched the original file that was sent from Final Cut Pro.

Original Footage (10-bit Uncompressed from Final Cut Pro):

Avid Footage (Avid Same as Source imported into FCP):

I then decided to have a look through the Avid documentation once again and found the following information in regards to how Avid handles Field Ordering:

Allows you to select the field ordering (sometimes referred to as field dominance) of the media you are importing. For 23.976p, 24p, or 25p projects, these options do not appear; all fields are automatically exported as progressive (still) frames.

When the field ordering (or spatial field position) of the imported media matches the field ordering of the project format, no special processing is required. For more information, see “Field Ordering in Graphic Imports and Exports” on page 499.

This setting does not apply to OMFI imports when the import resolution matches the OMFI file.

The following options are available:

• Non-interlaced (Properly ordered for current format): Use this option when the file to be imported has been correctly field ordered for the video format being used (ex: Even or lower ordered for NTSC, Odd or upper ordered for 1080i HD). This is the default option.
• Odd (Upper Field First) Odd (Upper Field First) ordered: Choose this option if the file was odd ordered and you are importing it into an even ordered format. For example, importing PAL DV into PAL.
• Even (Lower Field First) Even (Lower Field First) ordered: Choose this option when importing a file with even ordering into a video format with odd ordering. For example, importing NTSC into 1080i HD.

OK, so now that brings us to the final test of the day. For this test I will capture some standard PAL DV footage into Avid and then export it and try to bring it into Final Cut Pro, hopefully without introducing any strange artefacts, field dominance issues or gamma/luma shifts.

The Avid project is 25p PAL.The Media Type is OMF. We will be using a DV 25P 420 video resolution. I used the Software DV 25 Codec (which I later discovered is not so good for PAL footage!).

Here is a screenshot of the footage as it sits in the Avid preview monitor:

Here are the screen shots of exported footage from the Avid brought into Final Cut Pro:

Same as Source (601):

Same as Source (RGB):

Same as Source (Avid DV / 601):

Same as Source (Avid DV / RGB):

Quicktime Animation (601):

Quicktime Animation (RGB):

So it seems that if you want to get footage that looks right from Avid to Final Cut Pro, then Same as Source (Avid DV Codec / 601) or something like the Quicktime Animation Codec (601) seem like viable solutions. Given that, I did a couple more tests:

Avid DV (601):

Instead of exporting as “Same as Source” and selecting “Avid DV”, I exported as a standard Quicktime File, but used the Avid DV codec. It’s important to note that the Avid DV Codec has some additional options:

DV PAL (601):

ProRes HQ (Automatic Gamma Correction / 601):

Just to see what happens, I exported the footage both using and not using gamma correction.

ProRes HQ (No Gamma Correction / 601):

So, although no very scientific, and purely based on visual observation rather than mathematical fact, it seems that as long as you keep 601 checked, getting footage from Avid into Final Cut isn’t that big a deal after all.

As I said at the start of this blog entry – this was always going to be a bit all over the place as I did random tests and tried out new things. Apologies if you got to the end of this an realised that I didn’t answer any real questions or teach you something you didn’t already know. I really hope it was some help! The more time I have to spend with Avid, and the more time I have to work out viable workflows of getting stuff into and out of it, the more things will hopefully become clear in my head. I will certainly post anything I think is useful here. One thing’s for certain… after looking through so many Avid forums, and reading hundreds of articles randomly scattered on the web, it’s clear that I’m not the only one that’s confused. Like a lot of things these days, it takes a lot of patience, hair-pulling and vigorous workflow testing to get things right. Everything is so complex – and it just takes one little glitch to throw everything off balance.

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris!

As most of you will know, I recently wrote an article on this blog listing my Final Cut Studio 3 Predictions. It has gotten a really great response so far, and has helped generate a lot of incredibly interesting discussions. Regardless of whether my predictions come true or not, I think the article has really helped throw some new ideas and concepts into the public domain and has sparked a lot of imagination in some extremely talented people, which is fantastic. I’ve gotten lots of messages, e-mails and comments recently with cool technology and features which should be added into Final Cut Pro – some of which I really hope make it into the next version. Personally I think the more people talk about these kinds of things in a public forum, the more chance Apple developers will get ideas from these discussions, and the more chance they will actually think about implementing them.

But today I’m not going to talk about software. I’m going to talk about the other end of the spectrum… hardware.

Even since people started discovering that Apple has been applying for various touch-screen patients the Internet community has been going wild. The funny this is that most people think that they’re working on a Kindle Killer. Alex Lindsay from This Week In Media has been predicting a Kindle-like device that supports video and has a colour screen for months now. Geeks on Twitter, various Mac blogs, and all the Apple rumour sites have been going crazy in recent months predicting Apple Tablets.

Steve Jobs has explicitly said he doesn’t want to make a netbook and that “there are no plans to make a tablet” – so why is everyone so convinced that Apple is working on something that will go head-to-head with the popular, but hardly world changing, Kindle?

Personally, I don’t think Apple is working on a “bigger version of the iPhone”. What’s the point? If you want to read something on the train, you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch. If that’s not big enough, then get a laptop. If neither work for you, then just get a Kindle. That’s what they’re designed for. I don’t think there is a big enough need for Apple to create a tablet just to tackle the “digital book” market. I know it sounds silly – but I think Apple regard traditional books (you know, the paper variety) as dead. Text mixed with video and interactive multimedia is the new black.

Ok, lets be harsh for a minute. Kindle’s are geared towards older people. They’ve been developed as a “book replacement”. Older people love them because they are easy to read. You can change the text size. They’re simple to operate, buying digital books is fairly easy, and you can carry the Kindle around in your giant handbag. Lots of people over 40 really love their Kindle. They’re a great mothers and fathers day gift. That said of course, lots of younger people love them (a.k.a the amazingly talented, intelligent and witty Daisy Whitney), but most of them are “books nerds” from way back. I don’t think Apple wants to make a leap into the “book nerd” territory. Apple is all about being cool and innovative. As I said, I think Apple thinks print media is dead. I love books personally – you have no idea how many film books I have lying around in my house, or how much money I spent of film related books of all varieties! However, the though of buying digital books doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Just like I love having a whole pile of physical DVDs – I love having a book shelf full of books. I think that Apple has realised that people who just love books like I do, will never accept a digital equivalent. I think that Apple has realised that most young people who can be bothered reading, will be happy to read on their iPhone or iPod Touch. And I think that Apple has decided that although there is a market for digital books on a nice and simple digital book reader (like the Kindle) – it’s a market that they’re not particularly interested in.

OK… so the tablet idea is out… what about the netbook? Well I think that’s out too. As others have clearly said:

“One of the key selling points of a Mac lies in its usability, and a Netbook will not be able to deliver the full Mac experience with its small screen and slow single-core processor. Moreover, an Apple minilaptop will be unlikely to compete in price cuts and may cost as much as another premium Atom machine, the Sony Vaio P.”

I tend to agree. Apple isn’t going to make a laptop unless it can easily run the power-hungry applications in it’s iLife suite with ease. iPhone as they currently stand are basically just a more compact version of a netbook anyway. As cloud computing becomes more the norm, and as more people jump on board Mobile Me I think more and more people will start their job on their MacBook and automatically sync everything up to their iPhone. They’ll be able to put together their presentation in KeyNote on the MacBook, but then make changes before they step onto the stage on their iPhone. I don’t see the need for a netbook (after all who wants to cart around yet ANOTHER piece of technology), and I don’t think Apple does either.

So where does that leave us? Tablets are out. Netbooks are out. So what is Apple planning to do exactly?

Well… you’re going to call me crazy. You’re going to think that I’m out of my mind. But my prediction is that by the end of next year, every Mac will be touchable. That’s right. I think that every MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Apple Cinema Display and iMac will have a touch screen. I also predict that the MacBook and MacBook Pro will replace the Multi-Touch Trackpad with a fully functional multi-touch tablet.

Why you may ask? Because it will not only be really cool – but also speed things up dramatically. For instance, right now I have two screens sitting in front of me. I’m typing something in a web browser. But say I want to quickly open a document that’s sitting on my desktop which contains a whole lot of notes. To do that I’ll have to lift my hands of the keyboard, grab the mouse, move it over to the icon and click. How much easier would it be if I could just reach for the screen and double tap directly.

This is my crazy prediction… Apple is planning to kill the mouse. I think that when Apple releases it’s new Operating System (which already supports touch and some pretty cool character recognition), it will also update all it’s hardware to include touch screens, remove mice from the inventory list, but include a new “multi-touch keyboard” with each MacPro tower and Mac mini. The keyboard will basically be exactly the same as you’ll find on a 17″ MacBook Pro – touchpad included.

With Windows 7 coming out, which surprisingly actually works, and works quite well, and with PC hardware prices coming down, Apple needs more things to separate Mac hardware from PC hardware. The super slick operating system is not enough any more. Despite what Mac enthusiast may tell you, Microsoft is catching up again (admittedly by stealing most of Apple’s ideas and concepts!). Apple needs to push the boundaries once more, and having “touchable computers” seems like the logical step forward. They have the cool factor, but they also will help speed up everyday tasks. In the pro world of video and stills photography, I think it will be even more ground breaking. Most visual effects artists love their tablet, but imagine if they could combine their traditional Wacom tablet with two nice and big 24″ touchable LED Cinema Displays!

This changeover to touchable screens will bring the whole Apple product line, into, well, line! Everything from a MacPro to a MacBook to an iPhone and iPod Touch will be running MacOS and have a touch screen. It’s an advertising agency’s dream! Imagine the Mac vs PC ads now…

Will it happen? Yes it will. When, well that’s a bit more tricky. It all comes down to money and technology. I have a sneaky suspicion that we’ll see this kind of thing much sooner than anyone could possibly predict. I have a feeling Apple has been working on this for a while. Although I have no facts, or no evidence what-so-ever to base this on, hell, it’s just a good old fashion guess, but I can imagine that Apple might announce something at the same time as it’s Snow Leopard unveiling.

So that’s my prediction as of today. No Kindle Killer. No bigger-version-of-the-iPhone tablet. No less-powerful-than-a-MacBook netbook. I think Apple will just introduce “touch” to the whole product range. However, leaving the best till last, I also predict that on the MacBook Air, you’ll be able to “slide” the screen around, essentially turning it into a tablet. It won’t be called a tablet, it’ll just be a MacBook Air Touch (or something like that).

Will I be right? As always, only time will tell… I think we’ll find out if I’m crazy slightly before we find out if my FCX predictions are on track… Fingers crossed!

There has been a lot of discussion on the Internet over the last few months in regards to Avid vs FCP. People have been blogging about it. Scott Simmons from The Editblog has written many entries over the years discussing this topic, as has Shane Ross on his blog Little Frog in High Def. There has been several sometimes heated podcast discussions about it – although when That Post Show got stuck into the topic at length (almost two train rides long!), the panel of experts remained surprisingly level headed.  Although, I think it’s fair to say that John Flowers, the host of the show is very much an Avid man, and tends to show his Avid bias on nearly every episode. As Final Cut Users wait for the long awaited major update – Twitter has been flooded with discussions about what users love about Final Cut Pro and Avid, and what users really hate about both products.

Up until the end of February this year, I have been a Final Cut Pro man. But just to give you some background, as a young child, well before NLEs were available cheaply on personal computers, I did editing the old fashion way between two VHS domestic recorders. Sound mixing was done “on the fly” using a cool four channel Realistic microphone mixer.  It was a horrible system – but it worked. Many a Star Wars fan movie was thrown together in my grandparents back yard. As I grew older, and progressed through Primary School, I moved away from film making temporarly becoming more interested in electric guitars, amplifiers and concert lighting. Towards middle years of high school I had another bash at making films – this time I did all the editing on Premiere on a PC. We recorded everything using Panasonic handycams with VHS-C tapes, and then using one of those cool VHS tape adapters, we captured everything using a normal domestic VHS deck. Once again, I drifted away from films, becoming more interested in live productions.

For my brothers final year of high school, he decided to do Studio Arts, and produce two short films. As he’d never really done any film-making before, and I was working full time as a lighting designer (so I had money!), I decided to go on a bit of a spending spree and purchase some things. So one day we had nothing apart from a little Sony MiniDV camera – the next we had a portable green screen, boom pole, ME66 microphone, some basic tungsten lighting, makeshift steadicam, a few Lacie drivers, and a copy of Final Cut Express 2 and DVD Studio Pro (standalone) to put on a new eMac.

So, over the next couple of weeks, as my brother was in preproduction for his two films – I quickly got my head around both the Mac platform (as up until now we’d grown up with PCs) and Final Cut Express. To be perfectly honest, I feel instantly in love, with not only Final Cut, but also with Macs in general. They just… well, worked!

As so, with the help of Final Cut Express, my brother got his two films, God’s Handiwork and Hello Sunshine. With those now finished, and high school completed, my brother then also moved away from film-making heading to univeristy to study Arts/Science. But we now had all this gear, and the inventory was continuing to grow (we purchased a Sony Z1P as soon as it came out). And so, after working for two years as a lighting designer for live events – an amazing job which took me all over the country and many times overseas – I decided to head back to school, studying Film & Television at university.

The film school I went to was a Final Cut Pro facility, and so I upgraded from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Studio – and because I already owned a copy of DVD Studio Pro – the upgrade was incredibly cheap!

And so, for the past five years I’ve been using Final Cut Pro extensively. I’ve thrown all kinds of footage at it from DV to HDV,  XDCAM to DVCProHD, 10-Bit Uncompressed Telecine Transfers to RED. I love Final Cut Pro. It’s powerful, flexible, fast, and cheap. Plus, everyone knows how to use it.

Final Cut Pro has served me extremely well. However, when I took up an editing assistant job earlier this year, I discovered that I’d have to learn Avid. And so, for the past 12 weeks or so, I’ve been using Avid on a daily basis. And guess what… I love it just as much as I love Final Cut Pro.

And so, when my ex-film school peers ask me which is better, I reply… “I love them both, equally”. I hate to be the kind of guy that sits on the fence, but the reality is they’re pretty much exactly the same in my opinion. They both do the same things – just a bit differently.

Just for the record – I’ve used Vegas and Premiere in the past as well – but only for individual projects. I haven’t played with the latest version of either. I also haven’t played with the latest version of Avid – although I’m really looking forward to testing out the new AMA architecture within the next few weeks.

Ok… so, one of the most common things I hear is, “Final Cut crashes all the time… but Avid is bullet proof…”. Well, although I’ve had my fair share of Final Cut Pro crashes over the years, I have to say, from my experiences, Avid is far from perfect! Admittedly I’m using 3.0.5 at work – so it’s not the latest version, but that’s really no excuse.

Generally speaking, I think that Avid crashes just as much as Final Cut Pro – when you’re not doing “normal” stuff. For example, if I’m just doing a rough cut of DV-PAL footage on Final Cut Pro, with just simple cuts and simple dissolves, then everything will just work. No crashes, no stalls, no bizarre error messages. Everything will just work. Same as with Avid. However, as soon as you start pushing the boundaries a bit – things start going wrong. For example, in Final Cut Pro, if you’re working with heaps of different formats on your timeline, with thousands of hours of footage in your project file, and a bunch of image sequences, PSD files, etc. you’re bound to have problems. Things will go wrong. The project will take a long time to open. Obviously there are work arounds (such as splitting up your project into multiple projects, etc.) but they’re not ideal. Avid is the same. I’ve been doing some temporary visual effects compositions  in Avid for an offline for a television commercial. The reason they were done in Avid was so that when we hand the EDL over to the effects company – they know what footage they need to use. Avid is FANTASTIC for this kind of thing. I love the AniMatte effect – it’s far better than anything Final Cut has. However, once you have twelve tracks of video all with a colour correction and a couple of mattes – Avid starts to panic a bit. Strange errors start popping up. Things stop working normally. Having said that though – I’ve never had Avid crash (i.e. the program close) on me before. It’s crashed a couple of times on load due to a dodgy file in the OMFI folder – but it’s never died whilst I’ve been doing something important. It’s given me lots of cryptic error messages – but so has Final Cut.

Having said all that – Avid does seem a lot more stable. The timeline responsiveness is incredible. Final Cut Pro is generally pretty good when you wizz around the timeline, but at times it seems to slow down for no particular reason. Avid is fast. Always fast. I like that. I like that a lot.

Another thing that people generally always say is that the media management in Final Cut Pro sucks. Everyone seems to agree that this is the case – from film school students, to random people on Twitter to professionals. Everyone, except me. Personally, I think that the way Avid and Final Cut Pro handle files is pretty much the same – and yes, I know this is going to cause all kinds of arguments. When I set up a new Final Cut Pro project, I set up a new folder structure on an external hard drive (on an unrelated topic – I name all my external drives after pet dogs I’ve come across in the past):

For every single project I work on, I have a Final Cut workspace folder. This contains everything to do with the project – render files, caches, stills, graphics, audio, etc. The advantage of this is that when I open up the project on another Mac, everything is there, and ready to go. No need to re-render. No need to reconnect. Everything just works. The disadvantage is that I need to change the Capture Scratch and Cache paths every time I open a project. However, this only takes about 7 seconds, so it’s not that much of a pain. I very rarely open two project files at once unless it’s a massive film I’m working on such as a feature (and almost never open two different films at the same time, so I don’t get any nasty problems like render files being saved to the wrong project workspace).

Unless you’re working with a Unity – Avid pretty much works the same way. For each project you had a OMFI Media files folder (if you’re working with OMF files) or an Avid MediaFiles folder (if you’re working in MXF files). Sure you can store content for multiple projects in the same media folder, just like you can in Final Cut Pro – but that just makes life more confusing when the time comes to moving projects around. So, I much prefer to have a new OMFI folder for each project.

So in that sense – for my workflow – both Avid and Final Cut Pro work the same way. I keep the media in one place and never have any reconnection issues. Of course if I just drag a file from the desktop into Final Cut Pro without first moving it into my workplace – then I’m going to have reconnection issues if I move to another Mac. But I’m a fairly organised person, so I always put stuff in the right place. For those people who are too lazy or forgetful, then do yourself a favour an purchase a copy of Loader from Digital Heaven.

In terms of actual editing (i.e. the creative stuff) Avid and Final Cut are very different. It took me a while to get out of the habit of being able to quickly drag and drop like you can in Final Cut Pro, but within two or three days, I’ve quickly adapted to the new way of thinking. I really like the way Avid works and can see why editors love it (especially the more old school editors from the days were you had to physically “cut and paste” film). Avid seems hard core and industrial – whereas Final Cut seems more like a sexy new toy. That said though, I personally think a good Final Cut Pro editor can be just as quick as a really good Avid editor. I don’t think one method of working is better than the other – just different.

One thing that Avid wins hand down on is the default keyboard mapping. I’ve grown up with Final Cut Pro, so I’ve never really thought too much about it. Until I started working with Avid. The default Avid layout isn’t perfect – but it’s so much better than Final Cut! Make sure you check out the Keyboard Manifesto on the ProVideo Coalition site. Scott allows you to download a great “Avid-like” keyboard layout to “fix up” Final Cut Pro. However, that said, I can see why Apple have mapped the keyboard the way they have. It’s logical. Sure, it may not be fast. But film students can literally walk up to a Final Cut Pro workstation and have a fair idea of what everything does. When they walk up to an Avid – they have no idea. Avid makes the most sense once you’ve been shown once what everything is – but Final Cut Pro makes sense from the onset.

So what do I like about Avid much more than I do about Final Cut?

The colour corrector in Avid is amazing. It’s so powerful and so easy to use. Apple’s 3-way Colour Corrector is a toy in comparison. However, that said, Final Cut Studio comes with Color – which despite what some people may tell you, is amazing. Sure it has some bugs in it – but they’ll be worked out in time. In the meantime there is always workarounds. Most people hate the interface – but I think it makes sense. Sure it’s not very Apple – but who really cares. As long as it creates amazing looks – which it does.

The effects in Avid are a lot better than Final Cut. I love the AniMatte. It reminds me of After Effects. I wish Final Cut Pro had something like this without having to install some expensive 3rd party plugin.

I love the way Avid handles users and preferences. The fact that when you boot up Avid you’re presented with an option to select a project you wish to open, plus select a user preference is fantastic. It’s so simple, so logical, yet so incredible. Why oh why can’t Final Cut Pro introduce this? The only thing that I don’t like about Avid is the one thing that may people love about it! Whenever I change projects, I need to also change the OMFI folders around. It would be great if when you opened a project you could also select which “media folder” you wanted to use.

By far my FAVOURITE thing about Avid is the way it handles project files. The fact that you can simply copy and paste a bin on the finder level is so much better than the way Final Cut Pro handles things. Sure you can export out an XML file in Final Cut Pro – but it’s so much easier to just be able to copy and paste a bin. From an assistants point of view – this is invaluable! I can just copy and paste bins to the editor and the new bins magically appear in his project. Amazing!

My second favourite thing about Avid is the way it handles settings. You can easily copy and paste settings and rename them. For example, you might have a couple of different configurations for deck setups. Instead of having to change all the settings around each time you change decks, you can just uncheck one configuration and check the other. You can have multiple keyboard configurations in the one user profile. The Avid is amazingly customisable. You can basically change EVERYTHING to suit your needs.

So… if Avid has all these amazing features, why don’t I just change? Well, originally it was just a matter of price. Final Cut Pro is DEAD cheap whereas Avid WAS incredibly expensive. This is changing. But, personally, I think I’m going to be one of those annoying people who is constantly switching between Avid and Final Cut Pro. Why? Because they are both fantastic tools – and they basically do exactly the same thing – it’s just that they are both better at different things.

Final Cut Pro is like a Swiss army knife. You can basically throw anything at it and do things quickly. It can basically tackle any Quicktime file you throw at it, and within minutes you can get from the Final Cut Pro timeline to an exported DVD. It’s quick and sometimes nasty. Everyone knows how to use it (and even if they don’t know, they can learn the basics within hours) – so if you get sick someone else can take over the project with ease. As long as the project is set up correctly from the get-go, and you have some kind of self control in terms of managing files, then you shouldn’t run into too many (if any!) reconnection issues. Final Cut Pro is GREAT for short projects. It’s the perfect short film tool. However for longer projects it dies. It doesn’t handle masses of footage well at all. If you have 40 or so hours of footage in the project, it can take up to 15 minutes to boot up even on the fastest Mac. If you have hundreds of sequences within a project, you can run into all kinds of “Out of Memory” problems. Sure there are workaround – such as using a different project for each scene. But that’s a pain.

Avid on the other hand is a workhorse. It can handle feature films with ease. The boot up time is almost instant in most cases. It’s not bullet proof – but I’ve never lost media, render files, or work because of a random bug or error – in comparison to Final Cut Pro where I’ve lost whole projects temporarily (thank goodness for the Autosave vault!). If I know I’m going to be working with a lot of media, then Avid will always be my first preference.

Although the new AMA changes everything – as of Avid 3.0.5 and Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, both NLEs have the same limitation – although it doesn’t bother me that much. Avid converts everything to MXFs of OMFs whereas Final Cut Pro converts everything to Quicktimes. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest. People complain about the transcode times. Do it while you’re sleeping. People complain about requiring so much hard drive space. Hard drives are cheap now. I don’t think this is really a limitation at all.

Finally, I still stand by my prediction that the next version of Final Cut Studio will change EVERYTHING. I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell Apple is going to watch Avid dramatically improve their packages, lower the prices dramatically, and just do nothing. I’m extremely confident that Apple has something new and amazing hidden away in some dark and smelly room somewhere. But, that said, Avid is now a completely different company. They’ve changed. For the better. They are actually listening to their customers, and seriously improving their software.

One thing for certain is that I think Avid will eventually get rid of the EDL Manager and DigiTranslator, and put this functionality directly into the Avid application. I think integration between ProTools and Avid will also become almost transparent. But I also think that the integration between Final Cut Pro and ProTools will become better.  I finally think Avid has decided to stop fighting Apple and start working out ways to get their software in front of the eyes of Final Cut Pro fanatics.

So in conclusion… both Avid and Final Cut Pro are great tools that both can help achieve amazing works of art. Both are far from perfect. Both have bugs. Both needs improving. But I think every editor should have both on their system.

If you’re doing a long form project – unless you have an amazing assistant editor who’s extremely technically proficient and patient – I’d stick with Avid. It’s got an unchallenge amazing track record.

If you’re doing a short film – then maybe Final Cut Pro is the go.

If you’re working with lots of different editors, or if it’s a big project, then Avid is the winner, although you can do these kinds of projects with Final Cut Pro. Personally I prefer the ability to easily copy and paste bins than using XML files.

Either way, I know it’s cliche, but as every editor will tell you, it’s not the tools that make a great film – it’s the talented editor who’s TELLING A STORY. It’s easy to get bogged down in technology, and Final Cut vs Avid discussions – but at the end of the day use the tool that works.

Happy Editing! Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, abuse, ideas, etc. below! I’d love to hear from you!

Best Regards, Chris!

A month or so ago, whilst doing some research for the “cut your own trailer” SAKOOZ site, we came across a film called Two Fists One Heart. This is a contemporary story set in Perth Western Australia, about Anthony Argo – a young Italian/Australian boxer played by Daniel Amalm – being pushed to the limit by his Sicilian father and trainer, Joe (Ennio Fantastichini). Joe wants Anthony to achieve the success in the ring that he was denied as a young man. When Anthony meets Kate (played by the stunning Jessica Marais – from the television series Packed to the Rafters), he begins to see his life – and the role violence – in a different light. He loses focus on boxing and, in a confrontation with his father, learns about Joe’s painful past. Joe turns his back on his son. Anthony leaves the ring spending time with Kate in their blossoming romance. He earns his living as a nightclub bouncer . When Anthony becomes involved in a street fight at a public event Kate dumps him. Anthony reflects on who he is and all that he has recently lost. Tom (played by the amazingly talented Tim Minchin – who I had no idea actually did screen acting!), Kate’s comedian brother helps Anthony see the world and his life from a different perspective Joe is betrayed by Nico (played by Rai Fazio – who also wrote the screenplay), another boxer of Sicilian decent. Anthony, now mature enough to make his own decisions, decides to honour his father and his family and re enters the ring to fight his nemesis Nico.

Directed by Sydney-based Shawn Seet – who traditionally has mainly done television directing and editing as well as being awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen’s New Years Honours Lis for his services to Australian society and to Australian film production – this film is sure to be a hit, especially given that At the Movies gave it some a positive review. It will be very interesting to see how this film goes at the box office…

Ignoring the actual film for a minute – the thing that really caught our attention was their online presence. As well as the official movie site, they also had two other promotional sites. One of them teaches you how to throw a punch, and the other features a Cut Your Own Scene competition. It’s the latter that really got us interested.

On the site, you can download five scenes, and some sound effects and temp score and basically do what you want with it (under the condition that you link back to their site if you display it online). The footage is in “rushes” form – meaning the footage has a logo on it, isn’t colour graded and has timecode burnt into it. Although they don’t give you all the footage for each scene (and if they actually do, then they really shot VERY little coverage for each scene), and the “rushes” have been edited together to look like rushes (i.e. slates have been added in for the hell of it, random footage has been added, useful footage has been removed) – you’re still provided with some useful footage, and it’s great to play around with.

Although the competition has now closed – the general idea was that the public can cut together their own scene, and submit it for review.The best five scenes will be posted on Disney’s promotional site for the film (obviously this is a great opportunity for some exposure to high-profile people in the film industry). These five best scene cuts will be selected by Bill Russo head of Editing at the AFTRS and the creative team from the film. Interestingly, Director Shawn Seet, Editor Milena Romanin and Cinematogropher Hugh Miller are all graduates from AFTRS, Australia’s premiere Film and Television school.

If you haven’t already downloaded the rushes and had a play – I highly recommend you do! They’re great for practising your craft, and would also make a terrific training tool.

I downloaded the rushes a few months ago now, and used them to really get to grips with Avid (as I’ve done most of my cutting in Final Cut Pro in the past). Trying to cut together a real scene (as opposed to some dodgy video footage supplied with most books and tutorials), was really handy. Just getting on with the job, and learning as I went, was extremely beneficial.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the edits I threw together:

Scene A (Rough Cut 001)

Scene B (Rough Cut 001)

Scene C (Rough Cut 005)

Scene E (Rough Cut 001)

None of these edits are particularly amazing – although I did spend a fair bit of time on Scene C to try and get it flowing a lot nicer. The lack of coverage was a bit tricky – and really added to the challenge. I didn’t have time to really fix up the audio or grade the footage either – so you’re really seeing a first pass of an offline edit.

You can download my Avid Project for the scene here if you like. You’ll need to download all the media yourself though and re-link it. Originally I planned to log all the clips in Final Cut Pro as well – but never got around to it. If you edited the scenes in Final Cut and want to offer your project file on this site, let me know!

Overall – I think this campaign was a really good idea, and I’d love to see some statistics on how many people actually downloaded the rushes and submitted entries for the competition. Looking at YouTube search results, there doesn’t seem to be that many people that got into it which is a real shame. Although the fact that the site moved their rushes over to Amazon Web Services probably means that at least a lot of people were downloading the files. I guess at the end of the day any publicity is good publicity, and the most people that talk about the film the better.

It’s really interesting watching what other people have done. For example, I just watched this version – although it’s cut together OK, it seems a bit all over the place, and doesn’t really have a nice flow to it. Also, you don’t really get an insight into the characters at all. This version of another scene is a lot better – but it seems really fast. I also don’t really like the dissolve at the start. This version of the fight scene however works HEAPS better than mine. At the time of playing with this scene, I was too afraid to use jump cuts, and I really tried to make it flow naturally – but it never really worked. I used far too many instances of the one cutaway (the young worker looking through the window). In retrospect, I think the use of fast jump cuts and really making the action zip past would have worked a lot better. I’ve also been told you should never have characters both enter and exit a sense – you should either have one or the other. This is hard when you’re only cutting one scene, with no overall context – but I think the rule is still a good one, and may have helped me with some of the other scenes.

As we’re in the process of trying to build a similar campaign for the SAKOOZ trailer, this was a really great project to study. The fact that you could download the rushes (as opposed to editing the trailer online) is something that really interests us. However, I think by making people download large files and edit them on their own system (whether they use Mac or PC, Avid or FCP, Premiere or Vegas, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie…) as opposed to just being able to cut something together in the comfort of a web browser, means that the campaign attracts more to geeks and professionals, as opposed to just general movie goers. As a lot of geeks and professionals will probably go see the movie regardless, I’m not sure if this kind of thing will actually attract more audience numbers to the cinemas. What I’m now considering for the SAKOOZ site (and for future “cutting your own version” sites), it having the option – you can either edit online (we are currently working very closely with the team at Kaltura), or download and cut it together using your own tools.

Regardless of all this – we highly recommend you go and see the film at the movies and support Australian films! And when it comes out on DVD – buy that as well! I’m sure there’ll be some great special feature on that one…

Finally – if you edited your own version of the scenes, feel free to let us know via the comments system at the bottom of this page! We’d love to see your interpretation of the scenes!

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris!