Saturday, October 31, 2009

[Avid-L2] Re: Way back machine... quiz for the 'early adopters' over 50...

I remember well the ECS-90 and <gasp> the *103* which had Cruise on the
joystick. Oh my Lordy!

The trick back then was preview a couple of times then write down the
timecode numbers (conveniently displayed in status monitor) while the
decks were cueing and pre-rolling into the edit. ('Recall' if you missed it)

Once we wrote these points (at least 3 of them) we would need to "talk
out" for online. There was no data recording system of any kind. Sure
there were eight-inch floppies or punch tape, but they weren't for the
likes of off-line, no siree, THEY were to dump the final on-line EDL
onto. Pure hubris, thinking of that for off-line.

No, we had to say out loud "Reel 22, set in 1 25 06 set out 1 28 12"
with "trim in split audio 1 20" and the on-line Editor dutifully typed
all those numbers. On a 1-hour drama, these sessions took 8 to 9 hours
for assembly, with another 4 to 5 hours for supers, credits, bumpers,
integrations etc. There also wasn't any fixed Record side numbers. We
never knew where the action would start due to different saga-sells and
titles. However today I'd get it all typed in and ripple.

We also had to calculate the "shift-Mark_Reset" values, saying
"Recorder: shift-Mark_Reset, set-in 1 02 03 04..." where we picked up on
the record side. If we backed up one second and fourteen frames for a
split edit we had better bloody-well KNOW that exactly. "Trim_In minus
114, Set_In...".

We soon learned to call code in pairs, hard to write but sort of "set_in
1........ 06.......05.....04" with the numbers close together SAID
together. Da-da, da-da, da-da Easier to visualise and type than just a
string of numbers.

Add in the already tired offline-Editor plus their croaking voice after
a while and swirl with irascible on-line Editor barking out corrections
or calling durations (to check), making a big deal of pal-pairing errors
and insisting we know exactly how many seconds he was to dissolve.
"Can we preview the dissolve?" "No. Wimps preview. Ya want one second or
two seconds?" n"Er...ummm...". "Righto, I'll make it two since you don't
know"

Couldn't easily go back to change anything either since these were 2"
tapes on Quad machines. Unless the same tape went back on the same Quad
machine and all four heads were lined up exactly the same...

Hard to believe we won awards for this shit.

Hard to believe we didn't punch out the online smug bastards. (Some were
OK).

Hard to believe we didn't all turn to substance abuse... oh wait.

------------------------------------

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