[Avid-L2] Re: OT: Feeling old?

A very interesting book about the early days of 2" editing is "Jump Cut" by Arthur Schneider, the first "on line" editor for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The workflow for his first two seasons on the show would make any "modern" editor turn white with fear.

In a nutshell, the show was recorded in the studio on 2" and then kinescopes were struck from the the masters. A method was devised to print a crude form of timecode on the kines, which were then edited into the final show. The TC information from this kinescope film edit was then used as an offline reference to physically cut and splice the 2" master tapes into the final show.

This patchwork "master" was then dubbed to a second tape so that there would be no risk of a splice breaking during the actual airing of the show. As the dub was being made, the mixed and sweetened audio track was being recorded at the same time. There was no reliable way to lock sync between the audio and video playback machines feeding the master, so minor errors in timing were adjusted on the fly by speeding the audio playback up or down slightly during applause or laugh breaks.

Oh, and because of variations in the manufacture of quad heads in those days, the master 2" tape was flown to NY - ALONG WITH THE HEADS from the recorder. Heads and tape were reunited for the monday night broadcast. Initially, tapes recorded in Burbank didn't always play correctly at 30 Rock. Merriment would ensue...

After a 26-week season, they had the workflow down to an exact science, but the abundant opportunities for butterfingered goofs or outright technical disasters didn't exactly make for a 40-hour week. After two years Schneider was so burned out that he was forced to quit for health reasons! He later went to work for (I believe) Montage, and was one of the very early adopters of non-linear systems.

--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, "timmangini" <tim_mangini@...> wrote:
>
> Next time you young 'uns complain about render times take a look back on when editing was really cutting edge:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YtmwB9Ds5Y&feature=related
>
> tim
>

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