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Reader SurveyLiberating Liman
Jul 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Jon Silberg
Coming out of the corner-cutting world of independent filmmaking (Swingers, Go), director Doug Liman was overjoyed that he could collaborate remotely with the editors on his new action thriller, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, thanks to the addition of Avid Xpress Pro to the film's pipeline. Liman says that it was clear that Xpress Pro could change everything in his approach to editing.
Director Doug Liman says that the use of Avid Xpress Pro in the editing process helped him and editor Michael Tronick work on the film in separate areas of the country but maintain a level of collaboration.
Photo: Stephen Vaughn. TM and © 2004 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.
“It meant I could set up a cutting room where I live in New York without having to worry about expensive Avid rental costs, and I could stay completely involved in the editing process that [editor] Michael Tronick was overseeing in Los Angeles,” he says.
Liman had Xpress Pro loaded onto a Macintosh G5 at his New York home. He stored all media for the film on a 1TB LaCie FireWire drive at Avid's 14:1 compression standard, allowing him instant access to all the same media as Tronick, and the tools to work with that media himself. Throughout the project, Tronick and Liman worked together by emailing Avid bins and revisions back and forth across the country.
The two could work on opposite coasts, Liman suggesting preferred takes and rough edits of scenes and Tronick sending back edited sequences. The only imperfection in the system was that when either rendered an effect or transition, he created a new piece of media. Periodically, when Liman traveled to Los Angeles, he brought his LaCie drive with him, and assistant editor Greg Parsons took charge of swapping any such additional media from Liman's LaCie drive to the main Avid Unity drives and vice versa. Parsons says, “[I've] never been on a show where the director and editor spent so much time apart.” However, both director and editor report that the system allowed them to work almost as if they were in the same room.
“It is different communicating by phone or via [Apple's] iChat system than it is sitting next to a person,” Tronick admits. “Nothing is as valuable as having the director in the same room. But he wants to be home with his family, and I don't blame him. I was glad Doug did manage to fly here frequently enough that we also could discuss the film in person. I wouldn't want to work exclusively long distance. But I'd certainly do something like this again under similar circumstances.”
As the assistant responsible for organizing data, Parsons also used an Avid Film Composer system tied into the Unity servers at the Los Angeles editorial office, but all other assistants used Xpress Pro to check cuts or sound effects. Parsons also kept LaCie drives updated with media in case there were problems with the Unity servers.
Although Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a major studio project, Liman predicts the larger effect of Xpress Pro in the feature world might be on indie projects.
“When we did Swingers, we couldn't really afford to get enough time on an Avid to edit the film the way it needed to be edited,” he says. “It was only because of our gall that we managed to steal enough time on an Avid to finish. I think there are other movies that could have ended up as successful as Swingers, and they didn't because filmmakers didn't have the guts to steal the Avid time, or they got caught before they were finished cutting. Now with Xpress Pro, more people might be able to afford to edit their films.
“The idea that an editor could take a laptop and some headphones and work at Starbucks could lead to a whole different kind of person choosing to edit movies …” he adds. “You might get different kinds of movies.”
But Liman points out an important caveat: A simplified editing process is only of value in the hands of a talented editor.
“Had Xpress Pro existed when I started, I might not have gotten to know [Swingers editor] Steve Mirrione, and there's no question that Swingers is the movie it is, in large part, because of his editing,” he says. “I can operate an Avid, but comparing me to Michael Tronick is like comparing someone who can play three songs on the piano to Elton John.”
