 A few months back, I remember reading an article published in the April-May issue of Studio Systems, and I couldn't help to be reminded of an old story told to me by my father. The story is of three blind men, each examining only one small part of an elephant, and of the confusion created by their narrow views.
As the story goes, the first blind man, who was examining the tail, said with conviction in his voice, "An elephant is certainly a long, thin, rope-like animal." A second man, feeling only the ear, heartily disagreed. "No, no, you are wrong! An elephant is a flat, flexible, leathery animal!"
A third blind gentleman examined the trunk and shouted out, "You are all wrong! An elephant, without a doubt, is a long, wrinkled tube with two holes at the end!"
As you can understand, none of the men were able to realize the true beauty of the elephant. They failed to see the big picture, and as a result, fell to squabbling about what an elephant truly is.
The problem with the article I read, "Film Matchback - Can It Work In Indian Conditions?", is that the author, Mr. Senthil of Real Image, did not show us the entire picture. He left me and many readers more confused than enlightened. You can only realize the true beauty and simplicity of digital film editing by understanding the whole picture, and how you can make things work smoothly, easily and cheaply.
Of course, how can I blame him? His company, Real Image, is India's Avid reseller, and they have a product to sell. A lot of them. Unfortunately, I am told they aren't selling too well in India. And recently they have been losing even more of their market share to lower-priced, high-performance partnerships like Slingshot & Discreet's edit* or Slingshot and Media 100.
Donıt get me wrong. I have nothing against Avid. They make a fine product. As a film editor in Hollywood, California, I had been editing movies on Avid systems since 1992. I find the Film Composer and Media Composer line of products to be workable solutions for both film and television. But does Mr. Senthil have to resort to lashing out at other, less costly solutions, just to sell more Avids? Does he have to hide information to get people to buy his products?
Despite the confusion, I would like to thank Mr. Senthil for writing the article. If it wasn't for him, I might never had made my recent trek to India to find out about what he described as a "path wrought with peril".
I went to Bollywood to find out for myself if Slingshot's film matchback could work in Indian conditions.
I booked my flight to India right after the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, and contacted one of Slingshot's resellers, Tata Elxsi Limited, and one of Slingshot's clients - The Kerala State Film Development Corporation Ltd. (KSFDC).
At the Mumbai airport I was greeted by Mr. Sanjeev Jorapur, Product Manager for editing products from Tata Elxsi - the company in India that sells and supports non-linear film and video solutions from Discreet Logic and Slingshot. Sanjeev helped with my travel arrangements, and made sure that my time was well organized and comfortable.
And I must say, the stories my colleagues told me about Indian hospitality are very true. Everyone I met, from the gentleman who mistakenly thought my luggage was his (Mr. Anil Agarwal) to the Mumbai cab drivers (these guys make New York cabbies seem like amateurs!); from the recognized personalities in the Bollywood film industry (Mr. Ramesh Meer) to the waiters at the out-of-the-way Indian restaurants, I encountered the friendliest and most polite people. They made me feel quite at home.
There are many pathways to successful digital film editing, and what I'm going to describe to you is an easy, cost effective way that will give you maximum creativity and financial freedom. Follow these few, simple procedures, and you will enjoy editing without worrying about audio sync problems, matching back to negative, or over-priced equipment. A safe and time-honored way through the woods.
Two days after I stepped off the plane in Mumbai, I boarded an Indian Airlines flight to Hyderabad where I met up with Hari Kumar, the senior sound engineer at KSFDC, and was whisked off to Ramoji Film City for our telecine (film to tape transfer). There we were helped by Mr. S. Badari Prasad and Mr. Ram Murthy, experienced telecine operators of 10 years.
We transferred the rushes MOS (without sound) to PAL Beta SP, carefully following Slingshot's specifications (see sidebar for details) for telecine (at real time - 24fps). So far, so good; everything is in real time.
Then, I boarded another plane to Trivandrum, and was greeted by Zack, another from Tata Elxsi's Sales Team. He arranged for me to meet one of Kerala's award-winning editors, Mrs. Bina Paul Venugopal and KSFDC's Managing Director, K. Sivaprasad.
When I first arrived at KSFDC, I heard some editors voice a bit of concern that this solution would not work for an Indian film. I can understand why; they too had read the article that Mr. Senthil wrote, and they also asked the question, "Why is there so much confusion about this process?"
There really doesn't need to be.
Despite Mr. Senthil's warnings of danger, we digitized the rushes we had just transferred into Discreetıs video editing system called "edit*". Carefully supervised by KSFDC's own sound engineers, we then digitized the audio from the original Nagra tapes (without any speed change or pitch variation - in real time) directly into the editing system. On edit*'s timeline, we were able to sync the sound to the rushes without trouble, and we were able to begin our edit quite quickly.
We edited in real time, not sped up or slowed down as Mr. Senthil claims. We were able to edit at the exact same pace that the filmmakers had shot the movie in a critical thing since editing really is all about pacing.
We didn't edit an epic tale, or anything else too long. I had to return to America soon to work on my next movie. But we were able to put together a sufficiently long film to test to see if the "path wrought with perils" that Mr. Senthil so vehemently described as a dangerous way of editing was really that dangerous (which begs the question dangerous to whom? Avid perhaps?).
After we were satisfied with the edit, which included a rather lengthy speech as well as a rousing freedom song, we added head and tail sync pops (two flash frames edited in sync with a two frame, 1000 Mhz 'beep') which I always used on my Hollywood movies to check sync at the head and tail of each film reel.
We then used Slingshot, which was quite straightforward and very easy to use, to generate our Assembly Lists (tells you how the movie goes together), Pull Lists (tells you what pieces of film need to be pulled), Dupe Lists (detects any piece of film used more than once - Duplicates), Optical Count sheets (for reproducing your optical effects on film) and Optical Pull Lists. Everyone involved found them to be complete and easy to read, very similar to the output they have seen from an Avid Film Composer.
Armed with the information that we needed from Slingshot, we turned to the next room where we cut a print of the film using the exact KeyKode Numbers from the list, and spliced them together to form our movie. Meanwhile, we output the mixed audio tracks directly from edit* to a Nagra tape which was then transferred to mag stripe, again without any speed change or pitch variation.
During this whole process, I kept wondering where were all the nightmares so forcefully outlined in Mr. Senthil's article? Were they hiding somewhere we couldnıt see? Were they about to bite us when we least expected it? It seemed so easy and straightforward, without any audio pitching or syncing problems, no pacing issues, nothing to worry about. Had we avoided all of the problems he spoke of? It seemed so.
Then came the moment of truth. Immediately after assembling the film, we headed for the projection room where, using an interlocked projector, we threaded up the film for viewing.
We didn't put it on a Steinbeck to check sync before projection (which I normally would do, just for safety's sake), nor did we make any adjustments to either the sound or picture. We followed the Slingshot instructions to the letter, and now we were ready for the ultimate test. Would it work on the big screen, in Indian conditions?
Everyone was there. The skeptical and the faithful. Our Supervising Sound engineer, the award-winning Film Editor, the Managing Director and about 10 others all anxious to see what perils would befall us. Mr. Senthil, unfortunately, was not there.
When our short movie was over, no sound sync problems occurred at all (all of the cues landed with dead-on accuracy), the song was perfectly inline (without any pitch variation or speed change), the edit was smooth, exactly the same pacing that we experienced in the editing system. No problems whatsoever.
Apparently Mr. Senthil forgot to tell us the easy, inexpensive and pain-free solution to non-linear digital film editing. Of course, as an Avid reseller, it isn't in his interest to tell that story, is it?
The people who were the most concerned initially were the first to congratulate us on our successful edit. I don't think I will be winning any awards for this particular film, but I do know that Bina was anxious to edit her next award winner on KSFDC's Slingshot/edit* system, and in a recent e-mail, she happily told me that she would be editing soon with KSFDC's system.
Mr. K. Sivaprasad, KSFDC's Managing Director, was quite pleased that his purchasing decision saved his organization about 60% of the cost of buying an Avid. Tata Elxsi's team was surprised at how easy it was to use Slingshot, and pleased that they would be able to quickly train people to effectively use this digital film editing solution.
I think the only one who wasn't that surprised was me. I have been down this pathway many times. It is one lined with remarkable ease of use and creative freedom that wasn't there for me while editing on a Steinbeck or Moviola. It is a path full of joy and confidence that what I see is what I'll get on the screen, without any audio nightmares, no disasters, everything at real time.
This adventure to India has a happy ending after all, and my trip turned out to be more of a dream come true than a nightmare of post production.
Having had such a good experience in India, I am anxious to return soon and see what more I can learn about filmmaking in India. With the rich fabric of the culture and the massive amount of creative talent, I can see why people say that Bollywood is the sleeping giant of the film world, producing more films each year than Hollywood does. I look forward to my next journey there, and to reconnect with my new found friends.
I can't help but ask the question of why? Why was Mr. Senthil so adamant about writing such a negative article about Slingshot in the first place? I don't think it was to get me to come to India. He could have just sent me a simple invitation if that was his reasoning.
Maybe he was worried that these powerful partnerships would hurt his sales? Perhaps he felt the pressure of competition? Perhaps he just didn't know?
But don't take my word for it. See for yourself. Contact Sanjeev at Tata Elxsi Limited and see what they have to offer. Do your own price/performance comparison. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. And then make up your own mind based on all of the facts.
I'll see you at the movies!
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