A Few Recent Avid Media Composer Finds

The Editblog on PVC by Scott Simmons

During a recent long-form edit I came across a few new (to me at least) Avid discoveries

I’m just finishing up a three week edit using Avid Media Composer. I enjoy longer-form projects like this one as I always find myself learning something new about the non-linear editing tool that I’m using for that extended period of time. While I’m in and out of these editing tools nearly everyday (be it Avid, FCP or Premiere Pro) it’s a prolonged period in a single one of them that often revels something I never knew before. In this case it was some tips, tricks and tutorials about Media Composer.

A new way to Match Frame

One of the best tips I’ve come across in a long, long time was one that came via Twitter from editor Evan Schiff :

Who knew Cmd-double-clicking a track selector match frames to the source of whatever clip is under the blue bar on that track?

For me that was one of those ah-ha moments where I immediately wondered how I’ve lived without that during all the years editing.

It doesn’t matter if a track is enabled or disabled when using this Match Frame trick. Just command + double click to Match Frame the clip under the playhead on that track.

It’s incredibly simple and came in very useful with the multiple split-screen effects we were doing on this edit. I found it saves a lot of keystrokes and/or mouse clicks turning tracks on and off when you’re trying to match frame a specific track. And it works on audio too. read more...