Building an Editing Career with Avid Media Composer
By Jim Bask
From Avid Blogs by Shahnaz Dulaimy
I started out as an assistant editor four years ago and was constantly switching between different nonlinear editing systems such as Final Cut Pro and Premiere. I had a basic knowledge of Avid Media Composer but knew that to step up my game and become a feature film editor, I would have to master the art of Media Composer.
To do that, I enrolled in an Avid training course at VET Post Production in London in January 2014, took the Avid Certified User exam and became the first certified Media Composer editor in Jordan.
Not long after that, I got my first feature as main editor on Zinzana. Initially the producers were looking for an editor to cut together the first 10 scenes so they could make sure they were getting the material they wanted, and I was in the right place at the right time, with the right set of skills. I wasn’t briefed before I started work; I just received a hard drive containing the footage.
I cut the scenes, and a couple of days later, I got a call from the director, Majid Al Ansari. I went to the set the same day, and he was very excited about the sequences I had sent. He said they were exactly what he had in mind for the edit, so I was brought on board to edit the rest of the film…[continue reading]