FEATURE
CHERNOBYL SIMON SMITH, EDITOR WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE ON CHERNOBYL AND WHAT DID THAT INVOLVE? There were two editors on Chernobyl, we had alternate episodes, so I cut episodes two and four and then we co-edited episode five which is the episode we’ve been nominated for [at the Eddie Awards]. The shoot was spread over five months (100 days), so each day we would receive the rushes over the internet from the location team in Lithuania. We’d assemble the dailies until the shoot was over, and then began fine-cutting. This generally takes the form of sending versions of each episode to the director, writer, producers, executive producers, and then the broadcasters for their notes and feedback, and then working together to make it better. It was around another seven months of fine-cutting, mixing, VFX and grading before they were all finished. WHAT TECHNOLOGY DID YOU USE FOR YOUR WORK ON CHERNOBYL? We used Avid Media Composer as our NLE, with two editors, three assistants and a VFX editor all running from the same project on an ISIS. In total, the proxy media files took up about 10TB of space, as often we would shoot with multiple cameras. The courtroom trial scenes were always three cameras shooting. During the shoot, PIX was used to distribute daily rushes securely to everyone that needed them. During the edit, the VFX editor was
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able to pass shots back and forth between us and two in-house VFX artists which was a huge help. We were all in Soho in London, but the rest of the team were spread all over the world - New York, Los Angeles, Berlin… so we used a new collaboration tool called Evercast which allowed us to share screens, webcams, and simultaneously view the edits. WHY DID YOU USE THAT TECHNOLOGY IN PARTICULAR, AND HOW DID IT HELP YOU WITH YOUR WORK ON THE SHOW? In my opinion, Avid is the best NLE for working at scales like this, being able to collaborate with multiple other people on the same project, and deal with such huge libraries of rushes, sound effects, music and sequences. Breaking it down into individual ‘bin’ files means the computer can allocate resources really efficiently. We were really impressed by the new Evercast system - being able to all stay local to our homes and families really helps our quality of life, and that then feeds back into the quality of work you’re able to do. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE NOMINATED FOR YOUR WORK? To be nominated by the ACE is a huge honour, as it’s coming from other editors. I’m really looking forward to the event, to be in the same room as heroes of editing like Thelma Schoonmaker, Fred Raskin, Kirk Baxter - it’s very inspiring. n