

With social distancing and shelter-in-place orders amid COVID-19, editors have, by necessity, taken work home. In fact, Andrew Seklir, ACE, says his editorial rental company, A Frame Post, alone installed roughly 50 home systems as work was beginning to shut down last March.
ACE President Stephen Rivkin, ACE, is keen that the organization support its members in this challenging time and is conducting a member survey to gather experiences and input “to find out who is able to keep working through the lockdown and the various methods and technologies being incorporated. We want to be able to share experiences and technical information with our members.
“ACE is able to direct members to various resources that offer everything from financial aid to counseling,” Rivkin says, “I believe it’s also important that we discover new ways of continuing our annual gatherings and events. It’s hard to imagine virtual holiday parties and awards ceremonies, but if that’s what it takes, we’ll have to make it work.”
When production gradually resumes, the onus will be on employers to provide a safe working environment for their employees. Rivkin stresses, “Unless we feel safe going back to work, I don’t believe we can be forced to show up, especially if we have alternatives, like working remotely, that can get the job done. I’m sure there will be guidelines provided by OSHA and I believe the unions will help to enforce them.”
There may be positive consequences of the industry’s forced experiment in remote working.
“We are defining a new methodology for working together. Technical issues abound and we are tackling them one by one. The more time that goes by, the fewer issues we encounter.
Oddly, the virtual communication is actually more efficient than face-to-face meetings. I guess this may be one of the things that will stick around long after the lockdown is over.
“Longer term, I believe that, in a strange way, the pandemic has forced us all into a technological change that otherwise may have taken years. We have been pushed into trying workflows that will have a lasting impact on the future of the industry and how we work. We tend to get comfortable in the way we do things unless poked and prodded. After all, it took about a century to go from celluloid to digital filmmaking. Things have started progressing a bit faster these days.”
In this special report, CinemaEditor examines ways in which members are working remotely.
Lightstorm Entertainment is actively working on four Avatar sequels simultaneously, with the first set for release next year. While the performance capture phase for the principal actors was completed some time ago, Rivkin was about to join the production on the next round of the live-action shoot at production stages in New Zealand when the virus struck.
“We’ve had to refocus our plans on the virtual production portion of the films, but it’s work that would have had to be done anyway,” he says. “There’s plenty to keep us busy.”
The first thing Lightstorm did was increase bandwidth at their base of operations, Manhattan Beach Studios (MBS), and set up a robust, customized, encrypted VPN network.
“We are remotely accessing the media at MBS where our stages and cutting rooms are,” Rivkin explains. “Our entire crew of editors and assistants were equipped with specially-formatted laptops, monitors and peripherals, to be able to access the Avids and media storage at our studio, from home. No content is ever stored on our remote laptops. Lightstorm has an incredible internal systems/IT team who worked tirelessly with our first assistant editor, Justin Yates, to get all of us set up to work pretty seamlessly. We have an enormous crew, spanning multiple continents, not to mention the hundreds of digital artists that needed to get online from home as well.”
Rivkin is one of six editors on the project. He shares duties with director James Cameron; John Refoua, ACE (who also edited the original Avatar with Rivkin and Cameron); David Brenner, ACE; and additional editors Ian Silverstein and Jason Gaudio. (Gaudio was Rivkin’s first assistant of many years.)
The team is using the messaging program Slack to communicate and to create various groups (for all editorial, editors only, just VFX editors, tech support, etc.). Besides group chats, there’s the ability to chat directly with anyone in the company, with the option of an audio or video call, either one-on-one or in a group. The team is also using Evercast and BlueJeans to review and discuss sequences together.
“VFX reviews between editorial and the production’s internal VFX lab are working just great. The reviews on the first Avatar film were always done long distance (with Weta Digital in New Zealand) through the use of a Polycom teleconference system. Using Evercast and BlueJeans, our editors and assistants are able to review scenes with all departments online, including VFX, shot supervisors, digital artists, art department, wardrobe, props, environment and lighting.”
One minor drawback is the inability to work with three-track audio. “We don’t have the physical Avid hardware at home, but being limited to mono audio is a small price to pay when our main concentration is on the picture editing at this stage of the process.”
For security, there is a two-factor authentication process (via an app called Duo) requiring sign-in on personal laptops to access equipment and media at MBS.“We are not allowed to maintain a connection to the network while we are not using it and must sign in at least once a day, if not multiple times a day,” Rivkin says.
“Most of the crew has had to make sure they had enough bandwidth to support this workflow, but at relatively little cost,” he continues. “Our remote workflow is possible with the medium to the high end of what’s available through consumer internet. All of the software we use at home requires a relatively small bandwidth. We are not downloading sensitive material locally or transferring files at home. Using remote access software such as HP Remote Graphics Software and the built-in Mac screen sharing application, we are accessing and working with material that is secure at our offices.”
Aside from the delayed live-action component, the show’s virtual production has given it some immunity from the forced lockdown. With the principal performances captured, the editorial team is able to continue the process of editing shots created for scenes, based on the edited performance capture version of the film.
“The performance capture is a record of the actors’ performances in a three-dimensional space, which can later be shot from any angle,” explains Rivkin. “Any performance can become any type of shot, whether close-up, medium, wide, crane shot, and from any angle, front, behind, above or below. Since we’re not dependent on having a live set with actors and crew, we can play back those previously recorded performances to make shots and scenes.”
In effect, the film is edited twice: a performance edit based on the original performance data, then using the performances played back to create the shots to build the scene. “Based on the best performance of each character we process those takes, and they become the virtual character in a virtual set with costumes, props, lighting, and so on.
“Currently, we are unable to use the stages at MBS to create these shots until the quarantine order is lifted, but specific scenes can still be worked on, with the virtual artists and supervisors, to create shots on a desktop box. As soon as we are able, we will return to the stage for virtual camera shot creation, with only a handful of crew present for support.”
Additionally, just before press time, the New Zealand government granted permission to allow a limited number of the Avatar L.A. production crew members to return to Wellington. After the mandated 14-day quarantine, they will be able to resume liveaction filming. “Since we have a New Zealand based assistant editorial staff, we will only be sending one L.A. based assistant at this time and will be actively testing our remote Avid operations across the globe. This will undoubtedly be the most extreme test of our current technology and could open the door to new possibilities for distant location real-time editing.”
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