cutters
Standard SMPTE code was not capable of finding events below the frame rate that it had been originally designed for. Kary and the Grey Engineering team created a new approach for the EPIC that they labeled ‘field-rate’ timecode. In order to solve the impasse they doubled the frequency of the timecode itself and by doing so removed the ambiguity between 24fps film and 30fps video.
Meanwhile the CFI team experimented with editing on videotape in tandem with television programs edited natively on film. The hit TV show Magnum P.I. was posted at CFI and served as a test for the Film 5 system. Schneider recalls how the unique test was organized.
Universal Studios made a black and white duplicate of the original Magnum film footage, as well as the magnetic sound track. We took the episode and ran it through the Film 5 process to compare with their standard film procedures.
Magnum's editor cut on a Moviola while Schneider used Mach One:
Their editing time to first cut was 135 hours, compared to my 69 hours with videotape.
During the development Kravits, Schneider and Dan Brewer experimented with the feasibility of editing videotape at 24fps to eliminate the 24 to 30 frame conversion problem which they outlined in a SMPTE journal of the day. Kravits recalls:
Except for the inconvenience of having to view these tapes on specially converted VTRs, the inherent frame accurate cut lists generated by this 24 frame system open up a new potential for a simplified editing system. It was about then I started to notice the film editors working on Moviolas and I started to take note of how they worked, the old fashioned way of using a cutting table and you could see this was a long and convoluted process.
CFI’s President Tom Ellington asked me “Can you develop some kind of a system in which these film editors who are very electronic phobic, can really understand and work in an electronic environment”. I studied them and realized how tactile a craft that it was, they worked by hand
Across at Harris, the EPIC system was used to edit the EPCOT rear projection projects including American Adventure but the entire project was abandoned.
Loran Kary knew that the methodology would eventually find a technology to fit and he wrote a paper (Coincidentally at the same time as Schneider and Kravits) describing the system in his SMPTE paper.
It was way ahead of its time and probably unrealistic because of a number of reasons. One was its cost; it was very expensive. Film editors were accustomed to working on a flat bed or a stand up Moviola system in a nonlinear way on a system that they rented for $100 a month. Secondly the new EPIC required all this electronic equipment that required all these engineers to maintain it.
Compared with a film editing system, which had negligible cost and just worked, it didn't have a whole bunch of electronics that were breaking down all the time or you couldn't understand what it was doing and some new interface you had to learn. But the most critical reason was the fact that it was linear. I mean if you made a mistake using video you had to stop and go back re-assemble from that point on. It was just unthinkable at that time.
FLM-1
CMX began building a prototype of a semi-computerised film/video device called the Film Controller or FLM-1 (above). John Shike recalls:
Bob Duffy was always interested in coming up with a modern film editing device and he wanted to use CMX’s engineering capabilities to create the FLM-1. He imagined that film, not video machines, would be the source to feed a video editing controller and he decided to use Moviola’s Videola.
The 35mm film source material, be that dailies or rough film assemblies was loaded onto a Videola and recorded to a Sony 2868 deck to create a video ‘workprint’ to use for offline editing. During that process the FLM-1, which sat in between the two devices, would record the original film keycode/edge numbers and the related Sony’s timecode numbers at the point of transfer and then burn in this information as a window on the tape copy.
An editor could then use the visual codes or those stored by the FLM-1 to later create an assembly list for conforming a master with a standard CMX linear video suite. Of course CMX claimed that it could correlate frame counts from film-to-tape transfers with SMPTE timecode by running the film in constant synch with the U-matic deck but the in-built system to calculate the 3:2 pull down difference wasn’t very sophisticated so it could only track one editing session.
I thought it actually imposed the worst aspects of video upon film editing, in other words it made the whole film editing process a linear one - and not nonlinear as it normally is. And the advantages of video at the time, like instant opticals and effects, weren’t included in the package. Even though it wasn’t very successful, the FLM-1 acted as a catalyst for Bob Duffy to create a true nonlinear film and video system, the CMX-6000.
While Duffy's team worked away, CMX was in trouble. It had made an expensive move into satellite communications at the same time that competitors like ISC and Mach One had eroded its dominance of the post-production market. Financial World reported:
Orrox is pouring all of its profits and more from CMX into its Satcom division which is developing a receiver system for direct broadcast satellite transmission. Satcom executives had asserted that they would have a 3-foot dish for $500 on the consumer market by 1985. ... Marketed under the trademark CMX.
Dave Orr recalls:
Bill Orr was investing quite a deal of money into a company called Satcom to pioneer direct satellite broadcasting. It was way ahead of its time, inventing things which did not exist, including the market. Unfortunately the money was needed for editing systems research and development at CMX
William (Bill) Orr recalls:
I had a long term dream but it meant 'stepping on many crocodiles' to get there. I saw satellite communications as a much larger market opportunity than just making editing systems. The overall plan was to produce and create films and then distribute them via transponders that CMX/Orrox also made.
The press reported losses. Headlines read : CMX cannot survive Satcom.
When it became known publicly that CMX was in some trouble, other companies began to eye its assets. The titling equipment manufacturer Chyron knew that it needed to sell complete packages to its broadcast and post-production clients to remain competitive. The obvious product to align with was an editing solution and Chyron looked at CMX/Orrox as a potential target. CMX was in trouble, as was Atari.
Atari, now a subsidiary of Warner Comunications Inc., had geared its computer sales to the home market and had told investors it would be No.1 in home sales soon. However within months the so-called '1983 Games Crash' began and industry revenues of around $3.2 billion fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent).
There was now a steady stream of execs leaving Atari including Roger H. Badertscher, who left to set up a Mindset to produce a new personal computer.
THE RIGHT STUFF
