Avid and Google Cloud made an announcement at IBC in Amsterdam, which wrapped yesterday. Every assistant editor should read it, because the jobs it names are ours. What they showed: • Media Composer running inside the Chrome browser. • A feature Avid calls Ready to Edit. You type a plain request, and it syncs media, transcribes and aligns dialogue, and organizes project bins. • A Gemini panel (Google's AI) inside Media Composer that can tag and log media, translate, find stock footage, and generate B-roll. • Avid Content Core, their media library, writing transcripts and descriptions as footage comes in, so you can search for a shot in plain words. Sync. Transcribe. Organize bins. Log. That's day one on any show. Before anyone panics, three things: 1. This was a trade show demo. No price, no ship date. 2. It's built around Content Core and Google Cloud. My read is it shows up at big facilities and broadcasters first, not on a freelancer's laptop next month. 3. The headline number, 79% of editors using AI, comes from a survey of 120 Avid customers. Useful, not the whole industry. So what does it mean for us? The prep isn't going away. What's changing is who does the first pass. Somebody still has to catch the sync that's a frame off, the transcript that puts a line in the wrong character's mouth, and bins that make no sense to the editor who has to live in them. Software can build a bin. It can't know how your editor likes to work. That's the part of the job to get very good at: • **Checking the machine's work.** Treat AI sync and transcripts like the first pass from a new hire. Spot-check all of it. • **Writing down your standards.** Bin structure, naming, metadata. That's exactly what you'll be telling the software to follow. • **Learning what's already in the box.** If you haven't used ScriptSync and PhraseFind, learn them now. They're the closest thing to this you can use today.

For those who don't know, EDLs out of Avid default to being ALL CAPS. This goes back to spec compliance with CMX3600 and GVG EDLs. Nowadays, this is less important as most conform systems are computer based and not as strict. It also used to be that most camera manufacturers always created tape names that were all caps, so it was a none issue. E012C0021_250902_X01534 is an example of a tape naming convention that is fine. For those who don't know what this tape name is, I'll break it down. E012C0021 means, Cam Roll E012, Clip 21. 250902 is the shoot date: 09/02/2025 X01534 is unique identifier which is usually an abbreviation of the camera serial number. That said, there is a new camera naming convention that I've been seeing used lately and it in includes one lower case character. An example of this is A_0165C007_250911_095758_h1EGB You can see that the last h is lowercase. If you use the EDL Importer to create plates as ALEs, this will create problems because ALEs are case sensitive. Because Avid defaults to converting all EDLs to uppercase, it will display this name as: A_0165C007_250911_095758_H1EGB However, it is possible to change this. There are template files for each EDL that you can modify. You'll find these templates at this location on your computer: /Applications/Avid Media Composer/SupportingFiles/EDL_Manager_Templates/ I always modify both the File32 and File129 template. To do this, first close Avid if it is open and right click on those files one at a time and I open them with BB Edit. At Line 20, you should see toupper_conversion TRUE * Convert all comments and titles. Change TRUE to FALSE and save the file. Now when you export EDLs, your markers, reel names and all other text will be the normal case as it was entered. If you find the EDL Importer is giving you errors with using ALEs for subclips, this should be the first step in trouble shooting. Here is a link to Avid's help forum if you need additional help https://community.avid.com/forums/t/185759.aspx

Quick heads up: The certification quizzes for Feature Film Assistant Editor Immersion are live again. If you’re enrolled in the full course and want your Certificate of Completion, you’ll find the link to all the quizzes in the Module 1 → “Before You Begin” section under "Resources" at the bottom of the page. There are 131 questions total, and you need an 80% overall score to pass. You can take them however you like. One at a time, all at once, in any order. You can also retake quizzes as many times as needed. NOTE: Passing is required for Editors Guild reimbursement, if that applies to you. Thanks for your patience while we got this together. Onward to the big edit bays! 🎬✂️