Feature
The Media Composer keyboard and layout you already know
Source and Record monitors with three-point editing, on the keys your hands already know. Cut in B/side the way you cut in Media Composer.
Instead of relearning every shortcut before you can make your first cut in a new editor.
The Media Composer keyboard as it works in the editor: every bound key lit and labelled, with layers for the keys held with Shift, Option and Cmd.
- For Editors, Post houses
- Plans Every plan, including Free
If you learned to cut on Media Composer, your hands already know where everything is. B/side keeps the layout and the keys, so the first hour goes on the footage and not on a cheat sheet.
What is there
- Source and Record monitors, side by side. Load a clip on the left and watch the cut on the right.
- Three-point editing. Mark the shot you want and the place it goes, and cut.
- Splice and overwrite to put a shot into the sequence.
- Lift and extract to take one out, leaving the gap or closing it.
- JKL shuttle for playing forward and back at whatever speed you need.
- Mark Clip to mark the whole shot under the playhead with one key.
- Match Frame to find the source frame of any shot in the cut.
- The Command Palette. Every command, as in Media Composer. Find one by name and put it on any key or on a button of your own. Your keyboard follows you to every computer. Share it with the show, or use the show’s.
Why it matters
Muscle memory takes years to build. Keeping it means you are quick from the first session, and a freelancer can sit down at a new job and be useful in the first hour.
It matters for teams too. An assistant who has worked in Media Composer rooms already knows the layout, so there is nothing to teach before they start on the dailies.
New to three-point editing
Three-point editing is worth learning even if you have never used Media Composer. You choose what goes in and exactly where it lands before anything touches the cut. It is a careful way to work, and it suits long material where you are placing hundreds of shots by hand.
Marking in the Source monitor and cutting into the Record monitor soon becomes second nature. Once it does, you stop dragging clips around and start placing them.
Bring the project too
The keyboard is half of it. If the show is already in Media Composer, drop in the Avid project folder and your bins open intact, with everything in them arranged the way you left it.
Questions
Do I need to know Media Composer to use B/side?
No. Three-point editing is easy to pick up once you have seen it done, and the layout makes sense from the first session. If you already know Media Composer, your hands will find their way straight away.
Which Media Composer tools are there?
Source and Record monitors, with three-point editing. Splice and overwrite are there, and so are lift and extract. JKL shuttle works the way you expect, and so do Mark Clip and Match Frame.
Can I open my existing Avid projects?
Yes. Drop in an Avid project folder and its bins, cuts and multicam groups open intact. Opening a whole project folder is part of the Production plan.