Switcher Stories: Jeanine Hurley

My career in the cutting room began on 16mm and 35mm film in the late 1980s working on TV documentaries and feature films. Following some years as an assistant editor, dubbing editor and post production co-ordinator in the BBC in London, I started editing just as Avid came into use there in 1993. We were using version 3 software and each cutting room was supplied with 2x 9GB and 1x 3GB drives. Even working at AVR3 (those pixels!), media management was a big challenge, juggling space and deleting and redigitising rushes. During a return to Dublin in 1994 I edited (off and online) Series 2 of ‘Our House,’ one of the first programmes RTE broadcast which had been finished on an online Avid.

First Project

I’d been hearing about Final Cut Pro for a while and despite horror stories from editors about computer crashes, I decided to do the FCP training course early in 2003. The course was a great introduction, but my work continued on Avid until late 2005 when I cut a six part TV series ‘Des Bishop’s Joy in the Hood’. Not only was it the first project I edited using FCP, but it was a multicamera project shot on between two and five cameras. Fortunately FCP v5.0 had just been released with its new multicam feature, but I didn’t know anyone who had used that feature yet so I learned using the rushes and the manual prior to the start date.

Fluent in FCP

I found Diana Weynand’s book ‘Final Cut Pro for Avid Editors’ really helpful in making the transition from FCP to Avid. You can look up a term or function that’s very familiar and find how it translates into FCP speak. (Or not, as with the clipboard function which I like and doesn’t exist in the same way in FCP, but the workaround is to use the Apple copy and paste functions.) It’s really only through clocking up the hours on new software that the benefits of familiarity and fluency can be enjoyed. I use the keyboard a lot and I found adjusting to the new keyboard layout one of the biggest challenges. At an early stage I remapped the ‘Mark In/Out’ keys to the E&R keys where they are on the Avid keyboard – I was just so accustomed to having my left hand on that side of the keyboard while my right hand was on the mouse. I also remapped the ‘Goto In/Out’ and ‘Clear In/Out’ keys above and below these (a slight change from Avid’s layout). On my current FCP editing project – another multicamera project, eight cameras this time - I’ve decided to wholly follow the FCP keyboard layout.

Unique and Quirky

Editing with Final Cut Pro is very liberating. Picture and sound can be sourced from the Browser or the Viewer and dropped directly into the Timeline (most useful when assembling). Clips can be moved around the Timeline easily and it’s common to spread picture over a number of video layers. I can see a more quirky style of editing emerging that is influenced by cutting on FCP. It’s a different system to Avid and the key is not to try and make FCP be an Avid, but use its many strengths and unique features and work in a different way.

Avid is still the most common offline editing system in use in post production houses here in Dublin, but many are adding FCP as well and I look forward to editing on both systems in the future.

Jeanine Hurley has edited in-house at RTE, BBC and post production houses in Dublin and London. Credits include ‘Casualty’, ‘Eastenders’, ‘Tomorrow’s World’, ‘Holiday Programme’, award winning environmental series ‘Engine Earth’ and ‘The State We’re In’, award winning short films ‘Last Mango in Dublin’ and ‘An Diog is Faide’, IFTA nominated ‘Joy in the Hood’ and Arts Lives ‘Pop Fiction’. Jeanine is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Filmbase. She is a keen cross country skier.

hurleyjeanine@hotmail.com
www.jeaninehurley.com

© 2007 Jeanine Hurley