I’m having a hard time remembering what life was like before EdiLoad and simultaneously kicking myself for not using the software sooner. I have recently used it on three different features: Entourage the Movie, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, and Pelé. It was invaluable on all three and the interesting thing was that each feature highlighted a different strong point of the software.
On Entourage I made extensive use of the dialog assembly feature. By feeding the software an EDL referencing sound rolls and sound timecodes, EdiLoad quickly made Reference Tracks with clips stamped with the appropriate metadata that allowed me to use the Field Recorder Guidetrack function in Pro Tools to do quick dialog assemblies. With the way that the daily process is typically done on large Hollywood films, often the sound timecode in the AAFs from the Avid actually reflect daily tape timecode, not sound roll sound timecode. EdiLoad corrects this problem so that Field Recorder Guidetracks can be used.
For Montage of Heck we cut with a longplay of the entire 2+ hour feature. When changes came in I quickly discovered that Avid change notes that display footage don’t correctly list past 9999+15. This meant using my normal go-to change note program for auto-conforms was not possible. EdiLoad to the rescue. By comparing two picture EDLs I was able to do a quick conform on guide tracks, fix as many conform problems in the guides, then use those conformed guides to create new conform EDLs and perform the auto-conform in EdiLoad to the actual cut session. This greatly minimized the amount of damage done to the session in the conform and made fixing much faster.
Pelé had extensive ADR revoicing of characters. Unfortunately we found that often the selected takes for the performance from the original production were cheats. This made it tough to judge true sync against picture when recording and cutting ADR. By using a picture EDL and EdiLoad I was able to create reference tracks that would link the sync dialog takes to the picture. In a few minutes we had the critical reference for ADR.
EdiLoad is so useful and helps solve so many problems, I’m almost hesitant to endorse it. It’s always good to have a secret weapon that gives you a little edge.
Jon Michaels - Sound editor - IMDb
Based at Warner Bros Sound - Burbank