Hollywood Relies on Avid to Create the Summer's Biggest Blockbusters

Avid® (Nasdaq: AVID), a leading global media technology provider for the creation, distribution and monetization of media assets for global media organizations, enterprise users and individual creative professionals, today announced that Hollywood’s top creative talent entrusted Avid’s comprehensive tools and workflow solutions to produce this summer’s hottest films. Powered by the MediaCentral Platform, the industry’s most open, tightly integrated and efficient platform designed for media, Avid’s leading creative tools once again delivered the needed speed, efficiency and collaboration capabilities required to bring many exciting stories to the big screen this summer.

With a star-studded ensemble featuring Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx and Eliza González, action hit Baby Driver follows the story of a successful getaway driver who uses music to be the best in the business. After meeting the girl of his dreams, Baby tries to escape his life of crime, but any hope for a fresh start is complicated as he’s drawn into working for a crime boss whose heist will threaten everything, including his true love. Editors Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos relied on the industry’s preeminent editing solution, Avid Media Composer, to bring director Edgar Wright’s musically driven, adrenaline-pumping film to life. Machliss worked on-set alongside Wright during filming, employing the speed and flexibility of Media Composer to edit in real time and keep pace with production.

“Editing Baby Driver on set for director Edgar Wright brought a new meaning to the concept of a ‘fast-turnaround’—and I’m not necessarily referring to the driving of the stunt vehicles,” said Machliss. “Media Composer’s AMA function allowed me to give Edgar near-instantaneous feedback to a take. Seconds after he yelled ‘Cut!’ I would have the shot in the timeline, judgment would be pronounced and he could move on. It was, however, the only time I’ve had to wear a seatbelt while editing.”

InWar for the Planet of the Apes, the final installment in the successful Planet of the Apes franchise, protagonist Caesar and his apes are forced into a deadly battle against the humans that could have catastrophic consequences for both the apes and the planet.

Re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor William Files used Avid’s industry-standard professional audio solutions—including Pro Tools | HD, Pro Tools | HDX and the Pro Tools | S6 modular control surface—to deliver the best sounding mixes faster. Files and his team also relied on Avid shared storage solutions to stay organized and share content regardless of their location.

“Working on such a large-scale film can be very challenging, but Avid’s audio and storage solutions enabled us to collaborate seamlessly and efficiently,” said Files. “Pro Tools and the S6 console gave us the freedom to experiment in order to create the dramatic sounds of the epic battle between the apes and the humans.”

The film industry’s top creative professionals relied on Avid solutions to create numerous other summer blockbusters, including Wonder Woman, The Beguiled, Dunkirk, Atomic Blonde, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Dark Tower, Detroit, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Alien: Covenant, Transformers: The Last Knight, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard.

“Each year, an overwhelming number of the industry’s top creative and award winning professionals as well as nearly every major feature film rely on Avid tools to tell their story,” said Jeff Rosica, President at Avid. “At Avid, we remain dedicated to the innovation of our platform and tools to help the creative community worldwide do their work in even more efficient and powerful ways.”