Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1334761
REVIEW www.postmagazine.com 30 POST JAN/FEB 2021 hen I got my hands on the Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor, I thought to my- self, "My, that looks familiar. It looks like an old fashioned edit controller!" My background in post production goes back to the transition from video- tape-based linear online rooms and the dawn of file-based workflows. I remem- ber the million-dollar rooms with star ed- itors masterfully controlling a starship's worth of panels with controls with flashing lights and the whir of tape decks shuttling. It was like conducting a sym- phony — orchestrating the buzzing and whirring of all the equipment to create a final master tape that was then dubbed thousands of times in huge banks of tape decks and shared with the world. This is how TV shows in the '90s were created. For example, every episode of Friends was assembled and titled in a linear online bay. A key component, among the hun- dreds of thousands of dollars of equip- ment — including Chyron character generators, tape decks and highly-trained staff — is the edit controller. At its sim- plest, an edit controller remotely controls professional tape decks. At its most complex, the edit controller orchestrates multiple tape decks and does dissolves between tape sources. It even adds fancy effects, like page turns and heart wipes! Maybe that was the Abekas that did that, or the Axial? In any case, professional videotape is all but extinct in modern post production. The tipping point was the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan and damaged the factory that made the high-end video- tapes that we all used, the Sony SR tapes. In fact, Sony has stopped making HDCAM-SR tape decks. In my research, I came across an HDCAM-SR deck, that used to cost over $100,000, for sale on eBay now for $5,000. I wanted to share this backstory because it influences my perspective on the Speed Editor. It's like we are going backward to move forward. When the Cut Page was release with Resolve 16, it was a bit of a shrug for me honestly. Why should I edit in an interface that looks something like iMovie? I'm a professional. Fast forward a year and now we have DaVinci Resolve 17, with an updated Cut Page, and the newly introduced Speed Editor. I really had to fight myself to give the Cut Page a try. The Speed Editor is a Cut Page-first tool and found myself fighting how the Cut Page and Speed Editor works. File that into the "old dog doesn't want to learn new tricks" bin. Before I dive into the func- tionality of the Speed Editor, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the mechanics of it. The Speed Editor connects to the computer via a USB-C cable or Bluetooth. The device is charged through the USB-C cable and you can read its power and battery setting in the Resolve Control Panel. The Speed Editor is a fairly compact size and fits easily on the track-pad platform of my MSI GT73 VR7RE Titan laptop. The device felt solid enough, although I didn't have a chance to drop it on the floor to test it out. The Speed Editor has markings on the front faces of many keys, which signifies func- tions that are unlocked by double-tap- ping on the keys. It's been said that the keyboard is designed for a long life, like a gaming keyboard. It certainly felt that way to me. I did three separate test sessions with the Speed Editor keyboard. The first test was done using Edit Stock footage (https://editstock.com) from a two-cam- era short film. I found the Speed Editor helpful in terms of getting through the clips, but I missed the functionality of the multi-cam mode, where you watch the cut-down and pick the different angles by right-clicking on the clip on the Edit page. The second test I did was on a sev- en-camera shoot for a popular YouTube channel. I found the functionality to be excellent in terms of building the sync bin and then quickly switching between camera angles on such a multi-cam shoot. The multiple angles played at the same time and I was able to use the live overwrite button to "paint" footage down on the timeline as I was watching it while live switching the camera angles. As Grant Petty, president of Blackmagic Design, mentioned in his introductory video, Speed Editor works very much like a switcher, except that we're switching live in-between different camera angles and, in that way, the user is able to quickly build a multi-angle time- line. The main drawback of this approach is the clips are not true multi-angle clips in the sense of old-school, multi-cam clips as they are sync clips. The third test I did was on a short film I am working on (https://www.3-9-5. com) and, in this case, the Speed Editor was a huge help. I was able to use the source tape function accessed by mul- tiple taps on the source key to quickly build a string out of all the footage. This allowed me to quickly and efficiently go through all of the footage in the short film and build a selects reel from which I will begin to make a final edit. I would gladly continue using the Speed Editor for assemblies and for quickly going through large amounts of footage. There are three settings on the jog control wheel or search dial. In shuttle mode I found the playback speed to be a bit difficult to manage. There is no resistance or stops to help govern the range of motion on the search dial, thus the playback speed, just a small indicator in the UI, was very hard for me to find the exact speed and click into a certain setting. That said, the search dial works super smooth, so I ended up using the play button and the jog setting on the BLACKMAGIC DESIGN'S DAVINCI RESOLVE SPEED EDITOR BY BARRY GOCH SENIOR FINISHING ARTIST THE FOUNDATION BURBANK, CA HTTP://THEFOUNDATION POST.COM WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN W VITAL STATS MANUFACTURER: Blackmagic Design PRODUCT: DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor PRICE: $295 (free with Resolve purchase) WEBSITE: www.blackmagicdesign.com