Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1468810
versions of a reel or episode. It generates a damage report of the differences (repre- sented as a "damage" percentage and a list of tracked changes). Users can review the changes in the timeline window and delete or heal cuts, extend the heads or tails of matches to fill gaps, set in and out times for selected matches, force match clips, create user notes anywhere in the timeline, and then ultimately render selected changes in the editing software (Pro Tools, Hiero, etc.), as "Copy/Paste" or "Cut/Paste." The beauty of Matchbox is that it can scale from simple to complex as needed. "There are a million different ways you can run your conform. Matchbox can compare anything, basically," noted Dialogue Su- pervisor/Sound Editor Ryan Cole, who has worked on films like "Free Guy" and "The Adam Project." Matchbox offers many dif- ferent Matchup options, such as "Matchup Anything," "Matchup Any Video Data," "Matchup Any Audio Data," "Matchup Selected Clips," "Matchup Audio Files in Selected Gaps," and more. Cole notes that running the reconform as "Copy/Paste" is helpful for holding onto scenes that have been removed. "So if you're working on a film for a few months and they decided to cut a scene that wasn't working, before you reconform, you can move that scene further down the Pro Tools timeline and save it. If they put that scene back in five versions later, you can have Matchbox select just that scene, compare the two versions, and then copy the new version back in. You don't have to do it man- ually, which is really handy," he said. Cole primarily handles dialogue, so he likes to start by importing the old picture EDL (edit decision list) into Matchbox, importing the new EDL, and hitting the "Matchup" button to compare the two. "The Summary tab in Matchbox's List View pop-out window shows you which shots have been swapped, rebalanced, added, extended, removed, trimmed, updated, and matched. It even gives you a percentage of how much it has changed. Matchbox will automatically put markers at the changes, and you can drop your own user markers, too. Sometimes, Matchbox will flag places where it detected a cut or swapped shot but there was no change. You can just delete that marker and heal the cut so it's one less thing to worry about when you render the reconform," said Cole. In Matchbox, users can focus on specific changes related to their responsibilities (such as just dialogue line changes or added processing like reverb, or music changes, or effects changes, or VFX changes, and so on) or they can look at all changes and create optimized notes for particular de- partments. User notes created in Matchbox can be dropped into the Pro Tools session during the reconform. For more complicated reconforms, such as those that Sound Effects Editor Diego Perez was handling on "The Batman," it's important to have good coordination with the picture department. The Cargo Cult made it easy for post-production depart- ments to request the necessary files from the picture department that will generate the best results for a Matchbox reconform. They created a "Matchbox – A Letter to the Editor" PDF (downloadable on their Support page) that can be emailed directly to the picture department. It's an easy-to- follow list of instructions for editors using Media Composer, Premiere, or other NLEs. Perez said, "As long as we have a good AAF from the picture department, then Matchbox does a lot of magic on its own, which is amazing." When a good AAF isn't available, Match- box can compare just raw video or raw guide audio. "That has (surprisingly) become one of the most commonly used workflows. The ability to compare just the reference media is really important," said Webster. Using Matchbox for sound effects on VFX-heavy "The Batman," Perez was able to quickly see the VFX changes using the "Scan for Visible Diffs" option in the "Com- pare" dropdown menu. Diffs are notated by purple segments on the Diffs timeline of the main window, making it easy to jump to each shot that changed. There's a picture comparison window where all changes in the image are highlighted in red. "This was super helpful to scan for little changes, like updates to Batman's device displays or com- puter screens. Sometimes things on those screens change and you need a little sound for that. You can make your own markers to note VFX updates for other editors or the re-recording mixer and those carry over to Pro Tools. This is what I usually do for effects," said Perez. Reviewing the matches is also helpful for removing unnecessary or unwanted changes in a reconform. "For example, if we're cutting backgrounds, we can save time in Pro Tools by healing over sections in Matchbox that we don't need to fix. Or, if the Foley footsteps are a bit out of sync, it's sometimes easier to manually realign them instead of having Matchbox do it. It's also great for rebalances, for bringing tracks from one reel into a different reel; Matchbox can simplify that process. The cool thing is you have options to make these choices be- fore going into the effects reel," Perez said. These examples are just a fraction of what Matchbox can do. Perez, who helped to beta-test Matchbox for The Cargo Cult, not- ed that "at first, the learning curve is kind of steep. But it's definitely worth putting in the time to learn it though because you'll get that time back ten-fold." Is Matchbox a good fit for you? Check out page 41 of the Matchbox Manual, acces- 52 C I N E M O N T A G E T E C H Ryan Cole.