I originally planned to edit the film using a steenbeck 6 plate flatbed. But that class at the New School was cancelled due to lack of enrolment. So I had to edit on an AVID instead. I am glad, in retrospect, that this happened because I was able to finish the film with the same level of refinement.
The film was developed at the lab and then telecined onto a Beta SP tape. I had them sync up the dialogue at the lab (though it is really easy to do yourself so I don't recommend paying for it) and then captures in the AVID and started to edit it.
I found the AVID interface intuitive. I had used premiere and Final Cut Pro before, so it wasn't a giant leap. In fact, there was only one thing that I had to ask the instructor about. After a number of rough cuts I was happy with the edit.
I created the titles in flash, exported them to illustrator and then printed each frame on acetate. I was planing to use the schools animation stand but I learnt it was broken. So I had to shoot them off a light box mounted on the wall. I was not pleased with results, so I tried correcting them in the optical printer but that too wasn't satisfactory. I created the freeze frame on the optical printer (which is out of registration). I decide to cut my losses and use the crooked titles for the film, and fix them for the video and web version.
I exported the six audio tracks and brought them into my studio's computer and opened them into Pro Tools. To keep sync, I had put a beep tone at the start of each track (3 stereo tracks) with a copy of the film in quicktime format. Greg mixed the soundtrack of the entire film and composed the music, including an audio logo for the alien resident presents logo.
I sent the EDL, the final edit on Beta, the source Betas and the negative to the negative cutter Nick. He confromed it to the Beta and the EDL. I then brought the A and B rolls to the lab. They created a silent print so I could have the sound transfer people check the sync, before they made the optical soundtrack, the soundtrack came from a CD of the soundtrack that Greg and I had created. Then back to the lab to print the final answer print. I talked to the colour timer a number of times until we a got a reasonable looking print. The final print arrived on the day of it's world premiere.
