“Blue Car,” a feature film directed by Karen Moncrieff and accepted at the Sundance Film Festival this year, was completely edited with Apple’s Final Cut Pro editing software.
Post Supervisor David Waters, contracted DigitalFilm Tree to integrate and support the Final Cut Pro system for editing 35mm motion picture film and uncompressed video. Waters’ system is a robust editing suite that enabled him to output a video master for initial Sundance submission and a negative cut list for 35mm Film using Aurora Igniter Studio capture card and Film Logic, Tim Serda of DigitalFilm Tree, told MacCentral.
DigitalFilm Tree offers instruction, consulting, products and services. Among those services are Final Cut Pro instruction, which can be held on or off site.
DigitalFilm Tree is also currently working with Academy Award winner Roger Avary, who is Directing “Rules of Attraction” for Lions Gate Films. It’s the first studio backed feature film to be edited entirely with Final Cut Pro, Serda said. Avary is co-writer of “Pulp Fiction” and writer-director of such films as “Killing Zoe.” “Rules of Attraction” is based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis and stars, among others, James Van Der Beek. Look for the film this April.
“The coolest part is the entire feature film editorial is located in Avary’s home,” he added. “He converted his meditation room to be the editorial room with a Zen feel to it.”
A Final Cut Pro editing suite with Final Cut Pro 2.0.2 and FilmLogic was installed in Avary’s house with the help of Dan Fort of DigitalFilm Tree for Avary and Sharon Rutter, a veteran editor who had previously used Pro (“the first one off the shelf”), to edit her own documentary.
Lion’s Gate initially resisted Avary’s proposal to cut his postproduction costs by cutting his film in Final Cut Pro, according to an Apple Hot News article. The story also talks about the preproduction, production and postproduction process of the film.
Avary’s keeps a daily journal on his filmmaking activities and other movie-related news. You can read it online.