時尚雙語:用電腦完成電影剪輯
Editing On Films Is Now Being Done On Computers
Like any modern professional, Naomi Geraghty took her laptop with her when she went on a business trip in January. The machine got a lot of use -- but not just for email.
1月份出差時，娜奧米•傑拉蒂(Naomi Geraghty)帶上了她的筆記本電腦──跟時下所有專業人員一樣。她的電腦有很多用途，不僅僅是收發電子郵件。
Ms. Geraghty is a film editor and was spending 10 days at the Irish coastal home of Terry George, director of 'Reservation Road,' starring Joaquin Phoenix, which opened across the U.S. last week. Mr. George couldn't travel for the editing, so Ms. Geraghty loaded a copy of Avid editing software on her Apple PowerBook and went to him.
傑拉蒂是一名電影剪輯師，這次出差的目的地是《救贖之路》(Reservation Road)一片的導演特里•喬治(Terry George)在愛爾蘭的海濱別墅，時間爲10天。由於喬治沒辦法遠行，傑拉蒂只好帶着已經安裝了Avid編輯軟件的蘋果PowerBook來找他。這部影片最近在全美上映，華金•費尼克斯(Joaquin Phoenix)在裏面扮演角色。
Most people have a mental image of film editors hunched in the dark over editing consoles with lengths of film pinned to the wall behind them. These days, they sit at computers, moving scenes around as easily as paragraphs in a word processor.
提到電影剪輯師，大多數人對他們的印象是：貓在某個昏暗角落的操作檯旁，長長的膠片釘在身後的牆上。如今的剪輯師卻是坐在電腦桌前，他們在屏幕上移動畫面就像用文字處理軟件挪動段落那麼輕鬆。
Video files are so demanding, editing computers used to cost tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of dollars. But as Ms. Geraghty's tale suggests, even relatively low-end personal computers, laptops included, are now so powerful that Hollywood pros have joined student filmmakers and indies in taking advantage of them.
由於視頻文件對電腦配置的要求很高，用來剪輯的電腦過去動輒幾萬甚至幾十萬美元一臺。而現在，即使相對低端的個人電腦，包括筆記本，都已經非常強大。於是，好萊塢的電影專業人士紛紛加入學生製片人和獨立製片人的行列，用起個人電腦──傑拉蒂就是一個典型例子。
It's one more example -- along with music recording and graphic design -- of the way cheap computers are blurring the distinction between professional and amateur tools. Not that just having software makes you good at something, as a quick trip around the Web makes clear.
這個趨勢再次說明廉價電腦正在淡化專業工具和業餘工具之間的界限，這一點在音樂錄製和圖形設計領域已經得到體現。但只要在網路上轉一轉就會發現，僅僅有了軟件還不足以成爲高手。
Ms. Geraghty says that while she enjoys the comfort of her regular editing studio, a notebook is not without its charms. 'I could look out over a fishing harbor,' she says. 'It was the best view I've ever had from a cutting room.'
傑拉蒂說，雖然在常規剪輯工作室裏感覺很舒適，但使用筆記本工作也別有一番情趣。“從窗戶望出去，漁港美景近在眼前，這是過去我在剪輯室內從未享受過的，”她說。
Like 'Reservation Road,' the typical Hollywood feature film these days is an analog-digital hybrid. Reels of film might be developed at a lab such as Technicolor, but then $1.5 million scanners digitize them and put them on a $100 generic USB hard drive. From there, it's on to the editors.
如今，一般的好萊塢故事片都是以模擬－數字混合方式製作的，《救贖之路》就是其中之一。一卷卷膠片在Technicolor這樣的工作室沖洗出來之後，掃描儀（售價高達150萬美元）會對其進行數字化，保存在100美元的普通USB硬碟上，然後才進入剪輯環節。
Editing on computers is so much easier than editing physical film that it's how nearly all movies are now cut. USC's film school once had 50 editing consoles; now it has only two. Indeed, editing may have become too easy. 'You can easily recut your movie 10 times a day,' says Matt Furie, who teaches editing at USC. 'Some students go off the deep end and cut, cut, cut. We tell them they need to discipline themselves to push away from the desk, drop the mouse and just think.'
剪輯數字影片比剪輯膠片要簡單得多，如今差不多所有電影都是用電腦剪輯的。USC電影學校原來有50臺剪輯工作臺，現在已經縮減爲兩臺了。的確，剪輯可能變得太容易了。“你一天甚至能剪輯10次，”在USC教授剪輯的馬特•富里(Matt Furie)說。“有些學生大刀闊斧地剪、剪、剪，我們總是提醒他們要控制自己，暫時離開桌子，放下鼠標，什麼都不做，靜靜地思考。”
Like others, Mr. Furie suggests that one of the reasons there are so many rapid-fire cuts in today's movies is that editing software has made them so simple to do.
正如很多專業人士指出的那樣，富里表示，目前出現大量剪輯粗糙的影片的原因正是在於編輯軟件使得剪輯工作變得異常輕鬆。
Editors are lucky in that theirs is one of the few industries with intense software competition. Anyone paying attention to computers the past 20 years will understand its dynamics.
剪輯人員是幸運的，因爲電影業是爲少數幾個軟件競爭激烈的行業之一。關注過去20年電腦發展的人對軟件的蓬勃生機應該深有體會。
Avid, of Tewksbury, Mass., is the long-established leader. Your average Academy Award winner typically is cut on an Avid. The company was one of the first in the field, and designed its software to work the way editors were used to working. For example, Avid's programs, like most software, use folders. But they're called 'bins,' after the canvas bags into which editors used to toss small lengths of film.
馬薩諸塞州企業Tewksbury開發的Avid是在業內具有重要地位的一款軟件，奧斯卡獎獲影片基本上都是用Avid剪輯的。該公司是電影剪輯軟件領域數一數二的企業，善於按照剪輯人員習慣的工作方式來設計軟件。比如，Avid的程序跟大部分軟件一樣都使用文件夾，不過它們不叫“文件夾”，而叫“文件箱”，圖標是帆布袋──過去的剪輯人員就是把短小的膠片扔進帆布袋裏。
Avid software does just about anything you could ask -- for a price. The company's flagship Media Composer package runs $5,000. Philip Hodgetts, who follows the industry for Creative Planet, says Avid has an epic fight on its hands from newer, lower-cost alternatives. Apple sells Final Cut Studio for $1,300, while Adobe's Premiere Pro is just $800.
Avid基本上能滿足你的任何要求，在價錢上自然也毫不含糊。該公司的旗艦產品Media Composer套裝軟件售價5,000美元。爲Creative Planet跟蹤該行業的菲利普•霍傑茨(Philip Hodgetts)指出，Avid一直在頑強抵抗那些新推出的低成本同類產品的巨大壓力。蘋果公司(Apple)的Final Cut Studio售價1,300美元，而奧多比系統公司(Adobe)的Premiere Pro只賣800美元。
While film still is central in big Hollywood features, it's unclear how long it will be before even the biggest feature movies go all-digital. The buzz in technical movie-making circles these days involves the two-month-old, ultra-high-resolution digital Red camera. Boosters say it looks nearly as good as 35mm film -- and costs around $30,000, or about the same as renting a 35mm camera for 10 days.
目前膠片電影在好萊塢大片中仍然佔核心地位，但不清楚有朝一日連最大型的故事片是否也會變成全數字的。最近電影製作技術領域一個引人關注的事件是剛上市只有兩個月的超高分辨率數字攝像機Red camera。擁躉們表示，Red camera幾乎跟35毫米攝像機一樣出色，售價在3萬美元左右，相當於租用35毫米攝像機10天的費用。
Thanks to cheap computers, a similar sort of creative destruction is happening everywhere in the industry. Color adjustment used to require expensive oscilloscope-like monitors. It first moved to specialized -- and expensive -- software, but lately it's done with relatively low-cost (say, $200) 'plug-ins' by companies like Red Giant Software.
得益於廉價電腦的進步，類似這樣的“創造性破壞”正在電影行業的各個角落裏發生。色彩校正原先要求使用昂貴的類似示波鏡的顯示器，後來轉向價格不菲的專業軟件，但到了不久前，在電腦上使用Red Giant Software等公司設計的相對低成本的插件（比如200美元）就能夠完成了。
Angus Wall, editor of 'Zodiac,' a film released earlier this year, says the real impact of all of this digitization is to bring simplicity and artistic control back to the process. He says postproduction work on the typical Hollywood movie is a vast assembly line of runners, technicians, assistants and others. With Murphy's Law in force at every step, it isn't always easy for filmmakers to get the results they want.
今年初上映的《十二宮》(Zodiac)的剪輯師安格斯•沃爾(Angus Wall)認爲，數字化的真正影響在於使整個過程重新變得簡單，藝術處理也更加靈活自如。他指出，一部常規好萊塢電影的後期製作是一個龐大的合成流程，涉及操作員、技師、助理等衆多人員。由於每一個步驟都受到“墨菲法則”的約束，電影製作者要達到他們想要的結果並不容易。
The 'Zodiac' crew, by contrast, sought to rethink and streamline the process. Right on the set, the digitized film went into a computer; after that, just a handful of people were involved. While the skills were different, coordinating the work of these editors and others wasn't much more difficult than what happens in an average office with a typical PowerPoint presentation. 'It's revolutionary and empowering, because you don't have to worry anymore about some nameless person somewhere not doing their job right,' Mr. Wall says. 'You start to see the joy come back into the movie-making process.'
《十二宮》劇組試圖重新思考和簡化流程，一開始就把數字化影片導入電腦，往後只需要少數幾個人參與就行了。如果跟辦公室裏常見的PPT演示做個比較，雖然技術不相同，從剪輯等工作人員的協調上看，電影剪輯並不比PPT演示要複雜多少。“這種方法真是非常強大，史無前例，你再也不用擔心有人在某個環節沒有做好他的工作，”沃爾說。“現在你會發現影片製作的樂趣又回來了。”
