This review appeared in Avid User Issue 28, Spring 2003

www.avidusergroup.co.uk/

E-BOOK REVIEW, by Nick Hopkins

The Avid Assistant, by Nathan Cubitt

I came into the industry fresh faced from a film making based Graphic Design degree at the London Institute and have been involved with professional editing for the last two years. The types of projects I am mainly involved with are corporate, event presentation and some television series. I am still very much a rookie by industry standards and so am always on the lookout for that little bit of help that makes my job easier and increases my knowledge base, two things that go hand in hand. I have seen and browsed numerous books either specific to editing or film making in general. Very few have proved a match for what I, and friends in similar areas, require.

The Avid Assistants handbook was, at first glance, something I could have made more use of a couple of years back when I first encountered Avid editing systems face to face. It wasn’t until I looked at it in greater depth that I saw how it was still very much relevant to me today. Even starting at the beginning it was good to recap on the basics again as it helped clarify a lot of things I hadn’t really thought about in a while, from settings and edit preparation to approaching technical nightmares. It’s refreshing to come across something that prompts you to re-assess your working habits in a positive way, especially at a stage in your skill development where you can easily make adjustments.

Other reference books on Avid editing take a much more concise and dry technical approach and whilst this can definitely have its benefits for speed of reference, it doesn’t promote deeper reading around the subject you are interested in. The author of this handbook takes a much more amicable and literary angle that drew me into reading pages and even whole chapters at a time, which in turn led to me discovering gems and nuggets of information I wouldn’t normally have uncovered.

Most of my early editing help books have since been superseded as edit suite essentials mainly because I need something with that little bit more depth to help me out. The Avid Assistants handbook would almost certainly have remained with me. For a book that covers such a vast technical field, and also manages to include such peripheral information as how to handle or approach people, the handbook is fantastic. It may sound like a cliché but I really do wish I could have had access to this kind of information and wealth of experience in those daunting early days of being an assistant. Even editors with years of experience have been pleasantly surprised by the book’s thoroughness when shown a few extracts.

I have tried to think of any shortcomings that I came across but the few times I couldn’t find the answers to my questions in the Handbook they were far beyond what you could truly expect to cover in one book. It is because of this depth and approachability that I would thoroughly recommend the Avid Assistants Handbook to anyone to whom its title applies; you won’t be disappointed.

Nick Hopkins is an Assistant Editor at Sound and Vision Communications Ltd.

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