May 26, 2012

John Lyons Plays Truth or Dare

by Kyle Rupprecht | Published January 22, 2009

Zack Gilford and Emmy Rossum star in Dare (2009).

John Lyons is not the kind of editor to remain satisfied working in solely one genre. After working as an assistant editor on such wildly diverse movies as Wag the Dog, Sphere, The Siege, Keeping the Faith and Gosford Park, he made an impressive transition to editor on Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore. The latest proof of Lyons’ editing prowess can be seen in Adam Salky’s Dare, which premieres at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The movie follows three vastly different teenagers (Emmy Rossum, Zack Gilford and Ashley Springer) as they experience their last, life-changing semester of high school.

MM spoke with Lyons about his editing process just days before Dare’s Sundance debut.

Kyle Rupprecht (MM): What kind of workflow did you use in editing Dare?

John Lyons (JL): We shot on super 16mm film. We transferred the 16mm film to HDSR tape and also to DVCAM with identical time code for match back to the HD tapes. I digitized the DVCAM footage into Avid’s Media Composer 3.0.1 with a Mojo SDI and imported out 24-bit audio and [then would] auto sync the clips. We cut the film, output quick time references and EDLs [edit decision lists]. The post house, PostWorks in New York, conformed the HD tape, which worked perfectly. I handed the audio files that came out of Media Composer to our sound mixer who used that media to mix the film in 24-bit. He didn’t have to sync a clip because everything I had done in the Media Composer worked seamlessly with his Pro Tools 7.4.2. We mixed to QuickTime, which I output from the Media Composer and laid back to tape. It was that simple.

MM: Why did you decide to go with an Avid workflow for this film?

JL: I am tempted to say I went with Avid because you “dance with the lady who brought you to the party,” and I had two films in Sundance last year that I cut on Avid. But the decision here was more complicated. The director wanted to screen the film frequently as it was being cut. We had screenings for producers, friends and family every other week. With that screening schedule and the fact we had very little time to cut the film in the original schedule, I wanted a foolproof system that would enable me to quickly make a DVD or screen directly from a computer to a projector with ease. What I was afraid of was a situation where we would need to make changes just moments before we screened the film. If this situation were to arise and we were on a Final Cut system, getting that cut into the screening room would be more of a challenge than it would be on an Avid system. With the Avid workflow and my laptop, we could simply connect a few cables and press play for the screening or easily burn a DVD.
In addition to the ease our Avid set-up provided for our screenings, I was also banking on how rock solid the Avid database system was. I had no assistant for the edit, so we had a lot to do and I didn’t want to spend any time re-linking files or recapturing media. With Avid, media management has never been a problem.

My last reason for deciding to go with an Avid system had to do with its seamless turn over to post houses and sound houses. The whole process of turning over lists, EDLs, OMFs [Open Media Frameworks] and all the little things one needs to finish a film once it is cut is more straight forward on an Avid system compared to Final Cut. I know what to expect in the whole turnover process with Avid so I am more comfortable, and maybe that played a role. Since we shot on film and knew that was also our end deliverable, an Avid seemed the right choice.