Features

In the summer of 1982, Disney and director Steven Lisberger introduced TRON, a landmark special effects film that took us into a dangerous, groundbreaking computer world. Computer graphics were in their infancy, and nearly every frame also featured hand-drawn and rotoscoped ani- mated effects. The film was ahead of its time, and some audiences didn’t know what to make of it.

With the inauguration of television after World War II, motion picture attendance suffered a precipitous decline. From 1946 to 1952, attendance at movie theatres had dropped by almost half, from 83 million to 46 million per week.

From Back to the Future to Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis, and his longtime editor Arthur Schmidt, A.C.E., crafted some of the most iconic films of the 1980s, ’90s and beyond. A two-time Oscar winner, as well as the recipient of numerous other industry awards and honors for his editing work, Schmidt — who retired in 2008 — is well loved and respected in the industry.

Tom Rolf was a real professional, a man who knew his craft inside and out. He was all business in the cutting room. I remember that he would come in at 9:00 a.m., sit down, get right to work, and leave at 6:00 p.m.

If you think that unwrapping the mysteries of transcoding file-based camera footage provides its challenges, you will find the post-production workflow on Avatar either very scary, or a completely visionary model of things to come.