Star Trek edit team returns to roots

Producer/director J.J. Abrams added a twist to the Star Trek franchise with its fully realised characters that hook audiences into an emotional storyline. In fact, Abrams went back to the future with a fresh new take on the classic sci-fi adventure without forsaking the familiar elements that Trekkies have come to expect like the transporter room, the sights and sounds of the bridge and the futuristic battle sequences.

Editor Maryann Brandon was at the Avid stand at Beijing International Radio, TV & Film Equipment Exhibition (BIRTV 2009) and spoke extensively about the work involved in putting together the latest Star Trek film, which introduces audiences to the young, formative lives of the U.S.S. Enterprise crew, including Captain Kirk, Spock, and Scotty.

Brandon and co-editor Mary Jo Markey followed Abrams’s lead in creating a film that paid homage to the original franchise while offering an inventive take on the material. In particular, the editors focused on making the characters appealing to audiences.

“At first we thought the Kirk character was too aggressive for people [to like],” explained Brandon. “We wanted to show him in a light where people would understand him and could forgive him. In the movie, people will see that he’d had some bad luck; his Dad was killed and he’d never gotten over it. By going to the academy when he was young, he could put his crazy, aggressive energy to work.”

To heighten the storyline’s dramatic impact, Brandon and Markey, both of whom have worked with Abrams before on Alias and Mission: Impossible III, frequently found themselves simplifying scenes. For example, they compressed some of the more elaborate time-travel sequences.

The two editors developed a practical method for working together, splitting the film in half so each could cut a variety of action-based and character-driven sequences. They were aided by first assistant editors Julian Smirke and Lucy Wojciechowski, and assistant editor Kerry Blackman. Visual effects editor Martin Kloner and visual effects assistant Elana Lessem handled the more than 1,000 visual effects shots in the film.

Each member of the editing team used his or her own Media Composer system, provided by Santa Monica-based rental house Digital Vortechs. All seven systems were connected to an Avid Unity MediaNetwork with 16 terabytes of shared storage, enabling them to share media and projects simultaneously.

Burbank-based Fotokem processed the 35mm dailies and delivered Avid DNxHD 36 media on hard drives to the editors for cutting in HD. Given the magnitude of the visual effects work, the green screen work was extensive, and Kloner used the Avid Media Composer system exclusively to create the temp visual effects.

Working with four different effects houses, Kloner also made use of color-coded tracks and locators to indicate which shots were temporary, interim, and final on the timeline, so the entire editing team could see the status of each effect shot at a glance.

Sound work was handled by Hollywood-based Soundelux, using as many as 15 Pro Tools|HD systems throughout the sound design and editing processes. Pro Tools|HD systems were also used to record and mix the score and for playback during the dubbing process, using five 64-channel playback systems. The easy interoperability between the Avid editing systems and the Pro Tools systems, from Digidesign, a part of Avid, enabled a fast and easy exchange of digital files throughout the post process.

The hard work and easy rapport of the editing and sound teams helped streamline the entire post workflow. “It was a phenomenal crew and everything worked like a charm,” says Brandon. “The Avid [Media Composer system] is a workhorse of a machine.”

With flexible digital editing tools, the editing team could stay focused on the creative task at hand, working with the inventive Abrams who brought his signature stamp to the franchise.