News From Inside The Industry

New Media Composers Will Work with HP xw8000 Workstations

Avid Technology today announced that a leading Hollywood trailer house The Ant Farm has purchased 40 Avid Media Composer Adrenaline systems, as well as a suite of Avid Productivity Tools for its two Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage systems. The Ant Farm will install the Media Composer Adrenaline systems in its new Los Angeles-based facility and use them to create campaigns and trailers for some of the most highly anticipated Hollywood films, including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2, and M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

"Moving to our new facility marked the next stage of growth for The Ant Farm and presented an ideal opportunity to advance our technology. We evaluated a number of editing systems and ultimately chose Media Composer Adrenaline because it's an affordable, high-performance system and has the critical ability to work with legacy ABVB media," said Mike Greenfield, co-CEO of The Ant Farm. "We already know that having our systems networked with Avid Unity allows editors to work more efficiently by accessing media from any system in the facility. Our new Productivity Tools will enable more people to participate in the creative process, extending the digital workflow to producers and creative directors, who will now be able to review projects faster and more securely via a private network rather than having to wait for tapes to be dubbed and delivered."

Scott Grayson, editor at The Ant Farm, added, "The biggest difference between Media Composer Adrenaline and our older Avid editing systems is speed. As soon as I sat down in front of it, I was able to open, save, and close more than 30 bins in seconds. In the past, we'd have to wait two or three minutes for just one of these steps. The improvements to the system's performance are going to have a huge impact on our productivity. "

The Ant Farm has begun installing its new Media Composer Adrenaline systems on HP xw8000 workstations and expects to have all systems online by mid-March. The addition of Avid Productivity Tools - particularly MediaManager Select - will facilitate media sharing among the company's editors and extend access to producers, directors, and other creative professionals.