The Rough Cut

"The Avid" Turns Thirty

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Episode notes

In December 1989, the Avid 1 / Media Composer was released to the public for the first time; launching a revolution in film and video editing.  For this week's Rough Cut podcast we talk with Avid's founder, Bill Warner to discuss what prompted him to create the Media Composer as well as the challenges he faced along the way.  Bill talks about...

  • How a corporate Christmas video made him give up linear editing forever
  • A fortuitous encounter with Apple that opened his eyes to the power of the Mac platform
  • The importance of capturing commercial editorial
  • The open arms (and minds )of Hollywood
  • What "Avid" actually stands for and the origins of the "Pyramid" logo

See the original 1987 Avid prototype on the defunct Apollo workstation.

Check out how the Avid 1 / Media Composer looked when it was introduced in 1989.

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