The art of motion picture editing is an ever–evolving craft, from the old Moviolas of Hollywood's storied past to today's cutting–edge software applications that carry editing into an entirely digital realm. In the vanguard of these innovations, you will find three–time Academy Award® winner Walter Murch. He needs no introduction to either cineastes or techies. His work on such recent films as Cold Mountain, the first full–length feature to use the Final Cut Pro editing suite — and Jarhead, keeps him in the forefront of both creative accomplishment and technological innovation. Walter and his associate editor Sean Cullen depend on the latest tools to do their job, including FileMaker Pro, the award–winning database software solution from FileMaker, Inc.
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Film editing requires careful documentation of footage as it moves along the editing process. Every frame that passes through the cameras is tracked and organized using databases. It's a system that's come a long way since Walter's early days in the film business in the late 1960's, when boxes of hole–punched paper index cards documented each day's work. "What you're presented with in film is simply a mountain of stuff that comes at you very, very fast," he explains. "And as time goes on, it comes faster and faster, because it's getting easier and easier to shoot film — in fact, we're not even talking about film anymore, with the transition already underway to shooting in digital media."
