Avid : Basics

We started learning the first three lessons in the Media Composer Editing Essentials book by Bryan Castle Jr.

Lesson One 

In this, we learnt the fundamentals of starting Avid, such as launching media composer, understanding how the interface is arranged and what it consists of, creating and saving projects, working with bins and how to generally prepare to edit. 

I found the exercises in this one relatively easy and could keep up well.

Lesson Two 

This one was about basic editing, such as building sequences, using the smart tool, splicing video clips, adding narration with overwrite and adjusting sequence audio. 

I created a rough edit and found this section slightly more difficult but it was still okay. 

Lesson Three

This lesson dealt with refining the edit  and we learnt about deleting from the timeline, moving timeline segments, changing shots in the sequence and changing the length of timeline segments. 

I found this section okay as well, apart from learning about audio levels etc which I thought was more challenging. However when re-doing the exercises to improve my knowledge I hope to focus on this section a bit more to get a better grasp. 

Quick Access Key Learning Points

Key Board/ Shortcuts

Avid Interface

                                                              (source)                                                    (record)

Identifying objects 

Marking clips / Shortcuts

Other

Here is a website that shows all Avid shortcuts for quick reference.

Review

I am going to read all lessons again at home, as well as re-do all the exercises associated with them to keep my memory fresh of how to use Avid and make sure that I understand what exactly I'm doing as using the software. Possibly looking at tutorials online would be useful as well.