For those who don’t know the tool: Avid Media Composer sits at the centre of many film and television editorial pipelines, while FilmLight Baselight handles high-end grading and finishing.
Baselight moves towards the timeline
Avid and FilmLight have announced a strategic partnership that aims to bring a Baselight-powered colour experience directly into Media Composer. The important word here is “aims”. The announcement is a plan for the two products rather than a finished integration with a release date. Avid and FilmLight say they want colour to behave more like part of the editorial workflow and less like a separate department reached through exports, renders and conforms. For editors, the plan is to expose FilmLight colour tools more directly in the Media Composer timeline. For colourists, the goal is to preserve creative decisions as material moves between editorial and a full Baselight finishing environment.
Fewer handoffs to Media Composer, hopefully
A connected path from dailies through editorial, review, grading, finishing and delivery – at the high end, that includes a renderless roundtrip between Media Composer and Baselight. The features build on the existing Baselight Editions workflow, but aims for deeper native integration rather than simply adding another plug-in at the end of the chain. That should be especially interesting to facilities where editorial decisions and final colour currently travel through several handoffs.
Avid and FilmLight also say the approach should scale in both directions: some productions could complete more colour and delivery work inside Media Composer, while larger finishing jobs could continue into the full Baselight environment.
If you want to continue the conversation in person, FilmLight and Avid are both at IBC this weekend, in or very near Hall 7 (6.C19 is the FilmLight booth – it’s the Hallway on your right when you enter Hall 7 from the escalators. If you enter from the side exit, you are already in front of the FilmLight booth. Book a demonstration with FilmLight.
