Conformalizer Group Buy

If you work in film sound post production then you will well know the myth that is locked picture. I remember when my friends were working on LOTR and back then they were still being delivered the cut on video tape – there were times when the assistant would just get a new cut digitised and be about to distribute QTs to all the editors when a new version would be delivered!! It would be fascinating to know how many cuts/conforms are involved in large scale projects like that, especially with the endless VFX updates.

I’m old enough to remember the time BEFORE programs like Conformalizer, when the only way to conform a cut was either manually plugging in numbers or grouping all your tracks and then cutting the old guidetrack into sync with the new one, matching sync via waveforms… Now thats not a process I feel nostalgic about…. But Justin who develops Conformalizer worked through all of the LOTR projects – check his IMDB here – and his background is the best testament to how well Conformalizer works: it kept those very complex projects in sync, through some of the most demanding schedules I’ve ever heard of.

Apart from the resultant task of conforming your ProTools sessions to new picture cut, Conformalizer has a lot of smarts about how it knows what picture changes to implement. This is especially important with VFX heavy films, where individual shots are constantly being updated, but sync may or may not be effected. Establishing naming conventions for VFX updates is critical and Conformalizer handles it seamlessly.

Of course the one thing no conforming program can do is patch the cuts in your session, and more than once I’ve had to remind producers that while we can conform to new cuts very quickly, patching the conformed material so that it works for the new cut can take days. This is especially true of material where sync is not directly related to picture eg ambience elements.

Anyway enough of me admitting my total dependence on Conformalizer, and the double edged locked/latched cut (as long as it makes for a better film then there should be no reason to complain, as long as the schedule & budget allow for the time involved) – Justin is currently offering a group buy discount, so if you haven’t checked it out (you can download a fully working demo version to trial) then now is a good time to do so;

13/11/2010 Conformalizer group-buy announced
A group of 5 or more will fetch a 10% discount and a group of 20 or more will command a juicy 30%
All groupbuy participants will also receive a free copy of sibliminator
Offer closes on 1 December 2010 (00:01am NZ Time GMT+13)
email groupbuy(at)maggot(dot)co(dot)nz too add your name to the list

Conformalizer is a well established conforming app that has proven its worth of many very complex feature films, but for those who are not aware of Sibliminator it is basically a very handy app which leverages the built in ProTools field recorder functionality of being able to swap out alternate takes via metadata. Heres a simple example of its use: say you create 30 different woosh sounds, you drag & drop them on Sibliminiator, assign a family name and save. Now when you use one of these files (eg Woosh 01) in a ProTools session, if you simply cmd-click (or right click) on the region on a track a list of alternate takes will be displayed. If you choose eg Woosh 05, it will be substitued in place of the original region with all fades, volume graph etc kept intact. Also VERY handy when providing temp FX to picture editorial eg a surround ambience downmixed to stereo for temp fx, sibliminiate them all & when you get the OMF you can substitute back the surround ambience in place of the temp stereo version.