Age of Invisible Machines

CHAPTER 18Where Do We Go from Here?

I worked as a sound editor for Warner Bros. in the 1990s, during the seismic shift that carried the film industry from analog to digital. As celluloid became a thing of the past, I realized that some of the most talented and experienced people I worked alongside on films—like Prince of Tides, Deep Impact, Thin Red Line, and Galaxy Quest—were at risk of losing their jobs to those with the chief qualification of knowing how to use technology better. This posed a serious problem.

While I was fortunate in that I understood how to use computers, I also recognized that, while digital technology certainly made it easier to edit films, it didn't make it any easier to edit films well. The best sound and video editors I knew had spent their entire professional lives learning the distinct rhythms of filmic storytelling. Their hands-on experience cutting ribbons made them the ideal people to develop digital editing techniques. To pass the craft of editing over to those who were simply better at using computers would have meant losing generations of experience and nuance. I made it my mission to ensure that didn't happen. What I came to realize is that analog editors were most comfortable using an interface that mimicked the tactile tools they'd been using their whole lives. There was a decision-making pattern inherent to those tools that was beneficial to anyone using digital tools—whether they were veterans or new to the process.

This work forged a ...