At Renegade Animation studio, Avid’s Media Composer NLE and NEXIS production storage are a robust, reliable editing system for episodic animation, supporting media management and interactive collaboration.
Renegade Animation are well-known for their comical, very original animated content for film, TV, advertising, streaming platforms and other media. Renegade’s work includes cartoon series such as Tom & Jerry and The Mr Men Show for Warner Bros. and its Cartoon Network channel.
Producers of cross platform digital 2D/3D animation, the studio’s artists combine their personality-based character animation with a distinctive use of design, and consistently achieve a traditional look with non-traditional tools within a fast production turnaround.
Over time, as the animation projects that Renegade’s team manages have grown more complex, the company has faced the familiar challenge of having to meet tighter deadlines while maintaining production quality. Its studio needed robust, reliable editing software capable of handling the demands of episodic animation, from managing huge amounts of media, to making collaboration between team members as smooth and interactive as possible. It was also important to consider the studio’s ongoing transition from traditional to digital animation workflows, requiring tools that could adapt and evolve with changing requirements.
Senior Editor Michael D'Ambrosio has been working at Renegade since 2005, giving him nearly two decades of experience. His experience with Avid started in the early 1990s, when he first started developing his editing skills on Media Suite Pro, a simplified package of Avid’s editing tools, before transitioning to the full Media Composer NLE.
Post at Renegade Animation
He said that, over the years, Media Composer has become the central tool in Renegade's post-production process. The ability to work in a shared environment, initially with Avid Unity and later with Avid NEXIS, has also made a significant difference to their workflow.
After experimenting with other software without much success, Michael returned to Media Composer. He particularly favoured its user interface. He said, "I've been using the new UI for a while now. The bin structure, being able to customise bin sizes and dock them together – it's a brilliant upgrade. I would encourage anybody still using the old floating layout to really give it a try. It is much more efficient."
With new bin containers and mapping, thw team can organize and group content in various ways to suit their working style. To help find footage, the PhraseFind and ScriptSync tools are used to quickly, precisely search for clips and takes, based on the dialogue they contain.
"Re-use is critical in episodic animation," he said. "You have to be able to harvest elements from other shows to complete the storytelling and make sure it holds together. Media Composer makes that possible." Media Composer keeps track of projects and their source material, rendered files, metadata and other media. Project media will always remain linked, even as projects move and evolve over the years.
Media Production Storage
Wanting to adopt a networked set-up early on, Michael also supported moving to Avid's media production storage, Avid NEXIS. This transition not only improved efficiency but also meant the studio could handle higher resolutions and more complex projects, such as their work on Tom & Jerry and Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi. NEXIS is built for fast throughput and scalability for dailies, 4K, 8K, HDR and finishing. Media is delivered to editing timelines in real time and, by adding more storage Media Packs, bandwidth will scale linearly.
Teams of users can work on media simultaneously without accidentally overwriting work or having to duplicate files – the size of the team depends on the storage engine used.
When the demands of a project change, workspaces can be adapted to meet the new requirements by changing storage capacity, performance and drive protection on the fly. The NEXIS | VFS (virtual file system) is able to optimise the environment for efficiency – that is, giving more critical projects and teams the most bandwidth and protection, while limiting less important workflows.
Senior Editor Michael D'Ambrosio, Renegade Animation
Media Composer Modules
For Michael, the tools within Media Composer he particularly values for episodic animation are in the effects module, which includes AVX plugins and tools to create layered composites, 3D and motion effects, transitions, graphics and animation. To help the user, the interface makes editing more organised and fluid. Its task-oriented workspaces—Edit, Colour, Audio and Effects— expose only the tools that are necessary for each type of work. The panels can also be resized, rearranged and hidden.
Another important feature for Michael is the Symphony module, especially for colour correction. He said, "Sometimes we're given shots where the background is too similar to the foreground, making the character disappear. Symphony allows me to pull those apart and make the character appear more vibrant. It's critical and saves us a lot of time and money." Formerly a separate Avid application for grading and finishing, Symphony is now available as an option for Media Composer, adding animatable, shape-based colour correction and mastering tools with support for 4:4:4 HD-RGB processing.
Symphony’s standardized ACES colour space and 32-bit floating point colour pipeline maintains consistent colour accuracy throughout high-res and HDR projects, and across colour and VFX work. It also allows users to take offline media to online, and directly export high-resolution masters, with real-time format and frame-rate conversion on output and playback. The Symphony Option includes IMF packaging to help meet deliverables specifications.
Maintaining Standards
The integration between Avid Media Composer and Avid's digital audio workstation Pro Tools has been a further advantage, encouraging tighter collaboration between the editing and sound departments. Recent developments, such as the ability to create Pro Tools sessions directly from Media Composer, have made their post-production process simpler, less error-prone and less time-consuming.
For Michael, Avid's stability and reliability are highly competitive. He highlights the importance of Avid's media management, particularly its ability to relink media very easily, which sets it apart from other applications.
As technology evolves, Michael is also exploring the potential of AI in his workflow, attracted to its efficiency and potential to enhance productivity. He notes, "I'm seeing that AI is going to give the individual the ability to be more productive, similar to other technological advances." He appreciates Avid's approach to AI, emphasizing that it's about support, not replacement. "We're not trying to eliminate the human here. We're trying to support the end user. That's a critical difference between generative AI and AI as a productivity tool."
For aspiring editors, Michael's advice is clear – master the fundamentals and don't shy away from learning Avid Media Composer. "Learn timing, learn storytelling and bring your own aesthetic to the table," he said. "But also, don't get stuck in a tool that requires extra work from you. Media Composer is a standard post production tool for big studios and major projects. Learning it will be advantageous to your career." www.avid.com
