Avid Digital Workflow Enables Big Primate Pictures and Weta Digital to Unleash King Kong

Postproduction and digital effects teams harness the power of 11 Media Composer Adrenaline systems to collaborate in real-time over 20 terabyte Avid Unity network

Tewksbury, MA – December 16, 2005 – Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID), today announced that editing teams from Big Primate Pictures, the production company behind King Kong , and Weta Digital, the movie’s digital effects house, employed an end-to-end Avid® postproduction workflow to bring to life Peter Jackson’s vision of the 1933 movie classic. The all-digital production environment – which included 11 Media Composer® Adrenaline™ systems, three Avid Unity™ shared-storage solutions, an Avid Xpress® Pro system, a Digidesign® Pro Tools® HD system, and the use of Avid DNxHD™ for HD screenings – facilitated a collaborative workflow for the film’s postproduction teams.

“We used nine Avid Media Composer Adrenaline editing systems linked to more than 20 terabytes of Avid Unity shared storage, which were key players in King Kong ’s postproduction, editorial and visual effects pipeline, in the race to bring this classic remake to our screens,” said Jamie Selkirk, the Academy Award™ winning editor for Lord of the Rings : Return of the King and supervising editor for Big Primate Pictures. “This workflow handled the massive amounts of data we created and helped us deliver the grand scale film that Peter Jackson envisioned. Using the Avid DNxHD format also enabled us to set up a conform process that negated the traditional film conform and allowed us to seamlessly create HD projection reels with minimum delay and maximum quality for review screenings.”

“ King Kong was a true test for our Media Composer Adrenaline system – and the most ambitious feature film project that these systems have supported to date,” said Chas Smith, vice president and general manager of Avid Video. “With approximately 653 hours of film and 2,200 effects, Big Primate and Weta Digital placed some heavy demands on both the Media Composer Adrenaline and Avid Unity systems, relying on them to manage a tremendous amount of media and meet extraordinary deadlines. The success of this Avid workflow for King Kong underscores the strength of Media Composer Adrenaline in particular, as well as our other industry-leading technologies for feature film postproduction.”

While overseeing all postproduction on the film, Selkirk worked with director Peter Jackson and editor Jabez Olssen and managed the Big Primate post team, which used nine Media Composer Adrenaline systems to make editorial cuts, review sequences, and view dailies. A second team at Weta Digital completed visual effects on two additional Media Composer Adrenaline systems connected to an Avid Unity LANShare system. Both teams were linked via two Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage systems, allowing them to continuously exchange sequences as they were updated with new cuts and effects. By the time the film was completed, the postproduction teams had stored, managed, and shared media assets for approximately 96,000 visual effects and live action shots – without ever deleting any files they had created during the process. The film’s sound team used Digidesign’s Pro Tools to assemble dialogue, sound effects, and music sequences, importing more than 400 hours of audio files.

For more information about Media Composer Adrenaline as well as Avid’s other products and services, visit www.avid.com .
About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid Technology, Inc. is the world leader in digital nonlinear media creation, management, and distribution solutions, enabling film, video, audio, animation, games, and broadcast professionals to work more efficiently, productively, and creatively. For more information about the company’s Oscar®, Grammy®, and Emmy® award-winning products and services, please visit: www.avid.com.

© 2005 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements, and availability are subject to change without notice. Avid, Adrenaline, Avid Unity, Avid Xpress, Digidesign, Film Composer, Pro Tools, Media Composer and Avid DNxHD are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design, and engineering of the Avid Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. Digidesign, Avid’s audio division, received an Oscar statuette representing the 2003 Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of its Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Oscar and Academy Award are trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Emmy is a registered trademark of ATAS/NATAS. Grammy is a trademark of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Amy Paladino

Avid Broadcast

Avid Technology, Inc.

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