Marvin's submissions tool enables VFX teams to cut hundreds of shots into Avid in only a few minutes. Watch a practical demonstration of Marvin rising to the "200-in-2" challenge (3:08):
For an in-depth review, check out the submissions workflow article.
When you receive a vendor submission, each version has to be cut into the show, which can be a VERY time-consuming process. For each version received, you have to find the specific shot in the timeline, mark the in-to-out, open the submitted version, jump to the correct frame (if there are handles), cut it in, and then check that it's right. For a handful of shots, this isn’t too bad, but once you have more than 20 submissions to cut in, the process can become a tedious and time-consuming chore—especially when the shots are spread out across a one or two hour-long sequence.
Fortunately, Marvin makes this never-ending task a piece of cake! Using a quick export of the bin and subcaps, Marvin generates a sequence of every version that's cut in exactly where it needs to go, and precisely on the expected frame. Spend your time reviewing the submissions, rather than prepping for the reviews.
Begin by clicking the submissions button from the home page to open the import menu.
- Click select clips..., navigate to your file, and click Insert
- Click select subcaps..., navigate to your file, and click Insert
- Click merge
options
| option | description |
| source versions / clips (txt) | TXT files are pure tab-delimited bin exports, which can be opened in many applications, unlike ALE files. Required bin columns: Name, Start, End, & Source File |
| record timecodes / subcaps (txt) | TXT files provide all of the standard subcap data, and they can be opened in any text editor. |
| frame offset | Position of the First Frame of Cut (FFOC) - the frame number on which each version should be cut in on, taking into account a slate plus the head handle. |
capabilities
- modify and delete submissions
- sort, search, hide, and filter submissions
- replace frame offset
- export an edl to import back into Avid
- export csv and xlsx files for spreadsheet compatibility
notes
Check! Check! Check! In most circumstances, the number of clips in the bin should equal the number of submissions created in Marvin, which should equal the number of events in the exported EDLs. Marvin anticipates a lot of different scenarios and does its best to correctly place each shot, but it is still your responsibility to do a visual check and standard A/B review against the expected plates.
Prior to importing a submission, make sure that your naming conventions settings for submissions are set so that Marvin knows where to find the shot id within the version name.
By default, the frame offset is the handle value in your user preferences plus one, but you can change it to any number in the import window. This will initially apply to every version, but you can manually adjust it on a shot-per-shot basis later.
If the full show's timing is locked, export the subcaps and keep that file easily accessible. You'll only need to re-export the subcaps whenever there are changes to the placement of shots in the timeline. Otherwise, that original file can be used with every submission import.
If the show is being edited in separate acts or reels, you can either keep separate subcap files for each, or you can use Marvin's subcap tool to combine all of them into one. Note that this only works if you set the start timecode of each act/reel to a different hour (e.g., 01:00:00:00, 02:00:00:00, etc) so that the subcaps have unique record timecodes.
You will need to manually cut in multi-part or reuse shots beyond their first appearance. Marvin cannot detect shots that are cut up and have different frame ranges in different places under the same shot id.
Unfortunately, Avid does not save all of the Import EDL or Relink settings each time. We've submitted a feature request to have this addressed, but you'll need to update the Project Type when importing an EDL and check the "Relink selected master clips" box every time until it is fixed.