Or should that be "How To Use Technology To Help Preserve Your Marriage"?

What happens when a show you're working on and have already premixed, undergoes a massive recut on the Friday night, with lots of new dialogue takes, and needs to be ready by Sunday night? What if the editor can't supply you with an Avid Change List? 

For me, Cargo Cult's Conformalizer, came to the rescue. I think it is a wonderful piece of software that can compare two EDL (edit decision list) files from the old and new edits of the show, and then controls Pro Tools to "reconform" (see the video at the end for an introduction to reconforming using Conformalizer) your Pro Tools session to the new edit. Cargo Cult even provide an excellent Letter to the Editor which you can forward to the edit suite to ensure they supply you with exactly what you need.

Technology

What then happens if that recut comes in at the end of a very long week, where you've hardly seen your nearest and dearest, and you're kind of obliged to spend Friday night not working?  You need Technology.

I recently had the pleasure of trying out Cargo Cult's brilliant Conformalizer software on the new season of "Plebs".

As regular readers will know, my main system is on Windows, and Conformalizer is only available for Macs. As luck would have it, I also have a MacBook Pro with Pro Tools 12.4HD installed on it.

Friday Night Funnies

As so often happens in Post Production, the recut came in just as I was having some dinner and putting my feet up to watch the Friday night funnies on TV with my wife. 

So, I "dialled in" to my studio over a VPN (virtual private network), and also remote desktop controlled my Windows Pro Tools system. I saved my work in progress on the episode that had been recut as a new session, then copied the .ptx session file to my server which was connected to my MBP over VPN.

Meanwhile I downloaded the new and old EDL files from the editor and also his new AAF and H264 to my MBP, which synchronised to my server over the VPN.

I then opened the Pro Tools session on my laptop whilst stretched out on the sofa with my wife and the cat, and set Conformalizer to work. Once it had finished I imported the new AAF and H264 into the reconformed session, saved and exited Pro Tools, then left the laptop on to synchronise, just in time to watch Jimmy Carr do his thing.

And back to work.....

The following morning (unfortunately I still had to work the weekend), I went to my studio, opened the new session off the server, pointed Pro Tools at the new media on the server, and then saved a session copy to ensure that all the needed media was on my fast SSDs.

I was then left having to patch 45 changes and several new takes of dialogue, but doing the reconform on the Friday night saved me having to go back over to the studio that night, or get in even earlier on a Saturday morning. It also helped me spend less time away from home at the weekend.

Big Thanks to Cargo Cult again for the life saving Conformalizer!

Equipment Used 

• Asus X99-A with Intel i7 5820
• 16GB DDR4 RAM
• Nvidia GTX660Ti GPU
• Samsung 850EVO System and Media Drives
• Thunderbolt 2
• RME Fireface 802
• Windows 10 Pro 64bit
• Pro Tools 12.4HD. Eucon 3.3.2.
• MacBook Pro 8.1
• 16GB RAM
• AMD Radeon 6450 GPU
• Samsung 850EVO System and Media Drives
• Synology, Netgear & Qnap NAS Servers and VPN Servers
• Memeo Sync and Acronis True Image