We all know that ‘picture-lock’ is a thing of the past. The Cargo Cult have been busy developing a new way of handling those pesky changes that come through at the last minute, usually without all the information you need that means you have to rebuild your project to make sure it matches every one of the changes. Matchbox has been designed to streamline this process. We have the details…

Matchbox ‘A Change Management’ System

What The Cargo Cult Say About Matchbox

“Matchbox compares 2 versions of a reel or episode and finds every cut change, VFX tweak or dialog slip. It reveals the differences, reporting on the damage, and then retimes your sound mix, compositing work, dialog scripts, closed captions, and anything else created to picture.

Matchbox inherits a lot from Conformalizer 4, our Emmy Award winning reconform tool for sound editors, but is a complete rethink of what Change Management can be. It's a completely new product, designed from the ground up using cutting edge tech and hand-rolled algorithms.”

Looking at the material from The Cargo Cut, it is clear that Justin and his team have looked at all the challenges we face in post-production when changes come through, but without detailed change notes or before-and-after EDLs and so on. Matchbox has been designed to take anything you have from just two video files, through to AAFs and change notes, scouring everything you can give it to identify all the changes that have been made.

We have already seen a lot of interest in audio post-production circles and hope to get some reports on how it is working for people very soon.

Matchbox Feature Summary

• Compare based on... almost anything - If you have any kind of handover from picture editorial, then you have enough. Matchbox can work with AAFs, EDLs, XML, change notes, as well as the actual reference video files and the guide audio. Just dump it all into Matchbox and ask it to matchup anything it can find. You can search the dialog guide audio, video tracks, audio tracks, the reference movie file, or any combination in between.

• Audible and Visible Diffing - Matchbox will hunt to find matches for all the footage in the new reel, then looks for any little differences within all those areas of matched footage. You can then step through each purple Diff object, looking and listening to each difference, so that you can identify if it is relevant to you.

• Human-friendly summaries - Matchbox has been designed to automate the reconform process, but for the people in the team, you first need to know what the damage is, in plain terms, and in a format, you can understand at a glance. Matchbox will summarise the changes, even bundling up the relevant information into an email you can share with the whole post team.

• Powerful Marker system - Every time you compare two reels, Matchbox will create a set of automatically generated markers, which describe the cut changes in plain terms. If you find other changes such as new VFX elements, you can drop extra markers of your own, to remind yourself or let others in the crew know where to look. You can even send these markers to Pro Tools, Media Composer or include them in the Summary Email which matchbox generates for you.

• Tailor reconforms to each dept - Dialog and Music editors no longer need to follow picture changes, and then disregarding dozens of unnecessary changes afterwards. Matchbox lets you base its comparisons on Audio or Video, and even allows you to isolate certain audio tracks from the AAF to use. The compositor might use just the reference video file, or the VFX editor might isolate just the upper Video tracks from the AAF. You can even get your hands dirty and manually edit the matches list - simplifying or healing over changes that you just don't care about.

• Ditch reliance on pix dept. change notes - A carefully handcrafted, accurate change note for every cut update is what you deserve - but we know the likelihood of getting that are… and you're definitely not going to get a note for r3v10 to r3v16 at 2 am on Sunday morning. With an AAF accompanying every picture handover you'll always be able to find the changes between any two versions, without making a call to the picture dept. You'll get it when you need it and you'll know it's right for your dept.

Matchbox Supporting Material

The Cargo Cult have also made sure that there is a wide range of supporting material.

• Letter to the Editor - This is an explanation for your picture dept. Send this through to them before you even receive the first picture handover - and if there's any doubt at all, get in touch with The Cargo Cult and they will help sort it all out.

• Test Project Materials - They have even provided a set of test materials available if you'd like to have a play around with Matchbox, but don't have a real project to use. The test project includes a few versions of a short film demonstrating all the usual reconform situations, from basic trims to VFX updates and re-inserted scenes. You can download the material from their dropbox folder.

• Tutorial Videos - There are a collection of tutorial videos covering subjects like Quickstart - The basics, File Management, Matching Tricks, Diffing, Editing Matches, VFX Tracking, Markers for Fun and Profit, Reconform in Pro Tools, Reconforming Lists, Making Shot-Tracks, List Views in Detail and Shortcuts

Matchbox Pricing

• Normal pricing is $639 or $399 for a crossgrade from Conformalizer 4.

• There are introductory sales prices of $479 and $299 respectively, until August 24th 2020.

• If you are not sure then there is a 15-day trial available. 

• Once you have Matchbox you will also be able to run the final build of Conformalizer.