Editors are lucky in that theirs is one of the few industries with intense software competition. Anyone paying attention to computers the past 20 years will understand its dynamics.

剪輯人員是幸運的，因為電影業是為少數幾個軟件競爭激烈的行業之一。關注過去20年電腦發展的人對軟件的蓬勃生機應該深有體會。

Avid, of Tewksbury, Mass., is the long-established leader. Your average Academy Award winner typically is cut on an Avid. The company was one of the first in the field, and designed its software to work the way editors were used to working. For example, Avid's programs, like most software, use folders. But they're called 'bins,' after the canvas bags into which editors used to toss small lengths of film.

馬薩諸塞州企業Tewksbury開發的Avid是在業內具有重要地位的一款軟件，奧斯卡獎獲影片基本上都是用Avid剪輯的。該公司是電影剪輯軟件領域數一數二的企業，善于按照剪輯人員習慣的工作方式來設計軟件。比如，Avid的程序跟大部分軟件一樣都使用文件夾，不過它們不叫“文件夾”，而叫“文件箱”，圖標是帆布袋──過去的剪輯人員就是把短小的膠片扔進帆布袋里。

Avid software does just about anything you could ask -- for a price. The company's flagship Media Composer package runs $5,000. Philip Hodgetts, who follows the industry for Creative Planet, says Avid has an epic fight on its hands from newer, lower-cost alternatives. Apple sells Final Cut Studio for $1,300, while Adobe's Premiere Pro is just $800.

Avid基本上能滿足你的任何要求，在價錢上自然也毫不含糊。該公司的旗艦產品Media Composer套裝軟件售價5,000美元。為Creative Planet跟蹤該行業的菲利普•霍杰茨(Philip Hodgetts)指出，Avid一直在頑強抵抗那些新推出的低成本同類產品的巨大壓力。蘋果公司(Apple)的Final Cut Studio售價1,300美元，而奧多比系統公司(Adobe)的Premiere Pro只賣800美元。

While film still is central in big Hollywood features, it's unclear how long it will be before even the biggest feature movies go all-digital. The buzz in technical movie-making circles these days involves the two-month-old, ultra-high-resolution digital Red camera. Boosters say it looks nearly as good as 35mm film -- and costs around $30,000, or about the same as renting a 35mm camera for 10 days.

目前膠片電影在好萊塢大片中仍然占核心地位，但不清楚有朝一日連最大型的故事片是否也會變成全數字的。最近電影制作技術領域一個引人關注的事件是剛上市只有兩個月的超高分辨率數字攝像機Red camera。擁躉們表示，Red camera幾乎跟35毫米攝像機一樣出色，售價在3萬美元左右，相當于租用35毫米攝像機10天的費用。

Thanks to cheap computers, a similar sort of creative destruction is happening everywhere in the industry. Color adjustment used to require expensive oscilloscope-like monitors. It first moved to specialized -- and expensive -- software, but lately it's done with relatively low-cost (say, $200) 'plug-ins' by companies like Red Giant Software.

得益于廉價電腦的進步，類似這樣的“創造性破壞”正在電影行業的各個角落里發生。色彩校正原先要求使用昂貴的類似示波鏡的顯示器，后來轉向價格不菲的專業軟件，但到了不久前，在電腦上使用Red Giant Software等公司設計的相對低成本的插件（比如200美元）就能夠完成了。

Angus Wall, editor of 'Zodiac,' a film released earlier this year, says the real impact of all of this digitization is to bring simplicity and artistic control back to the process. He says postproduction work on the typical Hollywood movie is a vast assembly line of runners, technicians, assistants and others. With Murphy's Law in force at every step, it isn't always easy for filmmakers to get the results they want.

今年初上映的《十二宮》(Zodiac)的剪輯師安格斯•沃爾(Angus Wall)認為，數字化的真正影響在于使整個過程重新變得簡單，藝術處理也更加靈活自如。他指出，一部常規好萊塢電影的后期制作是一個龐大的合成流程，涉及操作員、技師、助理等眾多人員。由于每一個步驟都受到“墨菲法則”的約束，電影制作者要達到他們想要的結果并不容易。

The 'Zodiac' crew, by contrast, sought to rethink and streamline the process. Right on the set, the digitized film went into a computer; after that, just a handful of people were involved. While the skills were different, coordinating the work of these editors and others wasn't much more difficult than what happens in an average office with a typical PowerPoint presentation. 'It's revolutionary and empowering, because you don't have to worry anymore about some nameless person somewhere not doing their job right,' Mr. Wall says. 'You start to see the joy come back into the movie-making process.'

《十二宮》劇組試圖重新思考和簡化流程，一開始就把數字化影片導入電腦，往后只需要少數幾個人參與就行了。如果跟辦公室里常見的PPT演示做個比較，雖然技術不相同，從剪輯等工作人員的協調上看，電影剪輯并不比PPT演示要復雜多少。“這種方法真是非常強大，史無前例，你再也不用擔心有人在某個環節沒有做好他的工作，”沃爾說。“現在你會發現影片制作的樂趣又回來了。”