'Tomorrow never Dies' is the 18th film in the James Bond franchise. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh, and Jonathan Pryce. The story revolves around a powerful media magnate's plans to start a world war in order to boost his TV ratings and business interests.

When I joined the production in May 1997 shooting had already gotten under way and the pre-title sequence had already been cut to quite an advanced stage. My role was Assistant Editor.

Post on this feature was unique at this time in that there were 4 Avids linked together using MediaShare and all sharing a bank of - what would now be called 'old-fashioned' - 9 gigabyte hard drive stacks. As I recall, there was approximately 324 Gb of storage on-line in total. Two editors worked on this film (Dominique Fortin and Michel Arcand). The third and fourth Avids were operated by the 1st and 2nd Assistant Editors respectively. At this time, no other feature film had attempted to post in this way so we were breaking new ground in the field of non-linear editing. There was also a film cutting room running alongside the Avids. All the dailies coming back from the lab were both digitized for editing on the Avids and printed for film conforming. As the film was cut being on the Avids, lists were generated so that the print could be conformed.

The second unique aspect to this project was that the cutting rooms were operating almost round the clock. The sheer volume of material being shot and the tight schedule meant there was too much work for just one editorial team working 'normal' hours - a second shift was needed to continue working through the night. This was the job I was brought in to do and mainly involved digitizing the day's sound rushes and prepping them ready for synching up the following morning. I was also responsible for making playouts and some preparation work for visual effects. I was given the chance to do some first assemblies for a couple of the larger action sequences.

For those not familiar with the process of 'synching up', here's a brief description: On a feature film picture and sound are recorded separately. Picture is shot on film, sound is recorded on DAT or 1/4 inch tape. In the cutting rooms, sound and picture have to be joined together so that they are in sync and can be cut by the editor. This is what the clapper board is for - the point where the clapper board sticks come together provides a reference point that enables you to join picture and sound. It is the responsibility of the assistant editor (on a feature film, the 2nd Assistant Editor) to sync up picture and sound and prepare and organise the material for the editor.