At the same time as I was working on the SV7500 Tiger Team, I had enrolled in the Interactive Media MFA program at RIT. We were asked to come up with an interactive idea for the class to pursue for the third semester. From the classroom on the third floor of the School of Photographic Arts & Science building, I could see the film editing area with all the strips of film hanging by the various editing stations. A place I'd spent time as an undergraduate. It occured to me that an interactive program to allow you to edit film or video on the computer, might be a cool thing to create. We were using a videodisc recorder as our interactive device. I reasoned film dailies or video could be recorded to the videodisc (computers didn't have the power, storage or color capability at the time to show live video) and then, just by using frame #'s for the start and end of each clip they could be rearranged anyway you wanted.
Unfortunately, not everyone in the class thought it could be accomplished, including the instructor, they ended up selecting something else. I decided not to return for the third semester or finish the degree. I was learning more about creating interactive programs at work and was getting paid to boot. It may have been the first desktop computer based, offline editor for video or film. A couple guys named Lucas and Speilberg were developing similar programs in Hollywood, however they were using Silicon Graphics and Sun high end computers.
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