Joe Klotz Garners AFI Film Festival Best Film Editing Award

Trakker Technologies, Discreet team to present winner with film editing system

El Segundo, CA --Nov. 2--The Best Film Editing Award at the 13th Annual American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival, sponsored by Trakker Technologies with support from Discreet, was presented to Joe Klotz for the film Snow Days at a gala event October 28 in Los Angeles.

This year's AFI Fest 99 - the largest and most prestigious annual film event on the West Coast - showcased more than 50 films, nine of which were Special Presentations. This is the second year Trakker has sponsored the Best Film Editing Award. Barry Silver, president and co-founder of Trakker Technologies, was instrumental in the addition of the award to the festival's program two years ago. Silver is a master's graduate of the film editing school at AFI and a film editor with several titles to his credit, including the Sundance-award winning Fun, Nonnie & Alex (which won at Sundance and Aspen), and Man of the Year.

"Editing is an art that far too often goes unnoticed," explains Silver. "Trakker is proud to co-sponsor this award and recognize the important role of the editor in filmmaking. We hope to encourage editors to continue to strive to improve and stretch their art. And we are committed to the continued support of the AFI because we share their dedication to the preservation and advancement of the art of filmmaking."

During his acceptance of the Best Film Editing Award, writer and producer Kipp Marcus praised the work of Klotz, asserting that the editor's timing in a comedy film is critical in the film's success. Snow Days was subsequently awarded the Festival's Best New Writer prize.

"Discreet's commitment to the editing community continues to expand in every solution we offer," states Terry Ragan, Industry Marketing Manager for Discreet. "Editors continually push their art to the next creative level, and they need supportive editing solutions do so. With the presentation of the edit* system to this year's award winner, Discreet hopes to further encourage editors to take the art of editing to even greater heights."

Trakker and Discreet united to present Joe Klotz with a $17,495 digital film editing package built around the award-winning Slingshot Professional film matchback software and the edit* editing software. The combination of Slingshot and edit* provide the best in film matchback tools and editing software that can be had in the post production industry today. This powerful alliance allows the independent filmmaker to maintain the purity of a film-acquired project to benefit from the state-of-the-art and cost-saving advantages inherent in desktop editing.

"Snow days is a wonderful film, as is the quality of Klotz's work," added Silver. "Once again, AFI has presented an amazing array of work and provided a unique atmosphere for those of us in the industry to step into the audience and appreciate the efforts of our colleagues, old and new."

AFI is the preeminent national organization dedicated to advancing and preserving the art of film, television and other forms of the moving image. AFI trains the next generation of filmmakers, coordinates nationwide film preservation efforts and explores new technologies in movie making.

About Trakker Technologies

Located in El Segundo, California, Trakker Technologies was founded in 1995 with the mission of delivering effective and affordable film matchback solutions for digital editing. In addition to the new "Film Cut" application, Slingshot PRO -- Trakker Technologies' flagship product -- has been used in the editing of thousands of films and television programs in 14 countries worldwide. Major studios, Sundance Film Festival and AFI Film Festival winners, network television stations, documentarians and film students all over the world have enjoyed the ease of use and accuracy of Slingshot for nearly four years. Additional information can be found at www.trakkertech.com, or by calling Trakker Technologies at +1 (310)-647-3420.

About Discreet

Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc., develops systems and software for visual effects, 3D animation, editing and production used in the creation of digital moving pictures for video, HDTV, the Web, broadcast graphics, interactive games and feature films, including the last three years' winners of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Discreet products are used extensively in film and video postproduction, games and multimedia, broadcaster's graphics, programming and on-air event coverage. Software by Discreet is also popular with designers and architects for 3D visualization and conceptualization. Discreet was recently recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Scientific and Engineering Award for flame* and inferno*.

Headquartered in Montreal, the Discreet division of Autodesk was established in 1999 when Autodesk acquired Discreet Logic and merged its operations with Kinetix, the San Francisco based multimedia business unit that Autodesk created in 1996. All product names are the trademarks of their respective companies. www.discreet.com