They videotaped directly from the negative, looked at dailies on tape and digitized into an Avid from the videotapes. Then they cut everything on the Avid and cut the negatives, using the Avid output. They never printed work prints at all. Without seeing it on film, of course, you never know quite what you're going to get, but it turned out very well for them. Working like this, you have to rely more on the lab reports for what may or may not be in focus.
Somebody has to look at it critically very early on.
Once it's on the Avid, if something is wildly out of focus you see it, but if something is lightly out of focus, it's hard to tell-especially at the numbers you'd be resolving at as an independent. One of the main risks of using the Avid without work prints is not seeing it on the big screen before the negative is cut. You have to find ways to work around this problem. You'll find that many of the mistakes you make as an editor come from the problem of looking at a television screen rather than into the image of a motion picture. Out of 3x5 cards, I cut out two little people, full-body silhouettes of a boy and a girl.