Ben Taylor and his band have just taken a break from recording his new album, “Another Run Around the Sun.” But Liz Witham and partner Ken Wentworth continue to work, shooting behind-the-scenes footage for their documentary on the album’s production.

During the break, she says, “everyone was sitting around Christian Ericson, the cover art designer. He was showing everybody different stills that could be used for the album cover. Suddenly we realized we’re all using Mac products in every aspect of the album’s production and promotion. Christian uses Photoshop on his PowerBook. Recording is done in Pro Tools on a Power Mac. Ben listens to demo cuts of his tracks on an iPod. He also uses an iBook to keep his website updated, and he sells his music on iTunes.

“And we’re cutting the docu-video in Final Cut Pro. There were these PowerBooks, iBooks, iPods — and we’re in the field. Ken joked that we looked like a Mac commercial.”

An Inside Look at Music Creation

Witham, who co-founded Film-Truth Productions with Wentworth, says she “wanted to give music-listening fans an inside peek into the creation of a song. I think some people assume with Ben that — because his parents [Carly Simon and James Taylor] are who they are — he’s had his musical path paved for him. But Ben’s career and music are very organic and very much his own. He created ‘Another Run’ from scratch and released it on his own record label.”

“When I sit down and decide how I’m going to approach a project from an editing point of view, I find Final Cut Pro completely adaptable to every project and to how I need to operate or organize that project.”

Taylor’s independence, Witham points out, “gives Ben a lot of creative freedom, but it also means he has more responsibility for overseeing the entire process.”

Witham and Wentworth’s documentary shows how Taylor’s understated, melodic songs come about — his inspiration for a first verse, how he develops melodic themes, how he collaborates with his producers and other musicians to create the final recorded version of a song.

Witham herself is a musician — she sings and plays both guitar and flute — and her own musical sensibility brings a unique rhythm to the documentary.

Cutting to Music

“Many people think about the music for a film when they’re close to finishing up a rough cut,” Witham says. “Then they start laying in the track. But I’m comfortable with music. When I sit down at my Mac to edit something in Final Cut, music is a very important element for me in my cadence and my cutting — even if I don’t use the track.”

Soundtrack plays an important role here. “I’ve been getting really into Soundtrack,” she says. “For scenes where I’m looking to establish a mood or feel, I can go into Soundtrack and quickly create a temp track. And I can use all sorts of instruments that I never would have even imagined or heard of before, just to create that perfect feel. A lot of the temp tracks I’ve created in Soundtrack end up staying because they’re actually quite good.”

“The Only Choice”

For “Another Run,” Witham worked with 50 hours of footage in Final Cut Pro on her Power Mac. “We use Macs for our whole operation, including running the business,” she says. “The software is totally accessible and, in terms of being an artist and having software that I know other artists use, Mac is really the only choice.

“The really nice thing about Final Cut Pro,” she adds, “is that it’s both intuitive and yet you can tailor the program to work how you work as an editor. Our projects are vastly different. Some have 200 hours of footage, some have four hours of footage. Some revolve around music and some are distilled from hours and hours of verité footage. When I sit down and decide how I’m going to approach a project from an editing point of view, I find Final Cut Pro completely adaptable to every project and to how I need to operate or organize that project.”

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