If you’ve spent any time in a high-end post facility, you know the workflow between the edit suite and the color suite can be difficult. Editors may edit in Media Composer and colorists may work in Baselight. They can communicate through conforms, exported grades, CDLs, and BL Projects, with the goal of keeping creative intent intact across the round trip. While Baselight for Avid has made this easier over the years, Avid and FilmLight announced a partnership at IBC 2026 that aims to change that.
The partnership will bring a Baselight-powered color experience natively into Media Composer. The announcement specifically describes moving “beyond traditional plug-in workflows toward a more integrated approach to color both inside Media Composer and beyond it.” That plug-in workflow is that Avid and Baselight have had for years. I previewed Baselight for Media Composer back at NAB 2012 and have used it many times over the years. But it is indeed a plug-in and feels like a plug-in so it’ll be interesting to see where this partnership goes.
What is actually being announced here?
Baselight’s color tools will live inside Media Composer, connecting creative decisions from dailies all the way through finishing and delivery. Rich Camp, Media Composer Product Manager at Avid: “By bringing FilmLight’s expertise deeper into the Media Composer workflow, we’re giving editors a native color experience with powerful tools directly in the timeline. That means editors can cut and craft their timeline while working more seamlessly with colourists, so more time and focus stays where it matters most: the story.”
These are the bullet points exactly as they are being mentioned:
- Native color inside Media Composer: Bringing Baselight-powered color capabilities deeper into the Media Composer experience, so color feels like part of the edit, not a separate step bolted on at the end.
- A connected path from dailies to delivery: Keeping color decisions open and connected throughout production, helping teams move more fluidly between editorial, review, grading and finishing.
- Specialist color science at editorial scale: Extending FilmLight’s color technology to a broader community of Media Composer users, while preserving the depth, precision and control required by professional colorists and finishing teams inside the traditional Baselight environment.
- Expanded online and delivery capabilities: Scaling with the needs of each production, from being able to complete delivery entirely within Media Composer to a renderless roundtrip with full Baselight for teams working at the highest levels of finishing and delivery.
Why this matters
Baselight is a widely used tool for high-end color finishing. Media Composer remains the dominant NLE for film and television editorial, particularly on large-scale productions, unscripted shows and broadcast tv. The two have coexisted in the same facilities for years, with the main connection between them being the file-based handoff that happens when a cut moves from the edit suite to the color suite.
This isn’t entirely new territory. FilmLight has offered Baselight for Avid for years through it’s Baselight Editions. It’s a product that brought Baselight’s color tools into Media Composer as a plug-in. BFA has genuine fans in facilities that use it, and it has been a real solution for many productions as it’s more full featured that Avid’s Symphony tools and can bring a grade back to Media Composer without rendering and conforming new media. But it has always been a plug-in, with the constraints that implies. And the Baselight interface within Media Composer is still the Baselight interface, a whole new tool to learn. What Avid and FilmLight are describing now sounds like something more structural than that.
This is a partnership announcement, not a shipping product. No release date is attached, and the details of what “Baselight-powered color natively in Media Composer” looks like in practice remain to be seen. More details should emerge as the partnership develops. It’ll be cool to see where this goes.
FilmLight had more going on at IBC 2026
The Avid partnership was the main announcement, but FilmLight also showed other work at IBC 2026. They demonstrated how FLAPI (their workflow automation API) is being used in production pipelines. Netflix referenced FLAPI in a Technology Blog post about their Media Production Suite for camera file processing. FilmLight showed IBC attendees how the same automation approach can apply to smaller facilities.
They were also giving an early preview of Baselight v8, which is something colorists will want to keep an eye on, and showcasing advances in real-time collaboration and media handling.