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FCPX: Trimming
I have watched the entire supermeet video twice now.
Many[most?] editors including myself thinks FCP has always lagged behind Avid on trimming. There’s no question that for a complex (trim in 2 directions) trim, Avid is far superior today.
Now, the magnetic timeline will remove a lot of the reasons you need to do complex trims. I totally get that. However, it seems to me, that I am ALWAYS doing slips, slides, and trimming 1 frame from the head or tail of a clip, and with Avid and smart tool, I can do that with one click and one keyboard press (for a head or tail trim) and two clicks and a keyboard press (for a slip or a slide). Importantly, this trim stays selected, (in trim mode) so I can replay it, tweak with a single keypress, replay until the cut is perfect. I think most of you will agree that many cuts make a big difference between one frame and the next.
Now, it seems with their trim solution, you’ll have to double click to open the edit up, carefully slide the edit point, and press enter. move the playhead, play it, then repeat this entire process to go back and forth. While I can see how the new system will be helpful in a few situations, it still seem like a really kludgy solution. Is there any evidence that “standard” trim tools are still in existance? Slip/slide at least seems like a total no brainer…
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9 Replies
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[Cory Caplan] “Now, it seems with their trim solution, you’ll have to double click to open the edit up, carefully slide the edit point, and press enter. move the playhead, play it, then repeat this entire process to go back and forth. While I can see how the new system will be helpful in a few situations, it still seem like a really kludgy solution.”
It was mentioned during the demo that there was a lot of keyboard control, but the mouse was being used for demo purposes. Which makes sense; when someone is using software with lots of keyboard shortcuts, you often can’t follow what’s happening on screen very well.
Digital Workflow/Colorist
Nice Dissolve Digital Cinema -
yes. this is freaking me out too. even if there are keyboard shortcuts – its seems very cumbersome – mostly because it seems as though they have created this incredibly OTT AB editing precision mode to make the process of clip trimming super intelligible to a non professional user encountering it for the first time.
I think apple are walking out of professional and broadcast and into social media prosumer.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
As a professional, I’ve found Avid’s trim mode more robust than FCPs (with dynamic trimming on) but no less functional. But in either case, I’ve always found using the roll tool in FCP, or marqueeing the edit point (with ctrl held down if I remember right) and either dragging or typing or jkl or using < > faster and more visual. I rarely ever enter trim mode either on FCP or in my Avid days.
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Or you can just wait before you have actually tried it.
Its a preview beta!!
Why? So everone can complain about and release a better version.
Y
Reality for the coming years:
You can use fcp 7
You can use Mediacomposer
You can use Premiere
You can use fcp X
You can use Smoke
I heard quantel is getting ready for osx aswell.Sounds like a luxury problem to me.
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I’ve never done this ‘superior’ asymmetrical trim’ the ‘superior’ beings keep harping on about. I trim using kb shortcuts in the timelne.
V, U , left bracket , right bracket, backslash.But yeah, there better be a way to do simple 3-point edits in FCP-X and a Gang feature or editors are going to have a cow.
The trim is the backbone of editing. They need to get this one right.
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I’d recommend trying out iMovie 11 to see exactly how the Precision Editor (Trim Tool as we know it!) actually works. Takes a bit of getting used to but it’s a much better approach to trimming than we’ve ever had in the old FCP.
I have to say I was a big fan of AVID’s asymmetrical trim for many years (to the bafflement of most of my editing colleagues) until I got seduced into the FCP camp where I almost never use trim. Which is not to say that I don’t miss it.
I am looking forward very much to the new FCPX/iMovie way of doing things. The cool part, which isn’t immediately obvious, is that you can be in the Precision Editor making trimming decisions while still being able to audition the timeline in the window above – and that’s a really great development which puts the new paradigm ahead of even AVID.
The part that I really want to see working and which we were denied the other night is how you can stop the Timeline rippling! Most of the time I don’t want rippling to take place and I’m sure I’m not alone. It was a bit odd that Randy Ubillos didn’t address this particular concern. No doubt they’ll have fixed it by June 😉
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[Simon Ubsdell] “The cool part, which isn’t immediately obvious, is that you can be in the Precision Editor making trimming decisions while still being able to audition the timeline in the window above -“
In iMovie yes. Mate, there are a lot of basic interface similarities between iMovie and the presentation we saw of FCP X but you do maybe need to take a bit of a chill pill on this front … they are after all NOT the same application. Certainly in the demo I watched FCP X’s Precision Editor appeared as an integral part of the timeline itself, that is the timeline expanded to include the Precision Editor controls … not like in iMove where they are appear in a separate window. Who knows how it will function in the final release of FCP X.
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OK, so you’re right. Looks like FCPX is a bit LESS accommodating than iMovie in this regard. But you have to admit it took some pretty keen observation on your part to notice this subtle difference. I don’t think it changes my fundamental contention that getting to know iMovie now is a pretty good plan in the grand scheme of things.
And it looks like we’re learning who the go-to-guy will be for tips on how to make FCPX work come June! Expect to be very busy!
Hey ho. Off to take that chill pill now 😉
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i have to admit this one scares me a lot. i have been very slow at switching from avid to fcp precisely because of trim. i mean you can’t even see picture in fcp when doing audio trims! i sincerely hope that they are going to keep the existing trim tools in fcpx and improve them. if they add precision trim as an addition to fcpx, okay, but they don’t seriously think that a professional editor is going to edit picture and split track audio with that ridiculous thing they demoed. do they? please, don’t me go back to avid…
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