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It’s All Connected — Clip Relationships and The Magnetic Timeline Paradigm
In case you missed the massive, Tedious Track Based Editing thread, you might want to grab a drink, take a deep breath and dive in.
It raised a ton of issues we’ve been debating for well over a year now — the merits of tracks vs trackless, what do some of us mean by absolute vs relative time, musical scoring as an analogy for the traditional timeline, and the differences in editing mechanics between FCPX and traditional NLEs.
These sub-threads got me thinking again about the magnetic timeline paradigm itself and the data model behind it. I think these posts from Walter Soyka are a great explanation of the patented, FCPX anchored timeline model:
[Walter Soyka] “The FCPX magnetic timeline has a different underlying data structure (parent/child hierarchy) than a traditional timeline (EDL). I’m arguing that both timelines express their data models in the tools they offer the user and the way timeline maneuvers work. I’m arguing that FCPX exposes its internal data model in its external UI. I’m arguing that because clip relationships underpin FCPX’s representation of a timeline, FCPX automatically reflows (and shows you those magnetic preview reflows) every time you make (or consider) an editorial change, and that it does so according to a set of rules that are a consequence of that parent/child data structure. I’m arguing that there is no parallel for this behavior in traditional timelines, because they lack this higher-order construct relating clips back to the beginning of the timeline.”
[Walter Soyka] “A traditional timeline provides tools for moving clips through absolute time, thereby redefining their relationships. The FCPX timeline provides tools for changing clips’ relationships to each other, thereby redefining their positions in time.
FCPX is “aware” of clip relationships in away that traditional NLEs are not.”
That got me thinking about clip connections and the clip relationships themselves.
Back in February 2011 in a long thread about FCPX and multi track audio, in a reply to one of my posts,
[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s not the magnetism that’s the problem as you can easily control what shifts time in FCPX, it’s the connections that you have the most trouble with.”
The more I think about it, Jeremy’s right. I have a problem with the parent/child clip relationship paradigm. And that problem is the root of my problem with the magnetic timeline in general. I think I’ve finally figured out why. I’ll get to that, but first I wanted to go thru a couple thought experiments.
One way to think of clip connections is as a special type of grouping. For example, in Premiere Pro it’s possible to select any number of clips on the timeline, group them, and they’ll move together when you move any one of them.
I started a subthread here, where I asked Jeremy, Walter, and anyone else still following, a hypothetical question about what defines a “clip relationship”:
[David Lawrence] “Let’s ignore the FCPX data model and the collision avoidance/overlap behavior of connected clips and think strictly about the notion of clip relationships from the standpoint of user intention.
If I have the ability to group objects together on the timeline so that they always move together in sync, would you agree that this group explicitly specifies a relationship between clips?”
[Jeremy Garchow] “If you are asking me, the answer is surely.”
[Walter Soyka] “Yes.
(My shortest post ever in this forum?)”
To keep things moving, I’ll assume most of you would also agree.
For the sake of argument, let’s use grouping to define clip relationships, i.e. in creating a clip group, I’m defining clip relationships to one another.
Now, let’s imagine a traditional, open timeline that allows groups (like Premiere). Let’s imagine moving a group along the timeline. What happens when we bump up against clips that are in the space we want to move to?
Normally we’d have two choices — overwrite or insert. More likely than not, either choice will mess things up on one or more of the tracks. Many editors find the clip management necessary to avoid these problems cumbersome. The magnetic timeline’s object behaviors make this clip management unnecessary and for many editors, that makes it much faster and easier to use.
Now imagine a third edit option. For lack of better terms, let’s call it a “layer edit”. In this scenario, when the editor encounters a clip collision, they have an option to layer or nondestructively overlap the clips, rather than overwrite or insert them. I can think of several UI designs for achieving this.
Questions:
1) If a traditional timeline had intelligent groups and a clip layering/overlaping mode such that the editorial results of a clip collision scenario were similar to FCPX, would that give you the benefits of the magnetic timeline?
2) If “FCPX is “aware” of clip relationships in a way that traditional NLEs are not.”, how does that benefit the editor?
I look forward to your thoughts.
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David Lawrence
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190 Replies
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I have blathered extensively about clip layering on tracks as a method to avoid accidental overwrite as this has been my world for 15 years using dSP and Fairlight DAWS.
To take maximum advantage of clip layering it should be possible to show the stack, enable interaction between layers like dissolves, keying, opacity etc plus a simple way to rotate the stack to move various layers up and down. Layering is a powerful way to have alternatives in place.
Temporary or permanent grouping has been available to me all those years and I can honestly say temporary grouping is useful and powerful but permanent grouping is far less useful. Permanent grouping must have a mechanism to avoid clip overwriting and I prefer layering to magnetic as that doesn’t change track organisation, something that is critical to maintain when tracks do more than just hold clips.
I feel most NLEs have lost a powerful control and organisational tool by not having track based processing as well as clip based processing. So if tracks were used to a full potential then I bet most editors would prefer a layer and temporary group approach with hard tracks rather than the magnetic timeline which seems to me a far more limiting way to solve a simple problem that was dealt with over 15 years ago.
That said I can see the advantage in picture editing to be able to just edit and forget tracks for some stages of the creative process. Why not have it toggle rather than lock in a methodology that suits some always, some occassionally and others never.
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Back in College when I was briefly a music major, I had an epiphany whilst in Conducting class.
We were diagramming Palestrina – looking for leading tones and “picardy fifths” and the like.
And it struck me that nobody who writes great music does it by composing to a set of rules. Rules develop as a way to codify and communicate about the music that has already been developed by listening to the sounds that seem to work in a manner pleasing to the listener.
There was and is plenty of wonderful music in Legacy. So too in X.
You want to knock around theory ideas, have fun. But at the end of the day, it’s pretty hard to convince anyone who’s a big Hot Fudge Sundae fan that Pumpkin Pie with fresh whipped cream is a superior desert – no matter how many arguments you make by deconstructing the ingredients.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “And it struck me that nobody who writes great music does it by composing to a set of rules.”
Bach
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I would call scale, time signature and western notation as rules as well.
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[Michael Gissing] “Bach”
Are you arguing that Bach “composed” on paper rather than at the keyboard?
Essentially that he just wrote down his note series – then played those notes – and if he didn’t like the result – he didn’t change anything – he just left what he wrote – because the compositional arrangement was the point, not the sounds created?
Interesting view.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Michael Gissing] “I would call scale, time signature and western notation as rules as well.”
Sure, but don’t tell Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder that it’s impossible to compose by dreaming and listening rather than by arranging written notes on a page.
No matter how good your script or production plan might be, we don’t know if our video works until we SEE it.
And with music, you don’t know if it’s right until you hear it.
Nothing more than that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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You really love changing the rule Bill. Composers blind and deaf ( Beethoven, Evyline Glennie) all use agreed rules in composition. So when you say no great composed uses rules, I call bull shit. Changing the definition to notation versus keyboard is just silly. Bach used mathematic progression.
Just like editors, composers must work within a range of agreed rules. Without any rules, software would be impossible.
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[Michael Gissing] “So when you say no great composed uses rules, I call bull shit. “
That would be BS if that’s what I said. But I didn’t.
I said “nobody who writes great music does it by composing to a set of rules.”
Composing TO a set of rules is not the same as USING rules in my thinking, but I suppose we think differently about that.
You probably see it as Bach writing his 3 part inventions with only the math as a guide. I see it as his creating sounds that others couldn’t by sorting out which interweaving tonalities in a 3 part invention WORKED and separating them from those that do not, not by math but my listening and intuition and talent.
If that’s wasn’t the process, then every other musician with an excellent understanding of math (many, MANY of them, by the way) could have done Bach quality work – and clearly that has never been the case.
I think we’re stuck in semantics. You thought what when I wrote “compose to a set of rules” what I meant was “exclusive of rules.”
That was decidedly NOT what I meant.
What I meant was that music based EXCLUSIVELY on rules, typically falls flat.
And I think the world not having legions of Mathemetician-Bachs running around supports my view.
I’ll even go a step farther for the sake of argument and offer that creativity in any form based exclusively on following rules ALSO falls flat.
In computer programming, sure the code has to follow universal rules – just like notes on a staff have to be linked to actual music frequencies – but how those are arranged and expressed are nearly infinite. And so it is with video editing software. You can espouse the idea that a Legacy style timeline or, that connection type A is superior to connection type B for proper editing. But the mere fact that people CAN edit proper work on both kinda belies that.
It’s merealy a preference, not a rule.
Like a preference for jazz over classical. Chocolate vs Vanilla
No “right” choice. Just the one that makes the chooser happiest.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Has this got anything to do with David’s debate about clip layering vs magnetic timeline?
If not then let’s move on.
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Now imagine a third edit option. For lack of better terms, let’s call it a “layer edit”. In this scenario, when the editor encounters a clip collision, they have an option to layer or nondestructively overlap the clips, rather than overwrite or insert them. I can think of several UI designs for achieving this.
My question would be how does this affect sound? Video is not a problem, but how do these layers function when the source clips being edited in have sound attached, and record area has sound attached as well?
I have to say that personally, after not having to patch tracks in FCPX I find it a drag to have to patch in FCP7 or Smoke on Mac. And I never found it a problem before, it was just part of the editing process.
Btw, I enjoyed your write-up on Absolute vs Relative time. I’m constantly humbled by the discussions that take place on the COW.
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