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Michael Cioni of Lightiron talking about Metadata, Hollywood, FCP X, and Premier.
Michael Cioni of Lightiron in Hollywood did the post work for both Gone Girl (Premier) and Focus (FCP X). In his appearance a month ago at the LACPUG, he’s mostly focused on promoting his new tablet based editorial review system, but around that, he has quite a bit to say about field generated metadata for major motion pictures, and about editorial workflow issues.
Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyLTMgtE_PY&index=4&list=UUnqmgMi2D6KQdFKGq0kKkdQ
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44 Replies
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This guy is a true guru of metadata and has realized its potential and importance for much longer than any of us. His point (and many many others he makes) e.g. about people oddly still insisting on the hierarchal folder style flip-down organization/browsing (around 7:00) as opposed to a much superior metadata based structure is SO spot on. And showing it with Live Play just drives that point home that much more. The implementation and use of metadata is just plain brilliant. And the way it should have been loooong long ago. And the way only FCP X has actually managed to address light years ahead of anyone else. Fortunately it seems to be sinking in ever so slowly. 🙂
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
Very cool.
Too bad the workflow is targeted at the super small niche of film and TV show production (which I’ve been told has no relevance to the rest of the video making community). 😉
People talking about the future of things always make me wonder how many things will change by the the time ‘the future’ becomes ‘the present’ and how that impacts the predicted future vs the actual future. In this particular example, Michael said the way X handles metadata is the future but in the time it takes the future to become the present why the apparent assumption that PPro and Avid also won’t be moving towards the future?
Poor analogy time, it kinda reminds me when the RED One camera came out and how forward thinking they seemed compared to Sony, Panasonic, Arri, etc.,. and many people thought that Red had put a lot of distance between itself and the ‘old guard’. Over the next 5 or 6 years though the old guard had caught up, or even surpassed, what RED had started, so by the time 4k production started becoming more common there were many viable camera options to choose from.
Even looking at the present though, aside from FCP’s always-updating Smart Folders I don’t see why exporting an XML from Live Play can’t work similarly with PPro. Avid also supports metadata out the wazoo but its using of AAF instead of XML makes it the odd man out in terms of data language/format (though I think the required functionally exists in Avid as well). A year or so ago at a meeting Philip Hodgetts was asked about making LumerJack compatible with Avid and there didn’t seem to be any reason why it wouldn’t work, they just didn’t have the resources to commit to it.
I think the biggest gem here is Live Play’s ability to glean metadata from existing sources and automatically compile it into a single place. In my experience the weakest part of metadata has been the human component. Entering metadata is tedious and repetitive which means people generally hate doing it (and are much slower at it than a computer would be anyway).
All in all, exciting times to be a part of the video production/post production world. New opportuneness, and new challenges, around every corner. Workflows that are 100 years old and workflows that are a week old sit side by side and can both be utilized depending on the situation.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Too bad the workflow is targeted at the super small niche of film and TV show production (which I’ve been told has no relevance to the rest of the video making community). ;)”
You beat me to it. 😉 It is a good video, though.
Of course, Michael glosses over his comments related to all the metadata provided in the script, without showing any way to get that from paper into LivePlay. I do hear though that Avid (ScriptSync) and Adobe (Story) have figured out a way to make use of this data. 😉
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “without showing any way to get that from paper into LivePlay.”
Hmmm… maybe because he’s talked about that extensively elsewhere (e.g. on his website?) and there was little need (and/or time) to rehash to get the relevant point across?
Just guessing. 🙂
But then simply using a BMCC would already give you the vast majority of what it needs. Or something like LumberJack? There are certainly a plethora of ways. It’s no magic. But then… what are assistant editors for? 🙂
And I don’t see how this is in any way just for “super small niche […] film and TV”, though it certainly makes the most sense in that context, sure.
– RK
____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[Robin S. Kurz] “Hmmm… maybe because he’s talked about that extensively elsewhere (e.g. on his website?) and there was little need (and/or time) to rehash to get the relevant point across?”
Send a link. Are you sure you don’t mean the work that Sam Mestman has been doing to integrate Script-E data? That would require the script supervisor to enter the info.
[Robin S. Kurz] “And I don’t see how this is in any way just for “super small niche […] film and TV”, though it certainly makes the most sense in that context, sure.”
At the very least, it requires double-system sound with a separate audio mixer who is entering in the scene/take data.
[Robin S. Kurz] “There are certainly a plethora of ways. It’s no magic. But then… what are assistant editors for? :)”
I’m not saying it can’t be done. Here’s one way:
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/nle-tips-week-4/My point is that the premise is to be labor-saving otherwise it won’t get done. So it would seem that this is a missing link.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Robin S. Kurz] “And I don’t see how this is in any way just for “super small niche […] film and TV”, though it certainly makes the most sense in that context, sure.”
It’s not, which is the joke.
Recently in this forum whenever someone talks about film/TV workflows (at least ones that don’t include X) there are some that keep dismissing those discussions as being irrelevant because film/TV is such a niche overall and/or the person making the comment doesn’t work work in film/TV.
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Speaking in generalities, I think a big sticking point with metadata (and products like Live Play and LumberJack are trying to address these) is that it needs to be easy enough that people will do it but thorough enough that it’s useful.
I’ld like to see a system more integrated where the logging tool, the DAM and the NLE are constantly talking to each other so no matter where the data gets entered it gets updated across that programs w/o having to share XMLs. A system like that should still be able to import/export XMLs though so that your data isn’t stuck in a closed/proprietary system.
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Well, Andrew, it can easily be said that the “relevance” of Hollywood practices to the rest of the production world is very much like the relevance of, say Cartier to the rest of the jewelry world.
Everyone in the industry is dumb if they don’t keep an eye on what Cartier is doing. But nobody mistakes what comes out of their shop as “representative” of what’s going to be sold in the worlds jewelry stores next month.
Nothing different here.
I’ve been babbling here for 3 years plus about the potential transformative nature of this stuff BECAUSE I got introduced to new thinking when Apple transformed X.
Yes, others are also playing. And yes, Apple “might” lose their leadership position to another player at some future point. but how likely? Apple got yet another leg up by taking the bold, big chance. And this story better reveals the long range plan. It was NEVER the “consumerization” of pro video editing. It was always about improving it. Is Adobe going to gut Premier Pro in order to similarly spread metadata handling throughout the core of the program? That’s exactly what Apple did.
Just stuff to think about.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “Nothing different here.”
The timing of it all is what made me giggle. Lots of ‘not relevant’ talk recently then all of a sudden it seems relevant again because of one sentence that gives FCP X a thumbs up. 😉
I’m up to reading about anyone’s workflow because you never know when you’ll pick up something useful. For example, I don’t use X and I don’t do short form things like trailers/spots but I read some things about the FCPX/Honda commercial workflow that I might be able to apply to longer form projects in PPro.
[Bill Davis] “Is Adobe going to gut Premier Pro in order to similarly spread metadata handling throughout the core of the program? That’s exactly what Apple did. “
Does Adobe (or Avid) really have to do that though? Both programs already contain an extensive amount of metadata and Adobe just markedly improved the ‘search-ability’ of it’s metadata with the 8.1 updated. I’m currently working on a project in Avid 8.2 and after dropping markers with key words to tag specific parts of clips I’m almost exclusively using the Find tool to find the footage I want. I rarely have to go into folders and bins to look for footage. One thing that would be nice in Avid though is if you could have all the search results copy into a bin as opposed to only existing in the Find Tool window. Something like FCP X’s Smart Folders would be cool, but I don’t know if that’s possible in Avid right now.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Lots of ‘not relevant’ talk recently then all of a sudden it seems relevant again because of one sentence that gives FCP X a thumbs up.”
Are you misinterpreting/misconstruing on purpose as part of “the joke”? Who said what about film/TV relevance, other than you? What sentence “gives a thumbs up”?
But if you’re referring to my previous point here, I was referring to METADATA (i.e. his app) hardly being only relevant for “super small niche […] film and TV”, which it certainly isn’t. I merely conceded it may play a larger part here or there in those markets. But metadata itself certainly plays the biggest part when it comes to ONLINE, not film/TV (yet). Most film and TV facilities don’t even have the most basic framework for working with actual metadata outside of maybe timecode in place, seeing how so many of them are by far the most lethargic at adapting anything new that comes up. I (nor anyone else that I can see here) never made any reference or judgement of said film and TV market ITSELF in this context, so I unfortunately have no idea what supposed claim you’re trying to get at, sorry.
[Andrew Kimery] “I don’t use X”
Which I guess explains why you don’t appear to know how completely different (i.e. far more extensive) X’s metadata support is compared to others.
[Andrew Kimery] “Smart Folders would be cool, but I don’t know if that’s possible in Avid right now”
Nothing even close, no. And they’re “Smart Collections” btw.
– RK
____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!
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