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A Question for Working Professional Editors Using FCPX.
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[Oliver Peters] “While you guys all seem to be jazzed about the project browser structure, it strikes me as completely inadequate. “Management” is relegated to working manually in the Finder or using a third party product (Event Manager). I’m sorry, but that’s simply a workaround.”
I could not disagree more.
As half a dozen people here have indicated, X has an array of perfectly usable array management tools for versioning work for client review.
I’m not arguing that it might fail to work in any one editors preferred style. But multiple people here who work with it regularly have indicated that it works really well for them.
Once again, this entire thread is a reinforcement that a large swath of the people who have the largest problem with X are those who came to it expecting it to work in a fashion that they’re well conditioned to expecting – and they quashed their curiosity about how it actually works too soon after it failed to meet those expectations. (I say “too soon” because like the OP, they tend to demonstrate a lack of very deep knowledge about how the program actually works much beyond surface issues.)
I think it’s short sighted to argue that because it’s feature set satisfies a user with alternate expectations that the person who likes it is somehow under skilled or too foolish to see deep flaws that might actually NOT be deep flaws for the way they work.
For any business tool, the only truly catastrophic flaw is if it doesn’t allow the user to get their work done and get paid.
There is a growing group of us who use X to make our livings. It’s working just fine, thank you.
So arguing that it’s “not good enough”, not “pro” enough, or not “full featured” enough is dumb.
If it wasn’t we wouldn’t use it.
Because we’re no different than you. We edit to make our livings.
And if the tool doesn’t work, we don’t get paid.
Period.
So what’s the problem?
“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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Well just put the clients timelines in a folder and don’t have that folder open or another way each clients works is on separate drive or Mac.
There was more working in the Finder in FCP 7 and down then FCPX.
For the RAM yeah a clear RAM function would be cool. The broadcast monitoring can’t really confirm since we only work in HD right.As for working on a project in FCP7 at the same is new to me.
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[Bill Davis] “I could not disagree more.”
Gee whiz Bill. Somehow you take every argument about issues and concerns with the product personally. As if you are right and everyone else is wrong. In it’s current design, there are definitely holes that need to be addressed. Project and event management is one of those. There currently is NONE within the application itself.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Coke vs. Pepsi example, if I don’t want competing clients accidentally exposed to a competitor’s timeline or event content,”
This seems to be a big problem for many here, and I get it.
I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about it.
Everybody I work with knows I’m working for everybody in town (so are most in a town like this : )
I think that’s part of the reason they want me. Because I’m wanted hehehe
It’s like that girl that doesn’t want you, until another girl is looking at you.
Or like our Arena. Toyota knows they don’t have a lock on this building. They got spots at the game and here comes another ride rolling in.
I don’t show up on the FOX game wearing an ESPN shirt out of respect, but they know the deal.
I’m an independent.
It’s not going to stop me from using the program.
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[Thomas Frank] “For the RAM yeah a clear RAM function would be cool. “
The application sucking up RAM like crazy as it does, may -*may?* be an architectural problem – Apple may have overshot realistic workflow and hardware – if so, the problem could prove persistent. I’m making all this up, but it could be akin to the potential database flaws occasionally mentioned by others. If it’s real, and its a problem, Apple may not be in a position to unpick certain problems without gnawing at fundamental threads.
the things that freak me out as a goggling half observer are: incidents of project corruption, incidents of event corruption, autosave fails, project bloat, and a possibly incorrect approach to the database substructure itself. Some people on here really know what the FCPX database is made of, there were discussions, I don’t recall them being cut and dried.
there was also a ‘rollercaoster’ post a bit back that dealt with a pretty much scarifying, completely irrecoverable failure of the application that destroyed both projects and events in progress with multiple attempts by apple to resolve it.
CC attributes with power masks in realtime on 2K – cool. range based keywording – cool. Timeline – having a laugh. Chrome – laid on with a trowel. Industry pickup – near Kelvin zero.
It’s early doors, its a deadly serious software initiative, but yet –
in afficionados like Evan Schechtman and the financially invested trainers like Jordan and the ripple training guys, third parties like Hodgett et al, Apple have a fairly reliable chorus, but this software can only drop its pants for so long in this kind of a market, you’d have to think.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Every other NLE I’ve used allows you to manage sequences within the same window as your media.
FCPX makes the distinction between nested sequences and master sequences. Nested sequences or “compound clips” can be created, key-worded and viewed in the event browser; master sequences or “projects” have there own special browser with a reduced feature set.
Apple should do away with the project browser and allow all sequences to use FCPXs metadata tools.
If there’s architectural reasons this can’t be done, they’ve got the architecture wrong. -
[Oliver Peters] “Project and event management is one of those. There currently is NONE within the application itself.”
Huh?
What’s the project library?
I can manage projects in the project library. I can publish them, delete them, rename them. Correct them and republish them. I can make 50 copies of a project, tune each one for a different purpose – and manage the resulting versions quite easily.
And X has – wait for it – and EVENT LIBRARY too. In it I can arrange, keyword, sort, sift, find and manage program assets (events, essentially) down the RANGE (sub clip) level.
This has GOT to be a case where your “definitions” of project and events are simply not the same as mine.Which is well and good at one level.
The problem is that by making contentions like this, you’re implying that anyone who doesn’t define these functions as you do is wrong.
Which is the entire point of my post.
If those terms need to be exclusively what YOU define them to be, then there’s no way you’re ever going to be happy with any product other than perhaps, the one you originally formed your biases around.
That’s the whole point of X. It’s an attempt to look beyond the paradigms of the past and look at some things in a new way.
X is all about a change in approach. And to allow you, me or anyone else to define failure as “change that doesn’t meet my way of working” is a silly game. It presumes that your way is the correct way. And I challenge that. Why? Why is your view of what a project or an event must be correct? For whom? For what types of projects? For what type of user?
In the final analysis, there are a variety of editing software that all work like all editing software has worked for the past 20 years. And then they’re X. A package that actually has a whole lot of similarities with past NLE software, but a handfull of breaks from the past standards that some of us are coming to appreciate as being better suited to specific kinds of video creation and deployment.
Trying to argue that project or event management “doesn’t exist” in X is beyond silly.
The terms pervade the software interface, after all.
“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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[Rob Mackintosh] “Apple should do away with the project browser and allow all sequences to use FCPXs metadata tools.
If there’s architectural reasons this can’t be done, they’ve got the architecture wrong.”Nooooooooo!
Take away my project browser over my cold dead body.
It’s one of my absolute favorite parts of the interface.
Without it i’m left in a world like Legacy. The moment I finish a project and close it’s window, all I have access to is a dumb icon on the desktop and my notes.
In X, it doesn’t matter how many projects I have on how many drives, If I’m experienced enough to store them properly – I can see them, skim them, hide and reveal them by groups – and evan export and transcode them directly from the Project library without any need to OPEN them in the software at all.
It’s a KILLER project management feature.
And as to “using X’s Metadata tools” – you don’t understand the metadata flow in X yet. The reason that the EB treats metadata differently then Projects is that the project is downstream from the Event. This means you can use any event as a source repository for multiple projects – retain the original metadata and then alter, refine, or amend it on a project by project basis.
If you just “bolt on” metadata flow into and out of the EB and all Projects without limit, you’re in chaos land. Every change in every project then flows back to all events it’s linked to? Some of them? When? Via what rules?
Right now, it’s simple, easily grasped (as you understand the new X overview) and very powerful. Meta data flows from camera to event browser, is inherited by Storylines, then is enshrined in the Project library. It’s like a river. It flows one way in dependable steps. Undersanding that lets you apply new metadata on top of the old without penalty.
That’s how it works now. And how it should work I think.
“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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Kevin, the problem is this, when you’ve been editing for many years (personally 25 till date), one thinks you can just jump from software to software because there somewhat similar. That’s the mindset I had when I first tried X. The fact is I never thought I’d need to purchase training to guid me through, but to my surprise I did.
After attempting to understand X in the first week, I went ahead and purchased Larry Jordan’s training, and soon after Ripple Training. I can’t tell you how important it is, even as an experienced editor that you invest in some training.
Even so, I spent 9 months trying to use FCPX like FCP 7. I used compound clips as sequences, never once used projects, and found myself copy/pasting between compounds to build my timeline. Like I said, I did this for the first 9 months till I forced myself to embrace Events, Keyword Collections, skimming & started using projects as they were intended. I can’t begin to tell you how much “FASTER” I’m building my timeline this way.
I think the biggest problem is trying to forcefully use X like 7, which I for one can vouch for. If you can only find it in yourself to allow for change, I think you’ll be back on these forums sharing your positivity towards X.
I’ve spent many hours reading forums, and at times participating in questions, but the one question that keeps popping up by a lot professionals is workflow. Workflow can be hard to explain, only because individuals like to do it “their” way.
I’m no accredited FCPX trainer and wish I had the time to share my experiences and workflow. So wish this forum had a live chat option like Skype 🙂
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[Bill Davis] “Huh? What’s the project library? “
That requires that the application always sees all the projects and all the media. There is no way to hide, disable or re-access de-activated projects from within the application. You know, your standard “file open” function. Or the Project/User pane in Avid, which is basically what Event Manager copied.
[Bill Davis] “And X has – wait for it – and EVENT LIBRARY too. In it I can arrange, keyword, sort, sift, find and manage program assets (events, essentially) down the RANGE (sub clip) level.”
Same problem. You access all of the media for all clients, all sessions, etc. Just like Aperture, iMovie, iTunes and iPhoto.
[Bill Davis] “If those terms need to be exclusively what YOU define them to be, then there’s no way you’re ever going to be happy with any product other than perhaps, the one you originally formed your biases around. “
There’s no reason to cop an attitude. The point is that for an application to work for users other then single users working only on projects under their complete control, you need some sort of management to control access to the media and timeline you want to work with at any given time. Think about shops working with diverse clients or with freelancers who come in and out.
I’m not talking about the literal Event Browser and Project Browser. I’m talking about the ability to add or remove access to events and projects from within the application. Since Apple’s own “best practices” recommends manually moving these files in and out of the folders at the Finder level, it’s clear that this function doesn’t exist within the app itself. If there weren’t a need, there would be no Event Manager. All I’m saying is that this issue should be solved within the application and the existing solutions are workarounds.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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