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Am I the only one who hates this filmstrip view idea?
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The thing about metadata-based workflows is, your workflow is only as good as your data entry. This is something I will personally have to adapt to, as the nature of most of my work right now only needs minimal metadata along the lines of actor name or script page, and a good/no-good bit. I sometimes will go the extra yard and mark med/CU/wide/reverse, for the more complex jobs I do. There is nobody on location that’s free to do nothing but be the script continuity person and metadata entry specialist. I’m too busy shooting or directing to stop everything and type metadata points in.
Here I’ll suggest a new plug-in for FCP-x, since it seems to have more audio fixing capabilities already: on ingest, it should listen to the first ten seconds of any take for an audible spoken slate off the shotgun mic channel, use voice recognition to convert that to text and enter it as metadata, looking for the key words “take” plus a number, “Scene” plus a number/letter. I don’t have time to write on log sheets while shooting, but I certainly *can* say a phrase at the start of every take. Whaddya think?
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[Mark Suszko] “Here I’ll suggest a new plug-in for FCP-x, since it seems to have more audio fixing capabilities already: on ingest, it should listen to the first ten seconds of any take for an audible spoken slate off the shotgun mic channel, use voice recognition to convert that to text and enter it as metadata, looking for the key words “take” plus a number, “Scene” plus a number/letter. I don’t have time to write on log sheets while shooting, but I certainly *can* say a phrase at the start of every take. Whaddya think?”
This would be great if it could be made to work well, but it would probably be pretty spotty with current speech recognition tech. Also, not much help if you’re shooting dual system audio with no scratch track going to camera and the whole reason you want your video to have scene/take metadata is to figure out what audio to match it with.
An easier way to solve this problem, now that cameras are mostly going file-based, is on set. Cameras should provide a way to input this data as you’re shooting, the way most digital audio recorders do. Ideally from a wireless remote, so someone in the script department can worry about it, rather than the camera operator having to be concerned.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read Does FCP X make project files obsolete? on our blog.
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[Mark Suszko] “Here I’ll suggest a new plug-in for FCP-x…
…it should listen to the first ten seconds of any take for an audible spoken slate off the shotgun mic channel, use voice recognition to convert that to text and enter it as metadata…
Whaddya think?”
The problem is speech to text doesn’t work well enough at this point, and your idea really can’t be implemented effectively until they do work together a lot more seamlessly than they do now. And when that happens, every word of dialog in the audio files will be searchable as text, making your “slates only” idea unnecessary.
If you read my recent review of AV3’s Get, I discuss some of the issues of the old technology of logging and searching (all based upon manually typed text), and the newer technology, which uses speech recognition to index and search words in recorded dialog tracks. They both work pretty well on their own, but both have their own pluses and minuses, but until the accuracy on the speech recognition side makes speech to text seamless, we’re never going to have what we really need.
Ultimately, when dialog to text works seamlessly, transcripts and manual indexing via typing will finally be a thing of the past. You only need to mark the clips you want at that point, and then we’ll be looking for a ways to mark things automatically. And guess what, the guys at Apple are already paving the way toward that right now…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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I am one of those that are VERY VERY hopeful that 3 point editing will still be an option in X. 3 point editing just makes film sense — the ability to compare the out point of an edit on the source side, and the edit in point on the record side — all in side-by-side window configuration — should not be underestimated. I hope that is NOT taken away!
I also like to set up a scene bin with clips in icon mode arranged in rows or groups of CU, WS, and all the other angles available for a scene. I can see at a glance exactly what’s available to use. If I can now scrub more easily through that clip, so much the better. Ability to increase the size of the icon would be greatly appreciated in X!
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I don’t mind the new window, and in fact am excited by some of the possibilities that the new way of organizing clips means. However, I am a bit worried about multiclip. How will that be handled? If FCPX has done away with that feature altogether, that is a serious deal-breaker for me.
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However, I am a bit worried about multiclip. How will that be handled?
Chances are that it will be handled better than it currently is.
If FCPX has done away with that feature altogether …
Any special reason to assume this to be the case?
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