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Apple FCPX or Not: The Debate
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rather. Personally speaking, I genuinely found your workflow post made a crazy strong case for FCPX in time critical long form factual. It turned my head – it was very easy to visualise the specific heft FCPX brings in altering the process of footage analysis and whittling – I almost rather wished I operated in an applicable scenario to get the feel for that. its just that I’m in a different lowly short form gig, and I think Apple have built a thing to do a thing, and its not my thing.
As an easy, straight forward example: mood films and short form stuff demands pretty vast quantities of minute push pull stuff, and repeated going at the keyframes to hone the fake camera work – Avid, god love it, actually has no geometrics as a native attribute, but –
FCPX, with the four story tower of a keyframing interface popping up over each and every clip is a jaw dropping non-starter.
every time I pop it up, I have a shocked moment where I realise the motion tab as was is now staggering around the timeline. and I’m supposed to deal with keyframe parameters, scrolling up and down the timeline to reveal the interface, on every single clip instance. Its… an insane adventure that.
Keyframing is not a place anymore, its a crazy pop out hobo, as a per clip, gigantic, unwieldy instance. in the bloody timeline of all places.
Its almost the worst thing in the application and it is, in truth, an absolute non starter.
Apple made a range of decisions here – but I think in a number of areas, they unwittingly cut through meat and bone to get to where they thought they should be in a unified interface.
fundamentally, the unified single brick interface without tabs, and with the actual elements being simply too large (i mean everything – the buttons, the light switches, all of it) represents a serious roadblock.
now that this thing is 5K (!) red native, with audio sync magic, power windows, throw any format, with multiple, count them, persistent in out points on every clip, with a source viewer, with immense CC performance on a well stocked iMac – it is getting incredibly hard to describe FCPX as prosumer software.
But it is very, very weird software. The crux lies in obtuse user conventions, and what apple feel a pro application should be in visual operation.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Aindreas Gallagher] ” its just that I’m in a different lowly short form gig, and I think Apple have built a thing to do a thing, and its not my thing.”
Not sure I agree with you there, Ive cut some Tvc’s using X and I found that process a lot easier in X than the long form factual. Ive seen your films on your website, they are great, but I would think of all the edit systems X would be perfect for cutting that sort of material. US election 08 comes to mind. I think for fine cutting, experimentation, creativity and finesse, it cant be beaten.
But hey, each to their own. -
As jeremy would say with piops – I know I’m crazy on this, and arguing solo – but I have a real problem with the timeline, and I’m not talking concepts here – the action of physically lifting a clip and seeing that massive heavy drop shadow appear drives me more than a little mad. you can feel it impacting timeline responsiveness every time. there is a minute pull as the heavy effect goes on.
Also I don’t think it has a good mid zoom arrangement because of how vertical the lozenges are. clip items in FCPX tend to be very tall and skinny unless you’re close in? I find it extremely hard to read the edit, when I’m further than a few minutes zoomed out with a tight cut
these are, I realise, nitpicky to some – but I’m a pretty stupid editor, and I’m quite mouse driven to boot – in theory that should make me a bit of an FCPX candidate, but I cannot key into that timeline, it just annoys the hell out of me. Not that anyone would have ever realised that.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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Yes the Animation Menu on the clips sucks. But you don’t have to use it, all the properties a keyframable in the Inspector, just like in FCP 7.
And I think you do X a disservice when you say it’s not suited for short form. If you can wrap your head around the way it works, then you can cut pretty much anything on it. In fact for TVC’s I find it lightning fast to assemble various versions to show the agency reps when they come in for their first session. Smart Collections, Auditions, No need to Patch stuff to make edits, they’re all things that make the sessions go quicker.
Trimming is also not as bad as the godawful magnetism animation makes it out to be. There are times even now where it’ll spook me out to the extent that I go and make sure my edit starts at the TC it’s supposed to.
Zooming in and out of the timeline could be better. Smoke’s click and drag is phenomenal, the CMD+/- is a pain, especially if you’ve got your skimmer parked at one place, your play head at another and there’s a clip selected in the Timeline.
I agree with you that icon design is tacky and they’re generally too large.
As for clip heights, I find I can generally get something I’m happy with it from the default options. The option to display Roles in 10.0.6 seems like a good addition as well.
And I keep saying this to anyone who asks, X is easy on the fingers. I end up clicking a LOT less than I did in 7.
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “I agree with you that icon design is tacky and they’re generally too large. “
Unwanted on a big desktop system. But potentially a lifesaver as display surfaces get both smaller and higher rez.
Remember, Apple is designing for all users – and a wide range of devices. If you ever CAN open your desktop edit on an iPad for a field tweek, those “now it seems too big” interface elements might be your best friend.
Life is context.
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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Perhaps you’re right Bill. But if web pages can scale automatically across iPads, iPhones and laptops, then X probably should as well.
Regardless, the UI design is not great. I really like Scratch’s interface, it’s stark grey with blue accents – for a Smoke/Flame rip off it’s left Autodesk struggling to catch up (look wise, not in terms of tools).
X’s dark gray with those clip arty icons is miles behind.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “As jeremy would say with piops – I know I’m crazy on this, and arguing solo – but I have a real problem with the timeline, and I’m not talking concepts here – the action of physically lifting a clip and seeing that massive heavy drop shadow appear drives me more than a little mad. you can feel it impacting timeline responsiveness every time. there is a minute pull as the heavy effect goes on.”
10.0.6 seems to have gotten rid of a lot of the milky animations.
Really, I’m not kidding about this.
I’ll prove it here in another post soon.
Drop shadow is still there.
Jeremy
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[Aindreas Gallagher] ” but I have a real problem with the timeline, and I’m not talking concepts here – the action of physically lifting a clip and seeing that massive heavy drop shadow appear drives me more than a little mad.”
I can see your point Aindreas. Ive never got on with PC’s because the curser/arrow is not pleasing to the eye. It’s all big and bold and not aesthetically pleasing. When ever I touch a PC. (never really) I feel like a small kid in an oversized suit wielding a massive pencil the size of a tree stump.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “these are, I realise, nitpicky to some”
Not nitpicky at all, you see I agree and I have a theory. There are two groups of people in the world, those of us who drink Coca Cola and the others that weirdly prefer Pepsi.
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “Smoke’s click and drag is phenomenal, the CMD+/- is a pain, especially if you’ve got your skimmer parked at one place, your play head at another and there’s a clip selected in the Timeline.”
Hit Z.
Click and drag a box.
Laugh, celebrate, shoot fireworks at your best friend’s head.
Maybe this isn’t what you are talking about?
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Not really Jeremy. In Smoke you click and drag up to Zoom In and click and drag down to Zoom Out. It’s very gestural, fast and very precise.
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