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Are NLEs like bicycles?
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A) this is all silly. Riding a bike involves mild jeopardy – if you make wrong decisions or merely do nothing, You can crash. Driving an NLE, if you do nothing — nothing happens. Everything pauses until you figure out what to do. For this alone, the analogy is dumb, IMO. It’s like arguing that firing a gun is stupid because you pull the trigger back – yet the bullet goes FORWARD! (How wiill people EVER figure this out?) somehow they do, huh?
B) I swear the hyperbole about how “unusual” X is is laughable. There are about three or four concepts you need to become accustomed to. Most people who have trouble with X simply keep looking at it from the outside while reading these debates (fueled by ignorance, often) and imagine it to be WAY more complex than it actually is. Witness how the easiest adopters are typically schoolkids and newbies! The largest barriers to X understanding are editor intransigence and ignorance, NOT how the software operates. You can become familiar in a few weeks and “get” the whole thing in a month or two, just like any other NLE. Expertise, is similar as well. A Two or four year X editor is more competent in exactly the same way the two or four year AVID editor will be more competent.The one area where I do think there’s a significant difference is in the X editors access to leveraged power via database design. That does take extra effort. And is precisely what returns the MOST potential for driving editing efficiency.
I’m also truly in awe of guys like Charlie A, Mike M, and a dozen of my friends on other boards who have the attention agility to juggle the various systems in their heads. I want my NLE to functionally disappear so I’m left with the music, not the keyboard. That I do so with one program is wonderful. I can’t see the sense in trying to do it with three.
YMMV
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[Bill Davis] “The largest barriers to X understanding are editor intransigence and ignorance, NOT how the software operates.”
Yep, clearly anyone who doesn’t “get” X must be a stubborn idiot. Thanks for clearing that up!
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[Andrew Kimery] “Step 1. Watch this 8 minute video about learning how to ride bike where the handlebar movement has been reversed (left turns you right, right turns you left).”
When I discovered FCP legacy, AVID MC started to feel a bit like a backwards bicycle. Now, FCP 7 and Premiere feel a bit like backwards bicycles compared to FCPX.
But FCPX clicked immediately with me, and I can go back and edit on FCP7 without a beat. So, while some may feel this is an applicable metaphor, by no means is it applicable in any systematic way. It certainly makes no sense to me. All NLEs are just bicycles to me; FCPX feels like a racing bike, and the rest feel like good solid touring bikes.
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Really, as far as bikes and timelines, wouldn’t the more apt FCPX analogy be a unicycle, or Penny-Farthing? 🙂
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[Mark Suszko] “Really, as far as bikes and timelines, wouldn’t the more apt FCPX analogy be a unicycle, or Penny-Farthing? :-)”
AVID is more like a Penny-Farthing at this point.
BMX may be a better metaphor for how malleable FCPX is. Or perhaps a hybrid BMX/Road bike.
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Christopher and Charlie,
I bounce between MC, FCP Legend and PPro a lot as well don’t really have trouble doing so. I’m sure I’ll add X to the mix eventually and maybe Resolve (depending on how version 12 is) but probably not Lightworks as that’s such a niche and probably won’t have wider adoption anytime soon. If I had to pick a fave right now I’d have to say PPro, but if I could use only one it would be Avid because that’s where the lion’s share of the work is for me. I like being fluent with multiple NLEs though ’cause affords me not only the best opportunity to work, but also the best opportunity to work on projects I really want to work on.
I like Christopher’s thought that jumping between NLEs will help keep dementia at bay. 😉
[Bill Davis] “this is all silly. Riding a bike involves mild jeopardy – if you make wrong decisions or merely do nothing, You can crash. Driving an NLE, if you do nothing — nothing happens. Everything pauses until you figure out what to do. For this alone, the analogy is dumb, IMO. “
I’m not quite sure what the ranting is for. This isn’t about bikes or software or analogies it’s an example about how people learn (or more specifically, unlearn and then re-learn).
What’s hilarious is that when the guy was talking about sticking w/it and it finally ‘clicking’, I thought “Hey, that’s exactly what Bill keeps saying about X. You have to stick with it, experienced editors will have to unlearn some things, but one morning it will just click and then it’s smooth sailing.” I meant it to be an affirmation of these points of view, and I’m not entire sure how it got perceived as a slight.
Was my joking thread title too obtuse? Are we not all familiar with Betteridge’s law of headlines?If a backwards bike falls in the woods but no one is there to assign it a Role does it still make a sound? Should I keep asking rhetorical questions?
[Bill Davis] “Witness how the easiest adopters are typically schoolkids and newbies!”
Kinda like how the kid in the video that learned how to ride the backwards bike pretty quick? If you’ve never ridden a bike before then whatever you first learn (be it a ‘backwards bike’ or a regular bike) is normal to you.
[Mark Suszko] “The bike analogy was less impressive to those of us that fly model airplanes, because making it turn the right direction is a problem that changes from moment to moment, depending on if the plane is coming towards you or going away”
It’s not about right to go right and left to go left though. It’s about something you’ve been doing for decades suddenly causing the opposite effect of what it’s always done. In the case of model airplanes, the way you learned to fly model airplanes is that the controls are always relative to the plane, not to you. But if I handed you a controller that was setup so the controls were always relative to you, not the plane, you’d probably have a hard time flying the plane (at least at first).
Same thing with the tiller. I’ve only been sailing a little bit, but if I got onto a boat where the tiller was setup to work the opposite of what I’m used to I’d mess things up at first (especially if I was multitasking by working the sales, watching for traffic and trying to navigate to my slip in an unfamiliar harbor).
It’s the act of unlearning and relearning, the bike is just one possible example.
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Andrew, that’s a great video. Thanks man.
I have to say, I never really found X that difficult.
It took me a little time to figure out short cuts and how to control things, but that was partly my fault.
It looked so simplistic to me that I never really bothered to read up on it or watch a tutorial.
I just dove into it.
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[tony west] “It looked so simplistic to me that I never really bothered to read up on it or watch a tutorial.”
Yeah, that’s kinda where I’m at right now. Part of me wants to just jump right when I have free moments, but the other part of me wants to watch some tutorials so I’m not wasting time flopping around like a fish out of water.
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I find myself doing that with a lot of things. I will start putting something together without reading the instructions and have to go back.
I think my problem is I don’t have enough patience sometimes.
That makes me try to skip ahead, and often mess up : )
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[Charlie Austin] “Sure, there’s the occasional KB shortcut mixup, but it’s really no big deal.”
Ditto.
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