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Back to FCPX From PP (Rant)
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Here’s why many legacy Editors may have turned to PP rather than learn the “new way” of FCP X editing.
Lets say Editors are Olympic runners. They’re used to lacing their running shoes, drinking water, training, and competing the way runners have for…oh, centuries.
Apple comes along and says. “That old way of running is for dinosaurs…here let me put these cement army boots on you, backwards and tie the laces together…no go out there and have fun guys”
That was FCP X v 1.0
God bless ’em — editors so wanted to believe in the Oracles at Apple, they hopped in those boots and tried.
Apple eventually came around to replacing the boots with high heals and removed some of the cement, but those professional runners saw a competitor who simply gave its editors performance enhancing drugs so they could run faster (no rendering, easy back and forth between applications, familiar interface, etc) and they said to FCP X – ” we’re out of here.”
When you make a first misstep that big, it’s hard to win hearts and minds back
Even this afternoon I dove back into FCP x trying to find a way/reason to love it….and i’m sure there is….but that race left the starting block several years ago and there’s little incentive for veteran editors to return and try to get back in
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852 -
[Bret Williams] “a timeline that gets out of the way to avoid clip collisions and destructive editing. “
I guess I don’t get the phobia people here have with this issue. In Media Composer, simply turn sync locks off (or don’t work with them at all), and when you want to drag clips around, lasso select them and use “yellow” segment mode (yellow arrow). It ripple inserts selected clips from one part of the timeline to another without overwriting existing clips. And if you’re not in any segment mode – red (overwrite) or yellow (insert), then there’s no danger of inadvertently moving anything at all! And I’m even “snapping” these clips where I want them to go!
Here’s a brief screen cap video I did demonstrating it on a little Christmas music video i put together in Avid.
What people here see as an innovation in FCPX has been in Avid for years.
Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.
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You’re talking about horizontal inserting and swapping. Something any NLE can do. When people talk non destructive in regard to X, we’re referring to tracks getting out of the way vertically. IOW when you’re editing a shot from the event to the timeline you don’t have to worry about how long the clip is and if it’s going to overwrite a portion of a clip either because you didn’t properly pay attention to the track patching or miscalculated the length of the clip in the source or forgot to put an out in the timeline. For me, editing takes less precise calculation before placing in the timeline and edits are massaged in context with juxtaposed clips/VO. Since the latter massaging is generally going to happen anyway as that’s the nature of our business, it feels faster to me to just be able to quickly get the elements into the timeline without worry of overwriting any audio or video.
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[Bret Williams] “When people talk non destructive in regard to X, we’re referring to tracks getting out of the way vertically. IOW when you’re editing a shot from the event to the timeline you don’t have to worry about how long the clip is and if it’s going to overwrite a portion of a clip either because you didn’t properly pay attention to the track patching or miscalculated the length of the clip in the source or forgot to put an out in the timeline. For me, editing takes less precise calculation before placing in the timeline and edits are massaged in context with juxtaposed clips/VO. Since the latter massaging is generally going to happen anyway as that’s the nature of our business, it feels faster to me to just be able to quickly get the elements into the timeline without worry of overwriting any audio or video.”
Still don’t see the issue. It takes a second to patch a track in Avid and nothing gets overwritten. Takes even less time to set an out point. X solves a problem that has never existed, as far as I’m concerned. Trackless is just a gimmick to me. YMMV.
Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, iMovie Pro.
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[John Rofrano] “It’s not. I was referring more to the way that you treat the medium. For example: Tape needs to be acquired and therefore needs an import step to copy it to a digital file. Digital files do not need to be “acquired” and so you can just drag them from a card and drop them onto a timeline.”
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Though NLEs like Media Composer (via AMA) and Premiere Pro started adopting file based, native camera codec editing workflows before X was even made public. Not to mention Sony Vegas (well, Vegas Video back then) could eat just about any codec you threw at it. On a related note, is deciding to use Proxy or Optimized media in FCP X really any different from a conceptual standpoint than deciding to use DNx36 or DNx175 in Avid MC? Even with todays super-fast computers the pros and cons between editing media in it’s camera native format vs using a proxy workflow vs transcoding to a high quality, ‘edit friendly’ codec still exist.
[Joe Marler] “This item you casually mentioned is actually a deep, divisive debate within the UI design community, about skeuomorphism. Jobs and Scott Forstall liked it, Jony Ive and his team do not. “
I agree that the super-flat trend in UI design has gone too far and has negatively impacted the usability of many pieces of software.
[Bill Davis] ” Listening to how things as fundamental as deciding WHEN Leia appears IN the actual film implies that if all one thinks about is simply “following the script” as an editor – one may not actually be as skilled an editor as they might become. Just a general observation referencing no one.”
Or that some movies are rushed into production with half written scripts so there is no choice but to figure it out in the cutting room. In a recent interview Peter Jackson admitted that many times while shooting The Hobbit he was making it up as he went along because he was given a woefully inadequate amount of time for preproduction. The lack of a coherent script certainly showed up on the big screen in three films that weren’t nearly as good as his previous trilogy.
I agree with the saying that a movie is written three times, once by the writer, once by the director and once by the editor, but the editor’s version is severely handcuffed by the abilities and execution of the previous two authors.
-Andrew
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While I think it’s great to try and get as much done before production as possible, I find it’s rare that a project, especially longer projects, remain the same as the script.
In docs, there isn’t a script. A paper edit helps you get started, but very often that changes once the story comes together, or more footage comes in, and X is awesome at moving huge chunks of story around.
Same for narrative. Sometimes, certain scenes get reordered from the original script, or lines of dialogue get trimmed. This is like, editing 102.
But even more granular than that, X is awesome at sketching out ideas in a workspace with virtually no penalty.
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I think this is the same thing we see here over and over again.
A qualified editor looks at X through eyes that are accustomed to seeing things in one particular way.
If it fits that pre-conception, they like it.
If it does not – they don’t.
It’s always been like this. And always will.The issue, as I see it anyway – is that the world is changing so fast AROUND all or our traditional workflows.
For many, they will be able and happy to hang on to what they learned to expect during their formative years – no matter how recent or distant those might have been.For others, that just won’t cut it.
And so it goes.
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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[Andy Field] “Apple comes along and says. “That old way of running is for dinosaurs…here let me put these cement army boots on you, backwards and tie the laces together…no go out there and have fun guys”
“Since this whole thing is labeled as a rant – let me play.
You lost your entire argument right there in your own terms – and in an exceptionally convincing fashion.
First, the “dinosaurs” comment, did NOT come from any of us promoting X – and certainly as your quotes seem to imply – NOT from Apple itself. It came from those who were viscerally aggrieved at how some of us could look beyond our change related fear and suggest there might be good in X. It was a marching term of that hurt – NEVER a slur used by X proponents IIRC – and I was in the thick of those debates.
I know as a very early and vocal X advocate, I never used it. And it surprised when it showed up – and here you are publicly pretending it was an actual QUOTE from Apple.. Stop it. Trying to re-write history to make a point that is at best, disingenuous.
And that’s the least of your problems in your contention.
From literally DAY ONE – the vast majority of X has worked perfectly well for view editing. It was NOT “broken” in any sense of the term. Period. I cut successfully on it from version 1. Got paid for my work from version 1. To suggest it was as stupid as cement boots put on backwards is as hyperbolic as it is patently false.
If you want to make a point, make it. Tell us what you THINK – even what YOU felt trying to come to terms with X- and label it as such.
Because from what you wrote here, you don’t have much actual factual knowledge about what you’re writing about.
Just an observation.
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] ” It was NOT “broken” in any sense of the term”
Maybe a little on one of the early versions when autosave wasn’t reliable and FCPX wasn’t very stable 🙂
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Bill – you take this so personally.
It was a metaphor……i was referring to dinosaurs as my own expression not Apple’s or any one else —
and there was a lot broken – no more round trips to Motion or Apple’s old sound mixing program..or color correction ….no more audio mixer or tracks (or roles at that point) ….dozens of things that were in Legacy that vanished in version 1.0
We get it …you LOVE FCP X and will defend it to the death. Good for you you. Enjoy it…..just because someone offers a critique or theory doesn’t mean it’s a personal Bill Davis attack.
As i mentioned – i keep trying to go back and use FCP X with each revision….but years of working a different way makes that difficult and i see no reason to change when Premiere Pro is essentially FCP 7 on steroids
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852
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