Cutting a major Hollywood Feature on FCPX

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Aranyshev] “Could you please describe your approach to assigning roles to individual lavs in a few thousands production sound takes?”

I would do it just like X allows me to do it. How would you do it?

I would first import the audio.

I would reference the log and then select all and name the components something meaningful (like character_lav, character_boom) to as many clips as it made sense to do so.

I would then assign a Role to the overall audio segments that made sense.

I would then assign more meaningful Roles and subroles as the edit progressed.

I then export an XML and AAF using X2Pro, or use EDL-X, or whatever else made sense for that project.

Then, for the next project, I would buy Sync N Link for $199.

Sync N Link makes this much easier as it automates this extremely manual process. It is well worth the money.

[Bill Davis]

[Tim Wilson] “Anybody who comes into Creative COW belittling its place in the world can expect a strong response, ESPECIALLY when it’s absolutely, flatly, objectively wrong. It’s silly to expect anything else.

Frankly, it’s just plain rude posting how poorly we’re regarded by the TRUE faithful, because of course the TRUE faithful have already left.”

I was REPORTING things said about this forum in another, private one. Reporting involves taking something and reflecting it accurately. That’s what I did. If people here have no interest in what’s said elsewhere, fine. Personally, I find it useful to hear criticism because I’ve been taught it represents the MOST valuable feedback any individual or operation can get.

My post in that “other forum” was in response to someone wondering “how they survive” (Meaning this board, specifically) – and discussing the names of some of the higher profile folks in the FCP X community who no longer participate in the Cow Forums – figuring it might provide a tiny insight into how some other communities view what happens here. Plus, you’ll notice I’m defending the cows success with metrics, not “belittling” it in ANY sense —

I wrote there: “Creative Cow is among the top 5000 most visited sites with a quite powerful 4,521 Alexa ranking. Participate or not, (referring to the complaining poster) the Cow has a formula that attracts a LOT of global eyeballs.”

I was arguing In Favor of Cow participation for that individual. Hardly the stance of someone who “belittles” something.

Next, Tim, my “bunch of dicks” comment was in another forum and applied to corporate behavior – NOT to individuals.

I did NOT call anyone at that company (with the arguable implied exception of the Executive team!) and certainly no-one at the Cow “a dick.” In fact, every single time I take a certain revenue model to task, I’m scrupulously careful NOT to imply that this reflects on individuals other than those in the Executive Suite who make corporate policy. And golly, they can surely take some criticism in exchange for their astonishing salaries and stock options. If I’m mistaken about my separating the people from the company, I’ll make a public apology in an instant.

Bottom line. This is a debate place, or it’s not.

You’re in charge, Tim.

So it’s your call to make.

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.

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Jeremy Garchow] “How would you do it?”

I frankly have no idea. I’ll probably have to go through all clips naming individual tracks and muting all except the production mix. Charge the producer an extra week or two. There’re usually 4 to 10 tracks in production audio. A boom, a few lavs and a production mix. You’re going to use the mix for your edit. It is pretty decent most of the time. The order they come in a BWF-P is the same for a single production. With a track-based NLE you just mute the tracks unneeded mics fall to and go ahead. Then it’s time to export you unmute all tracks and you’re done.

[Bill Davis]

[Neil Goodman] “thats a little bit of an exaggeration no? I see plenty of people going to bat for FCP X here and the flat out “it sucks” comments havent been around for ages.”

On that private board, the discussion about this board had been seen for a long time as a place for “insiders,” and had a lasting impression of a place where anything positive said about X would be belittled by a very vocal core of those who were either negative or simply dismissive of the program.

Again, I’m reporting what I read. I defended this board since I’ve always enjoyed the “robust” debate here.

For years, there were only a small handful of those of us here who argued FOR the software.

And even today, THIS FCP X board is as likely to see posts about Premier Pro as about X. Even tho three’s a host of boards dedicated to Adobe offerings and they’re clearly a significant board sponsor. Yet when I go to the Premier Pro boards (including it’s “Or Not. variant” – and talk about FCP X. It appears to ruffle feathers.

Such is life, I guess.

I’m probably woefully politically insensitive about all this stuff. I just enjoy robust debate, my goal is NOT to cause trouble. Ever. It’s not in my nature. I like sparring, but when blood shows, I happily back off. So I’ll let this cool for a while before I pop up again. And see how things sit.

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.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Aranyshev] “With a track-based NLE you just mute the tracks unneeded mics fall to and go ahead. Then it’s time to export you unmute all tracks and you’re done.”

I don’t deal with production audio much, but I do deal with multichannel sources on everything i cut. from 4-8 channels usually, sometimes more if it’s a surround source. In any case, even if you never assigned Roles you could do the exact same thing in X. Disable un-needed channels, Cut, re-enable and export. The nice thing is that in X, you don’t have 4-6 or more disabled channels littering the timeline. And if you do assign Roles, you can do lots of other useful things globally.

Different tools, same result. X is “cleaner” to me, but it all depends on how you like to work really.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Bill Davis]

Matzdorff noted in his LACPUG presentation that the audio handoff turned out to be not much of an issue on his feature work. They interfaced from X via ProTools plus he told me when we were driving around that when he realized what Roles were capable of he got pretty excited about where the database instead of tracks approach can potentially lead.

So I think this is one of those “mountain out of a molehill” things.

YMMV.

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.

[Charlie Austin]

[Bill Davis] “So I think this is one of those “mountain out of a molehill” things. “

Yes and no… exporting audio to protools, while it does require X2Pro, isn’t really in question. In fact, it’s really simple and powerful. In 7 or Pr or MC, I have spend a bunch of time properly splitting out my tracks for a mix. In a perfect world they’d all be organized as I cut, but that never happens here in “need it yesterday” land. With X2Pro and Roles, That work is done before I start cutting.

I think this is more about assigning Roles to components in many clips at once. Can’t be done in the browser yet, to get to the components each clip needs to be opened in a timeline. So sync n link really is a huge timesaver.

But, you can rename Common components in as many clips as you want at once in the Inspector. Being able to assign Roles to common components in the same way would be really great. Send yer feedback! I have. 😉

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Misha Aranyshev]

[Charlie Austin] “you could do the exact same thing in X. Disable un-needed channels, Cut, re-enable and export.”

I wasn’t clear enough. In a track based editor I don’t disable and enable channels in individual clips. I mute tracks on the timeline (once) and set track arming in such a way that channels I don’t want to hear are edited to the muted tracks. Then I unmute (once) before export.

Look, people, you must have titanium wrists with kevlar nerves to do so much mouse–clicking.

[Misha Aranyshev]

The irony is track names in BWF files is metadata. It is there to grab and use for any app.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Aranyshev] “[Charlie Austin] “you could do the exact same thing in X. Disable un-needed channels, Cut, re-enable and export.”

I wasn’t clear enough. In a track based editor I don’t disable and enable channels in individual clips. I mute tracks on the timeline (once) and set track arming in such a way that channels I don’t want to hear are edited to the muted tracks. Then I unmute (once) before export.

Look, people, you must have titanium wrists with kevlar nerves to do so much mouse–clicking.”

LOL. I’d agree, except for the fact that it’s the same in X with components. If ch-1 is the mix, you select every audio clips (thousands if that’s the case) and disable everything except ch-1 Same amount of clicks as doing so with tracks. Cut. When you’re done, select all multichannel audio in timeline, re-enable it all. done.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~