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Editing scenario
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[Simon Ubsdell] “This is the bit that I find problematic and it’s significant because it goes to the very root of how FCPX works – and of course how iMovie was designed which is why we are where we are today. It’s a limitation in the architecture.”
You can select multiple clips, though.
And what can’t you do?
We already proved three point edits exist…
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[Jeremy Garchow] “You can select multiple clips, though.”
Does that really have anything at all to do with the discussion?
[Jeremy Garchow] “And what can’t you do?”
You can’t favorite an I or an O singly without in the process overwriting any favorites that you might have already applied to the same clip. (Actually it’s more complicated than that and not in a good way but that’ll do for starters.)
Or if an I or O occurs within the boundaries of an already existing favorite you have to unfavorite before you can proceed – which can get very messy.
And so on.
And all this because FCPX is built on the foundations of iMovie’s range selection model.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Hmm….
So now you are upset because you can’t favorite a favorite when you’re upset about favorites in the first place?
With that, I’m done.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Hmm….
So now you are upset because you can’t favorite a favorite when you’re upset about favorites in the first place?
With that, I’m done.”
I’m not upset at all. I thought I was participating in a discussion about whether or not favorites were the answer to whether or not it was OK that FCPX did not have persistent I or persistent O.
Obviously joined the wrong thread, sorry 😉
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “So, what if I search that clip in a text based function, which in and out point does it retrieve? From which keyword?”
I’d want it to feel almost physical. No doubt this is more throwback thinking, but people are fundamentally very good at spatial understanding, and good UX design exploits this (look at just about any other Apple UX for examples).
I’m arguing that dropping IOPs in place of selections was a poor decision. FCPX should not throw user data (IOP markings) away. It should leave them where the user put it. PIOPs should exist in the context the user makes them until the users decides to clear it or replace it (like how FCP7’s PIOPs are not inherited across subclips or independent master clips relating to the same media).
Apple chose to make keyword ranges and favorites look and feel like clips from an editorial perspective. If an in and out is set from a keyword or favorite range, my intuition is that it should live on that “virtual clip.” If it’s set outside of those selections, it should live on the clip itself. (Perhaps Apple should come up with another way to indicate the relationship of ranges to their parent clips, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
In other words, PIOPs should always be local. They should be children of the user-facing object they were created in. It’s ok that they’re not more global or data-centric, because they are not meant to be used that way. That’s what favorites are for.
[Jeremy Garchow] “You cannot select a clip in the Browser without setting a range (you can skim a clip, but that doesn’t require touching it), unless you select multiple clips. Perhaps, therein lies the problem.”
True! It’s kind of a zen question: is it the click away from a clip that removes the non-favorite marked range, or is it the click back into it?
[Jeremy Garchow] “At any rate, today, right now, if you want to use FCPX, and want to hold on to an in/out range, then favorites are what is needed.”
Agreed. IOF is the new IO.
I’m not sure how I’m coming across to you, but I’m not trying to be a jerk. I understand that FCPX doesn’t have traditional PIOPs, but it does have another mechanism for preserving IOPs, so the same editorial operations can still be accomplished.
I understand that the whole idea of PIOPs may not be as data-centric as the rest of FCPX’s design. I also understand that people are different from machines, and I think that FCPX discounts the value in the pseudo-physical too quickly, both with respect to clips and with respect to the timeline. I’m asking if there’s really a reason that they can’t coexist.
I’m not arguing that we should pull any of the good features out of FCPX. I’m trying to figure out how some of the missing good ideas from traditional NLEs can be re-incorporated into the product without detracting from it.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I see you haven’t played around with Dynamic Link a bunch in Pr and AE yet?
Bloat is one thing, how it handles bloat is another.
“Is there a lot of bloat there? I’m just getting my full copy today, so I haven’t messed with it at all yet. So, you are saying project files swell like crazy?
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[Walter Soyka] ” I understand that FCPX doesn’t have traditional PIOPs, but it does have another mechanism for preserving IOPs, so the same editorial operations can still be accomplished.”
I think it’s important while accepting that favorites go some way towards answering this question to acknowledge that it’s not nearly as clean as it might be when you are dealing with multiple edit decisions within the same source clip.
Surely most editors have the need to try out different edit selections (often only an I or an O and not a range) and having to favorite to keep these selections more or less persistent means having to deal with the limitations implicit in favoriting.
For example, you cannot favorite within an already favorited region without first unfavoriting. This is surely a significant drawback. What if I wanted to keep the favorite that I was unfavoriting but use it for later?
Another example which I keep coming back to because nobody seems to want to give me an answer about it is what to do when you only want to select an I or an O and favoriting under those circumstances means selecting the whole clip forwards or backwards. Am I (again) missing something that I am seeing this as an undesirable consequence of the favoriting “solution”?
I do wonder whether the better solution isn’t favoriting at all but rather the judicious use of markers …
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Oliver, how are we doing in helping you out?”
LOL!!!! Well, this thread has gone off the rails, down the ravine and back up the other side! As far as my project, I delivered this today with additional changes last night, this morning and even after it was delivered 😉
The interesting issue to me is that this seemingly simple scenario has generated such a long thread. I certainly think that’s symptomatic of some systemic things in X that sorely need to be addressed by Apple.
I did get a lot of good ideas. As far as X, I have an upcoming (simpler) commercial edit job that I’m weighing whether to cut in PProCS6 or X. Either would work fine (in fact, X would be well-suited for it), but I also have to generate OMFs for the mixer and EDL+QTs for the colorist. If I use X, it still means going quite a bit outside of it to finish the job. We’ll see. I still have a couple of weeks to decide.
Thanks.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Another example which I keep coming back to because nobody seems to want to give me an answer about it is what to do when you only want to select an I or an O and favoriting under those circumstances means selecting the whole clip forwards or backwards. Am I (again) missing something that I am seeing this as an undesirable consequence of the favoriting “solution”?”
I guess I don’t see the problem there, at least with respect to FCP7. You could only have one “favorite” per clip in FCP7 anyway, since you could only have one set of markers.
Do you have another use for single, unmatched I/OPs besides three-point editing (which isn’t bothered by the extraneous end point that you didn’t pick)?
[Simon Ubsdell] “For example, you cannot favorite within an already favorited region without first unfavoriting. This is surely a significant drawback. What if I wanted to keep the favorite that I was unfavoriting but use it for later? “
A big — and seemingly inexplicable — limitation. I’d love to see that addressed.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I guess I don’t see the problem there, at least with respect to FCP7. You could only have one “favorite” per clip in FCP7 anyway, since you could only have one set of markers.”
I guess this is true but implementing favorites as a tool for maintaining persistent I or O means that you effectively throw away the other benefits of having favorites in the first place – because now they can only be used for trying to retain IO rather than for their opresumably original purpose.
[Walter Soyka] “Do you have another use for single, unmatched I/OPs besides three-point editing (which isn’t bothered by the extraneous end point that you didn’t pick)?”
Absolutely. As Oliver has pointed out (and I think I have too) on more than one occasion, there are editors who use I and O as temporary markers all the time in pretty much every edit situation of the day. (The whole three point editing digression was not relevant to this discussion at all.)
Markers could be used instead but I’m not sure they would be as handy. A persistent I or a persistent O is half way to being an edit decision that you can use, whereas a marker isn’t and would involve extra steps.
[Walter Soyka] ”
A big — and seemingly inexplicable — limitation. I’d love to see that addressed.”One of the many things that needs work!
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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