-
Events: Good or Bad?
-
I’m finding this whole discussion kind of amusing. One of the early criticism of FCP was that its so-called media management was bush-league. Somewhere along the way, as the Legend of FCP rose, FCP’s weak media management became a strength that we couldn’t live without.
What’s the real problem here? That FCPX has a stronger, more classical media management system, or that it lacks collaborative tools?
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 -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “I don’t know about you – but I’m getting a back hander from the cow. fresh jersey cream, and some really nice gloucestershire red.”
I don’t even get any of the broken bottles of curdled cream.
Damn, I’m living wrong.
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.
-
[Joseph W. Bourke] “While I thoroughly enjoy reading it, I feel almost sorry for those who have to swing their b*lls around and tout what they have or haven’t done, as opposed to what someone else has or hasn’t done. It doesn’t matter – we’re all a trivia question in the long run.”
Maybe so, but when I post an opinion, and then someone questions the credentials upon which I base that opinion – I can’t think of any better way to establish for the wide range of readers whether I’m blowing smoke or espousing an opinion based on real-world experience than to publicly post such experience.
I post a lot of opinions, but I try to make my facts, facts.
And the stuff about who I am and the kind of work I do are facts. They can be verified or challenged (and certainly dismissed as to relevance) by anyone at any time.
Thats how on-line debate is supposed to work, isn’t it?
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.
-
[Walter Soyka] “FCP’s weak media management became a strength that we couldn’t live without.”
my evening for disagreeing here – but I don’t feel that’s right really walter – surely the point is that the FCP open workflow married, over time, smaller collaborative scenarios that were unlike Avid?
more fundamentally -is open media management a weakness full stop? does editing fundamentally require a closed silo? given the collaborative weaknesses of a closed silo?
let me ask you this – when your assets are video, and scripts, and storyboards, and PSDS, and CG elements, and scratch VO’s, and music picks that others outside of editing might want to look over – how much stuff should go into a silo?
forget the legend carry on – thats a really convenient dismissal of large scale organic procedures that grew out of new shops utilising FCP – the fact that we made sense of it does not mean it did not make sense.
the only thing that is required is proper media management. the collaborative review finder space available in a well ordered FCP project file encompassing all assets is an intrinsic asset of the FCP system itself. Its highly egalitarian. Finder level review of these assets by multiple partners is pretty key in a lot of shops I get to go into.
The idea that we return to a blackbox one way transcode silo strikes me as strange – at least coming from apple. I can’t tell who they are selling it to.
to my mind avid set their early approach to guarantee video assets via transcoding – apple feel like they have aped it a little, but mostly they were looking to remove the chance of user error – you know, like a magnetic archive or something.
In all honesty – as ever this feels like seriously mixed up software. I don’t think this software knows what it is.
but in essence: the fully finder open media pool has true advantages, and its removal has real, tangible, current workflow drawbacks.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
-
[Bill Davis] “What’s wrong with that?
“A lot of it comes down to tone, Bill. The way I read your post, it seemed to me that you dropped on the OP like a ton of bricks. I was scratching my head as to why you did that, and was going to post something like Sandeep posted, but he got there first.
-
[Oliver Peters] “Huh? Not true at all. I just tested this.”
If you would have moved that file to another directory on the same Volume, FCPX wouldn’t balk.
Now, using your example, all you would have had to do is drag the file from the finder back in to the event in fcpx, and FCPx would have relinked (by creating a new pointer to the file on the desktop).
Really easy, and really fast. Much faster than FCP7.
[Oliver Peters] “That part works about like “legacy” but definitely not in the way you imply.”
I said to move things between Volumes (sich as an external and the desktop), FCPX has tools to do so. You need to use the right tool for the right job. SOmetimes, that tool includes a bit of manual labor in the Finder.
Here’s the hypothetical.
You receive a less than meticulous arrangement of assets on a hard drive, and those assets are aliased in an FCPX Event. You, being Oliver that likes files meticulously arranged (I do too, by the way), are free to rearragne the files in the Finder (and keeping the files on the same Volume), and FCPX will keep track of it.
Try this. I am not making this up.
You can put it new directories, multiple directories. Rename it. Just keep it on the same volume and see what happens.
[Oliver Peters] “OTOH, if you modify that media file (name, length, embedded metadata, etc.) it is nearly impossible to get X to manually relink. “Legacy” would do this but complain first. The reason you can’t relink after modification is because Apple buttoned down the media management in a very Avid-like way. That’s a good thing, but does remove some versatility that we had with “legacy”.”
Weird. I can rename a file in the finder to an aliased file, and FCPX tracks it just fine.
Here’s the error that happens if other metadata is edited such as tc.
“Relinked files must have the same media type, same frame rate, and similar audio channels as the original files, and must be long enough to cover all the clips that reference the files.”
Is this a bad thing? FCPX tells you when your files have gone awry?
[Oliver Peters] “It gets back to what I said before. The way Apple INTENDED people to work with media files is to copy them into the Events, because ONLY those folders are what X truly has control over. They permitted linking because that’s how people like to work, but there is definitely a risk – which was there in “legacy”. That was something they were trying to mitigate in the design of X.”
I don’t see it that way at all, but I’m an alien.
When you get down to it, and really start messing with it, and learn to talk in the temrs of FPCX, it actually makes sense and it’s all that hard to deal with. Working with media in Events is much cleaner and easier, but it doesn’t suit every workflow. The methods that FCPX has in place to work with Events aren’t an after thought, which maybe you seem to be implying? Let’s not forget, when you alias a file in an Event, a file still goes in the Event, just not the original media file.
Every NLE or video program has rules when it comes to media handling and management. X is no different, and in some ways, represents a major shift forward.
Sure, it could use a few more capabilities, what program can’t use a few more capabilities?
[Oliver Peters] “I use linking almost exclusively, too, but the risk enters in the two-editor-sneakernet scenario. Editor A starts the job on an external drive. All camera media is on that external drive along with Events and Projects. But, all music, stills and graphics are on the internal hard drive. Editor B gets the external drive to continue the job. Camera media is there, but music and stills are offline (though in some case X copies these to the Events anyway). The danger of Finder-based organization, which Apple sought to fix.”
And they should be punished for trying to fix or help with this problem?
FCPX has tools to ensure all media is one place (Organize Events, Consolidate Project, etc). It is up to you to choose whether or not to use them. If you choose not to use them, then you are the master of your domain and it is up to you to remember to move all the appropriate files, just like most any other NLE.
Jeremy
-
[Walter Soyka] “I’m finding this whole discussion kind of amusing. One of the early criticism of FCP was that its so-called media management was bush-league. Somewhere along the way, as the Legend of FCP rose, FCP’s weak media management became a strength that we couldn’t live without.
What’s the real problem here? That FCPX has a stronger, more classical media management system, or that it lacks collaborative tools?”
I think the real problem is that we have a really hard time thinking of FCPX media management in FCPX terms. We still think in FCP7 terms, and how can we not? While there are similarities here and there, there are also major differences.
I find FCPX’s media management to be stronger than 7s, but I’m just a guy in an edit shop.
-
[Aindreas Gallagher] “open media management”
The Legend of FCP.
It wasn’t open media management, it was shitty media management. In it’s passivity, it allowed pliability, because you could get media through customs fairly easily, as long it had the same file name on the passport.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “the only thing that is required is proper media management. the collaborative review finder space available in a well ordered FCP project file encompassing all assets is an intrinsic asset of the FCP system itself. Its highly egalitarian. Finder level review of these assets by multiple partners is pretty key in a lot of shops I get to go into.
The idea that we return to a blackbox one way transcode silo strikes me as strange – at least coming from apple. I can’t tell who they are selling it to. “
We now need to start the Myths of FCPX to compliment of the Legend of FCP.
In what way is .mov FCPX media not Finder accessible? You do realize that FCPX will import the entirety of your .mov and folder organiztion to collections which reflect the Finder organization?
And how is the media that FCPX creates a blackbox? It’s .movs.
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “And they should be punished for trying to fix or help with this problem?”
Why do you keep trying to position it like I think they did the wrong thing? I didn’t say that. I’m merely pointing out that from the point of view of the users used to working in “legacy”, Apple has made some significant changes that appear to complicate their life. That’s the core starting point of this thread. Remember, I’m the guy that likes what Avid has done. Apple is simply following their lead 😉
You are arguing IN FAVOR OF LINKING. I’m NOT, although that IS hope I work most of the time. Your scenario of organizing within the volume is all well and good but it doesn’t represent the real world. That is the one where editors hand off drives and forget that some of the files were saved on a different drive. Those are the kinds of real-world problem that linking causes.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
*edited for spelling
[Oliver Peters] “Why do you keep trying to position it like I think they did the wrong thing? “
Because they have ‘copied something that Avid has done for two decades’. Like I said, I can’t tell if you hate or love this. And that linking is a “concession”. A concession, to me, is a negative term in the context of your original argument. I know you have a love hate relationship with X, so there are times when I cannot tell if the feature you are discussing is good for you or bad for you.
[Oliver Peters] “You are arguing IN FAVOR OF LINKING. I’m NOT, although that IS hope I work most of the time. Your scenario of organizing within the volume is all well and good but it doesn’t represent the real world. That is the one where editors hand off drives and forget that some of the files were saved on a different drive. Those are the kinds of real-world problem that linking causes.”
I argue in favor of linking because in a shared environment (which is really how this thread started), it cuts down on media duplicates, and also allows certain flexibilities that working with media inside the Event does not. It actually makes things LESS complicated. I feel that this was on purpose, and not conceding to the whims of professionals.
I don’t know what you mean about organizing on a Volume doesn’t represent the real world. I do it all the time…but it IS on an alien planet, so…there’s that.
It’s so easy though, to just tell someone to consolidate their Project to a new drive. All files would be copied, linked and ready to go on any computer with FCPX on it with minimal fuss.
FCPX has fall down easy tools to make efforts like this simple to the user.
But, as I said, you can’t save everyone from themselves especially, if they don’t bother to learn how to select one menu option before sending off a drive for finishing. It is much less convoluted than FCP Legend’s “Media Manager”.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up