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Events: Good or Bad?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Because they have ‘copied something that Avid has done for two decades'”
Because it’s true. You don’t seem to like me saying that Apple copied an existing idea.
[Jeremy Garchow] “And that linking is a “concession”. A concession, to me, is a negative term in the context of your original argument.”
I think you are applying a value that isn’t there. I am offering this position, because it is essentially how the product folks at Apple presented it to me. The preferred design intent is to import media into the folders to maintain control.
[Jeremy Garchow] ” organizing on a Volume doesn’t represent the real world. I do it all the time…”
How often do you work on projects started by another editor (often the client who isn’t really a knowledgeable editor) and have to continue with their files, handed to you on external drives? That’s the scenario I’m describing. That’s far more applicable to most of the folks on this forum than working with SAN volumes.
Regarding your test (all changes done in Finder):
– Change file name at the finder level, FCP X relinks.
– Move the file to another location on the same drive, FCP X relinks.
– Alter the file slightly, like add an annotation in QT7, FCP X relinks.
– Move the file to a different drive, FCP X DOES NOT relink.
– Trim the length of the file using QT7, FCP X DOES NOT relink (that’s applicable when clips are externally color correction).
– Replace the trimmed file with the original in the original location, FCP X relinks but only after several attempts at manual relinking.– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Because it’s true. You don’t seem to like me saying that Apple copied an existing idea.”
On the contrary, if there’s something to be emulated, it’s more robust media management.
I have nothing against you.
[Oliver Peters] “I think you are applying a value that isn’t there. I am offering this position, because it is essentially how the product folks at Apple presented it to me. The preferred design intent is to import media into the folders to maintain control.”
Well. I don’t have access to the product folks, but I’d tell them that even when files are linked there’s a file in the event that maintains control. So I’d ask for clarification.
They would also prefer if I auto analyzed all my media, but I don’t.
[Oliver Peters] “How often do you work on projects started by another editor (often the client who isn’t really a knowledgeable editor) and have to continue with their files, handed to you on external drives? That’s the scenario I’m describing. That’s far more applicable to most of the folks on this forum than working with SAN volumes.”
I just received my first fcpx project. I wrote about it a while ago. It was the easiest transfer I’ve ever been a part of and everything was a complete mess.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I have nothing against you.”
Rest assured, I certainly don’t take it that way.
[Jeremy Garchow] “but I’d tell them that even when files are linked there’s a file in the event that maintains control”
I think they know that 😉 The point is they have been trying to remove human error introduced by messing with the files externally.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I just received my first fcpx project.”
I didn’t mean X specifically, but outside projects (with media) in general.
[Jeremy Garchow] ” It was the easiest transfer I’ve ever been a part of and everything was a complete mess”
But you were lucky because everything was on the drives you were given.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “- Change file name at the finder level, FCP X relinks.
– Move the file to another location on the same drive, FCP X relinks.
– Alter the file slightly, like add an annotation in QT7, FCP X relinks.
– Move the file to a different drive, FCP X DOES NOT relink.
– Trim the length of the file using QT7, FCP X DOES NOT relink (that’s applicable when clips are externally color correction).
– Replace the trimmed file with the original in the original location, FCP X relinks but only after several attempts at manual relinking.”When moving to different drive, simply dragging the file back in to fcpx will relink it.
Trimmed files that are too short won’t relink along with the other warnings posted earlier.
If using graded files, you’ll have to use XML interchange for now.
Still, it’s not too shabby if you ask me.
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[Oliver Peters] “But you were lucky because everything was on the drives you were given.
“I made sure of it as did FCPX’s media management tools.
I made my own luck on that one.
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Well Chris, I agree tone is important.
So mine is fair game for discussion. But so is the OPs.
QUOTE:
For us it simply gets in the way and adds a layer of complexity when in a large shared environment. The need to virtualize the media via aliases when linking to media is of no benefit.
(Bullet Point: It’s NOT perfect for my large facility)And…
This is certainly the opposite of sharing, and having to make and manage copies is untenable.
(Bullet Point: It does NOT the way I think things should work)And…
Apple, and others, confuse sharing projects with concurrent use of media. While one can use media concurrently with FCPX it’s far more complex than FCP7 and needs improvement.
(Bullet Point: It’s too complex and confusing and NOT ready for me yet)Now remember, this thread is about EVENTs as a general construct. Good or Bad. And the OP’s view was clearly stated as coming from a “facility” viewpoint. And equally clear that Events are (in his opinion and for his purposes) BAD.
But that title, in my opinion, opens the discussion to exactly what the title says. A discussion of whether Events as a CONCEPT are good or bad.
Precisely what I was bloviating about in my admittedly grumpy rant. (which BTW, was clearly teasingly labeled as exactly such in my body copy.)
I like EVENTS. No, I actually LOVE FCP-X Events. The EB is right up their with the new Share menu as the thing I find MOST useful about X day to day. Others appear to have the same feeling about them.
So it’s in that context that I was delighted to argue against the OP’s POV that Events are bad juju.
I think over time, Other NLEs will adopt something similar. I really do. A pre-timeline workspace with persistence is BRILLIANT, IMO even if long-conditioned timeline centric editors have tremendous difficulty thinking outside the timeline in the new “two-stage” content creation process such as X’s.
I know the way Apple has initially implemented it in X doesn’t “fit” into facility workflows right now. And that the underlying plumbing is undeveloped. But I hold out huge hope that this concept spreads out like wildfire – because it’s really, really useful for a lot of practical editing tasks with file based workflows used in a world where revision and redeployment are (in my view) becoming increasingly important.
But this is all just me thinking out loud as always.
And anyway Happy Holiday’s Chris.
Hope to see you here in the new year.
BTW, if you’ve got time and are in LA for the January LACPUG meeting, I’m doing a presentation on my Multi-Cam Jazz project that night, so if you have time, stop by and maybe we can grab a beer afterwards. I’m totally non-combative in person, as I think others here who’ve shared a pint with me will personally attest!
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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[Jeremy Garchow] “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.”
DING – DING – DING – DING
We have a winner.
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, I respect your point of view, but this isn’t a contest.
There are people who might want to use fcpx on more than their laptop and fw800 drives.
I am one of those people, and we are hardly a giant facility.
I enjoy speaking with people who are also trying or thinking about doing the same types of workflows as we are. It seems there are few that are talking about these kinds of situations on public forums (or perhaps there are simply only a few people stupid enough to do it, and again, I am one of those people).
There’s no reason to read between the lines of other posts and reiterate fcpx isn’t for the big leagues (or whatever), as that’s exactly what we are here discussing. In my case, I am not qualified to be in the big leagues, but we do have a shared environment, so I try to add my opinions to the conversation in order to share knowledge. I’d appreciate it if you’d let us have a conversation about it without trying to put people on the defensive.
If people weren’t interested in it on any level, they wouldn’t be here, or fcpx wouldn’t allow things like referenced events and San Locations if Apple wasn’t thinking about facility level functionality during development.
Back to the egg nog.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Bill, I respect your point of view, but this isn’t a contest.”
I was trying – hamhandedly it seams – to indicate support for a simple concept that i see over and over here.
Which is folks often unable to “see” X for what it actually is – essentially misjudging it by arguing against it on what I think are often far too narrow views.
Again, I have absolutely no quarrel with those who understand it and find it wanting. That’s fair. But I still think it’s struggling with too many who don’t have a clue about how it actually functions and who subsequently dismiss it based on how they think it must work based mostly on what they read or on too cursory a look.
Heck, I still regularly misunderstand parts of it after all my time using it, so that’s no big deal. I try to reserve my bristles for people who write what appear to me to be “negative absolutes” that miss-represent it’s functionality.
I read your post as not a “competitive” deal at all, but rather as another reasoned post that further shows you’ve taken the time to really understand what’s under X’s hood. My silly onomatopoeia was supposed to be a light hearted way to express that.
I’ll keep such support to myself, henceforth.
No big deal.
(Tho I still think you got the central idea absolutely right.)
Happy holidays, regardless.
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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Here’s John Heagy’s quote, your summation, and then mine.
[Bill Davis] “QUOTE:
For us it simply gets in the way and adds a layer of complexity when in a large shared environment. The need to virtualize the media via aliases when linking to media is of no benefit.
(Bullet Point: It’s NOT perfect for my large facility)”FCPX doesn’t have a traditional project structure and the way Events are sometimes organized causes more work than we are used to. Since Render files and transcodes are stored with Events, it makes moving or duplicating Events a lot of work or take a lot of disk space, not to mention, when duplicating a referenced Event, FCPX will automatically add any external media in to the Event on the duplicate. This creates unnecessary duplicates of media. Is this the best way that this can be done, Apple? What is the benefit here?
[Bill Davis] “And…
This is certainly the opposite of sharing, and having to make and manage copies is untenable.
(Bullet Point: It does NOT the way I think things should work)”Why all the duplicates? What happens when we need to archive or restore, or simply track multiple sets of the same data set? Is this the best way this can be done, Apple? Anyone?
[Bill Davis] “And…
Apple, and others, confuse sharing projects with concurrent use of media. While one can use media concurrently with FCPX it’s far more complex than FCP7 and needs improvement.
(Bullet Point: It’s too complex and confusing and NOT ready for me yet)”While there are ways to manage Events without having media in them, the options for dealing and sharing those Events runs out pretty quickly without resorting to a lot of file duplication. This needs some work, Apple.
As a test, Bill, have you tried any of these things we are talking about in this thread? If so, you will see, that while there are some really good things, FCPX currently falls a bit short. What is find frustrating is that currently, FCPX is a tease. There’s some really cool options in San Locations, but the management of referenced media in SAN Locations or local drives simply aren’t possible in FCPX. Some of the capability is there, but not all of it. This is coming from someone who generally likes FCPX.
I can assure you, I’ve tried your workflow. A laptop and a singular fw800 (or eSata drive) works just fine, but that is not the reality for all of us. Even if you take a SAN out f it and try and work between two machines (one local, one mobile) and multiple drives, it gets a little weird and you can end up with a lot of duplicates of things (media/Events/Projects, etc). In larger environments, duplicates are not what it takes to keep things organized. FCPX is billed as the Final Cut Studio replacement, and in many ways it is. One last remaining hurdle is workflow, and in a shared environment large or small, that is a major consideration.
Jeremy
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