FCP X Explained…

[Steve Connor]

I’m amazed we ever coped before FCPX and default ripple mode

[Robin S. kurz]

No kiddin’. I’m in fact so completely detached from “legacy mode” that I honestly cannot figure out how I could ever have thought that was a really great and/or efficient way to work. Or accept that it in fact WAS at the time. And that for a period of almost ten years… ???

O_o

Oddly bizarre, in retrospect.

But not nearly as bizarre as the thought that anyone would actually and voluntarily choose to continue down that same path. Wow. It’s like seeing someone shun an automobile and haughtily climb onto their horse-carriage. ?

– RK

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[Darren Roark]

[Robin S. Kurz] “But not nearly as bizarre as the thought that anyone would actually and voluntarily choose to continue down that same path. Wow. It’s like seeing someone shun an automobile and haughtily climb onto their horse-carriage. ?”

The articles from back in the day saying horseless-carriages are a fad are just as interesting as the mid nineties interviews with editors saying they could work faster on a Kem than an Avid.

[Oliver Peters]

A nice presentation, but fundamentally skewed to pitch his preference for FCPX. The definition of linear versus nonlinear in NLE software is flawed. By presenting the use of “modifier keys” as some sort of hidden function is clearly a way to present that operation in a negative light. And how is track-patching any different than connected clips? In fact it’s worse, because connected clips don’t carry the same attributes as storyline clips. There really is no “old” style versus “new” style. There’s simply one way of designing the software versus another way.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Bill Davis]

After ten years on Legacy and now five years on X, it feels VERY different to me.

Knowing what is established as the default action in an NLE is a pretty clear indicator of the softwares design ethic.

I’ve got to imagine somebody learning X first, would see the modified-keystrokes needed to do something as basic as “ripple delete” as added complexity.

And that goes double for actions that can destroy prior decisions outside the area being currently viewed. That’s just poor design, in retrospect.

I say “in retrospect”, because like everyone else, I didn’t know it was missing until X showed me a different possibility.

It’s clear traditional NLEs did things in a somewhat simplistic fashion based on what was possible in the early days of NLE design and in later iterations those processes were adapted to work as the editors needed via modifier keys.

All software gets better over time. Nothing weird about that at all.

It’s called “software development” for a reason.

My 2 cents.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Herb Sevush]

[Oliver Peters] “A nice presentation, but fundamentally skewed to pitch his preference for FCPX.”

Understatement of the year. My favorite part is when he quotes David Lawrence at the beginning of his pitch, about whom there is no greater critic of the paradigm of X. Talk about quoting someone out of context.

[Oliver Peters] “The definition of linear versus nonlinear in NLE software is flawed”

It’s not flawed, it’s flat wrong. Non-linear means you can freely take any piece of source material and slap it any where you want it, it does not mean ripple mode is somehow more “non-linear” than overwrite mode. Non-linear bows to the editors intent, it does not insist than one kind of intent is better than another.

It would also be nice, in a nod to historical accuracy, to mention that over the years linear editing developed tools – most notably “Trace” – that allowed editors to begin re-approaching the non-linear nature of film editing while still restricted to tape. It lacked the speed of true non-linear, but allowed for the same type of freedom. The editing world was not as binary as was presented.

[Oliver Peters] “By presenting the use of “modifier keys” as some sort of hidden function is clearly a way to present that operation in a negative light”

And it has not always been the case that all tracked NLEs defaulted to overwrite mode. Edit* for instance allowed you to switch your overall “mode” between overwrite and ripple – neither was the default. Individual tools did not have defaults they would simply act one way in overwrite mode (trim edit) another way in ripple mode (ripple trim). The editor switched between modes with a single key and each mode was equally weighted.

[Oliver Peters] “There really is no “old” style versus “new” style. There’s simply one way of designing the software versus another way.”

Amen to that.

And finally – I can’t think of any editor who wouldn’t want the magnetic timeline at certain points in his work, the issue is that you can’t have it only when you want it, it’s all or nothing, and while it would be great to have that kind of ease in moving clips around the timeline in the exact scenario demonstrated, that is not the way I spend most of my time as an editor.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Robin S. kurz]

[Oliver Peters] “A nice presentation, but fundamentally skewed to pitch his preference for FCPX.”

An FCP editor, at an FCP event, showing/comparing FCP’s paradigm and highlighting its clear advantages to other FCP editors. Wow. What a completely surprising conclusion!

When and where is he selling this as anything BUT an opinion piece? To imply it is anything else, just as a cheap means of discrediting him and his personal opinions, would be amazingly disingenuous. Never mind that I have no clue as to how one even skews one’s own opinion. ?

[Oliver Peters] “The definition of linear versus nonlinear in NLE software is flawed.”

One where he clearly states “my own definition of what linear editing is”. Not the definition. And even if he hadn’t, how is that even vaguely relevant to his overall point of the demo? What does that change? Red-herring anyone? Anyone’s interpretation of linear or non-linear, green or blue, briefs or boxers would not change anything about the simple every day operations he demoed in each app and their painfully huge differences in terms of handling.

The whole thing is essentially exactly this, only substituting 7 with PPro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRZgVZd9UmQ

In which case I don’t even care what it’s called. I call it hilarious. In a painful kind of way.

[Oliver Peters] “By presenting the use of “modifier keys” as some sort of hidden function is clearly a way to present that operation in a negative light. “

Er… yes? That pretty much describes it perfectly. Well put and 100% right. Because I have no idea how one can say that effectively hiding functionality, which is by far the most preferred and most common of the two operations, under a modifier key is a positive thing. Other than “because that’s what I’m used to and change is categorically icky!” Otherwise do explain how needing a modifier key (that I have seen 80+% of PPro users don’t even know about!) isn’t negative.

Oh wait… ripple editing suddenly isn’t what a real “pro” wants to do 9 out of 10 times, just skateboard video noobies? A “pro” wants gaps after gaps after gaps and finds taking two (or more) steps to do the same thing far more “pro” and efficient. ?

For me, the operation he demos at around 9:30 alone is the epitome of what is so utterly idiotic about a track-based system. It could’ve stopped there. Nuff said.

[Oliver Peters] “And how is track-patching any different than connected clips?”

You can’t be serious. ? If there’s anything in X that can somehow be misconstrued to be “like patching” by any stretch of the imagination, then maybe ROLES. But other than that, sorry, to suggest the one has anything to do with the other is just ridiculous imho.

[Oliver Peters] “In fact it’s worse, because connected clips don’t carry the same attributes as storyline clips.”

¿Huh? Attributes? Wha?

[Oliver Peters] “There really is no “old” style versus “new” style.”

Now you’re just making stuff up. Otherwise feel free to quote the timecode at the point he said anything even close to “new style” or “old style”. He was comparing paradigms, not styles. And no, they’re not synonyms, sorry to say.

– RK

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[Oliver Peters]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Because I have no idea how one can say that effectively hiding functionality, which is by far the most preferred and most common of the two operations, under a modifier key is a positive thing.”

I don’t get how this is “hiding”. It’s a simple matter of actually learning the application along with setting up the preferences. One could equally say that using the Position mode in FCPX is “hidden”. There are certain plenty of newbie posts here on the COW by folks who overlooked that function. The presentation was versus Premiere Pro, but if you pull Media Composer into the discussion, the actions of the Smart Tool are quite a bit different and behavior can be customized and be as contextual as you like.

[Robin S. Kurz] “You can’t be serious”

I’m absolutely serious. Track patching AND the use of connected clips creates a vertical compositing hierarchy for video and a summing function for audio. You have similar steps to follow if you want video-only, audio-only or audio/video edits. Seems like a pretty analogous operation to me.

[Robin S. Kurz] “¿Huh? Attributes? Wha?”

For example, you cannot add a transition to a connected clip without it becoming a secondary storyline, even if just for one clip. To transition between two connected clips, they both have to be in the same secondary storyline.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Now you’re just making stuff up. Otherwise feel free to quote the timecode at the point he said anything even close to “new style” or “old style”.”

That was really directed at the sentiment of the first few comments in this thread and not so much the presenter. However, he does position other NLEs as “classic”, which can easily be interpreted as code for “old”.

[Robin S. Kurz] “The whole thing is essentially exactly this, only substituting 7 with PPro.”

I would certainly agree that clip swapping is a very sweet feature of FCPX making the magnetic timeline the marquee function for the app. However, in actual practice I rarely find that clip-swapping is done once the timeline is built to a complex level. So it’s a nice demo, that doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference in the real world.

It also doesn’t become very useful, when you move a clip 10 minutes down on the timeline to a place within the first minute. Far easier to paste-insert than drag clips around. The FCPX timeline is far too cumbersome (sluggish) and finicky to do this on a large project.

In addition, much of the time, connected clips are not connected to the clip you are trying to move. Rather, they are connected to the last part of the preceding clip. This means you spend extra time changing the connection points before ever moving a clip around together with its corresponding connected clips.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Claude Lyneis]

In spite of all the negative and learned responses to this video, it makes some sense to me. Maybe it is because my projects are not generally at the complexity of a feature film. When I was using FCP7 and had to do a lot of locking and unlocking of tracks, I found that to be very time consuming and even irritating. With X the ability to slide clips around during the assembly stage in a very transparent way is a big positive. Also I hated the clip collision issue in FCP7.

Also his analogy between cutting film on a flat bed and FCPX that treat time differently than the tape approach for early video editing and PPro made a lot of sense.

As always, though I enjoyed the impassioned arguments that followed. Perhaps that is something that just flows from the contributors being an editors and interested in the smallest nuances.

[Tony West]

I enjoyed his video, but I usually send people the swapping two shots video that you posted second when they ask me “Why X?”

When I first started working with X I didn’t like it. I just jumped right in without any studying of it and got a little frustrated. I hacked my way through my first project and took it to the client. They wanted changes so I went back to make them and that’s when I really started loving X.

It wasn’t the assembling of the edit at first, it was the making changes fast that got me onboard.

There is really no argument people can make against that strength of X, accept to maybe say I don’t make changes to my timeline that far in.

Well, I make a lot of changes for different reasons and even if I only did it a few times it’s worth it for me.

The thing that I have always found ironic about X early on and now, is that it’s often not seen as an editing program for “complicated work”. I fond that the more “complicated” your timeline is the more useful X is. When he goes to show the example of swapping he actually says “let’s go to a more complicated timeline” (or something like that) Moving stuff around in a simple timeline is easy in most editing software.

What X is doing is much like your iPhone when you start typing and it starts guessing at the next word you are going to type. It’s often correct with it’s guess so it saves you time if you select the word instead of typing the entire word yourself. Or when you mistype a word, instead of backspace, backspace, backspace retype you can select the correct word in a flash.

X is using that technology and it’s connected clips and magnetic timeline helps it do that.

For example, it’s guessing you don’t want to overwrite a section that you built so it moves it out of the way for you. It is guessing that you would have moved it yourself so it will save you the time. Or when you pick up a section and you are dragging it down the timeline and the blue line pops up on the next edit, guessing that you might want to drop it there. You can release the mouse before you actually get there if its guessing right. That saves time instead of going all the way to the edit.

In a track based program it’s almost impossible for the program to guess your next move. Do you want that piece of audio on track 2 or track 14? It has no way of knowing, so you must select that yourself.

People ask me how I can edit faster in X, it’s much like I can text faster now because I’m not typing as much to say the same thing.