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FCP X Explained…
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[Bill Davis] “I’ve always said the things about X that attract me to is are generally NOT the things that have been part of the canon of NLE language for decades. Those things are nice, but not important. What IS important (to me at least) are the things that have been largely UNIMAGINED to this point. X had a major dusting of that when it was released. I want more of THAT.
As EXCELLENT as your list is, I think it’s perhaps, kinda that. Great “wants,” but nearly all already well known and hoped for.
I remember saying basically. I want Apple to SURPRISE me with things I haven’t dreamed about yet.
“And this is where we differ. Apple can surprise me all they want – but while they’re working on their surprises, how about they also add in functionality that has been proven, in other NLEs, to be a boost to productivity and would make the program more powerful? I see zero downside to it. The fact that my list can be considered well known and hoped for by lots of editors should be reason enough for Apple to look at their program, compare it to their competition and say “Wow – they have some great features. Can we implement them, and make them even better?” Instead we got 3D text.
Honest question – have they released any surprises that have made a real, immediate, and constant boost to your productivity since the multicam update? Looking at their release history, most of their releases since then have been bug fixes, new codec support, or adding in functionality that was there in FCP7 (or already present in other NLEs). Which is great! But the pace has slowed so much that it’s disheartening, and they aren’t even keeping parity with their competition any more.
It’s been 5 years. What surprises have there been past the initial release and the promised multicam et. al update (which was announced months prior to release)?
[Bill Davis] “(Well, I do have some ideas about the Voiceover Tool and audio recording workflows in X, because that’s something I do a LOT. Maybe someday I’ll gently poke my friends in Cupertino about that!)”
Do tell. What is FCPX lacking in regards to VO work, and how would you make it better?
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Oliver Peters] “it’s worth noting that broadcast-oriented NLE products started with the Quantel Harry, developed in 1985”
I remember my brother showing me the Quantel Henry he used back in the day. As much of a paradigm shift from my Avid and linear days as was the shift from Legacy to X.
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Oh wow. I feel like I’m back in 1992 on the Fidonet Commodore Amiga Echo. The PC and Mac users visiting, telling the Amiga users how dumb they are for using their chosen system. It’s not a holy war guys! Some people still use Speed Razor and Discrete *Edit. It’s just a tool.
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[Bill Davis] “(Well, I do have some ideas about the Voiceover Tool and audio recording workflows in X, because that’s something I do a LOT. Maybe someday I’ll gently poke my friends in Cupertino about that!)”
Perhaps your “friends” could get you a gig in the Apple PR Department as well 🙂
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[Tony West] “If time is not a factor, like cutting a doc, I just cut the shot out and leave it closed. Why would I want a black hole there?
Nothing is gong there.”On the flip side, why would you want two clips/shots side-by-side that shouldn’t be side by side?
My rough cuts are full of black holes because I know putting A next to B is wrong, but I just haven’t figured out/built what should go between them. Occasionally a producer will push for viewing a rough cut before it’s ready and get frustrated with all the black, but for me the flow isn’t interrupted because in my mind I don’t see the black, I see what will eventually live there.
Sometimes I’ll make cards as places holders “Music up here”, “Broll of woods”, “Bob talking about Ohio”, etc., so that others get a better idea of what’s in my head. It can be tedious to keep making cards though and I’d rather spend that time cutting.
-Andrew
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[Andrew Kimery] “My rough cuts are full of black holes because I know putting A next to B is wrong, but I just haven’t figured out/built what should go between them.”
Yes, this was the explanation I was going to give too.
Because most of the editing process (for me) is usually about constructing around a “roughly sketched out architecture”, dictated perhaps by music, perhaps by natural dialogue rhythms, perhaps by sound design, or a combination of these types of elements, I rarely use ripple delete because this would be a disruption of the “sketched out architecture”. As is the case with you, leaving black holes is a key part of how this all works for me.
Obviously I will use sometimes ripple delete and “ripple move” at a very early stage, such as when adjusting a string-out, etc., but once the edit is up and running I will almost never uses these techniques.
It follows that when I do use either technique, my requirements for how it functions are very basic indeed, in the sense that video and audio will be coterminous and not yet multi-layered, which of course makes it simple to do in any NLE.
(As a side note when I ripple move, I will usually Cut and Insert Paste (or whatever is the equivalent on each platform), which is a handier technique then dragging things around the timeline when they are not in the immediate vicinity of where you want them to go.)
I think what we are seeing in this thread (as so often in this type of discussion) is that different editors not only favour different strategies, but more importantly they are doing different types of editing. In my work, editing isn’t about stringing one shot after another and then shuffling the order (ripple move) or losing a shot here or there (ripple edit). But for some editors here that’s clearly the bulk of the task because that’s the type of show they are putting together.
Hence, much as I enjoy the fun of doing ripple moves in FCP X, I just don’t do them very often at all – and on some jobs never.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Bill Davis] “Not saying it’s optimal for everyone…”
I think you think it is optimal for everyone, but you always pull up short a hair short of flat out saying so. Any criticism of X you explain away as either user error, user ignorance, irrelevant because the way X does it is better and/or irrelevant because you’ve happily delivered 200+ projects so far and if you can get buy w/o feature XYZ it must not be that meaningful of a feature to begin with.
W/regards to attitude, there are people that have been through rougher things than arguing about which NLE is best yet they are still very pleasant to interact with. I doubt the ‘Great NLE Wars of the Early 21st Century” made anyone unpleasant to be around that wasn’t already unpleasant to be around. I don’t equate criticism of a software tool with someone attacking my house though, so maybe I’m not taking it seriously enough to become a grizzled, battle hardened vet of the NLE wars.
Possibly unrelated story just popped into my head. During the past 9 or 10 years I’ve taken part in one of the many MS Rides held around the country in order to help raise money and awareness for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The bike rides are usually a two day event that covers 150 miles. Well, a few years ago the weather was horrible (freezing rain or snow depending on what altitude you were at) and at one of the rest stops a few of us were commiserating about the craptacular conditions we were cycling in. Another cyclist pulled up and when she heard our chatter she casually said, “The people we are here for would love to be able to ride, even in weather like this.” Needless to say, our complaints ceased and the weather suddenly didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Sometimes a perspective adjustment leads to an attitude adjustment.
-Andrew
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[Simon Ubsdell] “If you really are doing ripple moves all the time, then maybe you need to be doing more thinking about what you’re doing and less random moving of stuff around?”
Brilliant. Best one yet. ?
Yeah. I also couldn’t be more bummed that Apple had the gall to removed those visually powerful reminder-gaps, so I can reminisce over every bygone edit throughout the day… *sigh*… that just made SO much more sense and made for amazing movies.
[/s] ?
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I literally haven’t a clue what you think you meant by what you just wrote, but if you feel happy having written it, then that’s all good.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
Gee, bummers. Must have been the little typo. Ah well. I expected no less, so no worries! ?
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