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FCP-X: Thinking Differently?
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “There is no primary storyline, or secondary storyline, or auditions rippling things up and down – its the timeline. That’s what existed before. That what every editor up to Murch and beyond had. An absolute, open multitrack timeline you placed elements into. “
This is what I was alluding to in my question. I contend that the examples of Citizen Kane and The Godfather were cut in a manner far more like the magnetic timeline than the so-called open timeline; actually cutting and splicing celluloid. The Cameron films were cut on Avid, so they could have taken on a more free-form layout in their timelines.
The point I’m angling toward is this; there is no structural requirement that the NLE metaphor maintain a grid-like layout to achieve any particular linear outcome. The editing might be non-linear, but the outcome is always linear: a sequence of moving images with synchronized audio.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Apple have seen fit to replace all that with the primary storyline, secondary storyline, connected clips malarky. look at that timeline the guy posted, it’s powerful, malleable, reads like a sheet of music – but there is, in no way, a primary storyline there. Many work usage situations will produce something that is sympathetic to primary, secondary, connected metaphors – but many will not – the beauty of an open, multitrack absolute timeline is that it can encompass all approaches.”
It doesn’t matter if you call it a “Sequence” or a “Project”, “V1” or the “Primary Storyline”. It is all metaphor anyway. The argument that Apple somehow threw out 100 years of moving picture editing theory is absurd. Are we really suggesting that the cutting of Citizen Kane and the cutting of Avatar followed the same workflows? Don’t forget the post I was responding to implied that a consistent editing paradigm has existed from cutting celluloid right up through Avid’s timeline. I was asking the author to back that up, explain how the technology employed to edit Citizen Kane and The Godfather was completely analogous to the Avids James Cameron used to cut Titanic and Avatar in a manner that FCPX eschews.
Everything in any NLE UI is metaphor, merely an illustration of what is going on underneath. Whether it is the grid-like “open” timeline or the explicitly connected chain of the magnetic timeline, the metaphor is just illustrating how disparate chunks of content are being arranged to form one track of video with synchronized audio.
In the example you cited, the post’s author insists no one could ever match his FCP7 sequence in FCPX. Baloney. Sure, it wouldn’t have all those open spaces on V1, V2, and so on. So what? Ultimately, those spaces are meaningless to the outcome as the layers are all composited down into a single video track. He also neglected to explain where his experience with FCPX broke down when he tried to use it. He just calls it impossible without sharing how he arrived at that conclusion. I reject that argument on the grounds it is unsupported. Tell us why it is impossible to match that editorial outcome in FCPX. What specific editorial decisions cannot be represented in FCPX?
There is no structural requirement to elevate the clips he elevated above V1 unless they are being composited with something beneath them. There might be workflow rationales for doing so, organizational rationales, but no structural requirement. There is no reason FCPX couldn’t be used to arrive at the same composite outcome of linear video with synchronized audio that he achieved using FCP7. It might be illustrated differently in the UI, but that is only metaphor. From where I’m sitting, FCPX’s metaphor is capable of representing every editorial decision in the example timeline, or any other timeline for that matter.
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “I contend that the examples of Citizen Kane and The Godfather were cut in a manner far more like the magnetic timeline than the so-called open timeline”
Holy mackerel, first it’s open season on professional editors, now Citizen Kane and The Godfather are being used in the context of the magnetic timeline. Is nothing sacred anymore?
I’ve been listening to (okay reading) your stuff lately Andrew, and you’ve been making some sense lately. Until now! Could you please go into detail with a full explanation the theory above, please? I think this one’s a bit of a stretch.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[Mark Bein] “Citizen Kane could have been cut on Imovie.”
Mark,
If my information is correct, Citizen Kane was edited in 1940, and thus it was not, nor could it have been edited with any NLE. (Though, as a matter of fact, it was edited in the non-linear process common for the time).
Also, when did iMovie add keykode suport?
Franz.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “but there is, in no way, a primary storyline there.”
After looking at this again, I disagree. It’s the VO.
You would layout the VO, with gaps (so what, they are a space), and the rest is done through connected clips, or guess story lines if you need them and perhaps some compound clips to keep it tidy if you need it.
The problem is sending this data to FCPx and having FCPx understand that a1-a4 is really the primary storyline.
Also, I wonder if that complex of a timeline is needed for this composite.
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[David Roth Weiss] “Holy mackerel, first it’s open season on professional editors, now Citizen Kane and The Godfather are being used in the context of the magnetic timeline. Is nothing sacred anymore?”
Not those two specifically, but any film edited by cutting celluloid.
[David Roth Weiss] “Could you please go into detail with a full explanation the theory above, please? I think this one’s a bit of a stretch.”
Editing celluloid involves gluing or taping two film ends together, creating tangible links between two clips. Seems to me that is a lot more conceptually similar to the magnetic timeline’s explicit clip connections metaphor than the metaphor employed by the traditional NLE timeline, which if translated literally into meatspace would look like laying strips of film out in sequence with nothing but spatial proximity linking them together.
My argument is in defense of the UI metaphor of the magnetic timeline, I’m not implying any endorsement of FCPX by any revered film editors, past or present. I’m only drawing conceptual parallels.
Best,
Andy -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “but there is, in no way, a primary storyline there.”
[Jeremy Garchow] “After looking at this again, I disagree. It’s the VO.”
Or perhaps it would be the soundtrack?
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 -
[Andrew Richards] “In the example you cited, the post’s author insists no one could ever match his FCP7 sequence in FCPX. Baloney. Sure, it wouldn’t have all those open spaces on V1, V2, and so on. So what? Ultimately, those spaces are meaningless to the outcome as the layers are all composited down into a single video track.”
Andrew, I agree that there’s no reason the edit couldn’t be accomplished in FCPX. I also agree that the empty spaces in the tracks are meaningless to the composited outcome.
I’d suggest, though, that those empty spaces help make the timeline vastly easier to understand at a glance than would be possible with FCPX. Proximity and alignment are visual cues that people use to quickly understand the relationship between objects. In an open timeline, the editor can take advantage of these, actually designing the track layout both to composite properly and to convey information about the edit back to the editor at a glance.
FCPX with its self-collapsing timeline makes it impossible for us to use proximity on the timeline to convey meaning at all, and it fights our inclination to use alignment to relate objects. Any relationships between aligned objects in the FCPX timeline is purely coincidental.
Graphic design offers us a few tools to convey information in 2D space, but FCPX’s self-collapsing timeline totally disregards them.
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] “Or perhaps it would be the soundtrack?”
Absolutely, it could be.
My guess is a :30 with VO and music means the VO is probably driving the pace of the edit most of the time, but it does appear there’s a few SFX “crashes” in there with some short music only breaks.
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[Andrew Richards] “Editing celluloid involves gluing or taping two film ends together, creating tangible links between two clips. Seems to me that is a lot more conceptually similar to the magnetic timeline’s explicit clip connections metaphor than the metaphor employed by the traditional NLE timeline, which if translated literally into meatspace would look like laying strips of film out in sequence with nothing but spatial proximity linking them together.”
Clip connections cross tracks, though. FCPX’s edits are held together by proximity exactly the same way that FCP’s edits are.
I think that this conversation should be broader than just the timeline metaphor. FCP and FCPX have entirely different editorial metaphors. Film editorial always ripples, but I think that FCP is conceptually much closer to film editorial than FCPX is. Consider the concepts (and language) if things like bins, clips, and sequences, and the lack of concepts like storylines and clip connections.
Isn’t FCPX’s new model supposed to liberate us from the constraints that FCP inherited from physical editorial?
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] “Proximity and alignment are visual cues that people use to quickly understand the relationship between objects. In an open timeline, the editor can take advantage of these, actually designing the track layout both to composite properly and to convey information about the edit back to the editor at a glance.”
These are loose conventions which can and will vary widely from user to user and shop to shop, and I did say that there are workflow and organizational reasons to want to elevate things vertically. However, a much more explicit means of organization and communication exists in FCPX: compound clips and the timeline search panel.
[Walter Soyka] “FCPX with its self-collapsing timeline makes it impossible for us to use proximity on the timeline to convey meaning at all, and it fights our inclination to use alignment to relate objects. Any relationships between aligned objects in the FCPX timeline is purely coincidental.”
Apple needs to allow for naming of compound clips, but that aside, gathering elements into compound clips as well as tagging clips with metadata is a far more explicit means of communicating order and intent than what can be implied with simple proximity.
[Walter Soyka] “Graphic design offers us a few tools to convey information in 2D space, but FCPX’s self-collapsing timeline totally disregards them.”
Yes it does. But I say it is better to convey information with metadata and explicit relationships than to imply it with spatial proximity.
Best,
Andy
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