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FCP-X: Thinking Differently?
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Has anyOne tried the position tool and add gap
Not so tricky to have those gaps appear
I agree trimming across multiple tracks isn’t possible and should be
The magnetic timeline really isn’t that different
Get over it
The software will get upgraded to what you are after in time
Final Cut Suite ACT Trainer and User
Working at http://www.vet.co.uk
Personal Blog: http://www.benscottarts.co.uk -
[Andrew Richards] “What, are we to stage a race? “
Works for me! 😉
[Andrew Richards] “What should I be seeing in his screenshot that is impossibly cumbersome to achieve in FCPX? Certainly not the compositing layering. Not the layout of the audio. Other than the elevation of some clips above some video tracks, what jumps out of that screenshot as being a nightmare to pull off in FCPX? “
What you’re seeing are each one of his hundreds of editorial decisions fully exposed, accessible, and immediately manipulable, all at the same time, all in the same window view. Each object was simply placed where it needed to be in time, like a note on a musical score. No need to worry about the rules of an abstract object container model. No need to create nests just to do transitions. No need to unpack objects to get access to their audio. No need to create slugs to keep everything from sliding left, etc., etc.
I don’t hear anyone saying that building a sequence like this in FCPX is impossible. What I’m hearing a vast majority of advanced users saying is that it’s so painful to do that it might as well be impossible. If Apple cares about these users, they need to listen and act on their feedback. Apple’s silence has not been helpful.
[Andrew Richards] “I’m not sure what kind of meaningful evidence anyone could gather in support of one side or the other on this point. Number of clicks? Time spent? Layers required to achieve a given effect? What is your metric for editorial efficiency?”
Those are all fine metrics. In fact that’s exactly the kind of thing tested in typical software UI user testing and QA. If FCPX takes 5 clicks and a bunch of mousing to achieve the same result I can get with a single right-click select in FCP7, then yes, you can absolutely say it is less efficient at that task.
[Andrew Richards] “That’s a cynical way to charaterize it. Is it at all possible it was Apple’s UI designers studying how people use their software and seeking to remove barriers to common tasks? I don’t believe this thing is the product of a gang of cruel scientists and hucksters bent on insulting professional editors.”
As cynical as what Apple did at NAB?
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
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You know, you say all this Andy, but the claim is constantly being made that X represents a revolution in editing, and is much, much faster. I think it is fair for people to ask for that to be substantiated.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Also, when did iMovie add keykode suport?”
Since it’s from the 90s Wise could’nt use that either.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “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).”
Thanks for pointing that out. I thought Wise had used a Zuse Z2.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “I’m going to tell Robert Wise you said that, and he is going to get up out of his grave and find out where you live.”
He is going to strangle me, shouting
“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WORK WITHOUT SPEED RAMPS?”
“WHERE ARE MY SHORTCUT KEYS?” -
[David Lawrence] “I don’t hear anyone saying that building a sequence like this in FCPX is impossible. What I’m hearing a vast majority of advanced users saying is that it’s so painful to do that it might as well be impossible. If Apple cares about these users, they need to listen and act on their feedback. Apple’s silence has not been helpful.”
And I’d be much more willing to accept these statements if these advanced users supported them, which would help convince me their frustration was with a structural problem in FCPX’s timeline model and not that it doesn’t behave the way they are used to a timeline behaving. There’s a big difference if we’re debating the merits of the model. If you attempt to apply open timeline disciplines to the magnetic timeline it will be painful and frustrating and seem to be fighting you. You call that Apple arrogantly telling you how to work, I call that driving a nail with the cheek of a hammer.
[David Lawrence] “If FCPX takes 5 clicks and a bunch of mousing to achieve the same result I can get with a single right-click select in FCP7, then yes, you can absolutely say it is less efficient at that task.”
Didn’t we just share an exchange recently where what seemed to take five clicks only took one or two? 🙂
[David Lawrence] “As cynical as what Apple did at NAB?”
Touché.
Best,
Andy -
[Chris Harlan] “You know, you say all this Andy, but the claim is constantly being made that X represents a revolution in editing, and is much, much faster. I think it is fair for people to ask for that to be substantiated.”
Fair enough. Likewise it is only fair that the accusations of FCPX’s timeline being “unusable” be substantiated. Experienced veteran editors have weighed in on both sides, so no one gets a pass on offering supporting arguments. Just saying it is slower is no more valid than just saying it is faster.
Best,
Andy -
[me] “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. “
[Andrew Richards] “Conceptually? Or simply semantically? I think the ripple behavior is much more intrinsic to the comparison than what we name the icons in an NLE.”
Conceptually. When you quoted me in your response, you left out the sentence that contains my main point. I’ve reinserted and underlined it above. My point was not to discuss the open timeline versus the magnetic timeline, nor to make a value judgment (here). I agree with you that the film “timeline” itself is more magnetic. It always ripples, and it’s impossible to reference absolute time.
I’m discussing the rest of the editorial model, where I think FCP is closer to film than FCPX is.
FCP’s media organization (“clips” in “bins”) is absolutely a film metaphor, and shares some important concepts with film. A clip can only exist in one bin. If you want to store the same thing in two places, you have to copy it.
FCPX’s media organization is totally different. Metadata rules over physical arrangement.
FCPX’s editorial abstractions (storylines and connected clips) don’t exist with FCP or with razor blades and splicing tape. They behave as if they were physical in the context of the FCPX timeline, but there’s no physical analog.
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 -
[David Lawrence] ” Each object was simply placed where it needed to be in time, like a note on a musical score.”
Here, I think you’ve put your finger on something.
Take the concepts behind the magnetic timeline and apply them to musical composition (which uses a grid based model that’s existed for hundreds of years, if not longer). Could it work for a composer? Could a multi-instrument score be sounded in his or her head as he works with writing and modifying the composition? Could he grasp the whole with a glance? I have no doubt that it could be done, should anyone care to apply the principle to Sibelius or any other composition software. But could it ever work better than a grid based model?
I think people can argue till blue in the face that Apple’s New FCP timeline is more efficient. And few would doubt that it may be so for simple assembly. But for complex editing those arguments are unsupported so far by any solid ideas or concepts. And the real world testing seems to indicate exactly the opposite. The arguments in favour seem to be little more than retreats to faith.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Andrew Richards] “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… I say it is better to convey information with metadata and explicit relationships than to imply it with spatial proximity.”
But metadata and explicit relationships serve a totally different function than proximity and alignment.
Let’s forget about FCP/FCPX for a second. If we applied Apple’s thinking to a nodal compositor, we’d get an automatic self-reflowing node graph. Following your argument, this should be fine. After all, the spatial positioning of the nodes doesn’t matter — the image flow is defined by the connections between the nodes, and that’s what drives the composite. We could compound nodes in pre-composites or super-nodes to simplify the look of the graph, and we can always search the nodes to find what we need.
But think about this from the artist’s perspective. The purpose of spatial arrangement (and correct application of design concepts like proximity and alignment) is to make the node graph easier and faster to understand and to navigate. The artist can cluster related nodes together. The artist can create clear separations between different branches of the graph. The artist can use blocks of nodes as mental landmarks when navigating a complicated graph.
Spatial arrangement lets the artist build in cues or reminders for himself of both how the comp works and how to work in the comp. You get all this at a glance, even as the node graph becomes more complex.
If The Foundry rolled out continuous self-reflow in Nuke tomorrow, no one would upgrade, and artists would be huffing and puffing on web forums for weeks.
Back to FCPX.
Chris offered the intuitive nipple quote, presumably to suggest than neither FCP nor FCPX are intuitive. Watch small children — they begin clustering and lining up their toys very soon after developing the ability to manipulate them. Humans are good spatial thinkers. Space is how we understand our world, and we use space everywhere in our lives for organization, both consciously and subconsciously. Proximity and alignment are tools we can use for working in space.
Since FCPX minimizes the use of space to convey information and rejects spatial design principles outright, I really think that one of the design goals of FCPX is to hide or to abstract as much complexity from the user as possible. That may be fine for more straightforward edits or during assembly, but I think that ignoring the basic design principles I’ve outlined over-simplifies complex edits, takes immediate context away from the editor, and makes it harder to understand and navigate complex timelines.
Back to your original point, Andrew, I do think that compound clips (or nests, or precomps, or super-nodes, etc.) are an important construct. I also think that pervasive metadata is the single most important advancement in FCPX, because as we build more and more media, metadata becomes increasingly important in managing, sorting, and searching it.
I don’t think that compound clips/explicit relationships/metadata and spatial arrangement are mutually exclusive, though, and I’d certainly prefer a system that offered both.
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
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