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FCPX and Pervasive Metadata
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No waiting for drag and drop? What do you mean by waiting? I have to type in a keyword, surely that’s at least as long if not a bit longer than “drag ‘n drop”.
All clips available all the time, no double clicking, no watching in a separate window, you simply start skimming it want to start editing. You simply can’t do it in FCP7, or any other editor as far as I know.
Frankly, having used both, I find it more annoying to skim in the “bin” window than the process currently used, mostly because they are thumbnails.
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[Gary Huff] “No waiting for drag and drop? What do you mean by waiting? I have to type in a keyword, surely that’s at least as long if not a bit longer than “drag ‘n drop”.”
No if your bin is closed, and is located in a bin within a bin. Also, you cannot view or see all of your clips in FCP7 like you can in FCPX. I am telling you, in practice, it is very fast and fluid. Yes, you have to wait for drag and drop.
[Gary Huff] “Frankly, having used both, I find it more annoying to skim in the “bin” window than the process currently used, mostly because they are thumbnails.
“But the full size video is available while skimming in the viewer.
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[Gary Huff] “But you’re not assigning any level of metadata at a fast level that is that useful. Select clips “interview”, select the next batch “b-roll”. And you’re done. That’s not that different or more useful than creating two bins called “Interview” and “B-Roll” and moving your footage into them.”
You can assign multiple keywords if you want. So while you are selecting you can say “Gary” and “Interview” and all of the clips will go in to an interview bin, and all of your Gary only clips will go to a Gary bin. Until you see it, you don’t realize just how fast it is. You can see the frame grabs I have. It is much more granular than “broll”. That’s pretty silly. This is descriptive (although basic) data. You can choose to even further refine it, but of course that will take more time:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/garchow_jeremy/FCPX-Ask/assets/03B_KeywordsInBrowser.jpg
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow]Until you see it, you don’t realize just how fast it is.
That’s the thing…I have seen it and find it simply different, not faster.
And dumping into two bins at the same time is not impressive. What’s the need for that in the type of production paradigm that I’m talking about? When you can already have everything sorted by time, why even take the 15 minutes that you could use editing to sort through the clips when you already have a good general idea of where things are (remember: fast turnaround)?
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[Gary Huff] “That’s the thing…I have seen it and find it simply different, not faster.”
Good on ya. I find it way faster. I tend to be really organized. On a quick turnaround project if someone walks in and says, I need this quote from Gary, I can go right there, type “Gary” and start skimming, instead of finding/opening the interview bin and look around, double click the shot into the viewer, make sure it’s the right one, if not, go back to the bin, double click the next shot, etc. FCPX is fast. If you don’t see it that way, cool.
[Gary Huff] “And dumping into two bins at the same time is not impressive. “
And how would you do this in FCP7 without duplicating the clip? You can’t, so I find it useful. Impressive, I don’t really care about, useful, I do care.
[Gary Huff] “When you can already have everything sorted by time, why even take the 15 minutes that you could use editing to sort through the clips when you already have a good general idea of where things are (remember: fast turnaround)?”
And what if you don’t have a general idea? This is my point. You can simply single click the event and start editing. Thanks for bringing that back up, as I did mention it in the article. No double clicking, no waiting for anything, simply single click the event, and skim.
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I have to agree with Jeremy, I am currently editing a project with nearly 1500 clips and the ability to skim does make it quicker to locate footage, even if you don’t use keywords.
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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As a facility that re-uses stock footage on a very regular basis, user fed metadata is essential. We’ve been on CatDV for a couple of years and it works well for us. The problem I see with FCPX is that the user-fields for metadata are FAR too restrictive. Great if you want to broadly categorize footage, but horrible if you need any more detail for it. We shoot in 6 markets for hundreds of clients and thousands of job order numbers. I haven’t heard anyone talk about exporting (or importing for that matter) user defined metadata with FCPX. Our current systems (FCP7 and PPro) allow user-defined metadata to be brought into the application via XML import. Wonder if it will be the same case for FCPX?
Sadly, the clock is running out on this disappointment of an application. The more time goes by, the clearer it becomes Apple is in no way interested in servicing the needs of the professional community.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
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[Marvin Holdman] “Our current systems (FCP7 and PPro) allow user-defined metadata to be brought into the application via XML import. Wonder if it will be the same case for FCPX?”
It works somewhat now, at least with P2 footage which stores XML as part of the P2 data set (which means that FCPX is able to read that version of XML files, today).
Reel, Scene, Take, Angle, Name, Notes, Location are the P2 fields that are immediately searchable in FCPX Browser. The amount of metadata fields that are available in FCPX is incredible, I can’t get them on a single screen grab. For example, here’s the “camera” origin that’s available. There’s also EXIF, Image, IPTC, Spotlight, and Studio. The problem is, not all these are searchable or available at your fingertips within FCPX yet. They are stored there, it’s just hard to view them without going clip by clip in the inspector. it will be nice to be able to search all this info. LINK and screen grab here:
[Marvin Holdman] “Sadly, the clock is running out on this disappointment of an application. The more time goes by, the clearer it becomes Apple is in no way interested in servicing the needs of the professional community.”
The said the first update by summer, so they have until the 21st to live up to that. This kind of thing takes time. If you dive deep in the app (yes, one has to look beyond the magnetic timeline), there is no way that they are not interested in a pro market, but time will tell of their commitment to it.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “On a quick turnaround project if someone walks in and says, I need this quote from Gary, I can go right there, type “Gary” and start skimming, instead of finding/opening the interview bin and look around, double click the shot into the viewer, make sure it’s the right one, if not, go back to the bin, double click the next shot, etc. FCPX is fast.”
I think the thing that’s getting lost in this sub-thread is the difference between tagging and logging. They’re very different processes. Tagging is fast and general, but logging takes time, especially for interviews. You can speed up an interview, but only so much. You just have to put in the time and listen.
I like the organizational tools in FCPX. I think they’re one of the best things about it. I think the skimmer’s nice though the UI is sloppy (try making a range then clicking inside it, then try clicking outside it, oops!). At least that can be fixed.
So that said, for b-roll tagging/rough organization, these new tools are great. For logging though, I find the skimmer doesn’t add much. Still need to J K L thru the material. In your example above, if you had ten “Gary” interview clips, the skimmer won’t help you find a quote unless you know the material. Once we have this, maybe it will be less of an issue. But until then, tagging only gets you part way there. Someone still has to take the time to listen.
Unless you’re going to just start throwing things on the timeline and start cutting in place. I’ve been on high-pressure projects where that was definitely the case. No time to organize, just start cutting now. Not my favorite way to work but sometimes there’s no choice. In this case, tagging goes out the window and I really need to use the timeline as a scratchpad – but that’s another conversation 😉
I do like being able to favorite different soundbites in the same clip, though. That’s a win.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[David Lawrence] “Tagging is fast and general, but logging takes time, especially for interviews. You can speed up an interview, but only so much. You just have to put in the time and listen.”
No question. It was an example so let’s change it! From the footage in the article, someone can walk and say, “we need that one shot in Humbokdt park” I type “humb” and start skimming for that shot if it isn’t obvious from thumbnails. It’s still faster, in my opinion.
[David Lawrence] ” (try making a range then clicking inside it, then try clicking outside it, oops!).”
I’m not entirely sold on the whole range concept. It’s an excellent idea, but it does do weird things as you have pointed out. This needs some tuning for sure.
[David Lawrence] “So that said, for b-roll tagging/rough organization, these new tools are great. For logging though, I find the skimmer doesn’t add much. Still need to J K L thru the material.”
Yes. One still has to watch footage :), but the skimmer allows you access to all of the clips at once, very fast. It’s not even possible in fcp7. As I mentioned in the article, this was only for “bucket” style organizing. More precise logging would take longer, of course. I still maintain that as the project moves ahead, all of your logging will be more easily accessible by either text keyword, or favorites. Much less looking around, and more precise locating than fcp7. So as you work and build the database, it will perhaps save you more time later.
Soundbyte looks amazing, yes. I hope they can get it working in reverse as well.
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