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FCPX and skeuomorphism
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[Walter Soyka] “Bill, please do correct me if I’m misrepresenting your view!”
Walter,
You’re not misrepresenting it. You’re just going farther in the analysis than I did. For me, I just mentally started rejecting using “reel” as a tag when I found myself starting to source program footage from a variety of places rather than exclusively physical tapes.
I suppose I could have built a mental construct where whether it was an actual tape, a card, a thumb drive, a disk image, a hard drive based file downoaded from a web site, or a piece of stock sourced footage that already came pre-labeled with a 30 character ID string – it would still get a REEL tag appended them to fit my old thinking. But that just seemed silly.
So I found myself facing a term that was getting farther and farther from describing my reality.
Simultaneously, I started last years deeper look at taxonomy, and spent some time trying to figure out what kind of ID system would be actually useful in the new world of file based editing.
In that consideration, the term “reel” just felt disconnected and old fashioned.
I tried to be careful to note that people who need to or just prefer to use the classic term should be completely free to do so.
It’s just not what I use for editing anymore. So I don’t use the term.
Nothing more complex than that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Jeremy Garchow] “GlobalClipID (which is different from UUID) is what I think of as a reel. As a matter of fact, it’s what is my reel in FCP7 when using p2 MXF media:”
Jeremy’s post conforms precisely with what I was trying to say.
The actual “reel” info in a modern NLE is actually already ID’d by deeper level tags than any of us would care to wrangle. That’s how the software searches for stuff.
That means the user is free to append (or ignore) whatever reel, card, or file ID that they want to make their workflow operate to their tastes.
The important thing in X to my thinking is the agile “rename” functions and how keywording is so robust.
Applying something like REEL A, Card 10504, BUCKET A-18, or whatever to your functional clips in X is beyond trivial.
So if you want reels – have at it. I just can’t see the point in building that particular tag into the permanent UI since while it certainly reflects the past, it decreasingly reflects the future.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[John Heagy] “It can be boiled down to UUID vs Reel. UUID is what a computer needs “Reel” is what people need. “
I absolutely agree with the first part of this. And disagree with the second.
SOME people feel comfortable with the tag REEL. Others might not.
Look, I also lived with REELS as a basic truth of production for 20 years plus. But I’m trying to be open to the possibility that the term might not as relevant to me today as it was when I was working with 1″ type C as a newbie.
If someone in a shop I was visiting told me to go find “REEL 105” – I’d immediately start looking for a physical something. So would you. If “REEL 105” is now a file on the server, a thumb drive, a space on an HD or a node on the network – perhaps it would be useful for me to think about changing a bit of my more traditional thinking?
That’s all I’m saying.
I’m not arguing for anyone else to change what THEY do at all. I’m just offering an alternate possibility.
One that is starting to make more sense to me as I change how I work.
Nothing more than that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Reel, to me, is a physical entity.
With film, it was an actual reel so you could go find what you needed when the time came to reassemble a master.
With offline/online NLE tape workflows, it was the tapes you needed to recapture to complete the job. The reel describes which physical entity you needed to load, the tc describes where on that physical entity it is located.
With massive storage pools, physical location is trivial, so almost by default the “reel” will be redefined. Let’s face it, if we can think just a few more minutes in to the future, all storage will most likely not be physical for us, but rather another folder on our “desktop”. Sure, there will be uses for local hard drives, but we will be able to, using today’s terms, edit “in the cloud” fairly soon.
So, in the cloud, since I don’t need to hold the reel in my hand to get the job done, I still need to track down a file’s “location” and that location could very well be a moving target. Reel 270000 isn’t sitting on the shelf in John Heagy’s storage room. File names of todays’ camera are duplicitous. Just look at DSLR or AVCHD, (and even P2, although it’s more rare) it’s pretty silly.
I could have a file with the same name, and the same timecode, but different content. This means we need another differentiator to describe that footage, and preferably, a differentiator that is common to many of the popular languages of interchange. “Reel” fits nicely here.
Even if I had two clips with same tc, same file name, but different content, a reel number (or a most likely unique identifying number that was inherent to the file itself) would direct me to the proper location. Hence this would be the proper reel, as a reel closely resembles a location. With files, the location is the file itself.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Reel, to me, is a physical entity……
…..Even if I had two clips with same tc, same file name, but different content, a reel number (or a most likely unique identifying number that was inherent to the file itself) would direct me to the proper location. Hence this would be the proper reel, as a reel closely resembles a location. With files, the location is the file itself.”The nice thing about human-readable reel/source IDs is that they can be designed to mean something. For example, I can use simple 8-digit alphanumeric mnemonics for day and location. Add the creation date of the file for year, which is already embedded. A year or two later, I can read the file itself, independent of any NLE or database software and know what that file relates to. Pretty impossible with a software-generated, UID.
If you want to relate it to the physical world, then it seems to me that this is the digital equivalent of the guy going through the studio film vaults and finding that long, lost negative by reading the tape on the side of the cans.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “The nice thing about human-readable reel/source IDs is that they can be designed to mean something. For example, I can use simple 8-digit alphanumeric mnemonics for day and location. Add the creation date of the file for year, which is already embedded. A year or two later, I can read the file itself, independent of any NLE or database software and know what that file relates to. Pretty impossible with a software-generated, UID.”
It’s true, and I understand. It is one of the reasons why I love P2 so much because that metadata is portable and in a searchable format, even through spotlight.
With duplicitous file names, and file locations and folders who’s names will change, and as storage grows in capacity, we will need more descriptive numbers.
There are plenty of other human readable fields to assign alpha numerics, and this is what I was getting to earlier, there’s probably no way to “unite” the differing NLEs and get them to agree on some sort of standardization.
I know that Adobe uses XMP (and IPTC, FCPX also has IPTC fields), but the implementation isn’t really all that great, at least in my opinion. I think it is time to really start putting this stuff to good use and allow control over clip metadata.
Jeremy
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[Bill Davis] “If someone in a shop I was visiting told me to go find “REEL 105” – I’d immediately start looking for a physical something. So would you. If “REEL 105″ is now a file on the server, a thumb drive, a space on an HD or a node on the network – perhaps it would be useful for me to think about changing a bit of my more traditional thinking?”
Yes it would… Your associating “Reel” with something physical and therefore rejecting it is akin to rejecting the use of “Bin” and “Clip” as valid terminology because they physically don’t exist . We have moved past that and use “Reel” as simply another useful metadata field, very useful as others mentioned i.e. EDL, audio, grading.. etc, that works for both old and new media.
The old and new is really key. Our productions don’t allow for “old media” to wither away. Old media must be included, this includes tape and film. We also don’t have a single digital acquisition format so we can’t rely on any one camera’s media ID, this includes GoPro and the like.
We also transcode everything to ProRes and “Reel” is the only metadata that can be passed to a QT file. Avid still uses “Reel” or as they call it “Tape ID” that is still embedded in their mxf files and Avid’s media management is highly regarded.
“[John Heagy] “It can be boiled down to UUID vs Reel. UUID is what a computer needs “Reel” is what people need. ”
[Bill Davis]I absolutely agree with the first part of this. And disagree with the second.”
You prefer to remember and type in an email to point someone to a shot:
0x060A2B34401010105010D431300000003A2AFAA938520FS0080458230D5C007 @ 1:01:12:00 whew!!
as opposed to 264320 @ 1:01:12:00
Note Jeremy wasn’t willing to type that long ID in his post and chose to include a screen shot link. Certainly not very human friendly by all accounts.
[Bill Davis] “Applying something like REEL A, Card 10504, BUCKET A-18, or whatever to your functional clips in X is beyond trivial.”
Yes crap metadata is not useful, we enter meaningful metadata. Don’t trash a metadata field based on what’s entered.
“Reel” is current and time honored metadata that is far from trivial or silly!
John
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[Jeremy Garchow] “There are plenty of other human readable fields to assign alpha numerics, and this is what I was getting to earlier, there’s probably no way to “unite” the differing NLEs and get them to agree on some sort of standardization.”
Correct, so we use a metadata field currently included in all NLEs, is embedded in a great production format (ProRes QT), is immunue to filename/path changes, and passes thru the transcode process.
It’s called “Reel” !!!
Sorry Jeremy, that was a slow ball right over the plate and I couldn’t resist 😉
John
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This back-and-forth is premature as it pertains to X. I believe we are talking about is Apple’s (current) incomplete implementation and assigning some sort of UI design and motives to that. Apple clearly includes “reel” as a metadata item and it reads other camera file metadata, like EXIF from stills. It might simply be a matter that the video side isn’t done yet.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
OK, I’ll bite.
You still believe you want is a “reel” field. Fine. X will be OK with that.
What *I* want – is a way to find “the shot” I need.
With X’s database, I’m WAY more likely to need to find “the teacher from UofA explaining fractions in the red dress that I shot 3 years ago.” That’s what I’m likely to remember.
And with keywording plus auto metadata, I have ample and expanding ways to do that inside X.
I don’t really CARE what the ID on the thing, or virtual thing, or network thing, or the cloud based thing is.
If my NLE can bring sift out that shot via a search of – 2009 UCLA RED – every single one of my needs are met. Period.
If I have to go to a bucket to get the clip – and if you want to arbitrarily call that bucket a “REEL” then fine. Who cares? If you want to call it a ZEBRA thats totally cool as well. Just give me a way to find the clip and I get to do what I really need to do. Keep working.
You feel you MUST have a field that says REEL. Ok. If you’re in a shop that demands you put a REEL ID on every card, folder, and download, that’s perfectly fine too – whether or not those things have any “reel nature” whatsoever. I just don’t want to slap a name that doesn’t descirbe the thing ON the thing just because it’s someone elses tradition. Which should be equally OK.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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