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FCPX on MBP Retina Display – WOW
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[Tim Wilson] ”
In that case, please consider THIS post — or indeed, virtually any post I’ve made thus far — to be a blanket endorsement of scatalogical humor.”Shoulda known that in the world of Cows, manure references would be looked on as just a part of the process…
“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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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I’m not sure what distinctions you’re making. There’s a difference between being able to edit and being able to edit well.
People come to me because of the quality of my work – my abilities, my sensibility, my reputation.
“What I’m saying is that access to the tools to learn or practice video editing used to be rare and difficult to come by. Today they are not. So the pool of people with familiarity with the practices of editing is growing tremendously.
Even if only 1 percent of the editing pool will ever achieve mastery that implies that if the pool starts at 1000 only 10 will likely become fully proficient editors. But what happens when the pool becomes not 1000, but 1 million? Over time, won’t each editor end up potentially competing against not just 9 others, but 999 others?
That’s a pretty difficult dynamic to contend with in this new era, perhaps.
The instructive parallel to me is the music industry. Lots of players. Still some “stars” but increasingly, it’s not exclusively the finest players that get the hits. It’s those who can leverage the new technological tools and somehow compel an audience to pay for their work – whether or not they exclusively have “the best” skills.
Just ask half the pop princesses or you tube video stars.
Not saying they’re “un-professional” at all. Just that there are better singers and better video makers all over the place (many of them right here) who have significantly less success in the open marketplace than those with less pure skill or talent – but who took advantage of some other combination of elements to drive their success.
Hell, you’ve seen what I have. The killer stage video was just as likely to have been “produced and directed” by the bands buddy or the drummers brother than by a working pro. Relationship plus budget can equal quality (particularly if the kid in charge knows enough to sub-con out the actual work to people with real talent) – the time tested pros get paid, but their names end up far down on the credit rolls.
How it’s always been, and how it ever will be.
“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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[Bill Davis] “[Chris Harlan] “It just gets weird when folks make these majestic pronouncements about X, like it being faster than anything including cheetahs”
OK then. Just because it’s making my work go much faster, I’ll pipe down. Who wants to hear about that kind of thing anyway when learning about a software tool.
“No. Sharing personal anecdotes about how it improves your work is of great value. Making vacuous, unsubstantiated claims that X is just downright faster than anything else that exists is of no value. Do you understand the difference?
[Bill Davis] “[Chris Harlan] “or that its metadata underpinnings are tied into some 23rd century technology that anchors it to the heart of the future and is the door to all known universes.”
Again, OK. I get that it’s hard to understand for some. It’s kinda complicated I’ll admit. OTOH, I’ve been talking to my old magazine friends about doing some more writing for them, and know what? If I do, they tell me I’ll have to deliver not just my articles, but likely attached keyword collections and keyword analysis metrics. Cuz, all that pesky metadata stuff is kinda transforming that industry, too. Go figure.
“I don’t even know where to start with you on this Bill. Your blindness to the state of everything else out there, and your persistent claim that people who don’t value what you value just don’t “get it,” is a bit tiresome. You should open your eyes and look around a little bit more.
[Bill Davis] “[Chris Harlan] “AND that I won’t truly understand either of these facts until I spend six months studying it and rewiring my neural pathways so that I “get it.” And, no questioning or criticizing until then. Sadly, that’s the same argument cults often employ. ”
Wouldn’t it be really scary if that was actually TRUE. That a person couldn’t pick up this particular NLE and using their accumulated knowledge of how to use previous ones – use THIS one efficiently from the get go? Golly! That would certainly cause months of consternation and angst amongst the editing community…. oh wait.
“Bill, there are many places in life where you need to make a decision based on a minimal amount of useful evidence. We don’t have the time in our lives to read every book to the end to decide that we don’t like. We don’t even have the time to read the first chapter of every book to decide that we don’t like it. Does that not make sense to you?
[Bill Davis] “And excuse me, but who exactly has prevented any voices from criticizing X in any way shape or form? Yeah, some of us push back when we think you’re wrong. But that is NOT the same as “no questioning or criticizing.
“There’s another one of your straw arguments, Bill–Where did I say anyone was preventing anyone else from doing or saying anything? Nowhere. You elevated what I said into something I did not say so that you could argue against it.
[Bill Davis] “Finally, cults do “cult stuff” to gain control and force others to subsume their individuality in service to the cult. Apple, having been a planetary leader in creating tools that EMPOWER individual expression is kinda the anti-cult, IMO. You and others keep coming back and bemoaning how they took away Legacy – that’s kinda like willfully disbanding a cult right there, isnt’ it? ; )
“I think I’m going to mostly ignore the fact that right now you sound pretty much exactly like every other shaved-head disciple in defense of their glorious master, and simply point out another of your straw arguments–at one point, I certainly bemoaned the loss of 7, but it has been a very long time since I bemoaned it. I think I stopped bemoaning it at least 6 months ago. Probably longer. Only in your head am I still bemoaning it.
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[Steve Connor] “[Chris Harlan] ” It just gets weird when folks make these majestic pronouncements about X, like it being faster than anything including cheetahs”
Cheetahs aren’t very fast at editing at all, their hand to paw co-ordination is terrible.
“See, Steve. You are always straight-forward. Even when it comes to cheetahs.
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[Bill Davis] “OK then. Just because it’s making my work go much faster, I’ll pipe down. Who wants to hear about that kind of thing anyway when learning about a software tool.”
Chris’s specific reference was to Jerry Hoffman who in this thread posted the following:
“X is the fastest NLE in the world, period.”
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Bill Davis] “Even if only 1 percent of the editing pool will ever achieve mastery …”
Bill,
You’re assuming that the means to mastery scales with access to the tools. This is true if all it takes to master something is access.
No doubt there are more people editing now, maybe even more “good editors”, but from what I see there is no direct relationship.
[Bill Davis] “… increasingly, it’s not exclusively the finest players that get the hits.”
Was it ever thus? With some periods of rare, miraculous exceptions, I’ve always thought talent was incidental to distribution.
But two deeper points:
The music industry is an interesting parallel – by draing a parallel you suggest that as the means of production become more accessible and distribution becomes cheaper (or free), there will be smaller audiences willing to pay for production, and there will be more of a push for event-like productions to generate sales.
I’m not convinced film and video will go that way, but interested to hear why you think it might.
More importantly though, I do think you’re conflating production issues with distribution issues again.
Franz.
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… Jerry Hofmann then appended later:
I’m not familiar with Adobe’s latest stuff, …
Franz.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “… are the three million unseen FCPX bane men going to rise from the basement of editing …”
Aindreas,
You trust that number to much. You might as well make one up yourself.
Franz.
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[Bill Davis] “I think you meant paw to eye coordination.
“Thanks for the correction, it’s been a long day
Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television -
[Bill Davis] “Even if only 1 percent of the editing pool will ever achieve mastery that implies that if the pool starts at 1000 only 10 will likely become fully proficient editors. But what happens when the pool becomes not 1000, but 1 million? Over time, won’t each editor end up potentially competing against not just 9 others, but 999 others?”
Here’s my armchair economics analysis:
The bottom end of the market is driven not by the market’s need for inexpensive video production, but rather by video practitioners’ desire to participate in the market. The conventional wisdom here on new entrants to the production market works well in this space. Economics apply, but no one playing here pays any attention to them. The low end “market” will balloon to accommodate the entrants’ demand for jobs, not clients’ demand for production. New entrants attracted to the sexy media industry will flood in and rates will continue to fall until the most desperate new entrants are actually paying to work.
The high end of the market is driven not by video practitioners’ desire to participate, but rather by market demand for production services. It’s vastly harder for new entrants to come here, because the barriers to entry and expected experience levels are high. Economics apply, and participants are sensitive to them. This market can only grow as large as clients’ demand for production will allow, because no one can afford to build the experience necessary to compete here without getting paid appropriately for it.
There used to be a middle, but it’s vanishing. If you’re still in the middle now — and I’d say that most of us here probably are — you’re getting squeezed toward one of these two extremes. If you’re getting squeezed toward the low end, it looks like the sky is falling and you are on your way out of business, because you can’t compete with the endless hordes of cheap or free labor.
The vanishing middle is creating a chasm between the low end and the high end. As clients polarize according to their production needs, opportunities on the low end to develop the kind of experience you’ll need to compete on the high end become fewer and farther between. Natural opportunities for growth are vanishing, and soon the only way up will be to catch a ride on a rocket — a client or connection that is able to grow based on some factor external to the production industry.
This is not to say that the low end is doing bad work. Quite the contrary — the low end is capable of some really nice work that would have been very difficult to achieve only a few years ago. However, when trumpeting the incredibly quality they are capable of, the low end seems unaware the capabilities of the high end are growing at least as fast. The low end is just, say, 10 years behind the high end, and since the high end looked pretty good 10 years ago, the low end looks pretty good now — in isolation. As long as this capabilities gap persists, the high end can earn its keep and offer value in the market, irrespective of price, which the low end cannot match. Anyone who thinks this gap is shrinking may well be unaware of the true capability at the high end of production.
In summary, I think there are two production pools, they don’t really overlap, and the less-desirable of the two is growing at the faster rate. The differences between the two pools are making the jump from the low end to the high end progressively harder. The production value floor is being raised, but the production value ceiling is being raised, too. The rules of economics apply.
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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