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FCPX proving to be very fast
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Well,
I agree with your central contention, Herb.
But two things.
First, back in the early days, the fact that X has the “work with thumbnails IMMEDIATELY, then transcode Optimized and Proxy as needed” saved me personally WELL over 10 times the amount of time from “start” to “getting stuff done” when I switched from Legacy to X in the beginning. So I personally feel that in the area of “starting line” productivity – a 10x timesaving over Legacy was a vast understatement.
Second, just day before yesterday, I got a call from the agency folks using a pair of voiceovers I’d recorded to promote a high end golf accessory. The project is for a division of one of the the HUGE japanese manufacturing firms familiar to everyone – folks at corporate were having problems viewing the finished spots and my contact knew that I’d just taken digital delivery of the final video files from the West Coast agency with my VOs in place. So they asked me if I could transcode the ProRes 422 HQ files into something to email to them and what would be the best format for the widest compatibility?
Since I’d just put the spots on an X timeline, I asked them to hold a second and used the X Share menu to dump the spots to my Vimeo Pro account, (literally a 1-step process in X directly from the timeline) made a quick password-protected Portfolio while we were continuing our conversation (another 45 seconds) – and emailed the client a link to the portfolio all while I was still on the phone. They forwarded that link to their clients and within literally 3 minutes , the spots from my X timeline were being watched by anyone around the world the agency wanted to send the links and passwords to.
Time saved by me being an X user? Judged agains their original request of burning and shipping off a DVD? – days. And even just time saved over transcoding and emailing or using YouSendIt to distribute it would easily fit that 10 to 1 time savings.
So the 10 to 1 concept isn’t baseless. It (like everything else) needs to be contextualized.
There are areas and operations where X will save an editor way more than 10 times the effort – and yes, plenty of areas where it can easily take significantly LONGER to use X to do something that can be done more easily in another tool. And the less practiced the X editor, the LONGER it will likely to take someone to do things because they simply haven’t done their re-orientation and new process learning.
That’s the truth of the matter. What X does well, it often does REALLY, REALLY well. And where it fall short – it falls short. Only the individual editor can know which will be true for them – but the other truth is that until an editor actually learns to operate it properly, it’s impossible to really fully grasp how it MIGHT enable time or effort savings.
This thread is growing because Craig has clearly gotten to a place where he sees the value built into it for the tasks that he needs to accomplish.
All that says is that the tool is capable. Not perfect, not ideal, but capable of high level work and of doing that work very efficiently.
Which some of us suspected for quite a while now.
It’s good to see more and more confirmation of those facts.
And it’s exciting to see where X will go as it keeps developing!
But wholesale dismissal of the idea of X being a “high efficiency” editing solution is going to be a harder and harder case to make – when more and more qualified editors are willing to support that idea.
FWIW.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Oliver Peters] ” but trimming in X drives me up the wall”
I simply don’t understand that, I find the trimming in FCPX awesome, fast, intuitive, fun, creative I simply don’t understand how one finds it anything other. Each to their own I guess.
Length!!!! You get to the end of the edit and its 20 sec too long. Ok cut 20 sec out somewhere I cant see how X differs to any other NLE. The networks are not going not broadcast something 4 frames too long or short. 30mins on the BBC is between 28:20 and 29:30 same sort of leeway with an hour.
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[Herb Sevush] “Death to hyperbole !! “
hey – craig easily gives the most concrete value case for FCPX – he actually spells it out – the workflows he has posted already in various responses strongly argue that it works like six guns in in his use case. but it is a use case.
In a way I think thats the point – FCPX has highly delineated use work cases. they are just not my own. I hanker after parts of it quite badly – mostly footage interrogation, and effects masking handling.
no more than craig – this ins’t trumpet blowing – but say I was at this –
Its about one of the best bins of footage I’ve ever had to date – as the man says, when the BTS is shot on alexa – you know the air is rare.
I found I would have killed for the idealised FCPX footage interrogation. The footage dump across france and italy was genuinely gigantic.
FCPX represents a true short circuit in footage interrogation.
that aside however – there is simply no way in which the FCPX timeline is not geared directly towards craig’s workflow – loose, malleable, always shifting, but always boiling down to one thing out of IV and b-roll.
there is no way that is not the sweet spot for FCPX.
It is not my sweet spot.
the FCPX timeline is just not a broad use case timeline – failed ripple, collisions, they are the price of basic gravity – it is equivalent to the mac barking at you with an alert – the idea that that collision should be removed as a warning in editing is the equivalent of saying that you would not like to be told your leg is about to be sawed off.
it is not a weakness and I am beyond sick of people defending apple for having removed basic awareness from the editor for the environment they are in.
sitting with security in a real fundamental timeline is sitting secure in a real timeline. It’s not an affectation.
If Apple choose to optionally re-introduce the actual timeline that lies beneath their gimmicks, then possibly they have an editing system.
And while we are at it:
As craig will testify – FCPX is a dead letter in london.
As a last kick – UNIT – who have produced near all the UK-EU localisations for Apple’s ad’s, and who were famed for being an apple house, who had a combination lock to get into the apple work suites – are now running avid suites in parallel as we speak.
how in the hell is this software going anywhere when no one will install it?
Again – I’m not being mean here – craig could post two times a day with a BBC header – this is completely unused software in London.
for valid reasons. the timeline is nuts. What am I doing with tilde key? de-magnifying something?
honestly, apple are scrabbling with the tilde key connection break – but that timeline is nuts.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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Exactly 20 paragraph breaks. Excellent.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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[craig slattery] “I simply don’t understand that, I find the trimming in FCPX awesome”
I tend to find it finicky, especially when you try to trim a clip with a dissolve. The context of what the cursor latches onto is very touchy. The 2-up view goes away if you try to trim by the keyboard. Once you create a split edit, you can no longer trim both the audio and video at the same time. I simply prefer FCP 7’s, Premiere Pro’s and Media Composer’s methods of trimming. It’s an area that hopefully new versions of FCP X will address.
[craig slattery] “Length!!!! You get to the end of the edit and its 20 sec too long. Ok cut 20 sec out somewhere I cant see how X differs to any other NLE. The networks are not going not broadcast something 4 frames too long or short. 30mins on the BBC is between 28:20 and 29:30 same sort of leeway with an hour.”
That’s not the case in the US. Not only does the show have to be to time (to the second), but so do show segments. Generally you can’t get there by trimming out 20 seconds. It’s more like 1/2 a second here or there in 40 places throughout the show. Timing has to be rounded up to the nearest whole second in drop frame time. This often means adjustments that you make throw off where the fades-to-black happen going in and out of commercial breaks, requiring additional adjustments.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
It’s very re-assuring to have a fresh rant from Aindreas, they’re getting much rarer nowadays.
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
Come on: I argue this software doesn’t work john. at least not as an actual thing. Not on the ground. Apple have like, four guys on a website, and it really is dead in london.
but please carry on.
best etc,
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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I turned to the director and said, ‘why do YOU think we have achieved so much in such a short time?’ He said, ‘I think its because its so visual, you really fell like you are in it’.
And that’s what I have been experiencing since we started the trial in X. Its unlike any other NLE, the way it affects you tonally and visually. I will post my workflow later today, but just briefly, Ive been using projects in the same way as I use sequences in FCP7 and the instant visual reference to material that you have already worked on, ie cut down is brilliant.[Mark Dobson] “I was just wondering how you deal with interview material.
Do you fully transcribe?
We split interviews into sections by creating favourites and then type a synopsis for each favourite.
“
We basically listen to the interviews and marked out the various subjects. The Early days, old work, new work etc. I created new projects for each subject and as we go through the interviews we add other contributors talking about the same subject to the existing projects. When we start to edit the material down I would firstly duplicate the project to retain a long cut of each subject. All the while I will be cutting angles in the multicam fine tuning the interviews as we progress. I find trimming in the timeline extremely fast, so I throw the material into the projects very roughly. The beauty of creating the projects is that the material is aways visually available when you click back to the project library. You can skim and listen to the cuts before deciding to open the project. In this edit Ive done the same with the actuality sequences and montage sequences in that Ive cut them in their own projects. To be honest, I knew in this special there was quite a bit of actuality, which without blowing my own horn too loudly, is what Im credited as being quite good at, but Ive not cut actuality in X before. Ok, I had to think it through, but once I was into it, again its so fast, I powered through about 5 actuality sequences that will probably never make the cut because we have miles too much material. -
[John Davidson] “Exactly 20 paragraph breaks. Excellent”
That made me laugh out loud. Very funny
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Can I just start by saying, Nice one Aindreas, but honestly I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
Im looking at that clip and Im afraid that’s exactly the same sort of stuff Im cutting together. In fact Im looking at that and its a no brainer.
As for FCPX dead in London, are you in London? The tide has turned, trust me.
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