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FCPX Suggestions
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[Bill Davis] “Huh? I can go from an event full of separate shots to a compound clip in less than10 seconds. How often do you guys import image strings? For me, it’s a special effect, not a regular part of my timeline editing. “
As has already been pointed out, cameras like BMD’s cameras record DNG image sequences as an option. I have 5 shots from the “Afterglow” demo clips that were originally posted by DP John Brawley. 5 short shots are 552 separate frames. Now granted, I think editing natively with image sequence camera footage is not the right way to go, but, it is something to deal with. You don’t want to bring in a bunch of camera clips as individual stills, because it would be completely unwieldy. However, no matter what, it’s completely easier to simply select one file and automatically import the full shot as a single piece of media, compared with the goofy workaround FCPX forces you to do.
A further consideration is that NLEs do not handle tons of files well. The programming is based on number of media objects and when you throw 552 frames at an NLE for 5 shots, it must deal with them as 552 objects instead of 5 objects. Enough of that and it becomes a huge drag on the system. There are only a few NLEs that are built based on individual frames under the hood. These include Quantel and Scratch to name a few. And even there it only works well when back by serious storage.
The bottom line is that you are arguing hard against something that Apple already knows how to do and has already partially implemented in its other current apps. So even though you don’t see the point, a lot of other folks do and for Apple this should be a no-brainer. But heck, if iMovie doesn’t do it, why should FCPX?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Steve Connor] “Sorry Bill, I don’t mean to be picky but how is that simple compared to a single mouse click to “import image sequence”?”
That comment was in response to Oliver’s mentioning “events cluttered with animation stills.” The way it works in X, you just import them into their own Event and keep the event closed.
Clutter level Zero.
You can draw from all events across all projects at will – so again, there’s just big penalty for doing this.
Honestly, if handling image sequences presents a difference between one click and 5 seconds and (lets wildly overestimate and imagine) 10 whole clicks eating up 20 seconds — for something I MAYBE do once a month(!) – I don’t think that’s any sort of a big deal.
Do you really?
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[Shawn Miller] “For those of us who work with raw formats from the Blackmagic or Digital Bolex cameras, image sequence import is very valuable. It’s also useful for cutting animation sequences before they go off to compositing. “
Shawn,
I never once said it’s not valuable. I said that X does it just fine. Folks are arguing that it’s not AS easy in X as it is in other programs. Fine.Let’s stipulate that It’s not as easy. My point is so what? If it was not as easy AND something editors commonly did 50 times an hour – I’d be interested. But it’s something I do once in a while. So I’m not.
Is this really worth the time we’ve already spent discussing it. Or are we working really hard to argue about something not really worth arguing about.
I think so. So I’ll stop here.
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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[Steve Connor] “For the uninitiated, please explain how that saved you work”
Here’s a simple example from last week…
I had an audio track I was working on representing 30 “takes” of soundbites. I’d inserted 30 gap clips between them (next edit command W)
I now need to trim the top and tail of each audio clip so that they are clean bites.
Because the X timeline is magnetic, I can simply PLAY the clip – the playhead moves past the GAP and towards the audio. I can see the waveform for guidance. When my playhead reaches the point where I want the TRIM to take place, I tap G which I’ve mapped as a TOP edit.
I’ve targeted nothing. I’ve selected nothing. I’m just playing along. The moment I hit G – the cut is made, the clip range is deleted to the prior edit – AND the resulting gap is perfectly closed magnetically. The playhead keeps playing. At the end of the clip, I tap H (mapped to TAIL) and again, the clip end is precision trimmed.
I keep moving. If I’m off on a cut, I can space bar pause, Undo, JKL backup a ways – and re-do it on the fly.
No selecting any ins or outs, I just play and cut and cut and cut in real time – and let magnetism do the rest.
Works with video just as well.
One tiny example.
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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[Bill Davis] “Because the X timeline is magnetic, I can simply PLAY the clip – the playhead moves past the GAP and towards the audio. I can see the waveform for guidance. When my playhead reaches the point where I want the TRIM to take place, I tap G which I’ve mapped as a TOP edit.
I’ve targeted nothing. I’ve selected nothing. I’m just playing along. The moment I hit G – the cut is made, the clip range is deleted to the prior edit – AND the resulting gap is perfectly closed magnetically. The playhead keeps playing. At the end of the clip, I tap H (mapped to TAIL) and again, the clip end is precision trimmed.”
No offense, but I was doing that on an old Avid Xpress system 10 years ago. The magnetic timeline has nothing to do with it. Top and Tail, by their very nature, remove media from the playhead to the top or tail of a clip and close the gap. The only difference was that I had to hit L or spacebar to play after I Top or Tailed a clip since the system wasn’t capable of continuously playing. But that was just one quick keystroke and never interrupted the flow of what I was doing.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Bill Davis] “[Shawn Miller] “For those of us who work with raw formats from the Blackmagic or Digital Bolex cameras, image sequence import is very valuable. It’s also useful for cutting animation sequences before they go off to compositing. ”
Shawn,
I never once said it’s not valuable. I said that X does it just fine. Folks are arguing that it’s not AS easy in X as it is in other programs. Fine.Let’s stipulate that It’s not as easy. My point is so what? If it was not as easy AND something editors commonly did 50 times an hour – I’d be interested. But it’s something I do once in a while. So I’m not.”
So… your point is that you don’t use image sequences very often, so there’s no point in being able to import and use them like any other media type?
[Bill Davis] “Is this really worth the time we’ve already spent discussing it. Or are we working really hard to argue about something not really worth arguing about.”
I don’t think there was an argument until you jumped in. 🙂
Shawn
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Because Bill only needs it once in every 50 projects. It would just make FCP X bloatware. He can do it with a workaround.
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Yes to d)! One of the cool things in Resolve 12 is the ignore file extension checkbox when importing an XML so you can re-link to any format as long as the filename is the same. This would be awesome in FCPX.
It was at a Vegas premiere that I resolved to become an avid FCPX user.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
Why press pause? Why not just undo an click in the timeline before the edit. No need to stop playing, undo, and all this JKL business. cmd z, click. Keep working.
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If all you ever want is what you had 10 years ago in AVID – have fun with that.
I prefer the thinking in X.
“Hey, we can get this down to ONE tap And it’s a repetitive operation, not something editors only do once a week or once a month. but maybe hundreds or even thousands if times on long audio edits. Should we? And now that we have defined and coded how a magnetic timeline operates, what else can we do with it? – What can we use it for VERTICALLY? How about eliminating the the forced stacking of empty tracks? What about magnetically connecting titles in time to the position he editor has determined. How about making separated audio tracks OPTIONAL for clips that arrive with embedded sync sound?
Yes you were doing something similar in AVID for years. And paying significantly for the privilege. Now I get that for $299 in code that screams on my laptop PLUS i can own it.
I’m good thanks.
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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