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Focus – Light Iron videos
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “I just wonder if the pre-requisite was a relationship that allowed primary scene handling outside the editor.”
My impression from reading/hearing the directors & editor is that they liked X and wanted to use it. They then jumped through a lot of hoops to get the studio to sign off on its use. I don’t get the sense that the software was chosen specifically to facilitate the directors’ being able to edit. Indeed, Ficarro (sp?) describes himself in this very thread as having been a “workaday editor” in a past life. Meaning he surely knows Avid well enough to edit anything he wants to. He just likes X and wanted to use it on his movie.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “cheap crack about Soho and commercial rooms”
Been there, done that on many a commercial edit. Surely a little level of hell that Dante forgot about. If I could have thrown them all out, I would have. It wasn’t collaboration, it was second-guessing and back-stabbing and ass-covering of the worst sort. I doubt editing Focus was anything like that.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “how many editors would be willing to swallow what is the equivalent of a software engineer taking over their screen to direct their tool?”
See, here’s where I think you’re going off the rails. Why does it have to be one or the other? Being able to turn to the director and say, “show me what you’re thinking” and having him do just that strikes me as a good thing. I would certainly expect to look at his cut and either tell him “it sucks, go away,” or put my interpretation of what he did into my cut. If we disagree so often or he trusts me so little that I’m relegated to button pusher, then I’m outta there like a shot. Life’s too short.
That said, people in this town will swallow a lot to be involved in a potential award-winning movie. Sad to say.
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[Oliver Peters] “If your point was that the ‘essence’ of Color – i.e. a few looks and a way to layer corrections – was copied from Color into X – then I would agree with that.”
Then we agree
[Oliver Peters] “But going back to your earlier point, the level of color correction that you can do in X were possible in FCP 7 and are currently (and in the past) possible in Premiere Pro and Avid.”
I didn’t say they weren’t
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[Charlie Austin] “Honestly, that’s really not a big deal any more. Old FCP projects run through 7 to X open up just fine. In way it’s less of a headache going from 7 to Pr due to the dual mono vs’ interleaved audio thing. But point taken..”
I should have expanded on this point. I agree that it’s doable to varying degrees of success (even into Avid if you want to involve Automatic duck or Resolve) but w/all the previous versions of FCP it wasn’t even something you had to think about as old FCP projects would open up in new versions of FCP. Now it’s just one more variable someone has to consider as they are attempting to divine which NLE to move to and very likely live with for at least the next 5 years.
I guess my overall point is that many times it’s not a single, big sticking point that keeps 7 in place, it’s many smaller sticking points that add up.
[Charlie Austin] “True, but seasoned editors can easily learn either of those NLE’s if they choose to. And if I were a seasoned editor I would certainly think that doing so would be good thing. Oh… wait.. ;-)”
They can, but what’s the motivation? I know some editors that probably haven’t touched any NLE besides Avid. They get paid to be editors, not technologists, and they make good money working on high profile projects so why learn an NLE they don’t need to know as opposed to enjoying a hobby, spending time with the family or going on vacation? 15 years ago MC was too expensive to have just sitting in your living room but FCP was only $1000 so many people used it for home setups/side work and that helped build the user base. That’s obviously not the case these days as those massive price discrepancies don’t exist any more.
Any NLE not named Media Composer is stuck with a chicken/egg problem right now. Eventually one side will hit the tipping point that will make it attractive to the other side, but it will take time.
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Though I’m a regular FCPX user for a bi-weekly show, I mostly drop by the COW to read Aindreas posts. I feel like he keeps Apple honest as they continue to “reinvent” editing. 🙂
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[Charlie Austin] “I’ve had an “adjustment layer” crop (.png with an alpha cutout) in FCP Old for years. They still won’t use it. It’s not what they’re used to.
Inertia. Fear. :-)”
Which is my problem with this use of the word “inertia.” The speaker’s value judgement that the reason people keep doing things the same way is because they’re afraid to consider alternatives.
To flip this the other way: words like “consistent” and “persistent” = fear? Which equals something like “doesn’t get it,” “dinosaur,” “Luddite,” or however else you want describe it…
…and which may not be true at all. “I want to keep doing things my way” could just as easily mean “You haven’t persuaded me that your way is better,” or “not enough better for me to bother with.”
So maybe YOU’RE the problem for not explaining it well enough. LOL
Not referring to you personally, Charlie. You’re a fantastic explainer. I want more articles out of you dammit. LOL
(Everybody needs to read Charlie’s fantastic Creative COW article, “Don’t Fear The Magnetic Timeline.”)
But it keeps coming back to the same place. Again overstating rhetorically, it comes down to “People don’t take up X because they’re afraid to change.” Or maybe more simply, “They’re afraid of X.”
People with this perspective aren’t allowing that there are other perspectives as valid as their own. Maybe it’s a business reason (“I don’t need to buy new software or new computers it’s optimized for”), but yeah, maybe it’s a personal inclination, which is still straight up legit.
Do people value roots in the community where their family has lived for generations out of fear? Is fear the reason for driving the same car for 10 years? Does someone become a regular at the Starbucks near their house because they’re afraid to get coffee anywhere else?
No, no, and no.
Although hey, maybe yes to all three. I’ve got mental health issues. I’m afraid of almost everything that doesn’t involve typing on the internet. LOL
But I think anyone who says “inertia = fear” is telling me more about themselves than they are about the other guy or FCPX.
AND THAT’S FINE. I’m certainly not questioning the validity of the inclination to change, or to push limits, or to bleed on the edge. So why question the validity of practiced refinement, or valued expertise, or simply not buying that the other way is better?
My only point is that at some point, we have to acknowledge that the reasons why people choose or don’t choose FCPX are at least partly rooted in personal dynamics, and calling out the integrity of the other guy’s choice is, at the very least, unfair.
I’d say something about walking a mile in the guy’s shoes, but the only thing I’m more afraid of than walking a mile myself is YOU walking a mile in MY shoes. Stay away from my damn shoes you ppl. LOL
Look, I think it’s interesting to talk about the software. I post in this forum more than the others because I enjoy talking about it and its uses. Irrespective of specific tools, I love talking about people’s projects most of all.
I’m less interested in plumbing the depths of the other guy’s personal motivation unless personal motivation is the actual topic, and my own personality quirks are on the table. Because casually ascribing the OTHER guy’s motivations as SURELY lesser than mine begs the question of MY motivations, and how they might be negatively described by someone else — which of course assumes that I’ve looked at the PERSONAL motivations behind my BUSINESS choices.
We’ve all got ’em. So why are we only talking about the other guy’s motivation, and why is it usually negative?
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Tim-
Just to be clear, I used those words specifically and separately. In one case, inertia. In another case, inertia and fear. I haven’t conflated inertia and fear. They’re two different things.
Also, inertia is not to be confused with caution or with being methodical.
I suggested inertia is a primary factor in NBC’s staying with Avid. It’s not about not choosing FCPX. It’s about them not choosing anything. I doubt anyone there was much thought given to the new NLE wars. But I don’t think it’s a case of choosing to stay with Avid. I don’t think there’s any “choosing” going on at all. Inertia. Sorta moving forward but not by active choice.
In ABC’s case, I quite specifically added fear into the mix, along with inertia. They needed to choose a new NLE. In many respects, choosing Premiere was the path of least resistance – it is, by general consensus, the most FCP Legacy-like. Easy choice. Not really much of a choice. Inertia. The fear is from a group of people there who are incredibly resistant to change, to the point of fearing it. They were late to give up CMX, late to incorporate Avid for finishing, etc. FCP was mostly about money, and partly a thumb in Avid’s eye. X would have been a perfectly good choice. There’s no legacy infrastructure (as there often is with Avid). Premiere is just less scary.
So I think you’re constructing a bit of a straw man argument here. No thoughtful person on this board has seriously suggested that anyone who doesn’t get with the X program is afraid of it. That’s a dumb trope that’s demonstrably not true. Even so, there are some who are, in fact, afraid of X. Even hostile toward it. I know a few. It’s hard to have a serious conversation with them.
Fortunately, many more of the naysayers I’ve come across are merely ignorant of X. I’ve got a couple of managers at the network-that-must-not-be-named’s digital group who have been standing over my shoulder, watching with delight as I work with X on some important projects that have until now been done strictly on Avid. It was like pulling teeth to get them to let me use X. Now they can’t wait to learn it themselves. Yet a couple of the Avid guys from net promo still like to come up and pontificate on how unsuitable X is for professional work. Not that they’ve used it. They just know. I’m inclined to call fear masquerading as arrogance. And I’m not casually impugning these guys’ motives – I’m quite intentionally calling BS on them and their motives. Nothing casual about it. And so it goes…
I could write more, but I have to leave something in reserve in case Aindreas pops back in. 😉
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[Aindreas Gallagher] ” two days turnaround to first client review, “
How long were those ‘days’?
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[Herb Sevush] “The original Thomas Crowne Affair made extensive use of split screens but was not nearly the first. “Indiscreet”, a Cary Grant romantic comedy used them in 1958, but I think the modern use of split screens, to add excitement and tension into a an action sequence probably began with John Frankenheimer’s “Grand Prix” in 1966.”
I’ve just got this feeling Hitchcock used them in a movie. Was it Vertigo? I can’t remember and may be mistaken.
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[Herb Sevush] “[Aindreas Gallagher] ” I’ll definitely check out twilights last gleaming.””
And I hope you won’t forget “Timecode” by Mike Figgis? Really interesting use. Four simultaneous stories that overlap.
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Really nice job.
And you’re right, the wipes are an abomination! Totally stylistically inappropriate and déclassé. And of course the split screens scream out for air, as you wanted them to have – the crowded feeling is just not pleasant or elegant.
Sometimes clients are right … and sometimes they’re not.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com
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