GREAT article in the Frame.io blog about WHY FCP X went “magnetic.”

[Shane Ross]

“In a track-based editing program you’re constantly asking yourself “where in time does this clip go?” At 30 seconds in? 45 seconds? And so on.”

Who does that? I’ve never done it like that. You cut it in when you need it. I need a cutaway here becuase they are describing X…or I need one here to bridge a jump, or I need to cut to a reaction because someone said something that the other person reacted to. Who edits like this?

“The primary question is one of story relationships. Here are a couple examples.

“This audio queue should happen when that boat comes around the corner.”
“First I want to see the wide, then the medium, then the tight.”

Yup…which is what we do, even when you have tracks.

‘But traditional track-based timelines asked us to think in a way that wasn’t focused on story, but rather on a set of technical specifications. “This audio cue needs to happen at 45 seconds and 12 frames in, which happens to visually correspond to what is going on with 5 tracks up the timeline and out of my view.””

(bold is their emphasis, not mine)

WRONG. I never ever in all of my years of editing EVER did that. I put music where I felt it needed to go in the story….right after a moment occurred, or to lead up to a moment. When it felt right. I have never, nor have I ever heard of other editors describing it like the above line. if someone did treat it like that, they might be more technical that story based editors. Sorry, that’s a BS statement.

I won’t quote and refute the whole article, but those opening statements are just complete BS. And editing isn’t ONLY creative, never has been. Editing is also technical, and tracks exist for a reason. And when you work on shows with multiple editors there is a reason for why things are set up the way they are. When you send audio to the audio mixer, things DO need to be separate (which is why ROLES was such a big step for FCX to implement…that made this trackless editing more viable to many people).

“The magnetic timeline saves an enormous amount of time. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that FCP X encourages you to quickly organize your footage before editing. Place some keywords, mark important spots in the browser, and make notes on clips. All those things make your editing more precise.”

THis is true of ANY AND ALL NLEs. This isn’t limited to FCP-X. Good god, no. If you want to find anything in ANY software, you need to name things and label things and add comments that are searchable. This is important in pretty much all editing situations, and is doable in all NLEs.

“The magnetic timeline saves an enormous amount of time. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that FCP X encourages you to quickly organize your footage before editing. Place some keywords, mark important spots in the browser, and make notes on clips. All those things make your editing more precise.

There is a lot right about the the timeline, like no collisions and keeping storylines connected, I’ll give him that. And I know that the magnetic timeline is AMAZING for many MANY people. I get that, I’m not knocking that. It’s useful, it’s great, I know that. But the article is full of wrong and misleading statements. And there are many valid arguments for tracks…but just because someone doesn’t like them or see the point to them doesn’t mean they are useless, or a hinderance.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Neil Goodman]

Good write up but something new? Not really. Same thing people have been writing about X for the last couple years.

My only issue with the article is that he assumes people weren’t paying attention to story simply because time has something to do with tracks? Doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, and for shortform editing where you have to nail your spot to the frame, time is something you can never ignore.

The other thing that keeps coming up is how when your setting in and outs and keywords and ranges before hitting the timeline in X this makes you much faster. how is that different than the prep you do in another NLE, besides keywords which can be very simply replaced with markers in other NLE’s?

As someone who has been working in X more consistently lately to a point where everything is pretty fluid now, I can defiantly see some benefits but as far as real world applications of getting people to switch, I really don’t think its different enough from the competition.

[Bill Davis]

[Shane Ross] ““This audio queue should happen when that boat comes around the corner.”
“First I want to see the wide, then the medium, then the tight.”

Yup…which is what we do, even when you have tracks.”

Yes, but your PROGRAM doesn’t honor and preserve that decision across any possible future changes you might make. X does.

[Shane Ross] “And there are many valid arguments for tracks…but just because someone doesn’t like them or see the point to them doesn’t mean they are useless, or a hinderance.”

Shane, calm down.

NOBODY is saying there aren’t valid arguments for tracks. (Nobody is coming to take your tracks from your cold dead hands ???? – Really. NOBODY. You will ALWAYS have the option of tracks.

But right now, there are a lot of OTHER editors who don’t want to keep using them the way you will always be able too.

That’s ALL Ruben is saying.

That there was a REASON for this ALTERNATIVE.

Alternative, not replacement.

One you can elect to explore – or not.

Period.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Neil Goodman]

[Bill Davis] “Yes, but your PROGRAM doesn’t honor and preserve that decision across any possible future changes you might make. X does.
“

Seriously, what does that mean?

[Shane Ross]

[Bill Davis] “Yes, but your PROGRAM doesn’t honor and preserve that decision across any possible future changes you might make. X does. “

I’m sorry, what? What does that mean?

[Bill Davis] ”
NOBODY is saying there aren’t valid arguments for tracks. (Nobody is coming to take your tracks from your cold dead hands ???? – Really. NOBODY. You will ALWAYS have the option of tracks.”

No, they aren’t. I didn’t say they were. I said his opening arguments were pure BS

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Bill Davis]

[Neil Goodman] “Good write up but something new? Not really. Same thing people have been writing about X for the last couple years.
“

You might be astonished at just how many working editors have absolutely no clue about any of this stuff.

They stopped thinking about X during the big kerfuffle in 2011 – and that’s where their thinking and education STOPPED.

So is it “new” for THIS group? Nope.

What it IS is a reasoned call to the class of editors who have not explored the IDEA of X to possibly give it their own shot to see if it provides something they might find value in exploring.

That’s ALL it is.

Not that big a deal really. ????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Shane Ross] “I’m sorry, what? What does that mean?”

That is precisely what the magnetic timeline enables.
Persistence of the editors DECISIONS.

In X, once you connect one asset to another, a RELATIONSHIP is formed between those assets disconnected from and not subservient to their timeline position.

A relationship that sticks.

Simply that.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Shane Ross]

Well, there are many many new editors out there who don’t know the basics to 3-point editing, so this might speak to them about making decisions BEFORE they put the clip into the timeline. But that, again, is a practice that predates this magnetic timeline, so for him to say it’s something new was one of those BS statements I was talking about.

Later on his points are good, but the opening of the article is just poop.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Neil Goodman]

It sort of is a big deal because like Shane pointed, The writer assumes a lot an out the way people edit in and outside of X and I feel like they were horrible assumptions.

[Michael Hancock]

[Shane Ross] “[Bill Davis] “Yes, but your PROGRAM doesn’t honor and preserve that decision across any possible future changes you might make. X does. ”

I’m sorry, what? What does that mean?”

Simply put, if you have a wide shot of a boat and 1/2 second before it ends you hear the boat horn, then you cut to a close up. The sound of the boat is going to be connected to either the wide shot where you hear it, or the incoming close up shot (if the sound carries through to that shot).

That’s the relationship that is preserved when you move shots around and/or trim them. If your boat horn sound is attached to the wide shot and you move the wide shot, the sound goes with it. If you move the CU and it’s attached to the close up, the sound goes with it. If it’s attached to the CU and you slip the close up, the frame that the sound is attached to stays attached to that frame unless you chose not to.

Basically – the attached clips timing to the clip it’s attached to is always preserved and carries with that shot, unless you choose not to. This can be nice – it can also be a headache. Just like moving stuff around with a tracked NLE! Sometimes it makes things easier. Sometimes it doesn’t.

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor