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How exactly has FCX improved or expedited your workflow?
I will start by acknowledging my own bias. I am not a fan of FCX and have a [perhaps irrational] hatred of Apple. I originally learned on Premiere (not the atrocious very early versions, but on the versions when it was still not at all worthwhile for a professional environment), picked up FC6-7, but now I have moved on to Avid and cut almost exclusively in MC. But I have gotten out of a major work crunch and I have some time to at least get a better understanding; though in regards to this topic I’ve seen far too much emotionally charged responses on both sides than I would expect to see from a “professional” forum (perhaps I’m looking back on the old professional usenet forums with rose tinted glasses and have my expectations far too high).
I have heard many people say that FCX has improved their workflow or increased their productivity. Though there always seems to be a lack of details of how exactly it has done so. Maybe there is a mention of a feature (such as magnetic timeline), but never really an explanation of how that feature improves workflow. There is always a curve for “learning the software”, but without any idea of how features can improve my own work flow, there is just no reason what-so-ever to learn a new software if its workflow is just ‘different’.
There have also been several claims about FCX along the lines of “I could never have done this in Avid/Premiere/FC7”. I am extremely skeptical of any such claims. Look at it from the other side, everytime its said “FCX cannot do Y”, many will bring up available plug-ins or workarounds. Though this applies both ways as I haven’t heard any specific thing that FCX can do that ultimately can’t also be done in any other NLE. I mean hell, most of my work could theoretically be done in notepad by handwriting an EDL or XML. In another thread, someone attempted to dismiss an argument as being ultimately about convenience, but that really is the difference between the NLEs: it *is* about convenience. Though, do remember that “convenience” is subjective and different people are going to arrive at different conclusions; I feel it is important to keep that in mind as a basis, otherwise we again digress into emotionally charged opinionated responses presented as objective fact, that have otherwise crippled any real discussion.
I am interested in hearing about the specifics of FCX and its features that users have had positive experiences from; I am going to appear biased (as I am), but I am legitimately interested in hearing how exactly others have made use of its features in practice (rather than the theoretical). To put a frame of reference, here is my thoughts about the Magnetic Timeline.
Its possible that there is some basic fundamental part of this feature that has been completely omitted from any online reviews/previews/demonstrations, but I can best describe it as “neat” or “slick”. The things you can do with it are “neat” or “slick”, but I cannot find a way to actually call them “useful”; for me and my workflow, I just don’t see a use for it. I have been trained to go through assembly, rough, fine, picture lock, audio. Very concrete steps that I make sure to finish one before moving to the next. Its how things work in multi-editor environments, but even when I am doing the whole project, the focus it gives improves the final product and still makes it overall more efficient. Thinking over the work I’ve done the past few months, everytime that I would use the magnetic timeline, that instance would have at least one of three different properties: 1. Something I can already do 2. Something I don’t need to do 3. There was a fundamental problem with my workflow.
With only footage on the primary timeline (rough), moving clips around in the same fashion as the magnetic timeline is nothing new, I can do it the exact same way in MC, Premiere, or even FC7. But this is something that I hardly do, its something that I don’t like to do. I would much rather take a few moments to think before I place anything on my timeline, than regularly rearrange things on my timeline. Perhaps its a philosophical difference; the need to rearrange in this fashion shows indecision and as an editor my job is specifically to make decisions (the “D” in EDL). Though in at least my personal instance, overall I work faster by committing to decisions in my head first, than I do playing with temporary possibilities on the timeline.
The big feature of magnetic timeline isn’t in the rough, its in having the supplementary b-roll and audio being linked for easy movement while maintaining sync. Back to my workflow, I commit to a rough before moving on. My “primary” timeline is already going to be at a point where there will be very few, if any, changes before adding in any b-roll or other clips that would be attached magnetically (audio isn’t even started until after I get a picture lock). Even then, I have been trained to use only 1 video track. There is a very fine line between “being limited to 1 video track” and “using many tracks because of lack of organization”. I simply do not see a value in having B-roll in another track. To me it clutters the timeline, taking up valuable screen real estate with more video tracks, while should a change need to be made, it opens up increased likelihood of pieces getting out of line, simple fast trims can still restore the primary footage; basically I see no reason for there to be anything on the timeline that is completely hidden all that can do is lead to confusion further down the road. I will certainly use more than 1 video track if I need to, but keeping footage all in one track allows me to work better.
I’m sure some are thinking that I’m being naive or too idealistic because there are always changes. There most certainly are, but it is an editor’s job to understand what the director/producer/client wants. You will always get feedback and corrections, but even for a first review, it is still my job to minimize these. In any situation that the necessary changes are so dramatic that the magnetic timeline is going to be a significant time saver, then there has been a major breakdown in communication between the director/producer/client and the editor. At this point my next step is the same regardless of using MC, FCP, or a Moviola: its time for us to sit down and talk about what you want. It is not time to start rearranging things constantly asking “well how about this?” Doing that one stops being an editor and starts being a software technician working the NLE as someone else’s proxy. And even if that gets you through this review, as an editor you still haven’t corrected the communication breakdown which will end up with this same issue happening again. This is when I sit down and have a discussion about what they want; not about editing or specific cuts, but about overall atmosphere, attitude, pacing, a top down approach. Most directors I’ve worked with much prefer to talk about their work in such a fashion (certainly over looking at various edit arrangements). I end up with a much better idea of what they want, not just for this review, but going forward.
The extreme case is a director/producer/client that follows “I’m not sure what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it.” This is a terrible situation to be in, its also when I pack it up and call it a day. I can’t know what they want better than they know what they want and I’m not going to try. They need to figure out what they want, or at least what they didn’t like and why (either of those I can work with). If they can’t I certainly not against walking out of a project. And it isn’t simply an issue of pride or stress, the original project would take so long to do, that I can start and finish other projects in the same time for more pay.
That is why this particular feature is just not really useful for me. But back around to the original topic, I said it might be a philosophical difference. After all if particular NLE allows you personally to work better and faster, why wouldn’t you? That is ultimately what I am interested in hearing, how others are effectively able to use features for which I either see no use or only a minor use; do I have a misunderstanding of the features, is there something I’m missing, is there something I just haven’t encountered, is there something that will integrate into my workflow?
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78 Replies
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I asked this question a month ago as well, asking for real world applications, after so many claims that FCPX is so so so much faster than anything else.
Other than organizational improvements which were the obvious ones (keywords,skimming,metadata) there werent many replies.
IMO the timelione is the most important part of any NLE, and unfortuneatly the timeline in FCPX makes things slower for the way i cut which is very similair to yours s far as a radio/rough/fine/delivery cut.
Neil Goodman: Editor of New Media Production – The Esquire Network – NBC/Uni
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Well that’s a pretty long-winded question 😉 I do a lot of FCP X work, but am also a skeptic of these claims. I think it depends on whether you are looking as certain functions or the complete end-to-end workflow.
Organization is better and faster, but there are times where I’d rather just drag clips to bins instead. I think where you get a lot of benefit to both the organization methods and the magnetic timeline is when you have a client (or director) sitting over your shoulder and asking you to make changes. Then the magnetic timeline tends to work better than moving clips around on tracks.
It also tends to be easier to find things through smart collections or simple sorts or searches. Weaker areas right now (that add to time) are match framing, vertical “locking” of connected clip positions, etc. So there are pro and cons to X, just as with any other NLE.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I’m an Avid and FCX user. There are feature in both software that might speed up someones workflow but another Editor has no need for it. For instance, I cut projects where I have to multi cam dslr’s. This is a nightmare in Avid because you can not multi clip through black as you can in every other software. However, if you’re shooting a reality tv show, the multi-group function in Avid is needed. Not to mention you can mix frame rates in FCPX multi-clip. The X drawback is you cannot finalize multi-clip edits and you can’t matchframe back to the original clip, so you lose time here if you need to stabilize or do a slo-mo affect.
Another is Avid chokes on everything that is not dnx. If you don’t do any small time video production then you may never notice. But Avid has priced their software so as to make it accessible to small time shop people who may take in Prosumer footage like C100, FS100 etc. In my experience, I have to transcode immediately. Trying to even play through it to sub clip crashes Avid.
Here’s a small one that’s huge to me. You can scrub through interviews in FCPX at 3x the speed without losing any pitch. If you are looking for soundbites you tripled your efficiency of that process.
You can make adjustment to audio and video while the your timeline is playing. Actually you can do anything in the interface while the timeline is playing. Once you get used to this in FCPX you really hate that Avid can’t do it. And you realize that you have to hit play more times in a day than you should. Again this sounds small but its not in terms of moving fast.
The proxy/online workflow in X so easy. Its stupid. Now Avid’s is far more flexible which always opens the door for complications but at the same time more possibilities. It is also far more rigid. And I think that is the difference of Avid and the competing NLE’s. If you don’t need Avid’s heavy features FCPX can work a lot faster for you for certain productions. It really is the utility vehicle vs the light truck analogy.
That being said, FCPX’s trimming SUCKS compared to Avid. This is where all the time you gained in X is lost. If you are really adept in Avid’s trim functions, you can burn through changes at lightspeed compared to FCPX. If you’ve moved from FCP to X this won’t bother you as much as FCP7’s trim mode sucked compared to Avid’s as well.
As much as I have grown to love fcp’s key wording, I hate the fact that I cannot float bins (keyword collections) and there is total lack of interface customizing. Also I like to use bins as a relational value to other clips, so that when I matchframe back to the original clip, it gets me back to the clips that were in relationship to that clip. You can’t really work this way in X. You have to remember how you have tagged the clip and search for it only in that way. It only lets you matchback to the clip as it relates to every clip in the project which isn’t cool.
I’ve used FCP 7 and Avid MC for years, and have been using X for a year now. I like having both Avid and X. There are projects that you don’t want to go near Avid with and vice versa. If you only had one software, than you’d have to go with Avid as there is nothing in Avid you can’t do. X is not fully featured yet and may never be as a standalone software. That is fine by me. Its a nice tool for specific workflows where Avid is just to rigid, mainly fast turnaround stuff.
The great thing is that X works so differently, that you can easily bounce back and forth from X to Avid if you set you keyboard up properly in X (I do a left hand transport with all other functions matching my Avid keyboard). This is not true for me bouncing back and forth from Avid to FCP7 or Premiere.
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[Oliver Peters] “but there are times where I’d rather just drag clips to bins instead. “
Create keyword e.g ” Bin 1″, drag clip from viewer onto keyword – exactly the same as dragging a clip into a bin.
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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I didn’t read your whole post. Just responding to the question you posed.
I can prep a day’s worth of jam-synced multicam dailies in 10 minutes using Sync N Link and FCP X. No rendering or transcoding required if editing with RED or Alexa. Assuming audio has been properly tagged with subroles, I can also output the most organized AAF of any NLE using X2Pro in just as much time.
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X -
[Steve Connor] “Create keyword e.g ” Bin 1″, drag clip from viewer onto keyword – exactly the same as dragging a clip into a bin.”
Sure. I know that, but it isn’t the same. That’s because the clip in the collection is like a subclip. This leaves you with clips in the event, as well as in one (or multiple) collections. With bins, I can separate and segregate clips into the bins. The X paradigm becomes an annoyance, when I only want to work within the clips of a collection – not the full event. Perform a match frame and now it bounces you out to the full list of clips at the event level.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I don’t know what kind of work you do, but Auditions are very valuable to me.
They are possible because of the magnetic timeline, and while you can manipulate other NLEs to perform sort of like an Audition clip, they don’t function as well as they would on a magnetic timeline, and they aren’t as easy to bring up a new take selection. I think this is one area where you can’t do this in any NLE quite like you can in fcpx.
If you cut dialog, you can load up all takes of one scene/camera angle in one clip and have all of those takes available to you on the timeline. All of these appear as one clip on the timeline. If the director comes in and says, ” I know we had that one take where her arm was higher and not blocking the light” you find it in the Audition clip, select it, and bring it to the front. Because of the magnetic timeline , everything else stays in tact, relationally. There’s no moving or awkward replacing, just really useful editing. Any ins and outs or timing changes stays with EACH take, so if one take is a little longer or shorter, the magnetic timeline simply adjusts. If you have clients over your shoulder and they like to watch multiple takes, it makes trying things on very easy. I have had clients in the room, and they have commented on how cool it is. I don’t even point out what it is we are doing, or that I am using FCPX, I just do it, and they remark at how fast it is and ask what has changed.
To put it very simple terms, if you set it up Audition clips correctly, you can have every single take available to you on the timeline at once, without having to look at a bunch of clips stacked on top of each other. It’s very tidy.
I find making changes to be much easier in fcpx as there’s much less to detangle. Making secondary storylines makes things very easy to adjust as you can move that single element horizontally without effecting much anything else. With other NLEs you will either overwrite, have to move things to different tracks, command-select the exact right parts to move out of the way, or move every single thing out of the way, perform the edit, and then mend everything back in to place. The notion of how FPCX controls the vertical and horizontal is really hard to explain if you haven’t used FCPX much. IT’s also not perfect. Sometimes FCPX makes a vertical decision for you that isn’t quite right. It’s OK, nothing is overwritten so you might have to drag a clip in to a different vertical position every once in a while. It’s a small price to pay.
If you take the time to setup Roles:
Exporting audio stems is very easy.
Exporting text and textless versions is very easy.
It needs some work, but it’s heading in a really good direction, not the least of which is that it allows me to make faster creative decisions without fighting the interface.
When I go back to FCP7, it is going back to a physically slower creative process. I know you like to edit in your head, with FCPX I don’t have to.
Jeremy
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One of the main factors for me is render speed and FX.
This year I’ve been doing a lot of industry stuff on FCP7 and a lot of German Star News stuff on X. So I pretty much have been able to compare the two on fast turnaround projects. My X job at Promiflash (in Berlin) required a lot more Fx and fast clip editing than my industry jobs on 7, which are a lot more classical in style. In addition my X Job required me to do sound recording, as well, which I never need to do on my 7 jobs. Even with more workload I was usually almost 2 hours faster per day on X than 7.
To be fair, in my case FCP 7 is on a 12 core mac pro and X on a new maxed out iMac… on the other hand comparing both on my Quad-Core, 8GB ram macbook I see very similar differences.
Exporting an unrendered 5 min project in 7, with about 6 basic lower thirds takes roughly about 20 minutes, on X it takes a little less than 5 min.
Building lower thirds in X is very smooth, in 7 its clunky, especially since it takes about a second to react to moving titles.
that you can skim effects in X, is a real timesaver to me, applying the effects is very smooth, and X responds immediately.
FX Factory fx and filters work a lot faster in X, less clicks, faster response.
If a client wants to see an effect smoothly i rarely need to render, especially in Proxy, in 7 I usually have to render, and its slower.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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I used to work as a freelance producer and director which involved hiring talent, facilities and technicians for each and every project I was involved with.
But these days I’m a one man band, in that, I film and edit everything that our company produces and rarely if ever have to go out of house (sic) to have any post production tasks carried out for me.
Whilst this results in a far less collaborative and stimulating workflow it produces a far higher income.
For me editing is predominately an intellectual and creative challenge, an exercise not dissimilar to a solving a jigsaw puzzle, quite often with several bits missing, so the tools I work with need to assist, not hinder me.
FCPX has been a huge asset to me and the fact that with a bit of manipulation I can produce all the programme graphic components within the App really speeds things up and I find that the titling and text tools are really superb and easy to work with. ( remember the Aston? )
FCPX in it’s present form is a stable, fast and fun program to work with and time is saved at loads of different points within the editing cycle from using the event browser to quickly sort clips into a coherent and accessible structure, through to using component clips to either edit sections of the program or tie up complex edit structures. And after a lot of time using it I find the color board perfectly sufficient for my type of work which is largely a documentary style.
And getting your work out of FCPX has been improved dramatically since it’s launch, the share function is really easy to use. I normally export a master file out and then do any transcoding or different versions in either Episode or Compressor.
But as many others have pointed out all the various NLEs basically do the same job. I just happen to think that FCPX has improved exponentially since it’s launch and whilst there are still loads of irritating faults with it, such as no batch export, I really look forward to the next update and continuing to improve the quality of the work we produce.
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Wow what an interesting set of insights. I hope the original poster got his response, but even if he didn’t, the ‘casual bystander’ got a peep into what people are doing with FCP X.
I think as editors, once we understand and and accept the fact, that FCP X is just another new editing tool in the same way that FCP was when it appeared in 2000.
In that sense if we accept it as a new companion, or spouse, we can be happy with it. Once we start comparing it with the previous one – with whom we may have parted, or maybe we continue dating – we run into grief. Best is to accept it as it is, and move on. Or not.
FCP X definitely works for many people, even makes as much money as whatever they were using before it.
For me, I use it like an ‘instant’ FCP 7. But use FCP 7 for some stuff that FCP X can’t do as well.
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India
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