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How exactly has FCX improved or expedited your workflow?
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[James Ewart] “What do you do about audio under the B roll?”
The same thing you would do with a hidden layer of video sitting on top of it, without having to deal with the unnecessary video.
[James Ewart] “Isn’t it simpler to have the associated picture in the timeline with its audio even if you can’t see it?”
No, I find it more complicated to deal with upper and lower video tracks. If you ever want the sync video it’s only a “match” away.
Perhaps it’s because I started in film, but this whole idea that the audio needs to be tethered to the video it just happened to be recorded with seems very limiting. Film was almost always double system, audio was recorded separately and sync, while necessary, was not an intrinsic part of the media itself. For whatever reason there are some editors, mostly older in my experience, who do not need or want to see every piece of audio permanently locked to the video it was once recorded with. Who knows, if you try cutting this way you might like the freedom it brings.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Audio has really sped up for me. The compressor and limiter is spot-on perfect. Instead of round tripping to STP, I just CMD-8. It’s unbelievably faster AND more accurate.
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[Charlie Austin] “the interface melts into the background, it just lets you edit.”
Really interesting roundup of features. But my question, as an editor who is likely about to tackle FCPX, is: how do you feel about all of the UI animations? The dozen or so times that I’ve used FCPX, I’ve found the keyword, timeline, and assorted other animations REALLY irritating. They are jumpy (though I suppose they would work better on an iMac currently than a Mac Pro), slow, and (IMO) get in my way.
Thoughts?
Editor, Producer, DP
JustinCrowell.com -
I’d like to thank all of the posters. Some very good things have been brought up and this is what I have been looking for.
I suppose a little background for the projects on which I work, seeing as the projects and workflow dictate so much of what is extremely useful and what has less value. My primary show is a hunting show. The footage is almost exclusively raw on “set” footage with a huge range of clip length; I’ll end up with 50-200 clips depending upon the show. The other shows I work on are fairly standard 3 angle interviews with 3-7 interviews (counting host open/closes).
The audition function sounds neat. Like the magnetic timeline, it would be great when I use it, but its also something that would just not see much use in my workflow (though I most definitely see how it would be great for other productions).
Being able to adjust audio via sample rather than frame is something I sorely wish I was able to do. It doesn’t come up often, but its something that I have felt is softcoming of current NLE as audio suites are able to do this.
Being able to work natively with more formats is always better. Though I will say that Avid’s AMA is sorely underperforming compared to FC/Premiere, but I do think it performs better than people give it credit for and I am also not nearly as resistant to transcoding as I was before I picked up Avid (I no longer view it as an annoyance but as another tool I can use). Of course I most certainly do wish Avid beefed up its AMA to the level that FC/Premiere have been at and feel like, with most newer NLE features, Avid will be much slower to implement. But I also find some of the multicam comments odd; I think all of the NLEs will do multicam with different formats (or is this in regards to resolution/framerate?).
I am certainly interested in hearing more about the skimmer. I get the idea behind it, but I’m not clear enough on the details of how it works to have an idea of how it would integrate into a workflow (currently I handle long clips with metadata logging and clip markers).
I am also very interested in more specifics of the organization side (keywords, collections, etc). This is one aspect that I think has been glossed over or stated as if it is already understood. I am not personally clear on any differences between it and searching/sifting through current metadata (which is what I use extensively for hunting footage). I side with being overzealous on my organization. Though I find it very odd that they chose to do away with bins rather than having this as a function that can work alongside a bin structure and to say that I am exceedingly wary of giving up bins is an understatement.
I haven’t heard good things about this, but how is FCX in a multi-user environment? I really love Avid’s ability to send and receive bins between users and even different projects.
A different aside: How is FCX in terms of being keyboard driven. Most of the stuff I’ve seen from the software have only been demonstrated as mouse driven. I touch the mouse as little as possible when I edit and much prefer to drive with the keyboard.
[Charlie Austin] “the main reason I think X speeds up my workflow is that all I have to think about is the cut. Like any other NLE, You do your best work when the software melts into the background letting you concentrate on the craft.”
This really is the heart of it. If FCX (or really any NLE) allows an editor to not have to think about the NLE, then its a strong boon. Though, personally, regardless of whether I’m working in MC/Premiere/FC7, I don’t feel that pressure.
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[Jeff Kay] “I haven’t heard good things about this, but how is FCX in a multi-user environment? I really love Avid’s ability to send and receive bins between users and even different projects.”
If this is how you are sharing elements in Avid (and not using Unity/ISIS/Interplay), then you can use FCP X in a very similar manner. There are a number of approaches and some of this depends on the type of SAN you have. Best approach is to keep Projects/Events on the local drives, with media on a SAN linked to the Events. This way it’s easy to send an Event or Project to another editor and both work simultaneously with common media.
[Jeff Kay] “A different aside: How is FCX in terms of being keyboard driven. “
Nearly all of the commands are mappable, so you can work almost entirely from the keyboard, once you map it the way you want and get used to where those are. Obviously some functions are different, so some retraining of muscle memory will need to happen.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Jeff Kay] “I also find some of the multicam comments odd; I think all of the NLEs will do multicam with different formats (or is this in regards to resolution/framerate?).”
FCPX can create multicam clips where every angle is a different codec and/or framrate – I don’t know about Avid but I know that in FCP Legacy in order to create a multiclip every angle has to be consistent in terms of codec and framerate.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Oliver Peters] “If this is how you are sharing elements in Avid (and not using Unity/ISIS/Interplay), then you can use FCP X in a very similar manner. There are a number of approaches and some of this depends on the type of SAN you have. Best approach is to keep Projects/Events on the local drives, with media on a SAN linked to the Events. This way it’s easy to send an Event or Project to another editor and both work simultaneously with common media.”
I currently work exclusively with independents or freelancers. We aren’t in physical proximity to have any type of network. I’m just wary of having to send/receive projects in the old FCP/Premiere format where the project has to be sent in its entirety and simultaneous changes from two different people are a pain to integrate. From what you said, I am gathering that events work in a similar manner to Avid’s .avb bins.
[Oliver Peters] “Nearly all of the commands are mappable, so you can work almost entirely from the keyboard, once you map it the way you want and get used to where those are. Obviously some functions are different, so some retraining of muscle memory will need to happen.”
Good to hear. I have a highly customized set of keyboard shortcuts, more than half of my keyboard has been remapped and I use a very similar set of customizations for every NLE. I do realize that many people are mouse driven in their work, but that is not how I like to do it. There is a bit of a disconnect when every feature is demonstrated in a mouse driven fashion.
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I hear where you are coming from but I just think it’s so much easier to leave the picture there with the audio you want and drop the picture you want on top of it.
And guess what…I think you will prefer the way this works in FCPX with “trackless” editing.
Actually I would have thought the MC editors would prefer X to legacy because it actually is faster and snappier using more shortcuts than I used to and you have a timeline index.
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[Justin Crowell] “I’ve found the keyword, timeline, and assorted other animations REALLY irritating. They are jumpy (though I suppose they would work better on an iMac currently than a Mac Pro), slow, and (IMO) get in my way.”
I agree to some extent, though you’re right that they’re not as jumpy on an iMac as my old Mac Pro, and my guess would be they’ll be even less so on the tube. It’s seems to get more fluid with each update as well. That said, I hope they’re working on optimizing some of that code. I don’t really notice it much anymore, but when I do, it is annoying. Doesn’t really get in my way though, I guess because I’m used to it now…
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
Didn’t realize that was a limitation of FCP.
I haven’t touched Premiere’s multicam since 5.5. It didn’t seem to have any restrictions over multicamming of clips. Of course the 5.5 version of Premiere’s multicam was awful. Too difficult and time consuming to set up and manipulate, while having significant limitations (maximum 4 angles, superfluous audio cuts, no commit edits, no method of cross NLE export), but multiformat was not one of those issues.
I’m working with some Avid multicam clips that are in mixed format right at this moment. It most certainly will handle mixed codecs. You can’t have a multicam with mixed framerate/resolution, but that isn’t specifically a limitation of the multicam. An Avid project won’t let you have media that is in different framerate/resolution than the settings of the project (you can AMA link footage with different resolution/framerate and multicam, but you shouldn’t AMA link footage different from project settings). This is a common criticism of Avid, but after having worked in a few highly mixed footage environments, I’m most likely going to transcode everything to the same standard regardless of the NLEs ability to work mixed.
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