Illustrator turns 25 today. Thoughts on it, Luddites and FCP X

[James Mortner]

Cool, shall go and check those out !

And yes, I agree with your point about availability. I was being a bit pedantic about the 90% part i suppose !

[Bill Davis]

[Marvin Holdman] “Apple is FAR from the first NLE to incorporate content management and metadata tracking and certainly far from the best implementation of it. “

OK, I’ll bite.

Tell me the name of the other NLEs what have such an editing interface via front end data management database access windows right up front in the editing interface.

I’d like to take a look at them.

I guess you could argue that Legacy had that, but we’re not talking about simple search here – we’re talking about a visible front end that encourages the editor to constantly work with and revise the metadata of every part of the workflow – positioned such that the editor is encouraged to interact with the data in the same way they interact with the visual content.

Legacy did NOT do that.

If other popular editors did that, I’m unaware of it – but I’m willing to be corrected.

Examples please?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Walter Soyka]

[Bill Davis] “I do think we’re entering a new era where looking at software exclusively as a “features” or even “workflow” construct might turn out to be vexingly limiting in the long run.”

With apologies to Henry Russell Sanders and Vince Lombardi, workflow isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.

There is no delivery without a workflow to create the deliverable.

[Bill Davis] “But it’s precisely those new skills that are making me feel like I’m moving forward in my career, rather than continuing just to do the same stuff I did five years (or even six months!) ago. I now not only edit, but I have a new appreciation for the role of metadata, search, clip relationships, and even in-application publishing of content for a connected world.”

Maybe I just don’t get it, but aren’t you still editing and delivering video?

Unless FCPX develops some sort of metadata portability, will it ever be more than this?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “I’ve spent as much time over the past four months, for example, considering taxonomy (the field of intelligent naming and labeling) and export modes (versioning and persistent connection verses “save as” and “orphan document” creation.) as I have concentrating on the traditional skills of scene pacing or titling. My use of X on a near daily basis has literally changed much of my thinking about what it means to be an “editor” in the modern sense. “

It’s nice to see you’ve gotten religion over the importance of naming and labeling Bill, but this stuff has been at the center of proper editing workflows since before there was such a term. When it was all film clips in bins the naming and labeling was kept in a notebook, but it was still the only way to deal with the retrieval and identification of 100,000 feat of film. From hand written notebooks to flat file databases to the kind of work you can do today with CatDV and FCPX, the essential nature of preliminary organization in any editorial process cannot be overstated.

It’s nice that your experience with X has impressed this on you, but since you can’t export any of this information outside of X, it seems, to an outsider like me, rather limited compared to something like CatDV where you can create a browsing library linking your metadata and files for all the world to see and use.

But that’s just a Ludite’s point of view.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Bill Davis]

[David Roth Weiss] “The real problem with FCPX is that, as hard as you try Bill, it simply doesn’t come close to what you try to make of it. If the software was even close it would be a real win-win; FCPX would be better, and we wouldn’t have to read all of your dribble.

So many words – so little meaning. But, I guess your third grade teacher would give you an A for effort?”

As always I’m going to try to ignore Mr. Weiss’s personal attacks and see if there’s some actual meaning inside this.

Nope. It’s vague speculation and innuendo. “doesn’t even come close” is opinion unsupported by any factual content or examples. Likewise the unsupported opinion re-statement in line 2.

The “dribble” comment is self evident personal hostility. Fine.

At some point, Mr. Weiss will stop focusing on ME and focus on providing examples of why he feels my opinions are wrong. But we’ll obviously have to wait longer.

While we do. I’ll make a simple argument. If X’s construct “doesn’t come close” to what I’m making of it – then why are so many professionals still trying to come to grips with it?

Mr Weiss himself, seems to have an almost atavistic need to trash it and any supporter of it at every turn.

If it’s so trivial and flawed, and meaningless, why?

This forums popularity and Mr Weiss’s own on-going obsession with trashing the software at every turn is, in itself, de-facto proof that it’s deep, interesting, and yep, even revolutionary.

If it wasn’t, nobody would keep coming here passionately arguing about it.

It’s curious to me that there are still many here who continue to let themselves feel “personally wounded” that Apple discontinued a product where they had expertise. I suppose they’ve lost some feeling of being “valuable” by virtue of losing skills they had built on the old platform that had largely come to defined them. And while they’re wrapped up in that pain, all they can do is trash talk the new player relentlessly, yearning for a return to the old game they loved.

But alas, the old game is over.

There are plenty of new ones from, AVID, Adobe, Sony, and others. My advice, sir, is to move along to one of them. Revisiting this pain is not productive for you or for us.

This is a world of constantly evolving games. Getting stuck in an old one is a dead end. In my 20s when I was an on-air talent in radio, I could have forever defined myself as a guy content in a room full of LP’s and record players working to build an audience., and missed the changes that eventually put everyone out jogging with their iPods and little need for someone to pick their music for them.

I had to move on and release the skills I’d picked up as a DJ so I could play another game.

I did. Into TV, and Advertising, and eventually video production full time.

I don’t know if X is the future for anyone. I just know it’s more interesting to me than the past. Because it contains a raft of useful new thinking that’s stretching me.

But it’s not about me, or you. It’s about letting everyone choose for themselves after listening to the debate.

And I will keep adding my voice to it, whether or not you agree.

Take care.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] ” I’ll make a simple argument. If X’s construct “doesn’t come close” to what I’m making of it – then why are so many professionals still trying to come to grips with it?”

Because it was released by Apple to replace the most popular NLE in existance. If either :

A) It was released by another company

or

B) Apple hadn’t EOL’d Legacy but called the new ap Icut or something else.

then

C) This forum would not exist. There would be a basic Icut forum where users would be trying to figure it out and if Apple’s name wasn’t attached to it my guess is that it wouldn’t be a very busy forum.

The traffic on this forum is in no way a proof of any intrinsic merit to X, merely to the dominance of Legacy in the NLE market.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “Unless FCPX develops some sort of metadata portability, will it ever be more than this?”

I’ve been laying low in these forums lately, but I see it, thusly.

Those who are using FCPX, and generally like it, they can “see” the potentials of it. I’m with Bill. The Event side of the program is awesome. I’ve talked about it before, so no reason to again, but it really performs functions (in a good way) that no other NLE can do in the way the FCPX performs. CatDV can do much more than FCPX, but there are certain things that only FCPX can do. Is the metadata portable yet? No. But then again, there’s a lot of metadata in NLEs that is an after thought. FCP Legacy was Ok at it, and definitely had some capability but few used it as it wasn’t very straightforward, and it didn’t allow user control manipulation as FCPX does. So, if Apple keeps developing this idea in a way that seems logical from what is evident the program today, then it certainly will make work different in the post industry for those people that choose to use it. Not to mention, the FCPXML structure doesn’t allow for much metadata yet, so therefore, you can’t use it. But if you look at how FCPX will be able to harness metadata that comes in to the program, it seems like there’s a bunch of potential there (just check out the metadata browser).

There are those who have used FCPX, don’t like it or it doesn’t fit their workflow, and can only see it for what it is today in the here and now. That’s fine, as it is much easier to talk about/bash something for it’s capabilities today than what it might do tomorrow depending on Apple’s motivation and recent history. So, I’m with you Walter.

So, yes, you are all right. FCPX is simultaneously kludgedly amazing, and not working.

Jeremy

[Marvin Holdman]

Open up the project window on any modern NLE (FCP, PP, act) and you’ll find a wealth of metadata (both generated and user). The important point of this is it can be easily imported, exported and shared with proper MAM tools. MOST folks have been accomplishing the “organization” that you mention from a combination of hierarchal management of footage and using these data tools. The highly limited scope of the organizational tools in FCPX are fine if you are not concerned about having this data available in the broader context of your data management system (ie. don’t really care about sharing it with others), but to say it is a “content management and metadata tracking system” implies that it can somehow manage more than a projects worth of information over a long period of time.

To the best of my knowledge, FCPX allows limited usage of “key terms” to group your footage. Yes, it’s “front end” data management, but I’d hardly call it a data management “system”. It is, at best, an organizational tool, limited too and defined by each project.

Get back to me in a year and tell me how you find a very specific shot of “John Doe’s interview regarding the oversimplification of data systems recorded at the Apple Pep Rally in June 2011” using this “content management system”. And by that, I mean what query would you submit to FCPX to find it, not how you would remember where it was at. That is what defines a “system” in my book.

Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” The Event side of the program is awesome.”

OK, so here’s the bit I don’t get. How is the Event organization in FCPX anything other than a tiny, trivial, non-significant advance on the Event organization in iMovie – which has been around for years (i.e since ’09)?

And that’s a serious question.

Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Simon Ubsdell] “OK, so here’s the bit I don’t get. How is the Event organization in FCPX anything other than a tiny, trivial, non-significant advance on the Event organization in iMovie – which has been around for years (i.e since ’09)?

And that’s a serious question.”

I have not used iMovie so I can’t tell you, I also don’t have iMovie. How much have you used iMovie and how much have you used metadata in FCPX? Serious question. How are they similar other than the fact that they have something called an Event and something called a Project?

Does it have keywords? Does it have Scene/Take/Reel of which you can generate clip names in iMovie?

Does it have the custom metadata fields that you can then rename all of your clips in iMovie?

Can you select a range of a clip, and add that to a collection?

Does it have the metadata viewer in the inspector?

Does it have a search window?

Is there a timeline index?

Those are serious questions, too.

I am not talking about how the Events look on the screen (akin to bins or whatever). I am not talking about that there’s an “Event Browser” and a “Project Browser” or whatever iMovie and FCPX nomenclature is shared. I’m talking about the actual user supplied (or camera supplied) data that can be used in FCPX, and sorted in the Event side of the interface, and how that information can be used and manipulated, and if you want to have some of it transfer to the Project. If iMovie has all of this, then there’s no difference, but I don’t have any experience with it besides that it looks generally sort if similar to FCPX in certain ways, but not many from I can see on screen grabs. A gut reaction would say that they aren’t similar at all but in appearance, just like FCP7, Avid, and PPro have similar layouts, but they are different in many ways once you start to actually use them.

Jeremy