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Is Oliver Peters wrong?
IN the “FCPX or NOT?” thread, immediately below, Mark Dobson wrote this in his positive review of FCPX:
I think that for many this software will never cut the mustard. Oliver Peters has really nailed some of the issues in his FCP X road blocks blog;
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/fcp-x-road-blocks/
Oliver wrote this article before the recent upgrade. Would any of the proselytizers care to go thru his criticisms on a point by point basis and show where he is wrong?
In addition Mark Morache, in his positive review in the same thread, wrote this:
“Presently, there is no easy way to slip the clip without moving the attached clips. I may have a couple of b-roll shots and a sound effect or a soundbite. Currently I need to slip the clip, then move each attached clip back to where it was.
Sometimes I can move the connection point to a different clip, freeing up the clip I want to slip, but not always.
So now I need to do it in two steps to slip the clip then move the attached media back.
It was a problem that didn’t exist before the connected clip paradigm in FCX.”
Any comments from the brethren?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
72 Replies
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I havent read Mr Peters article, but as far as the slip, you have to move the clip out of the primary and leave a gap (it’s one keystroke), slip, then back down (another keystroke).
Not ideal, but it’s possible. It would be nice to have a modifier to slip primary clips without this work around.
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Just read Oliver’s article. Some issues have been addressed in .1, some haven’t and some have been announced for the next revision.
He’s not wrong.
Jeremy
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Which issues have not been addressed in the update and are not yet scheduled for revision?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
“no VTR i/o except over FireWire – and no broadcast video monitoring output.”. Coming with or around the next release.
“Rolling audio edits.”. Not quite sure what he means as he referrs to split edits, this are possible. If he’s referring to clips not in the primary, then if you put the clips in a secondary, you can roll.
“Multiple trim points.”. Yes, true. I find trimming to be really easy in FCPX, so it doesn’t bother me too much.
“Multiple mono audio channels”. True. The way to do this now is inefficient, but it is possible.
“Sequence timecode start”. Fixed in .1
“Multicam”. Announced for early 2012
“Track tool.”. Roles is the beginning here. Improvements are needed.
“FCP sequence import”. The official release of fcpxml should help here.
“Copy/paste/remove attributes”. It’s possible in FCPX, but again not very efficient and works way differently than fcp7. For instance, there’s no remove effect, but you can paste a disabled effect to turn it off on the current clip.
“2.5/3D DVE.”. True, not there, but…….
“Manual organization of bins and projects.”. This is a touchy one. I find keyword collections to be great, some see them as rigid. He’s right about timelines (FCPX projects). FCPX is simply different in this regard.
“Mixer panel.”. True. No mixer.
“Timecode overlays.”. True. Can roll your own tc reader but doesn’t help with audio tc and multiple layers.
“Dual source-record windows.”. True.
“Out-of-sync”. True
“Interface response”. Seems better since .1
“It’s an island”. Now that fcpxml is official, we should hope to see more interchange soon, but it’s an unknown known. I would say it’s less of an island. Bridges/transportation lines are being built, but aren’t complete.
Jeremy
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Jeremy –
Thanks for summing that up.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
No worries.
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I don’t know if you consider me a prothletizer or not (I consider myself to be frank about what FCPX is missing), but I read the article yesterday and I agreed with most of it. Aside from setting TC which was addressed in the most recent update, all of his criticisms are valid. I personally relate to the inelegant way of handling embedded audio channels, copy/paste attributes, multicam, and audio mixer tool.
Manual organization of bins and projects already exists. This is the one criticism that I think falls short because I manually organize with keyword collections all the time and it works as good or better than bins in FCP 7. I also actually like having projects organized outside of the event browser too.
Perhaps where I differ from those who think FCP is dead, is that I think many if not all of these issues will be addressed. It’s well-thought out criticisms like his that might stand a chance of being implemented. Many things that he talks about can be easily incorporated into the existing paradigm.
• Slipping clips without adjusting connected clips could be handled with a modifier key while using the trim tool.
• Audio Mixer tool could be implemented as a “room” or Avid-like “workspace” set up. You hit a shortcut key, and the event browser disappears. An audio mix tool and other audio tools are in it’s place allowing you to mix your audio cleanly and quickly.
• Expanding audio feature should expand to include all audio tracks separately. Then you can mix them independent of each other from within the project for reference. And they can still be locked from going out of sync. Then you would only use the Break Apart Clip Items shortcut for when you actually WANT to break sync.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Jeremy Garchow] “”It’s an island”. Now that fcpxml is official, we should hope to see more interchange soon, but it’s an unknown known. I would say it’s less of an island. Bridges/transportation lines are being built, but aren’t complete.”
FCP is a classic TC based application. For FCPX TC is basically a way of identifying individual “pictures”. In truth FCPX abandon the “frame concept”. Stills duration is not anymore set in “frames”, but in time fractions (which I guess could be a minimal factor on accuracy. haven’t experimented).
If translation has been a complication with tracks/TC based application (perhaps because it haven’t been a real interest on the side of the manufacturers), I understand that things could get more complicated between FCP and FCPX. Anyway, for me is hard to accept that FCPX is unable to export a basic EDL. Is like being impossible to convert a Word document in to SimpleText.[Herb Sevush] “”Presently, there is no easy way to slip the clip without moving the attached clips. I may have a couple of b-roll shots and a sound effect or a soundbite. Currently I need to slip the clip, then move each attached clip back to where it was.
Sometimes I can move the connection point to a different clip, freeing up the clip I want to slip, but not always.
So now I need to do it in two steps to slip the clip then move the attached media back.”
I think that in this thread Tom Wolsky gives the solution:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/4818#4818
rafael -
Great question Herb,
The truth is there is no right or wrong, its a matter of consideration and choice.
Oliver Peters like many of us has developed specific workflows within FCP 7. I understand he does a lot of Feature Film editing and has developed a very structured approach to dealing with scenes, multiple takes and complex structures.
It’s not possible to precisely emulate many of these in FCP X. However I’ve found that it’s possible to find workarounds, sometimes quite convoluted, to most of the jobs I used to do in FCP 7.
One point that he makes that I agree with relates to the speed of the GUI. Opening any event, project or clip and you are also opening a filmstrip or series of filmstrips. The lag is frustrating.
Another is the limitation of the Copy/Paste/Remove Attributes function in FCP X. It’s really selective in FCP 7 and also splits the Audio and Video functions. In FCP X it’s all or nothing.
I know that I’m giving myself a lot of extra work, and at times stress, through using FCP X. I also know that at any stage I can simply switch back to FCP 7.
I have dipped back into FCP7 on a couple of occasions and it all feels very old fashioned and clunky, kind of square.
So for the moment I’m with FCP X and enjoying the ride.
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“Perhaps where I differ from those who think FCP is dead, is that I think many if not all of these issues will be addressed.”
There are any number of features I waited 7 years for FCP7 to fix and it never happened. What makes you think that your list of fixes won’t meet a similar fate. And if they don’t get fixed, will FCPX still be useful in your workflow?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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