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It’s All Connected — Clip Relationships and The Magnetic Timeline Paradigm
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I’m interested in X and the implications, but I also find it interesting, for instance, that the ongoing proponents of X here in the forum have chimed in with comment thats seem to eschew theoretical considerations, and the implications that design models have on editing. It seems to be some of those that are apparently married to traditional models that are most interested in understanding how models impact on editing practice, and most open to exploring those implications.”
The people that are most open to exploring the implications of the X timeline are using it and putting it in to practice.
Why is FCPX an a/b editor only? I don’t understand this recurring comment.
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[Walter Soyka] “Where do you think it falls apart? What behavior is inconsistent?”
I find that when moving primary clips, the stacking order of connected clips when the timeline reflows is unpredictable. I’m never completely sure which clip will wind up on top or why.
Here’s a video I made last year to demonstrate why you might want to connect a clip to a gap object. It also proves (despite the insistence of some) that the position tool does not turn off ripple (reflow) via a destructive bug. Apple fixed this bug in version 10.0.4.
Pay attention to the connected clip on the left. Also pay attention to the two connected audio clips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Pc56peq98&feature=g-upl
Can you explain why in one case the left connected clip reflows to bottom, and the other it’s on top? And why the short audio clip always reflows below the longer? I find no rhyme or reason in stacking order. Maybe I’m holding it wrong.[Walter Soyka] “This would let you work inside a group, but this gives you a different kind of inheritance than FCPX.
Since Premiere’s groups are based on an open timeline, direct object selection within the group would make changes relative to external time.”
Yes. I think that’s a good thing.
[Walter Soyka] “The critical difference as I see it is that in FCP7, a synchronized replace edit is an instantaneous operation. The connection only exists in the editor’s mind at the moment it is made. FCP7 itself cannot store or use that implied connection for anything other than the replace edit. With FCPX, connections are persistent (but mutable), and impact more than the one operation.”
Agreed. But if that sync relationship is important, a synchronized replace edit makes it possible. If the editor wants to lock the relationship between the clips, grouping makes that possible.
I guess where I get lost is in understanding why I would benefit from my NLE knowing anything more about these specific relationships. Especially given all the other relationships that are in my mind that it *doesn’t* know about. I realize that in FCPX this *is* the model, but what does the model add beyond what I can get through groups if groups had some additional UI affordances?
[Walter Soyka] “I agree here. I have argued before that FCPX assumes (or maybe imposes?) a certain approach to editing. I think that the data model was designed to implement nonlinear A/B editorial.”
Agreed.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[tony west] “It’s an interesting topic David.
but I can’t help but wonder how you approached editing before NLE’s came out.
It’s not like people were not cutting great things before on their CMX tc monitors.
All we looked at were a bunch of numbers on the screen and you got it done.
Sunset Blv. NOT cut on AVID. I still prefer to watch it over much of this stuff that’s out now : )”
Glad you’re enjoying it Tony.
Before NLE’s I edited linear tape and hated it. I first started in my senior year of high school in the late 70’s. We were shooting with with Sony portapacks, like the Sony AV-3400. We edited on the same type of reel-to-reel machines. No machine control, just a grease pencil to mark reels, a stopwatch to count, and manually hitting insert on the record deck at just the right time. If you were lucky, you might get what you wanted. I dreamed of frame accuracy.
In college, 3/4″ and VHS cassette. Machine control made frame accuracy possible; but of course, changing anything once you laid it down was a hassle. Or changing something in the middle of a piece? Forget it!
At Lucasfilm, I got to dream about the kind editor I always wanted, something fluid and all digital, totally freed from the constraints of physical media. The actual system we built was limited by the technologies of the late 80’s and was too early to create a market. Plus, George wasn’t interested in pursuing it as a business. But what we made was the groundwork for what I knew would become an industry. It only took another twenty years or so for the technologies to catch up.
But to your point, I agree. Some of the best films ever made were made the old fashioned way, or with tools way more primitive than the free media stuff given away on new computers. A great film is much more that just the sum of its tools.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Richard Herd] “I cut a shiton of dialogue, j-cuts, l-cuts–you know the drill. X is better than Legend for that, without question.”
So do I. That’s why I have a dedicated mouse button for toggling the linked selection button on the timeline.
I make j and l cuts in Legend as easily as you can in X. I would never make them the way the FCP7 manual describes. X is good but it isn’t necessarily better if you know what you’re doing in Legend.
_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “Can you explain why in one case the left connected clip reflows to bottom, and the other it’s on top? And why the short audio clip always reflows below the longer? I find no rhyme or reason in stacking order. Maybe I’m holding it wrong.”
To me, this is no different than needing to arrange tracks to make too for new material, or protect fcp7 from throwing a clip collision warning, or simply dealing with the nature of tracks.
You still have to edit with FCPX. You still have to make sure things are in the proper place.
With its non destructive timeline that might mean pulling a connected clip back in to the right stacking order.
It’s not that big of a deal to me.
In 7, you’d make room for this edit before you moved the clips, or perhaps you’d select all clips to the right and move the clips a little, then trim some things out of the way, or make more room by putting a clip or two in a different track, and essentially nip/tuck/nip/tuck your way in to ensure everything is exactly selected/deselected as needed as FCP7 can’t deal with this edit on its own. It sometime won’t even let you make a move like this if there’s “objects” that it finds in the way.
With X, you grab the primary clip, move it where you want, and restack a layer or two, all relative positions still in place. Yes you might also have to trim the ends off of a clip or two.
[David Lawrence] “Apple fixed this bug in version 10.0.4.”
Have you tried this move with the bug fixed?
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[David Lawrence] “But to your point, I agree. Some of the best films ever made were made the old fashioned way, or with tools way more primitive than the free media stuff given away on new computers”/I>
Film editing, while mechanical, was not nearly as primitive as linear video editing. It wasn’t till the advent and 2nd generation improvement of NLEs that video editing could approach the complexity and sophistication of a film editing room. The use of mechanical technology by itself does not make something primitive.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[David Lawrence] “[Walter Soyka] “I agree here. I have argued before that FCPX assumes (or maybe imposes?) a certain approach to editing. I think that the data model was designed to implement nonlinear A/B editorial.”
Agreed.”
Can you, David, or Walter, or Franz please explain how FCPX is an A/B only editor?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Can you, David, or Walter, or Franz please explain how FCPX is an A/B only editor?”
Speaking for myself, I don’t see it as A/B in the sense of a two-source, single M/E system. I see it as A/B in terms of the ENG or storytelling mental editorial model — you have A-roll which is primary to the story, and B-roll which is secondary to the story (and attached to the A-roll).
The thing I still don’t quite understand are real-world scenarios where you can’t think of an edit this way.
Interestingly, this points out a little quirk in the clip relationship thing. B-roll is often used to cover a cut, but you can’t connect to the edit point of that cut itself; you must connect it to a frame on one of the clips.
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 -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Parent child relationships in all other aspects, be they an IK chain in 3DSmax, which I know half well, or downstream effects in complex nuke/flame/smoke scenarios – which I also know having driven a flint on Indigo hardware for two years – these I understand. However – simply umbilically tying all the elements of an edit together, without asking, clip by clip, parent to child, for no other worth than their entry onto the timeline, strikes me as utter madness.”
Aindreas, serious question. In an IK chain, you want the joints to follow the end point. In editorial, why is it mad to have a clip which is dependent on another in terms of content and editorial intent follow the latter?
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “you have A-roll which is primary to the story, and B-roll which is secondary to the story (and attached to the A-roll). The thing I still don’t quite understand are real-world scenarios where you can’t think of an edit this way.”
In multicam this distinction is often moot, there is often no A storyline camera, and the same camera angle will alternate between sync shots and cover shots, sometimes this will happen in the middle of a shot. For instance:
Generic cooking show: Camera A is the wide master, Camera B & C are side angles. The side B camera starts on CU of main chef talking to guest, in sync, as he demonstrates cutting an onion camera pans down to onion, still in sync. While still on CU action of onion, audio changes to a bit of info taken from a different section of show, we are no longer in sync, then we cut to the C angle CU of a bowl as the talent fills it with the cut onion. During this whole scene, while we started in lip sync, we were actually using the mix audio from Camera A.
Question – is the whole segment considered B-roll, since the pictures were covering the audio from the A camera, or is the CU considered B-roll once the audio changes, or is it B-roll when we change angles to the C Camera, and would it matter if right after the cut to C the audio cut back to be in sync. Or is it pointless in a situation like this to even consider the notion of A / B roll?
My answer is that in a situation where any shot can and does change between sync or cover shot and then back again, the whole A/B paradigm is worthless.
In fact this whole A/B notion comes into play because video traditionally comes with audio attached to it – it is an efficient way of keeping the video tied to the audio. I never heard about B-roll when I was cutting film, even thought the phrase originated there I believe. When your audio is physically disconnected from your video tracks the whole A/B thing doesn’t come up, which is why I always disconnect them at the start of editing.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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