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It’s All Connected — Clip Relationships and The Magnetic Timeline Paradigm
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “I have to say that personally, after not having to patch tracks in FCPX I find it a drag to have to patch in FCP7 or Smoke on Mac. And I never found it a problem before, it was just part of the editing process.
“This was my original point!
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But having said that, I do have issues with the way clip connections work. The fact that deleting the parent automatically deletes the child clips makes sense logically, but sucks during editing. I loathe all the manipulation that needs to take place to enable some very basic edit operations.
So I am interested in David’s approach.
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I think “layering” is an interesting concept. People have talked about the “constraints” of timeline editing, but in my mind, it is just a part of the organizational process.
If I move clips, I want some control of what happens or where the clips that I move go. This problem in my mind really affects the audio portion more than the video. I can’t say, send all of my music/sfx to certain tracks and turn those tracks on and off. For video, I can’t put all lower thirds on one track and globally turn off that track to have a clean version.
My vision of “layering” would be, if you move clips and there is a collision, an option pops up in your program monitor to give you options, and with a modifier key, you can control what happens next.
For example, audio collides on tracks 1 and 2, option pops up that by pressing 3 and 4 on your keypad will layer the audio to tracks 3 and 4. Therefore, I have full control and maintain certain organization to my timeline.
Is this the basic premise to what “layering” would be?
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[David Lawrence] “1) If a traditional timeline had intelligent groups and a clip layering/overlaping mode such that the editorial results of a clip collision scenario were similar to FCPX, would that give you the benefits of the magnetic timeline?
2) If “FCPX is “aware” of clip relationships in a way that traditional NLEs are not.”, how does that benefit the editor?”
Fascinating discussion David. As to your points:
1) Yes and no. I use lassoing clips to move stuff about in groups pretty regularly, and make room to move sections (say I’m reordering the elements of a programme) by using space in the timeline – I can do this quickly and efficiently using the current mode in Legacy and most other traditional NLEs. Layering may make this quicker in that I wouldn’t have to make space, and I could be confident that my moving stuff would be non-destructive. Grouping essentially would be like a nested section or compound clip in this case, and I can see it’s benefit, but would depend on very clever UI representation to make this efficient – so I guess it would depend entirely on the imlementation and working paradigm that the designer intended.
2)For me it’s a mixed bag. I can see many benefits to the parent/child model that X uses, and that’s very apparent when moving individual shots around, or small clips of shots. Where it becomes less efficient is when X’s idea of what I want to achieve diverges from mine – for instance, moving a shot with attached audio and not wanting to move the audio. It requires a number of steps that ‘traditional’ models don’t, and is therefore less efficient for me and my thinking.
I guess that the main issue with the X/traditional debate for me boils down to my own thought processes. I’ve spent 20 years editing in a linear, fixed time paradigm and have developed a lot of techniques of ordering my thoughts to encompass that – a kind of thinking ‘muscle memory’. X breaks that process and in some instances makes life easier, and others far more difficult for the way I think. Those editors bought up on X and nothing else (and there will be many) will wonder what all the fuss is about, but would also have just as many instances whereby the old paradigm would be more efficient for a given scenario. For me the ideal would be a merger of the two – and maybe grouping/layering would be the most elegant compromise in that case.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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David, would the “layering” method have the video and audio embedded by default like X or not?
I don’t really see how the X timeline can be discussed fully without dealing with the subject of embedded audio.
Your topic is moving clips around in the timeline.
If I’m moving fewer clips around it’s going to be faster than if I’m moving more clips around.
Interview subject: video of him, boom on one channel, lav on the other. 3 items
B-roll: video of truck going down street, camera mic, nat sound. 2 items
Traditional editing 5 items in timeline,
X, 2 items
[David Lawrence] “2) If “FCPX is “aware” of clip relationships in a way that traditional NLEs are not.”, how does that benefit the editor?”
I’m looking at the relationship of video and audio with the SAME clip, before I even get to the relationship of it with other clips.
I want them to ride together unless I choose to separate them.
I don’t need some random audio of the b-roll truck hanging around at the bottom of the timeline,
I want it to just ride with the truck as one clip.One timeline is “streamlined” by design and one is not.
That is a difference that tends to be ignored.
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “My question would be how does this affect sound?”
Layering in DAWs allows up to 99clips stacking on a single track accidentally pasting over doesn’t delete clips so they can be retrieved. The top layer plays and you can dissolve between layers.
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Michael,
I think you’re speeding through some ideas that I’d be interested in hearing about at more length (though you have talked about them before, this might be an ideal forum in which to reiterate).
I think you are specifically talking about Fairlight, but I am wondering if you can elaborate to more general terms per David’s post.
[Michael Gissing] “To take maximum advantage of clip layering it should be possible to show the stack, enable interaction between layers like dissolves, keying, opacity etc plus a simple way to rotate the stack to move various layers up and down. Layering is a powerful way to have alternatives in place.”
I assume by “layering”, you mean something akin to David’s (PPro) “grouping”? Or do you mean more specifically something akin to FCP X auditioning?
[Michael Gissing] “Temporary or permanent grouping has been available to me all those years and I can honestly say temporary grouping is useful and powerful but permanent grouping is far less useful.”
Can you define the differences between “temporary” and “permanent” in more general terms? or is it specific to Fairlight?
Franz.
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1) FCPX paradigm is more than the magnetic timeline. You can fake some advantages of the magnetic timeline by grouping in a trackbased NLE, just like you can fake it vice versa. But the abiltiy to have different layers in different modes (ripple or not) on different tracks and the benefits of the magnetic timeline where every clip is dragged towards the center and beginning of your primary storyline cannot be reproduced easily.
2) it is more a theoretical question than a practical one IMO and it comes down to one’s preferences. A timeline is constructed of both, clips in relation to each other and cips that have to have a relation to a certain time in the timeline. So IMO none of the two paradigms are perfect, therefore it depends on your preferences and projects as to what works. What is interesting though, is that it seems like those who really tried out FCPX and understood its way have problems going back to the restricted ways of tracks, where due to the necessity of certain timerelations your edits are blocked or messed up.
In the magnetic timeline you can try more without risking to mess with your overall project, because the cliprelations, which basically are your story, stay, even when you break the timerelation. In practical words: When I add another angle of 4 seconds between two clips that I find explanatroy for my story, I don’t care about the 4 seconds as much as I care about the logical build of my story. I can deal with the 4 seconds later. But I won’t have to deal with any syncing issues for now. When I then adjust the overall time, timing and pacing I can again add and take from/to clips without worrying about the cliprelations and syncs. That’s one of the benefits I see in the relations FCPX creats with its magnetic timeline.
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[alban egger] “In the magnetic timeline you can try more without risking to mess with your overall project, because the cliprelations, which basically are your story, stay”
But that’s where it breaks down. The connecting points are not always at the desired place to start with. They are connected based on X’s rules. This means the editor often has to manage the connecting points first before moving clips around on the timeline.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[tony west] “I’m looking at the relationship of video and audio with the SAME clip, before I even get to the relationship of it with other clips.”
Under the current version, there is no relationship between audio and video once the clip is broken apart or audio is detached. The only relationship is the clip connecting point. So it’s easy to move it out of sync and there’s nothing in the much-heralded database that warns you or allows you to put it back into sync other than manual methods. Maybe that just hasn’t been exposed yet, but for now it isn’t there.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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