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Lightworks
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[Andrew Richards] “I still think there are times a two-up would be wasting screen real estate, but FCPX is too stingy with it today.”
Whatever FCP X ultimately becomes, it simply must allow certain elements of it’s interface to be user switchable and/or user defined.
NLEs have always become more user definable over time, not less. Even the ripple behavior of slomo in FCP, which was locked in stone for the longest time, was eventually turned into a feature that could be toggled at will by the user.
If FCP X was not so rigid, that might go a long way toward placating many of it’s detractors.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[Robert Brown] “Like I said before, there is no substitute for actually looking at what was shot even if it’s already been evaluated and sometimes that means going through long reels.”
There’s nothing inherent to sorting media with metadata tags that precludes seeing all the original source and finding that hidden gem.
[Robert Brown] “It is still common practice for a director to not call “cut” and then just reset while still rolling. And then if you get into things like shooting young children and animals where you can have 10-15 minute rolls just trying to get the perfect thing. Metadata won’t help you with that. You might have to look through every bit of that material many times before you find the exact right bit. “
Even in these cases, you can turn off the skimmer and have the exact same screening capability via JKL that you have in every other NLE. All I’m arguing is that a selects reel is just a clip collection by another name. Both require you to watch and sort the media. If you have a 15 minute clip and you lift a few selects for a selects reel, how is that any different than selecting the same ranges and tagging them with keywords for a particular collection? That’s all I’m getting at.
[Robert Brown] “Metadata doesn’t supersede anything. It’s a tool to use as you wish.”
It’s the primary organizational tool in FCPX, and the rest of the app is designed around that premise. I originally posted trying to use FCPX another way is swimming upstream. You can beat a nail into some wood with the cheek of a hammer, but it works better if you use the face.
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “There’s nothing inherent to sorting media with metadata tags that precludes seeing all the original source and finding that hidden gem.”
It has great potential but the way tags are currently implemented is cumbersome. The UI needs to be much more unified and direct. In FCP7 a clip can be named, marked, have set in and out points, etc. All of this information is immediately visible and manipulable in the source viewer. Everything is at the editor’s fingertips in one place. It’s trivial to play past the in/out points to search for missed material which (as @Robert Brown, points out) is often exactly the thing that will make a scene work.
In FCPX, a keyword collection only shows selected ranges. To play beyond the keyword range, you have to 1) select the source event, then 2) view in list mode, then 3) select the clip from all the other clips in that event, then 4) click the disclose triangle to reveal the keywords then 5) select the keyword. Then you can do what would have taken one double-click to do in FCP7. Five steps vs. one step. This seems to be the pattern with FCPX.
[Andrew Richards] “Even in these cases, you can turn off the skimmer and have the exact same screening capability via JKL that you have in every other NLE.”
I think the skimmer is cool but vastly over-rated. I’ve been skimming clips since FCP 1.5. Here’s how – I drag the playhead back and forth. When I see a section I like, I zoom in and skim that section or use JKL keys. You can do it in the source viewer or you can make a sequence drop the clip in and do it on the timeline. It works great, it works with clips of any length, and it’s optional. Skimming is cool but it’s not new and it’s not that big a deal.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
Iin my view editing is editing.
There are specific things that might happen more often in drama over other forms where a source record monitor is handy. For teh speciific kinds of match cuts you are talking about are used more frequently.
In terms of style match cutting is falling by the wayside a bit. Thinking about MURCH’s “In the blink of an eye here” where after reading that book I pretty much abandoned that idea.
I will state that the best thing a source record set up lets you do is this.
EYE MATCHING
You can’t do that with one monitor and there have already been times where I have had to eye match a cut brought into FCP X.
There is a solution.
You can cut the video onto the primary storyline and leave a gap. as you play through and the “cut” happens you can see if the shot continues or there is a “bump” then you can slip slide to match.
Two monitors was better for eye matching and with no XML or EDL that is the only way to bring a current Legacy project into FCP X.
David
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The shortest answer is doing.
Lord Herbert
https://vimeo.com/battistella -
I have good memories of working with Lightworks. We’re very interested to see it ported to the Mac OS later this year as we don’t want to go to PP and are reluctant to go back to Avid.
Incidentally, my mentor on Lightworks, who was a very respected features editor in France, was working with a single window. Yep, you could do this 20 years ago.
Lightworks had a flexibility re its interface that no other NLE ever had. And I think it should be this way: let the editor configure his own. If it was possible 20 years ago it surely must be possible now…
Patrice Freymond
Senior editor
FCP Certified Trainer -
yeah – I might’ve been over egging the loving preparation of a selects reel – but –
[Andrew Richards] “FCPX could give you that kind of quick access to screening good takes (mouse over, JKL, repeat), but it wouldn’t put you through the rigor of laying anything out as any kind of a rough edit.”
for one – its the old NCO offline chappie that’s tasked there methinks to feed the reel through, but honestly – if you offer someone the choice of a selects reel in its own monitor, or jittering the skimmer around the filmstrips tagged select as the edit timeline viewer collapses into the source monitor – its just not going to fly. No one is going to buy that as a workflow improvement because.. its not. Working rigorously to lay out a good selects reel is a part of the process no? just like rigorously naming your clips for easy recall, rigorously preparing and categorising the bins – none of this stuff was broken or went out of style.
Larry Jordan said on those editing guys podcast there (… its called something like that – I think they’re aussie), that it was his understanding that appple got REAMS of detailed feedback from top flight editors on these issues – they just chose to completely ignore it. those are almost precisely larry’s words. So that, even with their limited beta feedback, apple chose to pretty much completely disregard it.
to quote another word Larry used more than once on the podcast:
hubris.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Got to hand it to you, you have faulter an inch from your love of FCPx 🙂
Just to entertain: Maybe Apple didn’t take any notes from all those editors because all they wanted was the ‘old’ FCP.
Fascinating all this and I repeat what I said earlier: You are all crazy guys 🙂
Carsten
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oops, should of course read: …to you, you never faulter and inch…
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[Andrew Richards] “since I’m more of an engineer than an editor, I don’t fully understand the need for a persistent source monitor. ”
You know how is possible to edit a “1 minute” piece of video in just two minutes time?
With two monitors.
No with Metadata, key-words or blah-blah-blah.
A player + a recorder + 2 monitors is the most basic expression of an edit post since video editing exists.
Two eyes: two monitors.
One brain hemisphere for the source and the other one for the program.
Now I will need my full brain (if remains anything) to understand how my time-line goes.
rafael -
I do actually cut films and have so far cut an equal number on versions of both Media Composer and on Final Cut. In fact, I’m currently cutting one on FCP7. Although the general wisdom is that MC is a better tool for films, I actually prefer the more freeform nature of working in FCP7. So, as much as I have problems with FCPX, I’m not ready to completely discount it just yet. Apple’s approach with the launch and this software – as it relates to the film/tv editing community – has been schizophrenic at best. Whether that improves is as yet an unknown.
The real impediments to me are the supposed strengths FCPX – namely how you edit in the timeline. The rest – smart collections, key words, events – these are all approaches that will improve with time and we’ll probably all grow to appreciate them.
Back to David’s original point though with Lightworks… Open source development is an interesting idea. I’m not really sure yet that what Editshare is offering as a beta, actually represents true open source. We’ll see. The truly interesting thing would be if Apple were to open source the FCP “classic” code or the design and GUI. That would never happen, but it would be interesting where someone like The Foundry might take such a tool.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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