macbook air and fcpx- the new portable edit suite

[Herb Sevush]

“You tell me, you’ve tried it, right?”

Still waiting for multi-cam, which should be a great opportunity for FCPX to flex it’s metadata muscle. Except for that single viewer thingy.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I guess I can’t explain well enough for people who haven’t tried it to understand. “

You’re doing a fine job explaining, and I think we get it. The problem is roles are a work-in-progress, so whether or not they wind up being more efficient in scenarios like Herb’s depends on features we don’t even know will be implemented. What we do know is that tracks have worked well as a common language for representing multiple channels of related, time-based information for decades. So the burden is on Apple to demonstrate that their new paradigm is actually better.

Let me ask you this – assuming you’re correct and a trackless, metadata driven, timeline paradigm is actually a better UI for multi-channel, time-based object manipulation, how long do you think it will take for the audio industry to adopt it as a standard for DAWs? Do you expect the next release of Logic X will be trackless?

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Gerald Baria]

;D

Quobetah
New=Better

[Rafael Amador]

[Gerald Baria] ” At the end of the day, editing is just cutting and splicing stuff together. As hard as a lot of you make it seem, that’s just what it is. And FCPX’s main tagline is to relieve us from all the repetitive tasks that we do (like organizing, and clicking and dragging stuff just to make sure clips don’t collide and sync stays where they’re suppose to be ) so that we can focus on the most important part – the craft of TELLING THE STORY. “
FCPX will unleash the Spielberg that each of us have inside.
That is the bull-shit that Apple (and others) want the people believe: WE ARE ARTIST. WE ARE STORY TELLERS.
Or you live in Hollywood or you have a too romantic vision of this job.
NLEs are to edit video, even when there is not any story to tell (as happens with 75% of crap that is aired or streamed everyday all around the world).
If you want to concentrate in pure-story-telling, then hire an skilled video-editor to take care of all what may interfere with your creative processes.
Degrading video-editors skills won’t improve story-telling skills.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Gary Huff]

[Jeremy Garchow]I have to ask, man and I seriously mean this with all due respect. Why do you waste your time around here if there’s seeming nothing for you?

This really comes across as, “If you don’t like it, then why don’t you just shut up about it?”

Just because it’s broken now doesn’t mean it always be. Plus, it has prompted some interesting discussion about where the industry is going. And Apple may not have a place in that future. It’s not an automatic given that they will.

Apple Inc. is just a company and FCPX is just a piece of software. Don’t take it so personally.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Lawrence] “how long do you think it will take for the audio industry to adopt it as a standard for DAWs? Do you expect the next release of Logic X will be trackless?”

Let me clarify that I don’t personally use DAWs professionally, but I do send our audio for post frequently. So this will be some conjecture on my part.

Great question. Trackless? Sure. Why not? Assuming that a trackless environment would be more efficient, all that matters is that the files get exported to the proper channels, right? If tracks don’t make sense to an audio mix, then so be it. If assigning outputs to clips via metadata to “channel 1” is easier, then yes, go for it. But I don’t think a magnetic timeline would make sense when working on the audio of a video based project as there’s no reason for the timeline to fluctuate that much during a locked edit.

I think video editing and audio post are two totally different processes and therefore might require different interfaces, but if the software is smart enough, I don’t see why tracks are totally necessary. Really, I’d leave that to the audio folks.

Here’s a silly and probably stupid analogy: V8 engines have been working for decades, and still work swimmingly. Do you think that’s the best and most efficient way to move forward? FCPX still needs work, obviously, but under the surface I really appreciate what is trying to be done, and that is catalog and manage a massive amount of data, have it follow you through the post process, and then use it to your advantage on output. There is not one NLE that I know of on the market today that is attempting this inside the editor. People claim Adobe supports metadata, and yes there is a ton of shit in there, but like FCP Legacy, it’s an after thought, not really useful and stuck over in another tab out of sight. What that says to me is that its not important to Adobe. FCPX still has some work to go on the camera based data, but there’s already some cool things that are in place today, such as being able to name your clips with the UserClipName from p2 data by clicking a button.

I think Roles are very smart and free me from track limitations. I can “see” where it might be some day, and I like what I see. I have had this notion of our video data stored in a “pool” rather than hallways and shelves for a long time, ever since I have been giving feedback to a little known app called P2 Flow. P2 Flow, it should be no surprise, is a p2 metadata creator/editor. Combined with MXF4mac it elevated our p2 workflow immensely and was eons faster than Log and Transfer could ever be by it’s very design. This is where I’m coming from with a metadata based workflow in FCPX. It is attempting these concepts by it’s very design. I welcome it, and makes complete sense to me. I just hope Apple will listen and implement suggestions. Again, i have no idea what Apple is ultimately going to do. I can only go off the information I have and what I can formulate from what is already in FCPX.

So far, Apple has done exactly what they said they are going to do. They released what they said they were going to release, they listened to suggestions and made a few fixes. They have been saying publicly that since theres no more physical media, they we be able to make major updates more quickly. They’ve only had one opportunity so far to prove that, but they did it. Call me naive, but since they’ve backed up what they said, I can only believe them. So maybe when they say they are still interested in the Pro market, I should tend to believe it? Eventually (and I’m talking years) all of our FCP7 projects will be dead, just as all of our m100 projects are buried from the 90s and early millennium. Fcp 3 was the right choice at the time, and I’m glad I did it. FCPX certainly can’t be the right choice for me right now, but I like the foundation. As of now, after trying other programs, nothing else really has my attention. I am doing the opposite of most and that is playing with X and watching Adobe (and Lightworks).

Yikes, sorry for the diatribe.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Gary-

I will have a longer response *for you later, but that is certainly not what I meant.

My apologies.

[Clint Wardlow]

I don’t think it has to do with “degrading editors” skills. It has to do more with very basic elements of editing that were set back in the 1910s (and possibly revised somewhat in the 1930s with the advent of sound).
The aesthetics of editing have changed very little since then…we may have added some bells and whistles…but the way we communicate through film editing is pretty much the same way as when Eisenstein and Griffiths set the standard.
This isn’t to say that the editor just follows these rules by rote and is merely a “cut and paste” guy. A good editor brings a lot to the table and can make or break a movie.
However, I think there is a modern tendency to get caught up in the technology of the thing and lose site of the very basic elements that go into solid editing.
And my main concern is that the democracy of modern computer editing –which is great on so many levels–is a two-edged sword in which a glut of product is being produced by those that lack even the most basic skills of editing and obscuring some truly great and often groundbreaking stuff created in this new “democracy”.
Maybe it is just because it is new, but frankly most of the stuff I see on internet sites like blip are just short cheap versions of what is already on mainstream television. And frankly, with youtube it is hard to sort through all the crap to see anything remotely decent.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Gary Huff] “This really comes across as, “If you don’t like it, then why don’t you just shut up about it?””

This is not what I meant, I’m sorry.

[Gary Huff] “Just because it’s broken now doesn’t mean it always be.”

It’s broken? Sure there are features that aren’t there, but is it really broken? I think it does what it says it’s going to do and nothing more.

[Gary Huff] “And Apple may not have a place in that future. It’s not an automatic given that they will.”

Of course not. I for one, don’t see the actual software as a failure, but rather a stepping stone. There’s a lot more climbing to do before getting to the base of the mountain.

The stunts pulled before and during release, are certainly a fail.

[Gary Huff] “Apple Inc. is just a company and FCPX is just a piece of software. Don’t take it so personally.”

Absolutely, but take what personally? I take what I do and the tools I use seriously, but not seriously enough to talk shit to others. Is it OK for me to look at what’s there instead of what isn’t, just as it’s OK for you to look at what’s not there instead of what is? I don’t care for Avid MC5. I don’t go hanging around the Avid forums stirring up noise. I am not talking directly about you, I am just making an observation about the types of side bars that have been happening for the past three months (!), in the midst of the “interesting discussions” you mention.

[Gary Huff]

[Jeremy Garchow]I don’t care for Avid MC5. I don’t go hanging around the Avid forums stirring up noise. I am not talking directly about you, I am just making an observation about the types of side bars that have been happening for the past three months (!), in the midst of the “interesting discussions” you mention.

If you dropped into the AVID forums to stir up noise, you’d be trolling. But, Jeremy, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but the thread topic is titled: Apple FCPX or Not: The Debate. If you’d prefer to hang out with people who just want to talk about the program, and help out those who are having issues working with it, then may I suggest you spend more of your time here? There’s where you should be if you don’t like the discussions taking place.

Otherwise, myself and others like me will continue to use this place to hash out what we think about FCPX and even the industry as a whole.

Thanks.