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Motion TRACKS versus FCP X Trackless
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[Simon Ubsdell] “And I think the FCPX model with its insidiously seductive data management tools makes the danger of losing track of your material all the more acute. There’s clearly even more of a sense in which the organization takes the place of the actual editing. There is a real potential for false confidence, confidence that you’ve rejected, and selected, the right stuff and you can start the edit from that point – without going continually going back.
For me, and it’s just a personal judgement, editing is essentially one process from start to finish and it’s a process that involves continuous evaulation – and more importantly re-evaluation – of the material.
That’s why I’m not sure that FCPX is necessarily a force for good in all this!
“Perhaps, but the skimmer gives you such a great way to view ALL your footage very quickly that for me it makes it much LESS likely I miss something, even when I’ve organised footage before the edit.
I also think the new timeline is fantastic for experimenting with edits and crashing things together to see what works and what doesn’t, before you start the edit.
I’m just about to finish the first cut of a feature I’ve been working on. I planned to organise all the media before I started, but once I began playing with shots on the timeline, things just moved quickly and I’ve ended up hardly logging any of it!
Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television -
[Simon Ubsdell] “On the one hand there is the Bill Davis school of editing for people who are deliriously happy making all their selections in a browser environment ……
…..On the other hand, there is a popular school of thought that likes to do their editing ….
“What’s interesting to me in this conversation is that I’m in the middle of teaching my annual film editing class. These are film students in a year-long college program learning all aspects of film production technology. I do 2 weeks of lab and have the choice of using FCP 7, FCP X, PPro CS 5.5 or MC 6 this year. For various reasons, FCP 7 is the right choice this year, because the track/bin approach can be generalized to 3 out of the 4 options they are likely to encounter professionally. No local shops are using X yet (other then playing around with it).
I let them work in ways that suit them best – giving them the various techniques in which you can perform any function – and then letting them apply what works best for their own style. It’s fascinating to see how some people work. I definitely see where trackless would be a benefit for many, as the FCP 7 track-patching, auto-select rules get confusing for some, even when I break down the concept to the analogy of a physical cord and plugging something in. Although, of course, I do try to discourage the natural habit of dragging and dropping to the timeline as their first and only way of editing 😉
However, organization options are way more freeform in 7 than it would be in X and that would really affect the style of even these newbies. For instance, one organization approach I see some doing, is to physically rearrange clip icons in a totally freeform manner within a bin or between two open bins. Think of organizing photographs on a light table. The bin ends up looking more like a Smoke-style desk view than anything X can do. Again, I generally try to avoid “right” or “wrong” as I want them to find a comfort zone. I’m not teaching software keystrokes as much as editing concepts (keeping in mind reasonable “good practices”), so it’s the end results that matter.
Just an observation.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “To my mind, it is the repeated and highly vocal demand over the years for an uber-app to replace Final Cut Studio that has been behind Apple’s thinking with FCPX. Gone are STP and Color, and I don’t think anybody who knows what they’re talking about could say this is an improvement.
“I’ve been working in Motion this week and I forgot what a powerful tool it was and how relatively easy it is to use, I hope they continue it’s development.
Fortunately Resolve has filled the gap left by the EOL’ing of Color and I’m desperately hoping the next version of Logic will replace STP.
Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television -
[Steve Connor] “I also think the new timeline is fantastic for experimenting with edits and crashing things together to see what works and what doesn’t, before you start the edit.
I’m just about to finish the first cut of a feature I’ve been working on. I planned to organise all the media before I started, but once I began playing with shots on the timeline, things just moved quickly and I’ve ended up hardly logging any of it!”
I think this is a really interesting comment, and personally, although it must sound chaotic to some, I belive this is a really great way of working. And one which FCPX is hugely well suited to, as you say.
My argument is based on seeing so many editors down the years who have fetishised the organizational process to a degree that has serisouly crippled their ability to carry out the creative editing side of the job, which is the only bit that actually matters at the end of the day. (Often, to be a bit harsh about this, I have found that the editors that most fetishise the process are the ones that are actually a bit scared of actually doing the editing. Organization becomes a displacement activity rather than anything of any actual value.)
Your audience, whoever they may be, is not going to give you brownie points for a beautifully organized Event Browser.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Arguably, but don’t you think perhaps this whole discussion is getting confused between “things that could be described as similar” and “things which are in fact similar”? There is really no design or conceptual link between the two is there?”
I am just reading to the subject of this thread, and Oliver’s comments.
I don’t think motion has tracks in the NLE (or dare I say DAW) sense of the word. It has layers, containers, and groups of containers. Those aren’t tracks, but maybe I just see it differently and we are arguing semantics.
[Simon Ubsdell] “I’d also argue that the “container based inferface” was already there in Legacy. “
Yeah, but if something isn’t enabled properly or useful, it might as well not exist as why use it if it makes your editing life hard? Mutliclips are great containers in 7, and X expands that model very very well.
In 7, I can’t take v1 and v2 and literally put v2 inside of v1, having the next rack be v3. I can take the CONTENTS of v2 and nest them in a new container which will be residing in v1, but v2 still remains it’s own fixed entity. The clips I have nested in v1 have zero relationship to v2 anymore. Tracks contain things, but they aren’t real containers in that I can’t put one inside the other and maintain the relationship (in FCP7 anyway, perhaps other NLE’s work differently, I’m sure we will get another schooling form MichaelG about a track bussed layered Fairlight). In motion, I can take a group, put it in another group, and the original group is no more, but the group relationship is still in tact.
And this doesn’t even begin to touch on audio tracks, or Browser side containers.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “I have found that the editors that most fetishise the process are the ones that are actually a bit scared of actually doing the editing. Organization becomes a displacement activity rather than anything of any actual value.)
Your audience, whoever they may be, is not going to give you brownie points for a beautifully organized Event Browser.”
My favourite comment of the week so far!
Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television -
[Simon Ubsdell] “My argument is based on seeing so many editors down the years who have fetishised the organizational process to a degree that has serisouly crippled their ability to carry out the creative editing side of the job, which is the only bit that actually matters at the end of the day. (Often, to be a bit harsh about this, I have found that the editors that most fetishise the process are the ones that are actually a bit scared of actually doing the editing. Organization becomes a displacement activity rather than anything of any actual value.)”
And X allows you to group your clips formally or informally. But it allows really easy access. I find it way more creative and way more accessible.
In FCP7, the reason I had to organize things so well is that I have to remember where they were. I don’t really have to do that in X if I don’t want to as the access to the media is paramount.
If I do want to tag and get really specific, I can. At my job this helps as there’s sometimes a lot of time between the beginning of the job, changes, and the end of the job, with many other jobs in between. I don’t edit just one project at a time, so having everything sorted for when I come back to it helps me to refresh what’s there. X allows this even more easily than 7 as everything is still in the Event at all times. With FCP7 selects reels, this might not be true. I hope this is making sense as I find this a really really powerful feature in FCPX as supposed to FCP7. It would be easy to explain if we could all share a screen and watch.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “In 7, I can’t take v1 and v2 and literally put v2 inside of v1”
I’m probably being dense here but surely you can!
You can nest the two together, just the same as making a compound clip. I don’t see what the difference is? You can’t put one clip inside another in FCPX either, except in the sense of making a compound of the two of them.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Tracks contain things, but they aren’t real containers in that I can’t put one inside the other and maintain the relationship”
But we were talking about nests and how they compare to compound clips, not tracks and how they compare to compound clips. Nests are in every sense real containers just as compound clips are. You can step inside those containers and alter the contents, you can save them to the browser (now there’s a great idea!!!), and so on.
[Jeremy Garchow] “And this doesn’t even begin to touch on audio tracks, or Browser side containers.”
Again, I don’t see how this is any different to how nests behave(d). You could, if you wanted, use nests as audio busses, or even video “busses”, by applying global effects to them. You could also use them as “Browser side containers”, actually more so than FCPX.
FCPX has made one huge stride forward with the ability to break apart compound clips, which was a massive drawback to nests, but other than that this is not “new tech” we’re talking about here.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Gone are STP and Color, and I don’t think anybody who knows what they’re talking about could say this is an improvement.
“Again, I have no idea how valuable my point is or if I know what I am talking about, or am qualified for your level of expertise, but good riddance to STP. The interchange sucked between 7 and STP.
I will miss Color. I really will, but there are alternatives. I am really looking forward to Speedgrade, if it ever comes out.
I would welcome Motion to be wrapped in to FCPX as well. Especially since there’s no good way to get to and from at this moment in time. If the interchange becomes such that we can simply send to Motion and back to it doesn’t feel like such a huge and defining gap between the two applications, I’d be OK with that.
Although, I would probably still use AE. 🙂
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “[Chris Harlan] “I agree with this, and I’d be willing to call a Photoshop layer a single frame track if anyone wanted to get into a donnybrook over it.”
I see them as layers, not as tracks. I can have a clip in a track at the beginning of the timeline, and a clip in the same track at the end.
How would you do this in Photoshop?
“I suppose I’m mostly joking about the granularity of the distinction. Frankly, I’d be willing to call them either Harvey or Loraine if I could get others to agree. So, yes, one is a Harvey and the other is a Loraine and they share many, many properties, but viva la difference.
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