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Motion TRACKS versus FCP X Trackless
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[Jeremy Garchow] “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.”
That’s because it sounds like you’re a really good editor who’s good at keeping all the balls in the air at once.
My point is not that you can’t get to your material. It’s rather about the editing mindset, the psychological aspect of how you set about the task, and where less good editors can and do get lost.
If the NLE is somehow suggesting, albeit subliminally, that organization is somehow an end in itself or somehow an intrinsic part of the creative process, then that is distorting the picture in a way that I personally fgeel is undesirable.
Organizing your material on the timeline has massive creative benefits as I have mentioned earlier in this thread and I would hate to see this particular editing skill become sidelined in favour of one that promoted Browser-side organization above any other kind.
And while FCPX is great for editing on the timeline in many ways, I don’t think that it’s yet addressing some of the needs of editors who find that this way of working suits them better. Not being able to send a compound clip to the Browser (yes, I know the workarounds), not being able to tab quickly between projects (OK, you can but only sort of), issues with editing with compound clips themselves (the notorious project bloat problem) – all these point to FCPX not being optimised (yet) for the way I like to work, and that I know works best for me, and that I have seen improve the speed and creativity of any number of editors who have adopted it over the years.
That’s all I’m saying …
(At the same time, I will readily admit that different kinds of editing require and/or favour very different editing strategies.)
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “[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?”
I use nesting all the time in 7. Funny, how depending on kinds of projects, we all see different tools as useless or useful.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “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 really do beg to differ, sorry!
As someone who has used ProTools for a considerable number of years and several other DAWs besides, can I say that STP was absolutely amazing and gave huge speed advantages when working with FCP.
There were any number of really great ideas in there that never got the chance to shine because of all the negative press that came from people who only ever opened it once, and probably didn’t know what to expect anyway.
Yes, interchange could get a bit flaky with longer form but there was one thing in there that made me forgive all the rest, and that was reconform which in the main worked like a charm, and often jsut as well as Virtual Katy costing a serious amount of money. The amount of time this has saved me over the years has been priceless.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I would welcome Motion to be wrapped in to FCPX as well.”
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but could this be because, like STP, you haven’t used Motion all that much? I can’t see that anyone who recognizes the astonishing depth and complexity, not to mention the massive potential, in Motion, could possibly want to see it diluted by being bundled into FCPX to its certain major detriment, as well as almost certainly the detriment of FCPX.
Please, Apple, if you’re listening, shut your ears to this stuff!!!!!
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Please, Apple, if you’re listening, shut your ears to this stuff!!!!!”
Agreed, Adobe would’t wrap After Effects into Premiere.
Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I’m probably being dense here but surely you can!”
You can’t drag v1 to v2 and have v2 inside of v1. I’d ask you to prove it. I know that you can’t, so it’s a trick. Don’t fall for it!
As I said, you can take the CONTENTS (clips/video/whatever) of v2, and then nest them in a CONTAINER (A nest sequence) in v1, but v1 and v2 will remain fixed and the clips have zero relationship to v1 or v2, the just sit there. You cannot move them. Motion does not work this way, nor does X (save storylines). Groups and compounds are the very definitions of the relationship, then add connections and storylines. This is very different than a track based approach. I have always tried to harp that understanding these relationships is crucial to understanding FCPX.
[Simon Ubsdell] “You can’t put one clip inside another in FCPX either, except in the sense of making a compound of the two of them.”
Compound clips are analogous to Motion groups. The compound clip simply exists in relationship to other clips and the primary, and the defines the relationship od the clips inside of them. If the compound resides outside of the Primary, it is it’s own entity and not bound by a track that I can’t really do anything with in FCP7 terms.
[Simon Ubsdell] “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”
We are not arguing about nests, we are arguing about tracks. I think you just proved my point.
[Simon Ubsdell] “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.”
Who said anything about new tech? What is different is the access to these clips, and how we can use them. It’s not new tech, but they have been given more capability and better tooling, and that’s an important difference. FCPX rethought on how these “nests” as you call them, work. Then there’s auditions, multi-clips, and storylines, all of which are different containers for different purposes, and none of the bound by a track based approach.
All we need now is David L, Aindreas G, and Herb S, and we will have the band back together.
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[Chris Harlan] “I use nesting all the time in 7.”
I stay away from it as it completely explodes Color, or any other XML juju I need to perform.
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[Steve Connor] “Agreed, Adobe would’t wrap After Effects into Premiere.”
Yeah but have you played with Dynamic LInk?
As I mentioned, if that’s how it’s going to be for FCPX and Motion, they can remain separate, but at least give me the connection.
I guess I can see Motion as a “room” or “node” to FCPX. They can develop separately, but give me that connection. Dynamic Link is amazing.
Jeremy
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[Simon Ubsdell] “There were any number of really great ideas in there that never got the chance to shine because of all the negative press that came from people who only ever opened it once, and probably didn’t know what to expect anyway.”
If you got it to work for you, that’s great. It never really worked for me It would make new media, it wasn’t really great at dynamic changes, they weren’t tightly integrated, not like AE and PPro are. That should be a modeling standard of application integration. You can effect things in AE, send it back to the PPro timeline and there’s no new media created, but all the filters and work you did in AE are honored on the PPro timeline.
I don’t do final audio mixes (and don’t use DAWs), but I do need some filters for my review edits, and that’s why I prefer FCPX’s approach as it gives me the basic tools I need to rough things in before the finish. Audio mixing and filters in 7 is a pain and a chore.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “[Jeremy Garchow] “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 really do beg to differ, sorry!
“I too dig STP, and am sorry to see it go. I use/used it a lot, and that’s with Logic, ProTools, and Digital Performer sitting right next to it. (I use them a lot, too, but just for different stuff.)
[Simon Ubsdell] “I can’t see that anyone who recognizes the astonishing depth and complexity, not to mention the massive potential, in Motion, could possibly want to see it diluted by being bundled into FCPX to its certain major detriment,”
I agree, as well. I’m still using 4, but when I have time I might gravitate to 5 and use FCPX/Compressor as its i/o.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “it wasn’t really great at dynamic changes, they weren’t tightly integrated”
Oddly, it was actually really good at this.
Send to STP Audio File Project not did not create new media, it was also dynamically linked so that whatever filters you applied in STP would stay live and editable – particularly handy if you’d sent a clip from the timeline for EQ or compression or whatever, you could always go back and tweak it whenever you wanted.
Obviously there is never going to be a way of dynamically linking an entire audio mix (as in the Send to STP Multitrack Project route. you are alwasy going to need to send back a mixed down version of your project, but even that is well handled for speed of use, I always thought.
I would however agree that for the casual user who’s not interested in mixing DAW-style, the integration of the Logic plug-ins in FCPX is a handy advance and can give some good results pretty quickly. But really this most emphatically comes into the dreaded “dumbing down” category of improvements, just as the Color Board is a sadly dumbed down version of Color. (And yes, Resolve is clearly the way foeard in the latter case.)
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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