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Musings on FCPX’s most powerful feature.
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absolutely my experience…hatred at first but just couldn’t believe Apple could create something so bad so back i came time after time and thanks to you lot and ripple Training I emerged and wonder now what the fuss was all about. Over here in the UK the Avid community are still slating it of course.
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[David Lawrence] “It’s in a timeline. You have space to play around. You can easily skim and edit all in the same place. Doesn’t matter how long the clips or finished sequence. Works great for me.”
It’s much better than working in a viewer because all the clips are laid out in front of you – no wasted steps loading separate clips into a viewer then marking. This way you can directly skim through all of your clips in one stroke.
My workflow is to go thru generations of timelines, each one a reduction of the previous, until the final show emerges. Whenever the need to re-look at other material comes up you just pick the most appropriate timeline – anything from the previous version all the way back to the original assembly.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Bill Davis] “Makes me wonder (particularly noticing that some of the loudest voices traditionally arguing here against the X approach – appear to be pretty reductionist by leaning) whether part of the resistance is that X flies a bit more in the face of the reductionist view than a preparationist approach?”
I think you might be on to something there. I think it’s why many of the features of X do not overly excite me; things like skimming and keywords are not as much use if you do all your organizing with timelines. I’m not sure if it explains the resistance to the trackless timeline itself, but it might.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Bill,
Though I take exception to your labels, I agree this is very much the case.
FCPX seems to be developed on the “bins then timelines” approach or what I’ve called “clip-based” editing model. (This doesn’t mean it can’t be used differently, but as Herb has pointed out, a lot of the appeal will be for those who work in clip-based approaches.)
That major design model, and the A/B model are very apparent to me (as I don’t really base my approach on either).
Franz.
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[Herb Sevush] “My workflow is to go thru generations of timelines, each one a reduction of the previous, until the final show emerges. Whenever the need to re-look at other material comes up you just pick the most appropriate timeline – anything from the previous version all the way back to the original assembly.
“This, generally, is how I work as well, though slightly modified. On the Sizzle I’m working on right now in 7, for instance, I started with a TB and a half of source material. I use bins to generally organize materials by show, categories of SFX, etc., and then I begin collecting material in theme/palette-based time lines which actually function as scrubbable bins. I then hone these timelines to finer, tighter versions, which I then use as scrubbable source “bins” for my actual project timeline.
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[James Ewart] “thanks to you lot and ripple Training I emerged and wonder now what the fuss was all about. Over here in the UK the Avid community are still slating it of course.
“Be kind to the disbelievers. It’s NOT easy to grasp. And I think it’s important to remember that most people in this industry are already so busy trying to keep up with technology changes that not taking time to dive too deeply into perhaps “difficult to easily grasp” new concepts is kinda understandable!
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Though I take exception to your labels, I agree this is very much the case.”
As to the labels, I picked “reductionist” on the fly not to be perjorative, but as kinda a homage to the cooking world where a “reduction” is generally seen as a way to distill down something to it’s essence.
In my Legacy editing years, that’s pretty much exactly how I worked.
Try everything, and then re-work, re-edit and revise to reduce it to it’s essence.
But I’m totally open to new terms if anyone has better suggestions…
I also think the discussion is perhaps important. Because it describes two major approaches to editing and I think there are a whole lot of excellent editors who fall into each camp.
The entire Event Browser construct in X can be seen as elevating the working style of preparationists. And I bet one big problem is that many extremely talented reductionist editors have more problems becoming comfortable with the two stage process since it interrupts their typical editing approach.
Worth thinking about, anyway.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[David Lawrence] “[Neil Goodman] “I like to start with a empty slate and i feel like id be constant,ly wrestling with other clips on the timeline but to each his own. Whatever gets the job done.”
I work that way too. What’s nice is you can name each sequence and have them all at your fingertips in tabs.”
That sounds like what you’re doing with tabbed sequences, are a basic form of what the X engineers built the Event Browser to do. Store, access, and make available previously worked on snippets of content.
They just added a pretty big universe of other possibilities by adding the whole keywording thing on top.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Chris Harlan] “I use bins to generally organize materials by show, categories of SFX, etc., and then I begin collecting material in theme/palette-based time lines which actually function as scrubbable bins. I then hone these timelines to finer, tighter versions, which I then use as scrubbable source “bins” for my actual project timeline.”
Chris,
Reading this I had to think that if X ever develops to the point where you think it can meet your needs – and you dive in and embrace some future version at a deep level – you’re going to be become downright DANGEROUS as an editor.
What you’re describing seems like excruciatingly precisely what X’s feature set is built to facilitate.
Time will tell.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “many extremely talented reductionist editors have more problems becoming comfortable with the two stage process since it interrupts their typical editing approach.”
Bill,
I don’t think it’s a case of “becoming comfortable”.
It’s an issue of choosing a tool which fits my methods and workflow.
I see real value in what I’ve called sequence-based editing, as against clip-based editing. I want tools that support that (quite aside from technology workflow questions). If I see potential, I’ll make the effort to “get comfortable” with whatever adjustments are necessary. I’ve done it before (when I switched from primarily Avid-based editing to FCP), and I’ll do it again.
FCPX seems designed to support two-stage, “clip-based” editing as you’ve outlined many times. I think editors that work in that model see its strengths right away.
Franz.
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