Musings on FCPX’s most powerful feature.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Bill Davis] “Timeline editing is sill important if your goal is to do complex or refining work on your videos. That’s why there IS a timeline in X – to finish your projects.”

No – I’m deadly serious – this is hilarious.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Harlan]

Agreed. This is largely what the track v. trackless argument is about.

[Jeremy Garchow]

*edited for clarity

[Nick Meyers] “i can’t stand having to click open each clip just to view & select.
much prefer being able to “skim”
i haven’t used X yet, but the skimming sounds good.”

It’s not only skimming, it’s the entire Event browser.

I am, officially, starting my first series of broadcast spots on FCPX. There’s no time like the present.

These spots are entirely sync sound, camera mic is used for reference audio, otherwise everything is scened/taked/slated, in other words, as organized as can be on a shoot without having real time logging on set.

Audio from 788T already comes in named as scene/take.

I imported all the media, and quickly went through and added scene/take to each clip that matched the slates.

I setup a custom naming preset and with one click renamed all video clips to “Scene_Take”

I then took each scene/take of audio and video and made synchronized clips.

I setup a Smart Collection to look for “Synchronized”

Then in the notes field, I selected all clips for the first spot and put the title of the spot in the notes.

This way, I can set a Smart Collection for the spot title to collect all assets if need be.

I also keyworded all those clips by spot (it’s about 20 scenes per spot) which isn’t a ton of overall scenes, but considering a spot is 30 seconds, it’s a lot of scenes.

Some clips are MOS, I added those to the appropriate keyword. There’s also separate wild sounds and those were keyworded.

I now have three highly organized and synced keyword collections with everything I need to edit with one spot in each collection.

I then went through each take in each spot and marked favorites, which, at this point, is every decent take as everything is still on the table.

After that I went through and turned off the camera mic and labeled each audio channel on each take (there’s a total of about 14 characters across the three spots). I could do this in big groups of similar clips, which was really convenient as now I will probably not have to touch audio organization for the rest of the edit besides to add some further Roles/SubRoles as the edit evolves.

Let me repeat that: now I will probably not have to touch audio organization for the rest of the edit besides to add some further Roles/SubRoles as the edit evolves.

I then sort that keyword collection by favorites.

I know have either a list or a collection of skimmable thumbnailed selects for each spot.

None of this was done in a timeline (I used timelines extensively in other NLEs).

This was done on an older laptop with a single screen.

It was remarkable how much I could get done without all the timeline clutter (I repeat, I am a fan of timeline clutter).

All of this was accomplished in a little corner of the screen either on the left in the Browser, or on the right in the inspector.

Aindreas will piss all over this and that’s fine.

The thought and capabilities that are present the Event Browser are where FCPX shines.

I don’t care too much about going a ton faster (speed is important, but not the ultimate), I am more concerned about doing the job better, meaning I want to work more efficiently. More efficiencies can equate to speed, but don’t have to be about speed. Currently, the organizational functions in FCPX are working better for me and my needs, despite some timeline quirks and limitations. Even though I am not overly concerned about blazing speed for this project, I did get to editing more quickly than I would have in 7 or Pr and that’s ultimately what pays me, the edit.

Auditions are working great as well. They are pretty sweet for spot work.

Jeremy

[Bill Davis]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “In the estimation of your dreams Bill Davis.
“

Yeah, but my dreams are informed by experience. I now understand TWO alternative editing approaches.
You’re kinda stuck in ONE. It’s ALL you know. So I guess it’s understandable that you’d defend it to the death. To do otherwise is to face the fact that you might someday be LESS prepared than some others if the change continues to blow through the world. Oh, I know you’re convinced that editing 5 years hence will be precisely like it was five years past. (nothing to see here but SAFE and incremental changes that dont’ rock your boat. The editing version of a nice bland diet.) But for all your hostility about this stuff, nobody listening really thinks that the editing industry in the future is going to be JUST like it was in the past now do they? The ONLY question is how fast and how far it changes. Who will cling and who will move along.

But you go right ahead and calcify your current thinking. And good luck with it.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “FCPX is rightly trashed for a number of good reasons. And scale relative to editing industry, you guys are in a pokey shack in the woods, by a dim fireplace, waving your hands and saying – “the magnetism is amaaazing – when are they bringing out the ipad edition??””

You BET that’s an accurate assessment. (wait, that’s exactly it. You’re BETTING that you don’t have to change anything and that you can find another tool just like the one Apple snatched away from you (hurt, huh?) and then you’ll finally be emotionally whole again.

Well, good luck with that approach.

Some of us are watching nearly everything about the world (including those pesky tablets you hold in such contempt that every freeking manufacurer on the planet seems to be jumping on-board with!) change. And we’re fine with that.

Something about being flexible. Open minded. And perhaps even oddly unafraid that makes us so ready to look around rather than living with our heads down a dusty hole labeled “EDITING circa 2008.”

Hell, even the folks at Adobe and Avid aren’t doing that. Only Aindeas. Who has the mighty crystal ball and knows where everything is headed and is convinced that nothing new has any value for HIM.

Surprising you take the time here. If I were you, I’d spend my time down with the punters. Since you know the future, the races will likely just be more SURE BETS for you too!

Happy winnings!

; )

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[Steve Connor]

Well this thread was pretty civil for a while at least.

Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure”

[James Ewart]

This is worrying me…you can scrub through the thumbnails in the browser in FCP?

I have never seen that…how?

[James Ewart]

me too!!

[James Ewart]

The entire clip into the timeline without having set an In and Out point first? What if the clip is twenty minutes long?
I fall into the category of some stuff I edit in the timeline and other stuff gets more accurately trimmed before dropping it in. Depends on what it is. At the end of the day I’m not sure it matters just so long as you can work the way you want.

[James Ewart]

You won’t like the primary storyline much! My old habit os boshing shots across v1,v1, v3, v4 etc had to go with FCPX. That was the thing for me that was the hardest to get my head round.

[James Ewart]

… in another Forum one of the Avid stalwarts confessed he really couldn’t be bothered to have to learn new software…and over here in Europe we are not as good at change as you lot. I’ve said it before but just look back ten years. Everybody dismissed FCP 1 thru 5 as a “non professional” tool as they do with FCP X. I find the intense dislike of FCPX irrational and it smacks of fear to me.

If it “works” (albeit differently) then what’s the big deal?