My Life in FCP

[Tad Newberry]

Let us collectively pray for the appearance of “La Ocho”. Apple, be ye listening???

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
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FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Roth Weiss] “Your position “

I don’t have a position on FCPx accept take a look and see for yourself. Don’t read what others, (which of course includes this post), are saying and take it as gospel. It’s silly to keep spreading this craziness when one hasn’t even taken a look to see what’s there, instead of hearing about what isn’t.

There’s a lot of “Apple may have’s”, for sure, and it’s really easy to look at all the negative things in life. Is it half full or half empty? Apple may have created a platform for developers to create an NLE that you can customize to your level of “professionalism”. This, to me, is the exciting part. Pay for what you need, don’t pay for what you don’t need. is that a bad thing? I have no idea. I’ve been waiting this long, might as well wait some more.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “and on the FINDER level, those bins are separate folders. “

OK, so this is my point. In FCPx, the “Bins” or “Event” exists on the finder level. You can have as many events as you want.

“projects” or “timelines” also exist on the finder level.

So, instead of a bloated FCP7 project that gives you nothing, you now have Finder level access to your organization in the form of Events, and timeline access in the form of Projects. How is this a single minded approach? To me, this will make sharing much easier as the parts are separate from the whole, which is what made it really hard to share FCP projects in the first place. But since this functionality isn’t ready, Apple won’t promote it. Why should they?

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Don’t read what others, (which of course includes this post), are saying and take it as gospel. It’s silly to keep spreading this craziness when one hasn’t even taken a look to see what’s there, instead of hearing about what isn’t. “

I have X right here on of those partitions I told everyone to create. So, don’t suggest that I’m blindly commenting on this subject.

I’m not sure what’s coming down the pike, but I’m not discounting that Apple or their 3rd party partners will deliver lots of cool stuff eventually.

However, like Shane, I’m not at all pleased that Apple has seen fit to change the entire vernacular of the established 100-year-old business that I work in, and I happen to think that’s a very big deal.

And, as I mentioned, I strongly suspect that this model may not be better. As I said, it may not ultimately work in tune with the way we are hardwired to perceive events in time.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Roth Weiss] “However, like Shane, I’m not at all pleased that Apple has seen fit to change the entire vernacular of the established 100-year-old business that I work in, and I happen to think that’s a very big deal.”

I just think, perhaps we don’t have the language quite yet. This is a piece to a puzzle. Let’s talk conceptually.

You mean to tell me that nothing has changed in the last 100 years in the form of visual communication?

I don’t know if you noticed, the world is able to see and talk to each other almost in real time.

In the days of yore, you would need to time shift this capability. Kids can speak computer. Kids can speak video. I most definitely think the vernacular is changing, and it is absolutely a very big deal.

[David Lawrence]

Brilliant video and brilliant post, Rob. I was especially struck by this remark:

[Rob Tinworth] “It’s the very ‘inefficiency’ of FCP7 that immerses me in a project. It’s endlessly scrubbing backwards and forwards through the rushes that means that when I’m recutting a scene, I know there’s that shot of that thing, which I never thought I’d use, which an assistant editor wouldn’t have flagged, which I wouldn’t even have looked at, but which turns out to be just the shot I need for this sequence.”

I can’t overstate how essential what you describe is to my process (and probably many others’ as well.) Accidental moments that might be completely missed (and could only be keyworded as “unclassifiable”) are often exactly what solves a problem; and at best may take a scene to a whole new level.

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

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Lawrence] “Accidental moments that might be completely missed (and could only be keyworded as “unclassifiable”) are often exactly what solves a problem; and at best may take a scene to a whole new level.”

See, things like this are what is so goofy about this conversation. You can still watch all of your footage in FCPx, as a matter of fact, you select the event , and FCP displays every single piece of footage in that event. No need for a bin to get in the way. You can even sort by video only or audio only. This is way easier and faster than FCP7.

FCPx does not prevent you from finding your footage, you do not have to use keywords, smart collections, or whatever.

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I don’t know if you noticed, the world is able to see and talk to each other almost in real time.”

Yes I did notice that.

Did you notice that a guy named Dvorak created a new keyboard that is proven to be more much more efficient and ergonomic than the traditional Qwerty keyboard? Do you use the Dvorak keyboard? Do you know many others who do? If not, then why, after all it’s new and clearly more efficient?

Okay, so what’s the significance of the metaphor above? Answer: Beyond simply editing, the Editor’s job is to manage and prioritize. There are boatloads of very smart and very talented people who prefer the open model of FCP 1-7, because there were so many different ways an editor could choose to manage and prioritize. Many do not feel that FCP X improves upon that model. I’m not entirely certain at this point myself, but I tend to suspect the traditional way well be better, at least for me and the work I do.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Roth Weiss] ” Many do not feel that FCP X improves upon that model. “

These are the people that have not taken a look. They go straight to the magnetic timeline and say it sucks, and that’s pretty much that.

No, I have not tried a Dvorak, but if my typing life will be easier, then so be it. If I had a virtual keyboard in which I could map the keys, I would certainly give it a shot. I will tell you what I was fastest typing on. My old blackberry which had two letters per key (still Qwerty), it was similar to this:

https://www.bbgeeks.com/images/Kickstart/Pearlcomp.jpg

The Blackberry software was smart enough to figure out what words I was typing, so instead of hitting the “6” key twice to make a K, I just kit the 6 key once. I used about 15 buttons to fit the entire alphabet plus some common punctuation. Then I got a new blackberry and it had the common qwerty on teeny tiny little buttons. I was not as fast.

It is rare that one gets the opportunity to simply toss out a legacy system. As you know, Qwerty, is a long toothed legacy left over from the powerless machination of typing. That does not apply to today. If every keyboard would be virtual, then we could assign our own keyboard to everything we needed to type on. Until then, we drag the legacy around.

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “FCPx does not prevent you from finding your footage, you do not have to use keywords, smart collections, or whatever.”

True, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. What Rob describes is a massively parallel process where relationships develop on-the-fly in the editor’s head. It’s not just looking for footage; but looking for footage either in relation to the next or preceding shot (a process made more difficult because of the arbitrary removal of the dedicated source viewer) or in a way that may not even make immediate sense. It’s much more fluid than the assembly-oriented process that the magnetic timeline dictates.

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