My Life in FCP

[David Battistella]

Rob

I’ve cut network docs whole life and I just put together a short seven minute film from about two hours of footage. I dove in.

It’s a new way of thinking for sure but I have to say that breaking down material is very fast. I worked with several timelines. I was able to organize quickly and efficiently without using tags or keywords at all.

I have to say that I agree with much of your philosophy in this thread and I relate to a lot of what you say.

FCP X pushed my comfort zone at first, but in terms of footage. Seeing all of the material at the bin level is very handy and fast. I am much more interested in seeing footage instantly and this software allows for that like no other NLE.

I’d say when you get a moment run a small project through and you might be pleasantly surprised at how fast breaking down and organizing is – if your willing to explore the logic of how it’s laid out.

I think this was made for big doc work. Heavy lifting. I’d have to attack a larger job and only after an update or two. But maybe don’t write it off to quickly.

The video is brilliant because it is intelligent storytelling. You are a very good storyteller. The cut might have been quicker in FCP X though. 🙂

David

______________________________
The shortest answer is doing.
Lord Herbert

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “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.”

Honestly Jeremy, I think that’s grossly unfair. Some people who’ve cut entire projects have reported they’re not in love, so there’s clearly more going on than the usual laundry list of pejoratives that we so often hear (luddites, no lookies, old dudes, inflexibles, etc., etc, etc.).

Personally, I think the jury is still out on this one. Who knows? Some times pigs fly and sometimes Apple surprises everyone. Let’s hope it all comes out in the wash.

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.

[Rob Tinworth]

I had to resist the temptation to quit out of MC5 and cut this on FCP7! And I’ve no doubt X would have been faster still for this.

I think a lot of the strong feelings are down to Apple’s handling of the release, and the fact that clearly in its current incarnation (no video output) it doesn’t fit into a lot of workflows. A lot of us pushed FCP into corners of the post industry that were highly resistant, and it’s hard to feel like we haven’t been abandoned (I mean really? No video output?)

I’ve decided not to wait around hoping that Apple get it right with a next version, and to get on with learning the tools I’ll need moving into the next year or two.

But it’s great to hear a positive spin on FCP-X – I look forward to hearing how you get on with navigating bigger projects.

Rob Tinworth
http://www.1021.tv

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Rob Tinworth] ” (I mean really? No video output?)”

I truly think this will change with the release of Lion.

I agree that viewing footage is faster and easier than FCP7, even with the single viewer.

There are still some thing to work out (scope placement and shortcuts being one of them), but I think it will get there.

[David Roth weiss]

[Rob Tinworth] ” (I mean really? No video output?)”

[Jeremy Garchow] “I truly think this will change with the release of Lion.”

For the record, according to an official source at Matrox, “the current shipping version of FCP X, does not have any “hooks” for Pro I/O.” You can verify this in the latest published info on their website released earlier today if you wish.

So, Lion has nothing to do with the current situation regarding the absence of video output. Perhaps those hooks will be in a future release of FCP X, but as of this release they are not there for I/O manufacturers to utilize.

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] “So, Lion has nothing to do with the current situation regarding the absence of video output. Perhaps those hooks will be in a future release of FCP X, but as of this release they are not there for I/O manufacturers to utilize.”

Agreed. My prediction is that after lion is released, there will be an update to FCP along with new APIs. We all know they are missing right now.

Since the core of media handling is changing a lot with Lion, I don’t see a point in writing hooks that will be obsolete in a few weeks. And why would any developer want to support something that they know will change in a few weeks? Why would Apple release an API that will

This is the eye of the storm. The middle. More weather to come.

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “This is the eye of the storm. The middle. More weather to come.”

Yes indeed! 🙂

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

[Chris Harlan]

Loved it. Thanks. Caught my feeling perfectly.

[Glen Hurd]

[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.

At a certain point in any edit, I get the feeling that I have the film in my head, like there’s an index in my brain. I think that’s much more powerful than metadata. Editing is about pictures.
“

Ever since hearing about FCP-X’s superior relational-database underpinnings, I’ve been thinking about this very thing. Not only did Apple drop so much, but the very things they celebrate aren’t that critical to good editing. I need a better database? I have one in my head!! And with every project, I have to put it there or there’s no way I’m going to maximize the value of what’s been shot! And finding rejected footage to solve problems you couldn’t possibly predict at the beginning of a project – how does a database help that. Yet every (good) editor will take that trip, hoping for diamonds that were initially thought to be mud.
Ever hear that a picture is worth a thousand words? Now you want me to turn pictures back to words? I get being organized, but this is weird – like trying to convince a sculptor that the next evolution in sculpting is going to revolve around using better paper to draw his sketches on. Seriously.
Again, it’s like they had no idea what they were designing for, but they knew they were on to . . . something.

My dad told me a story about a time when the Air Force thought it would be a good idea to update the instruments in our fighters.
With the advent of better sensors, and solid-state electronics, they were able to bring a level of accuracy into the cockpits that had never been seen before. Every gauge brightly displayed the accuracy of each sensor, numbers rolling and shifting to the beat of a new age.
The engineers were most proud.
Only one problem.
The engineers didn’t have to fight.

Pilots were impressed at first. (Those were the heady days of fat LED calculators and electronic watches that could blink in sync with the alarm.)
But after a little time, pilots began asking for the old instruments back, preferring the analog displays, though less accurate, to the digital ones.

No, it wasn’t fear of change.
No, they weren’t intimidated by younger cadets who were more accustomed to reading numbers (as if the older pilots weren’t).
The problem was . . . workflow.

With the digital interfaces, if a pilot wanted to see his altitude, he had to read the numbers. 10,152. If he wanted to see his rate of climb, he had to read more numbers. 1,023. If he wanted to know what direction he was heading, or check how close he was to mach . . . well, you get the point. It wasn’t that they were smart – it was that they had to do more thinking to get access to information that they wanted yesterday.

This was most apparent in combat, when you really, really, really didn’t want to be reading. Glancing was good – microseconds at a time – reading could kill you.

If you google “aircraft cockpit,” you’ll see even the electronic displays on the most modern craft are primarily circles and arcs and lines. Because pilots need to understand their situation before they take up reading.
And editors need to feel their footage and their story before the need relational databases and cramped single-window nonsense with buried tags telling their audio what the he** track to go to.

Funny to see instruments in modern aircraft whose concept heralds back to the sundial. What is that, 3,500 years? Talk about “paradigm shift.”

[David Battistella]

@glen Hurd

You are so right,sometimes we just need a hammer.

Thanks for this story. It’s a really nice analogy.

David

______________________________
The shortest answer is doing.
Lord Herbert