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New blog post from Philip Hodgetts. Worth the read.
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[Chris Harlan] “Keep it down. Oliver doesn’t want us talking about this.”
LOL. I’m running it on my machine as well.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[David Cherniack] “I gather then, that what Jeremy really meant to say is that proxies may be desirable in PrPro when working in conjunction with other, less native capable, systems. Neither Red nor Alexa material require them, that I’m aware of…though I’m not sure about Alexa Raw. Maybe Dennis R. can address that.”
It’s more about working on lower power machines for offline. ProRes seems to be fine.
Having a proxy workflow can be beneficial as we don’t have to tote the full res files, or wait for as much transcoding on exports/renders. Overall, proxies are lighter weight, FCPX has a nice proxy generation system that I don’t have to think about too much. I can start getting my hands dirty right away. It’s a nice and easy feature if you need it.
Jeremy
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[Chris Harlan] “Keep it down. Oliver doesn’t want us talking about this.”
I am laughing out loud. I forgot, this is polarization of (former) Apple enthusiasts forum after all. Why talk about anything else???
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[Philip Hodgetts] “If you read the article, I used the editor’s lounge comments where the editors where lamenting the lack of time, and then broadened the discussion out to considering the two pressures: lack of time (to see all footage, to contemplatively edit) and pressure for more finished rough cuts. Given those pressures are only going to increase, then the technology *is* the solution. Producers are not going to revert to giving 3 weeks for the 3 week job, just 1 as the editors’ in the video noted. Projecting forward, the fastest system – whatever that maybe (might turn out to be lightworks) will be the one that becomes dominant.”“
Philip, let’s borrow a trick from theoretical physics and assume a frictionless (spherical?) non-linear editor.
Will this software reduce editorial time to zero? No! It won’t add any unnecessary time to the process, but the human operator will still require time to review the footage and build the story from it. There will be some minimum amount of time required for editorial with even the perfect NLE.
For the software to reduce the time necessary to successfully complete an edit below that threshold, it must take on some of the editor’s work. What would you suggest we can automate further to reduce the editor’s burden of actually learning what assets he or she has available to work with? The editor needs to see the footage before making intelligent decisions about how to use it in the story. Even First Cuts needs logged footage before it can return results.
What happens as the time it would take to review all the footage approaches (or exceeds) the time the editor has available to make the cut before the deadline?
We’ve already solved the easy problems like digitizing footage and allowing the editor random access to it. Friction from the NLE isn’t the problem here; “not enough time to review footage” is. A technological solution to this problem, like automatically making pre-selects or organizing the footage for the editor without human intervention, is a very, very hard problem.
People are working around tighter schedules today by simply not watching all the footage before they cut. This may lead to a “good enough” deliverable, but if it leads to a “really good” deliverable, it’s by pure chance.
I maintain that the correct solution to the problem is to maintain the integrity of the process and give people enough time to do their jobs. Technology shouldn’t slow editorial down (and FCP7 was certainly sub-optimal in this regard), but until technology can replace human editors altogether, how can we dodge the temporal constraints imposed on the process by our wetware?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “how can we dodge the temporal constraints imposed on the process by our wetware?”
Walter, the word “wetware” makes me think I’ve just peed in my pants. As for the rest, the solution isn’t a better NLE, the solution is more experienced and better trained producers.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Walter Soyka] “What happens as the time it would take to review all the footage approaches (or exceeds) the time the editor has available to make the cut before the deadline? “
EXACTLY!
I worked on a show where I was given 80 hours of footage (two camera angles), and told to deliver a rough cut in 5 days. 50 hours to watch, make selects (multiple takes occurred on this “reality show”), edit and add a full pass of music and finished effects with 80 hours of footage. And when the music wasn’t perfect…I was yelled at. When the effects didn’t sound perfect enough…I was yelled at.
Needless to say I quit. And so did a few others after me. I can tell you that that place had a tough time holding onto editors. Unrealistic demands.
Good points Walter. I’m diggin what you are sayin!
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Steve Connor] “Still comes back to the fact that some of us who are actually USING the software are reporting it’s faster for our work. If it were any other software people might take that as evidence that at least it might be partially correct ( 400% iimprovement is certainly not!)”
Absolutely agreed. I’m sure that FCPX is a great deal faster than FCP7 for a huge amount of work, and significantly faster than any other NLE for a lot of work, too.
I’ll even buy that FCPX is 400% faster (on the same hardware) than FCP7 at some specific tasks, but that blanket statement needs qualification.
Hodgetts made six references in that blog post to FCPX being 2x to 4x faster than FCP7. He suggested that using FCPX means you can do a 2 week job in 1 week, right now. He implied that Apple is the only developer attuned to the time contraints facing editors.
I’m not trying to knock FCPX, or anyone using it professionally. I can’t use it for my work at the moment, and I do still see a lot of potential with FCPX, but I find this “200% to 400% faster” claim totally unbelievable.
Interestingly, that claim is also falsifiable. For those of you working with FCPX, are you finishing the week’s work by Tuesday morning, or early Wednesday afternoon? Are you increasing your revenue by 2 to 4 times, because you can book 2 to 4 times as much work in the same amount of time?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Shane Ross] “I worked on a show where I was given 80 hours of footage (two camera angles), and told to deliver a rough cut in 5 days. 50 hours to watch, make selects (multiple takes occurred on this “reality show”), edit and add a full pass of music and finished effects with 80 hours of footage. And when the music wasn’t perfect…I was yelled at. When the effects didn’t sound perfect enough…I was yelled at. “
I’ve encountered very similar situations. My response to those doing the yelling is to tell them that I certainly appreciate the considerable talent they bring to the table, but, even with all the talent in the world, the laws of time and physics still apply.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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[Herb Sevush] “As for the rest, the solution isn’t a better NLE, the solution is more experienced and better trained producers.”
We’re not going to get them.
We have to make them.
The problem here mirrors the problems facing the visual effects industry. As long as we (as an industry) continue to do our clients the disservice of agreeing to (and meeting, at our own expense) unrealistic budgets or schedules, how will they know that something is wrong, or that they’re not getting the best possible results?
Budget, schedule, reality: pick any two.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Herb Sevush] “As for the rest, the solution isn’t a better NLE, the solution is more experienced and better trained producers.”
I actually agree with Herb on this wholeheartedly.
Sadly, I don’t think we’re going to see a very large group of such “experienced producers” re-entering the business any time soon.
Most people know that I work primarily in the once lucrative corporate video space.
Nearly every quality, experienced producer I’ve ever worked with at the Fortune 500 corporate level has long been “downsized” in the rush to cut expenses starting about 4 years ago. They’ve been freelancing ever since, but since business budgets have been crunched in the same cost-savings at all costs – efforts, they’ve been forced into the “fast and cheap” space along with everyone else.
Quite a few of them have moved on, taking their experience into teaching, making their digital documentaries (good luck with that) or taking a job at Sears simply to cover the costs of keeping the lights on at home.
It may be different in the “movie making” business – but in the bread and butter “corporate production” space I’m familiar with, the entire industry is essentially being driven by well intentioned young men and women who were the administrative assistants of yesterday who had low enough entry level salaries to keep around during the crunch and are now the employees with 5 years on the job who are being asked to “supervise” whatever return to production may come down the pike.
Sadly, these young “producers” are likely NOT going to be the folks to bring back patience and a push for quality. Since they’ve likely never had much experience in translating “thinking time” into superior results.
Probably 50% of the bids I’ve been asked to generate over the past year, have been “vetted” by people with no experience in reading a quote – and the most “analytic” response I typically get is is limited to “is there a way you do this any cheaper?”
Be REALLY nice if I was wrong about this, tho.
It also makes me supremely thankful for the clients I still have that value quality and are willing to spend some money to acquire it!
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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