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New blog post from Philip Hodgetts. Worth the read.
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[Bill Davis] “But it’s equally true that some people still value dated concepts like “manners””
Bad manners would be talking about a subject after someone asks you not to. Self censoring yourself without a specific cause seems a bit daffy to me.
[Bill Davis] “That was my “lesson” when I screwed up with that kid. I wasn’t trying to – but I made him feel crappy (or better by being able to vent on me, who knows!)”
I’ve thought a lot about that story and about what I should have added but didn’t, so now here goes.
Let’s look at the situation: Your son had a 14 year old friend who’s family was in trouble. Until you provoked him, with your wicked tongue, you were unaware of the situation. Being unaware you were unable to help in any way whatsoever. The kid was very brave and talked to you about his feelings (unfortunately most kids would not have the courage.) You had the normal reaction, the one that I would have had, you felt guilty. But what purpose does the guilt do – it serves to move the focus away from the kid and his problems and onto you and your feelings. As so often, guilt is a destructive bitch. But anyhow, what is the end result of your lack of so called “manners” – the kid got to tell you about his troubles, venting his feelings, and putting you in a situation where you could now reach out and help, even if only to be more aware of him whenever you saw him. A total victory for crudeness in speech.
to quote Procul Harum (something I do perhaps more frequently than I should) –
Write it down,
It might be read.
Nothing’s better left unsaid.Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Jeremy –
When you get your paper edits from your clients, is it labeled in metadata or in time code?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “When you get your paper edits from your clients, is it labeled in metadata or in time code?”
Trick question. It’s one in the same.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “”When you get your paper edits from your clients, is it labeled in metadata or in time code?”
Trick question. It’s one in the same.”
I wasn’t trying to be tricky, I’m just asking if your clients are part of your metadata tagging, or are they relying on time code (a specific type of metadata) to communicate their intent to you.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “I wasn’t trying to be tricky, I’m just asking if your clients are part of your metadata tagging, or are they relying on time code (a specific type of metadata) to communicate their intent to you.”
Got ya. Couldn’t do transcripts without timecode. Well, i guess you could, but we don’t.
Transcripts are handled by us (as we have the footage) so we sort of dictate the workflow to make things go much smoother in those initial stages.
Name and timecode is the standard, sometimes we add location depending on the project.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Show me someone who says that FCPX isn’t faster, and I’ll show you someone who’s spent about 15 minutes with it, or is trying to make it work like other software. FCPX is incredibly fast at organizing huge swaths of data, extremely easily. You can save those sorts for later, or not. I can’t tell you how much faster it is, I have never timed it, but from experience, it is simply faster.”
I agree! I wasn’t comparing the FCPX workflow to the FCP7 workflow; I was just saying that preparation takes time upfront, but makes the process better and faster overall. Editing without reviewing (and logging) the footage is like chopping a tree down with a dull axe. You’ll see earlier signs of progress, but it’ll take a longer time and more effort to get the tree down.
I’m pro-metadata. It’s my third favorite feature in FCPX (after the imaging engine and the skimmer). It’s not that useful for me, because I’m not doing creative editorial very often anymore — I’m finishing and adding effects — but I would have loved to have had it when I was doing creative editorial every day. I had to rely on tons of subclips and ridiculous naming conventions to get a poor approximation of the sort of metadata that’s available today in FCPX. These features would have made my life a lot easier.
Whether we tag clips with great discipline or just try to commit them to memory, the part about actually associating metadata (either formally or informally) is vital to the process and still requires someone to actually watch and log the footage.
[Jeremy Garchow] “FOr instance, a current project I am working on consists of about 30 hours of interviews on two camera (so double that in real time). We have to go through the 30 hours of footage when we receive a paper edit from the client. I would much rather feed it in to a system than have me go through and sort all 30 hours of material.”
What are you calling a paper edit? Are we talking about different things?
I used to get paper edits with reels and timecode of selects. I didn’t have to sort 30 hours of material to assemble the paper edit; I just opened up the reels, set the in and out point, and added it to the program.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I think you might be misunderstanding, This isn’t shot selection. That is my argument. The shot selection comes later, which I still have to watch and organize while creating 1.5 hour paper edit assemblies from 30(60) hours of interviews. FCPX will not help you find the right shot. That is the job of the editor, but as you watch the footage and tag it, it will help you “refind” the right shot later. This time saving is then compounded across the project (which is why it makes it hard to run a stop watch and find out just how much faster it is). And THIS here is another reason why metadata is important (and makes things easier/faster).”
Again, I don’t think we’re using the term paper edit the same way. The whole point of the paper edits I used to get was to produce a stringout of selects and reduce editorial time by shifting it to production management time.
I agree that metadata pays dividends in re-finding the right shot later in the edit. It’s letting computers manage data, which is what they’re good at — it’s faster, but it’s not new or fundamentally different from the old-fashioned way of writing down timecodes. The difference between searching FCPX and searching a good XLS log or DAM is minimal; the difference between searching anything and not having formal metadata to search in the first place is huge.
There’s a lot of metadata that never makes it out of the logger’s head and into the notes (whether paper or electronic). Metadata is not a substitute for actually watching and knowing the footage. Knowing the footage isn’t a responsibility I’d want to give up as a creative editor.
When I’m finishing someone else’s creative edit, I generally don’t care — I rarely even have access to anything but the edit and maybe some handles.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Also, as the project gets older, and more time passes (and perhaps more projects are worked in the meantime) a data search and sort becomes more and more valuable and allows me to reacquaint myself with the footage much more quickly than sorting through a ton of bins/sequences.”
Again, agreed — but managing metadata is not new. The ability to do that directly within the NLE is. I do think this helps us be faster, but I don’t think it quarters the amount of time needed to do a project.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Look at it this way. Does tapeless acquisition save you time, or does it simply time shift the acquisition and subsequent archive of the footage? Would you rather go back to tape? Where is saving time important?”
An ironic example. I used to use capture time to get familiar with the footage.
[Jeremy Garchow] “If that also includes giving me more time to be more creative as I’m doing less monkey work, then call it what you want.”
The time crunch trend that Philip was referring to goes somewhat along these lines: as soon as you deliver “good enough” in less time than you needed before, you set a new, harder expectation for delivery times. Cutting out monkey work will not free up time for you to do better work for long; it’ll shorten the amount of time you’re allowed before final delivery is expected.
It’s a vicious cycle, and you can’t break it from within. The only solution is to step outside the cycle, manage the process, and guide expectations better.
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] “Cutting out monkey work will not free up time for you to do better work for long; it’ll shorten the amount of time you’re allowed before final delivery is expected.
It’s a vicious cycle, and you can’t break it from within. The only solution is to step outside the cycle, manage the process, and guide expectations better.”
Pro: I mean we went to all that time, money and effort to shoot the damm thing, everybody can see that it looks great, now why the hell is it taking so long to cut the piece of shit. Bloody hell, this should have been finished yesterday.
Ed: But you only shot it yesterday.
Pro: Exactly.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Just to be clear. Again. This is not about shot selection or “knowing” the footage. This is about the computers making certain parts of your job easier/faster.
[Walter Soyka] “Whether we tag clips with great discipline or just try to commit them to memory, the part about actually associating metadata (either formally or informally) is vital to the process and still requires someone to actually watch and log the footage.”
Does it rally take that much time for a cursory organization? Yes, you have to watch the footage, and tag it, but if I know these 17 clips are “Interview 01” to get me started, what else do I need on day1?
[Walter Soyka] “What are you calling a paper edit? Are we talking about different things?”
Using my example, the paper edit was a list of selects in “content buckets” in a bit of an order. It’s a rough cut, on paper with timecodes.
[Walter Soyka] “The difference between searching FCPX and searching a good XLS log or DAM is minimal;”
I disagree. It’s in fcpx, immediately accessible for edit, instead of sifting through another application only to send over part of what you want, not exactly what you want. Assts Managers are great, but for quick hit editorial, not really.
[Walter Soyka] “Again, I don’t think we’re using the term paper edit the same way. The whole point of the paper edits I used to get was to produce a stringout of selects and reduce editorial time by shifting it to production management time.”
Ok. But when you receive that paper edit, it’s edit time.
[Walter Soyka] “The time crunch trend that Philip was referring to goes somewhat along these lines: as soon as you deliver “good enough” in less time than you needed before, you set a new, harder expectation for delivery times. Cutting out monkey work will not free up time for you to do better work for long; it’ll shorten the amount of time you’re allowed before final delivery is expected.”
From my perspective, I don’t agree. I do agree that the time it takes to watch footage is real time, but in all cases do you have to watch it all immediately?
And what about metadata in production? Panasonic has a wifi camera that lets you log while shooting, basically giving a rudimentary preorganized shoot to editors. That cuts prep time down even more.
The monkey work that the computer does is more time for me to address the real time duties. Like Herb said, you can’t shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Like Herb said, you can’t shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?”
Well lets see.
First you break down the sketch for locations, props and actors. Then you send someone to fins the locations and make a deal. While that’s happening you call the talent agents and audition some actors, maybe you need to do a callback; and while that’s happening your both shopping for and building props and wardrobe.
So no, I don’t think a change in the post logging time would help very much in getting a SNL sketch done in one day.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Like Herb said, you can’t shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?”
Oooppppss! My apologies Jeremy, I thought you wee referring to an earlier post about doing sketches for Saturday Nite Live. I realize now your referring to my little post about a fictional Pro and Ed. Disregard everything I just said, my bad.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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