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New Walter Murch FCPX interview (from macvideo)
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Superb riposte!!!
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Mr Murch may have been back peddling to some degree, who knows what his relationship is to Apple and how much if any he needs that. But to me the point that stood out the most was whether one app would ever work for everyone or not. Apple seems to be suggesting that but I think it’s a bad idea to even attempt that. Competition is good for everybody and niches will always exist it’s just the way people are. The idea of a universal editing app will never fly IMO.
Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Prohttps://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Because he’s a well respected professional and he’s optimistic, rather than destitute of all possibilities.”
Jeremy,
It seems you must have missed the end of the interview where Mr. Murch summarizes his position by closing with the following words, and I quote: “I hope I can use it, but we’ll see.”
Do you honestly characterize that as “optimism?”
Having produced, directed, and edited innumerable on-camera interviews, I have never once observed an interviewee contradicting his/her position in their summary at the very end of the interview. Instead, nearly all interviewees will “reiterate” their position in one concise sentence, which to them represents the very essence of everything they’ve earlier stated during the course of the interview.
Do you seriously believe your interpretation of Mr. Murch’s position trumps his own?
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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[David Roth Weiss] “Jeremy,
It seems you must have missed the end of the interview where Mr. Murch summarizes his position by closing with the following words, and I quote: “I hope I can use it, but we’ll see.”
Do you honestly characterize that as “optimism?”
Having produced, directed, and edited innumerable on-camera interviews, I have never once observed an interviewee contradicting his/her position in their summary at the very end of the interview. Instead, nearly all interviewees will “reiterate” their position in one concise sentence, which to them represents the very essence of everything they’ve earlier stated during the course of the interview.
Do you seriously believe your interpretation of Mr. Murch’s position trumps his own?”
Wow. Do you think your interpretation trumps his own? I think he is very balanced and realistic, and in his own words, optimistic.
Again, people hear what they want to hear.
You hear what reinforces your beliefs, and I hear what reinforces mine.
He SAID he was optimistic (I think it was something along the lines of “I’m optimistic about this” starting at around 11m20s) when he talked about Apple simplifying the UI and building the base application, and said something to the effect of “hopefully it will be usable for people who make feature films” earlier in the interview.
Are we watching the same video?
After he talks about ripping off the band-aid, he says he’s optimistic (again) at around 16 minutes.
I can’t use FCPX at my job everyday either, that doesn’t prevent me from learning it, thinking about it and discussing it. I can only infer Murch feels the same way, otherwise why would he sit down for this interview? He’s questioning it just as most of us who like it are. His mind is open to it. I feel that’s obvious. As a lot of these conversations on the Cow here end, we will see and time will tell if it’s worth it or not.
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” Because he’s a well respected professional and he’s optimistic, rather than destitute of all possibilities.”
I’m not sure how that answers the question…nor is indicative to his whole summation. Maybe parts. He remains optimistic, but he can’t use it…that’s a pretty solid condemnation on it’s current state and many here have vocalized that as well. Because he is well respected may give his “optimism” more weight to you, but then, his objections and refusal to use it by that reasoning must also carry more weight
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[Jeremy Garchow] “He is missing the viewer/canvas, as am I the more I test FCPX.”
Murch says he “can’t yet quite see how I’m not going to use the old paradigm — the existing paradigm, let’s say — of viewer and canvas,” and asks, “Why not? Why can’t we have that as an option?”
[Jeremy Garchow] “Magnetic timelines, may be good, tracklessness may be good, his words.”
Followed immediately by “but there are times when I want to not have that, because I don’t need my hand held.”
Murch’s closing line: “I’m not able at the moment to use FCPX and play music on it [like a concert pianist], which is to say to make motion pictures on it. I hope that I can in the future, but we’ll see.”
Didn’t many of the first posts express this sentiment? I can’t work with FCPX professionally today, and I don’t know what the future for FCPX holds, so it’s no for now, and maybe time to look elsewhere.
Since then, we’ve gone in-depth on a lot of FCPX’s features and concepts as well as Apple’s strategic decisions, dissecting them, analyzing them, and philosophizing about them in far greater depth than Rich Young and Walter Murch cover in this brief interview. Looking forward, these conversations have given some of us hope and some of us concern. I think both positions are defensible, though I think most of us our biased according to our workflows and our prior history.
I didn’t really take away much on the future of FCPX from this interview. The main point I took away was one that’s been discussed over and over here: FCPX is great for the specific workflows for which it was designed, but still totally unsuited for other current, more complex workflows, and we just don’t know if, when, or to what degree FCPX will support them in the future.
[Jeremy Garchow] “… he’s a well respected professional and he’s optimistic, rather than destitute of all possibilities.”
Very few of us here were using FCP 1.0 professionally, but many of us here were using FCP 3 professionally before Murch legitimized it with Cold Mountain, because it worked well for our needs. I certainly respect Murch’s thoughts on editorial, but I’m not going to judge an NLE based on its ability to satisfy his workflow. We must all make our decisions according to our own needs.
On optimism versus pessimism — does it matter? Optimism doesn’t help me get my work done. My clients want delivery, not possibility. “Real artists ship” and all.
I can’t predict what Apple will do next, and we have no way of knowing unless they ship. They don’t seem fond of actually listening to user input, which is scary, but they have a good track record for delivering amazing products, which is promising. Maybe that’s hoping for the best and planning for the worst?
FCPX isn’t ready — but it’s important. It’s one of the many huge changes swirling through our industry. If I thought FCPX had no possibility whatsoever, or if I thought these changes wouldn’t impact my business, I wouldn’t be here.
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 -
Agreed. He is tip toeing very lightly, making sure he expresses his dislike in a way that wouldn’t harm him from staying in the apple inner circle.
Personally the main message I get from this interview is that he openly questions Apple and their relationship to professionals: “Do they still want us?”
He’s using the interview to call out to Apple and get them talking again.
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[Walter Soyka] “Followed immediately by “but there are times when I want to not have that, because I don’t need my hand held.””
Followed by “There’s the position tool”. We just need a transcript of this thing so we can all highlight what we like and didn’t like.
He really did use the words optimistic, though. I promise. More than once.
[Walter Soyka] “On optimism versus pessimism — does it matter? “
I think a balanced approach does matter, yes. If he wouldn’t have been so thoughtful, the interview would have had a completely different tone and fired around the internet, kind of like his first presentation in which he was grossly misquoted. To me, state of mind does matter, but maybe it doesn’t to other people.
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[Jamie Franklin] “Maybe parts. He remains optimistic, but he can’t use it…that’s a pretty solid condemnation on it’s current state and many here have vocalized that as well.”
Yes, including me, almost daily.
[Jamie Franklin] “Because he is well respected may give his “optimism” more weight to you, but then, his objections and refusal to use it by that reasoning must also carry more weight”
All of his objections are things that are solvable, except for the viewer/canvas which doesn’t seem to fit the new UI. Interchange, audio output, all of that, in my mind, will be solved once the application is further ready (or FCPXML grows up a bit).
I do think with multicam, they are going to need something else besides a single viewer. How else are you going to be able to watch 9 angles at once, and the program?
I guess we will see. I’m optimistic. And I know you love emoticons so, 😀
If this stuff never shows up, then it will have been a good ride and it will be on the next thing. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “All of his objections are things that are solvable”
Does that include a multi-track?
Roles, compound clips do not solve this. And he expressly said in the context of consumer users this might be useful, but not to him.
The dna might not like that mutation…
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