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NLEs, DAWs, Tracks and Audio-centric Workflows — Continuing the Conversation…
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Maybe it is for the type of material you work with. This might even be true for most editing in general (though I doubt it). But the question at hand is – should tools be designed around that model?”
I base that statement on my observations of regular people consistently truly enjoying content despite relatively abysmal reproduction. From highly compressed SD stretched out onto an HDTV to badly encoded YouTube pirated TV and movies, regular people just don’t have high standards when it comes to signal quality. A bad script or bad performance is much more of a turn off to them than crunchy artifacting on a dissolve or flat dynamic range on cruddy speakers.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “In short, FCPX seems to assume:
– that I have a “primary through-line” against which I am judging and adding other things
– that this is, mostly, a “storyline” of some sortThis seems to be developed for and work best with the most formulaic of work (using as three of the best examples of this):
– music video type productions, where music dictates the edit
– interview with b-roll type formulations
– dialog with cut-away type formulations”Are these formulas? Or conventions? The only difference between the magnetic timeline and the open timeline as I see it is how the user interacts with them. Both metaphors wind up producing a composite video stream synched to audio along a regular time scale. I don’t see any technical barriers to being as creative in a magnetic timeline as you can be in an open track timeline. Default ripple and non-spatial organization may rub you the wrong way (like, a lot), but they are not exclusive of creativity. They are a different means to the same end.
Best,
Andy -
Maybe my thinking is too simplistic, but it seems to be that before X, all editors worked on stacks of separate entities.
In X, the stack is it’s own entity.
That is the fundamental abstraction they shifted.
Links (metadata) reach into the connected clip entity. But the entity remains discrete. And as such, you’re less assembling a timeline of disparate, discrete entities, than you are building new entities that become a flexible library of assets in and of themselves.
At some point, if they are linked by metadata tags – those discrete entities may form foundational building blocks that can be mixed and matched (and more importantly SEARCHED and RETRIEVED) based on their tags.
Right now, there’s no way to “reach in” to a FCP legacy timeline and link to it’s building blocks. With connected clips, it should be trivial at some point in the future.
That could be a useful new holistic overview that would work very well in connected editing distribution models in the future.
Just imagining.
“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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[Andrew Richards] “I base that statement on my observations of regular people consistently truly enjoying content despite relatively abysmal reproduction.”
While I am a bit alarmed by your dismissal of “irregular people” and their reactions, more to the point – I think you’ve missed my point. I wasn’t discussing reproduction quality but your focus on character and story as essential and fundamental to editing. (And therefor fundamentally important to the “paradigm”).
A pointed and illustrative example would be the work of Paul Sharits – it’s amusing to think of him assembling a “storyline” on his editing machine of choice …
[Andrew Richards] “Are these formulas? Or conventions?”
Though I think one can make a distinction between formulas and conventions, you could use the words interchangeably in what I have stated and my point still stands.
I might be better to summarize by saying that the degree to which my editing tools assume what I want is the degree to which they start to limit my endeavors.
You’re right in terms of ends, but I am interested in how FCPX shapes the process.
Franz.
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[David Lawrence] “I guess it depends on how we define “editorial intent”. I would argue that editorial intent is explicit and intrinsic to spacial positioning in the timeline. When I look at a timeline I read editorial intent like a musician reading sheet music.”
I think that the there are a couple important new concepts on editorial intent in FCPX that we generally take together, but should really consider separately (as they could be implemented independently):
- FCPX stores information about clip’s relationships to each other (clip connections), and uses it during some editorial operations.
- FCPX has added containers (storylines) which formalize the relationship of a series of clips connected in time (horizontal position), arguably at the expense of context (vertical position).
- FCPX works in relative time.
[David Lawrence] “The idea that the software might understand the edit is interesting, but I’m hard pressed to think of any examples where it would be useful. Can you describe an example of the potential value?”
Clip connections strike me as useful. The can explicitly define a relationship that we can only imply with direct spatial positioning on an unconnected open timeline. With clip connections, you can link a graphic to a particular point in dialogue, or you can link a sound effect to a particular visual. That relationship is defined once, then honored for subsequent editorial operations (by rippling). Without clip connections, the editor must read the timeline, recall or deduce the connection from spatial positioning, and make the correct selection in order to preserve the relationship through an edit. Also, this process must be repeated every single time an edit would affect the relationship.
I would have loved to have seen clip connections on an open timeline, without containers (as implemented in FCPX, destroying hard tracks) and relative time. You’d have to sometimes add hard tracks to preserve the rest of the edit, but that’s why I’d love to see tracks live in groups. I think this is pretty much how Michael Gissing’s description of layered clips in a DAW works.
My main issues with the trackless, self-collapsing timeline are much more visual, but I think that will would be better in a separate thread.
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 -
After a little more thought, I’d argue that an NLE that “understands” editorial intent knows when to treat clips individually, when to treat them as a group, and how to define what should and should not be included in the group.
Does FCPX get this part right?
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 -
[Bill Davis] “Maybe my thinking is too simplistic, but it seems to be that before X, all editors worked on stacks of separate entities.
In X, the stack is it’s own entity.
That is the fundamental abstraction they shifted. “
Yes. Or as I like to say, the clip relationships have changed. The vertical relationships are now more locked together than the horizontal relationships. Horizontal clip relationships are now more user defined. If you need two clips to be next to each other on the same layer, you select them and make a storyline, compound clip, whatever. In the FCPX timeline, there are visual cues to the editor letting them know what is going on, i.e. “This part of the timeline is different”. it is this language that is certainly different from other NLEs.
[Bill Davis] “Right now, there’s no way to “reach in” to a FCP legacy timeline and link to it’s building blocks. With connected clips, it should be trivial at some point in the future.”
And most use tracks this way. It forces this sort of organization up front, but it hits limits pretty fast.
[Bill Davis] “Just imagining.”
Shame on you.
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[Walter Soyka] “After a little more thought, I’d argue that an NLE that “understands” editorial intent knows when to treat clips individually, when to treat them as a group, and how to define what should and should not be included in the group.
Does FCPX get this part right?”
It certainly attempts to and also allows user to define these relationships very easily. I think it also lets disparate groups interact without disturbing their relative position.
[Walter Soyka] “…but that’s why I’d love to see tracks live in groups. I think this is pretty much how Michael Gissing’s description of layered clips in a DAW works.”
I think with finesse, this is exactly what Roles will accomplish (and they already kind of do) . Now, and I know this is kind of nuts thinking, but if you could sort the timeline by roles (or “bus”) then the visual defects that people might be having may be alleviated at least to some degree.
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[Walter Soyka] “Clip connections strike me as useful…I would have loved to have seen clip connections on an open timeline, without containers.”
Pro Tools calls it grouping. You can highlight clips and group them (and conversely ungroup them) at will. They then function as a single block of media.
… and in tracks!
I assume there are other examples out there too.
[Walter Soyka] “My main issues with the trackless, self-collapsing timeline are much more visual, but I think that will would be better in a separate thread.”
… my vote for you to start this thread.
Franz.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “You’re right in terms of ends, but I am interested in how FCPX shapes the process.”
I agree with statement fully. I’ve just made some screen grabs and will demonstrate in my next post.
Jeremy, Andrew, Walter – I’ll address your questions and raise some new ones in that post. We can do that in this thread or we can start a new topic, I’m fine either way, let’s just link if we jump threads to keep continuity.
We’re digging into the core issues. This is the key stuff and this conversation is great. A lot is interrelated so I really want to keep this thread going even if we move to another topic heading. Give me an hour or so to prep. Stay tuned…
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I have no idea, but would OMF support this?”
No Jeremy. OMF will only support clip name. It is an option that should be part of translating the project file to an OMF composition. The editor would have the option to chose clip name or description which would then default to meta data.
OMF is long since EOL which ironically makes it robust as an interchange format.
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