-
No tracks, No Deal
updated 11 years, 5 months ago
11 Members
·
31 Posts
-
I just did a week on a broadcast promo for a very talented, very demanding creative director. While I concede that “Roles” is an improvement over no “Roles” there is NO WAY they can replace a track. NO WAY. This is no longer theoretical in my mind. My timeline NEEDS to be an accurate map of the cut, especially when dealing with audio. In a fast-paced collaborative environment this is FAR more important than any worries of “clip collision.” When I’m working by myself, which is most of the time, tracklessness might be a annoyance that I could learn to work around, but in the environment of last week it would have been an absolute disaster. I’m happy for everybody who saves a few steps because they no longer have to do quite as much to “heal” an edit, but I now realize in earnest the degree to which I NEED a highly detailed map of my sequence when working in tandem. Sorry. No tracks, no deal.
-
Is this because you need to deal with on-the-fly interactions with other track-based tools like DAWs and their operators? For instance, do you need to be able to reference spatial equivalence when passing work back and forth with others?
Best,
Andy -
Chris, this is why I think Apple developed X not so much with a big middle finger to the upper end of post, but probably with a real awareness that their new direction was going to alienate that end of the market and they consider that a reasonable business decision. It’s also why I think most of the frustration/anger from this end of the market is justified.
I’ll leave the deeper, UI philosophical, reasoning to David L and other very smart folks and just give my personal experience. I think that my company is probably representative of the majority of the industry today and going forward (in numbers not dollars). That is that we shoot and post all aspects of our work ourselves, whether for broadcast, DVD etc.
On the other end is the independent laptop producer with a DSLR that gets bandied about so often here. That’s not a negative reference but a really accurate one I think regarding the new generation of content producers and I think clearly that Apple is looking at them (and us in the middle) and accepting your situation as collateral damage.
If X had much of the great improvements AND tracks, it might have been the new idea that could have straddled all ends of the industry. I haven’t used it long enough to say I understand why they chose this route but I definitely empathize and agree with your situation.
Coming from a guy with offices and studios on a mountain top that hasn’t had a client sit in on an edit in 10 years.
-
No, this is about working with someone over my shoulder in bursts, as a project nears finishing, throughout the day. It was most apparent to me when quickly referencing, swapping, and inter-relating sound effects up and down the timeline. It was also very apparent when working with the multiple music beds. And then, again, when working with the two in combination.
While I’ve generally felt that the complexity of such spots does not pair up well with FCP X, I’ve been open to exploring it as an alternate. Thinking about it during this particular edit session has convinced me that it would be a truly dicey choice for this type of fast-paced, high stakes editorial.
-
Jim, having stuck around this forum, I’ve truly come to appreciate the value that FCP X offers to many users, and my qualm has pretty much always been the decapitation of FCS and not the birth of FCP X. FCS IS still around and will be a viable Los Angeles skill set for the next few years, especially in the promo world, since many very large companies have invested in it. And, the alternatives are getting better all the time. So, really, everyone gains, except those of us in my little niche who really did think that FCS was the best damn thing out there.
I DO get to do your mountain top thing now and again. I’m no flatlander. My family has a little place up in the Sierra Nevada, and each Summer I try and pack a project or two up with me. Each year, I have a fantasy about it being all year long. Er, all Summer long. Winters there are not pretty. Where’s your bit mountain top?
-
“Each year, I have a fantasy about it being all year long. Er, all Summer long. Winters there are not pretty. Where’s your bit mountain top?”
I know that fantasy – and winter is definitely a real part of it . I made the decision to move my biz from the city (primarily Boston and NY market) to Vermont. Initially we bought a farm in the Green Mountains and an historic brownstone on the river that I renovated with three floors of studios and offices.
A few years ago even the 10 minute commute seemed unnecessary and I bought the old farm across from ours and built all new facilities up here surrounded by hundreds of acres of mountain forest and pasture. We also have a horse farm here so it enables me to be around it all (and our 8 yellow labs).
Where abouts in the Sierras is the family place? I’ve had some great experiences in the CA mountains. Mostly San Gabriel with some ski resort clients out in LA and further north in Santa Ynez.
We’re just getting our new site up this month with a video tour of the farm and studios…I’ll send you a link.
-
[Jim Giberti] “A few years ago even the 10 minute commute seemed unnecessary and I bought the old farm across from ours and built all new facilities up here surrounded by hundreds of acres of mountain forest and pasture. We also have a horse farm here so it enables me to be around it all (and our 8 yellow labs).”
That sounds awesome!
Best,
Andy -
[Andrew Richards] “That sounds awesome!
“Hey Andy, it can be even with the constant hay, fur and yes, manure.
However, remember the devastation on the news after hurricane Irene? We were at ground zero and one of the areas completely cut off from civilization. It was pretty strange to have Blackhawks hovering over the mountain top and National Guard and FEMA forces being dropped in.
We fired everything back up on generator power but you couldn’t get in or out for a long while and even now our main access roads are barley passable emergency paths. It was very surreal going back and forth between fixing roads with farm equipment and rescuing stranded families and then coming back in and producing a music video or TV spot.
-
Our getaway is up in Central California at a place called Huntington Lake. As the crow flies it is about 40 miles from Yosemite, and about the same from Mammoth, though separated from them by tall peeks and deep canyons, the circumnavigation of which, makes the drive to either place about eight to ten hours. Its elevation is about 7000 Ft., in what is known as the Canadian Zone, so its winters can be fierce. 25-35 ft of snow is not unusual. The roads to our half of the lake close after first snowfall, but I’ve been back there on a cat and it is a little freaky knowing that two story cabins are below your feet. In summer, it is heaven on earth.
-
[Chris Harlan] “from Yosemite, and about the same from Mammoth, though separated from them by tall peeks and deep canyons, the circumnavigation of which, makes the drive to either place about eight to ten hours. Its elevation is about 7000 Ft., in what is known as the Canadian Zone, so its winters can be fierce. 25-35 ft of snow is not unusual. The roads to our half of the lake close after first snowfall, but I’ve been back there on a cat and it is a little freaky knowing that two story cabins are below your feet. In summer, it is heaven on earth.
“It is heaven up there.
We do a lot of outdoor winter stuff, ski resorts, ski manufacturers and snowmobiling. Spent a lot of last winter hanging from one shooting the new promo spots for the SM industry. Ironically I was up checking out Mammoth while develop a campaign to keep the LA market from driving up there.
Log in to reply.