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Old dogs new tricks
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[tony west] “I asked you about teaching the the software not about your own opinion about how well it works.”
Ok, then I simply don’t understand what you are getting at. I don’t teach about cleaning up bad audio in the limited time that I have in these workshops as they are followed by a separate audio post program by another instructor. I know I’m not answering anything, so maybe restate the question, as I’m simply not getting it. If I were to teach about audio clean-up it would only be with Premiere Pro in conjunction with Audition.
[tony west] “So you would teach your students “kids just skip over that part of the software because I think it sucks””
No, I point them in the direction of software that’s better.
[tony west] “Are you a full time instructor or a person that teaches a class a couple of times a year?”
The film students are a once-a-year three-week-long workshop. In addition, I also periodically work with them as a mentor when the program gets a real project, like a feature film. I do contracted instruction from time to time, such as with a local TV station staff. I have turned down several full time and adjunct positions over the years.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I was coming from an independent (hobbyist) perspective and should have clarified that in my original post. I do agree with the corporate point of view.
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[Oliver Peters] “I simply don’t understand what you are getting at. “
Hummmm
I didn’t know it was that complicated.
I was asking you which program you thought a first time student with no previous background in editing would pick up faster. X or AVID
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[tony west] “I was asking you which program you thought a first time student with no previous background in editing would pick up faster. X or AVID”
I already answered that in the original post. With proper instruction, it would be the same. Probably 50% of the class would be faster on one and 50% on the other. There are a lot of variables, like right-brain/left-brain, prior editing software experience, and so on.
Given no instruction whatsoever – and no prior knowledge of how to use any editing software – then probably X. However, you’d miss most of the nuances and probably wouldn’t be a good editor, except for rough-cutting cat videos for YouTube 😉
The year that I taught X (prior to Libraries), the only student who really loved it was a lady who had previously only used Microsoft MovieMaker. You also have to note that unlike comments a lot of others toss out here, more than half of these students have only been exposed to PCs as their main computers and not Macs. Quite frankly, computer literacy among college students is getting worse and not better, in my experience. You can thank iPhones and video games for that. I actually had papers submitted that were typed on an iPhone! And no, they were not good. So there’s also the uphill challenge of whether or not they know common computer short-cuts and/or Mac versus Windows.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] ” Probably 50% of the class would be faster on one and 50% on the other”
I find that interesting given the knock on X when it first came out was that it was “toy looking”
To me that translates into easy Toy looking
But according to you it’s more complicated looking to half the people as the AVID UI
I can’t imagine someone being confused by the X UI but not confused by AVID
I just can’t wrap my head around that.
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[tony west] “I find that interesting given the knock on X when it first came out was that it was “toy looking”
To me that translates into easy Toy looking “Remember that if you’ve never dealt with editing software before or even something like After Effects, then all software looks completely daunting at the start. One of the issues that frustrated students was the mechanics of the magnetic timeline and the generally “rubberyness” of how clips react when you move them around.
FWIW – my comparison of students is not in the same year. I haven’t taken the same class through X and then MC or anything else. I’m comparing the experience of one year with that of anything.
This is also a class that’s taking a yearlong “hands on” film curriculum, so not all want to be (or would be good at being) editors. Some are better cinematographers and some are born to be in craft service. Out of 40-60 students, you might have a handful that actually seem to have the chops to become talented editors.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
PS: I think it boils down to tracks versus trackless. The “tracks model” makes more sense to some people, while “trackless model” makes more sense to others. I will say that kids who had prior exposure to Premiere or FCP “legacy” through a high school video class or because they pirated the software, seem to have more issues with X. This would mimic what we see with professionals.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
And I think Oliver’s point was that the noise removal in FCP X may be easy to teach, but it’s useless to do so because of how weak it is…so thats not much of a point in the X teachability direction…
Editor, Producer, DP
JustinCrowell.com -
[Justin Crowell] “And I think Oliver’s point was that the noise removal in FCP X may be easy to teach”
But he didn’t say it was easy to teach
[Justin Crowell] “because of how weak it is..”
but it isn’t all that weak either
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Pardon me, I was unclear: you’re saying it’s easy to learn, and using noise removal as an example. Oliver seems to be saying that that is besides the point; pointing out functionality that’s easy to learn because it’s overly simplified to the point of being generally unuseable isn’t a major tick-box in the easy to learn category. Oliver also seems to be claiming that it’s ease-of-use is actually totally deceptive: people new to audio will think they’ve done themselves a service, when they’ve probably introduced some bad artifacting.
I was an audio editor in a previous life, and I’ll do all I can to avoid the noise-removal switch in FCPX. More often than not, it worsens the problem.
Editor, Producer, DP
JustinCrowell.com
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