Olympics Editing (not FCP-X)

[Steve Connor]

Yes of course it’s lovely to have your selects in a timeline and that’s still how I work in FCPX, but in my experience the skimmer gets me those selects quicker, especially on the long form projects I do. it’s when you inevitably have to go back to rushes that it saves me a lot of time.

Of course I’m just saying it’s faster based on my experience using the software for the last year, my method of working before FCPX may not have been as efficient as some of you, so it might just be helping to make up for my poor workflow

Steve Connor
“The ripple command is just a workaround for not having a magnetic timelinel”
Adrenalin Television

[Herb Sevush]

[Steve Connor] “it’s when you inevitably have to go back to rushes that it saves me a lot of time.”

That’s why I said to copy the assembly timeline and do your work in the copy. The original master assembly timeline is always there for when you want to go back to view all your material. This was not a FCP7 workflow, this is how I worked in *edit as well.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “collapse all gaps would be a great feature request, if the software wasn’t eol.”

Indeed, I would gladly trade collapse all gaps plus “unlift” for the magnetic timeline and the skimmer – and if I Knew X better I could probably throw in some other features as well.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Aindreas Gallagher]

steve baby, I barely have a workflow, or an editors union card. I was supposed to be a graphic designer of some description.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Walter Soyka]

[Chris Harlan] “I get that’s its nice to have something like the skimmer in your bin/clip area, but I find timeline skimming quite satisfying. Let’s forget about one experience being a timeline and one not, what makes the skimming tool superior to skimming in the timeline? This is a serious question, btw–not rhetorical. I’d really like to know why.”

I know — it sounds like holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse wouldn’t be all that different — but I had no idea how well FCP7 doesn’t skim until I got the hang of the skimmer in FCPX. It really does feel vastly more fluid, and as I adjusted, I was surprised what a difference not having to hold the mouse button made.

For me, this is an issue of credit where it’s due. The skimmer is the coolest feature I never knew I needed.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Walter Soyka] “For me, this is an issue of credit where it’s due. The skimmer is the coolest feature I never knew I needed.”

While that may indeed be true I think I’d rather have features I know I needed before I got to features I didn’t know I needed.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Walter Soyka]

[Herb Sevush] “While that may indeed be true I think I’d rather have features I know I needed before I got to features I didn’t know I needed.”

Well, sure — but the skimmer is part of what makes FCPX good at what it’s good at, 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

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “The skimmer is the coolest feature I never knew I needed.”

And the way it is applied across the entire application is nice as well.

You can skim Event based compound clips that can be user created selects timelines if you’d like (or whatever you want them to be) without having to hit another tab, open your selects sequence to copy/paste to other sequence, or any other interface click fests, you can simply hover and drag over it to view with your edit timeline below, and you can even add to the timeline with a simple keystroke.

You can skim specific clips in the Project if you have Clip Skimming enabled on which can help to discern what it is you are looking at in composites, an instant solo if you will, or grab tc from a specific clip in a stack of clips.

You can skim separate audio tracks in the inspector to help decide what you need.

You can skim to preview transition/effects in the effects browser without the need of applying the effect and adjusting the effect, and deleting the effect, and finding the next effect, simply skim to get a little preview

You can skim Projects in the Projects browser to look for specifics in other Projects.

You can skim the preview in the Share window to triple check that you have exactly what you need without having to go back to the Project Browser.

You can also use the Skimmer as a place marker and decide if you are going to move to this skimmed place or stick with the CTI.

And, of course as was mentioned, you can blast through an inordinate amount of footage in an Event very quickly with no timelines, tagging by a variety of methods which then allow you to sort the Event by your selects permanently or temporarily, but obviously that feature is for non professional ninnies like me. I’m comfortable in my ninnyness.

[Chris Harlan]

[Walter Soyka] “I know — it sounds like holding down the mouse button and dragging the mouse wouldn’t be all that different — but I had no idea how well FCP7 doesn’t skim until I got the hang of the skimmer in FCPX. It really does feel vastly more fluid, and as I adjusted, I was surprised what a difference not having to hold the mouse button made.

For me, this is an issue of credit where it’s due. The skimmer is the coolest feature I never knew I needed.
“

How well does it work on large files? I tried to play with it on a 45 min. clip back when it first came out, and it seemed real mousey, like I was speeding through to much at a little flick of the wrist. Was this just me? Or is it harder to use on very long clips?

[Bill Davis]

I’m going to get yelled at, but so be it.

Here’s the difference. Presuming that you didn’t have to render anything first (not EVER required in X but still so sometimes in Legacy)

In Legacy, the only place you can “skim” stuff is in a timeline. So you have to build a new project and populate it’s timeline as step one. . So you do. Then you “skim” and mark in’s and outs or make your actual cuts – however you like.

THEN when you’re ready to edit that stuff, you have to make any cuts you didn’t at first, and delete the clips you don’t want. This leaves a timeline with HOLES. So you have to go back and delete the gaps.

Then you have a rough cut.

It’s a fine process and it works great.

But not compared to X.

In X you skim in the Event Browser. You don’t need to “Cut” anything at all. You just mark in’s and outs the same as X, (or you can use the Range tool to select them in a single stroke – and tag them. You can do this by omission (mark rejected) or by inclusion (mark Favorite) as you like.

Then when you show favorites (if you’ve marked that) you just drag those clips to a new timeline and you’re done. You’ve pre-edited your selects without every having to razor blade or “delete” anything.

It removes an entire necessary step – gap selection and deletion.

Finally, (and IMO, this is a big deal) the next time you go to USE those selects, all your prior decisions are there waiting for you. So you don’t have to close whatever you’re doing and open your old project and “skim through” any junk to find the decisions you’ve already made. You’ve ALREADY done that and X has saved all those decisions and is making them available to you for other projects whenever you need them.

Sorry, but this is faster and more convenient if you need to work on multiple projects. If all you EVER do is work one project at a time – and you NEVER want to go grab a clip from an old project and use it in a new one. It’s only a moderate time saver. But it’s a timesaver none the less. But if you decide to change how you think about edit decision storage and USE the new capability to start to build libraries of opens, clips, titles, sounds or whatever, every time you work in the EB you’re automatically building a library of decisions that you can grab and use from that point on.

So X gets BETTER the more you use it. Because it’s storing all your old work and making it available for new projects.

That’s a big deal

In hindsight, I didn’t realize how useful a place like the Event Browser would be when I didn’t have it. Now, the basic concept – do useful editing work once and the program stores all those decisions in a place ready for me to re-use that work – is a BETTER system than I had in Legacy.

My 2 cents.

“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