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Oscar irony
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[Carsten Orlt] “I always thought the award is for best editing and NOT for best software?
Must have got that wrong all those years….”
Are you trying to say that this years best editor didn’t use what they considered to be the best tool for the job?
Or are you saying this years best editor doesn’t know what the best tool for the job is?Either way, talk about grasping for straws…
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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[Shane Ross] “This is one thing I just don’t get. Doesn’t matter what tool was used to make the film. They don’t say “man, that Craftsman Wrench was behind the Ford F150 winning the JD Power and Associates award for 2012…””
They might, if there was a ‘brand’ associated with the tools. Ford doesn’t mention what brand of tool is used at the plant, mostly because they are mostly custom made industrial tools.
But the choice of tool brand is very much a focus of the automotive world, once you get past the manufacture to consumer portion of the market.
If you look at the market above the consumer level, tool branding is often association with event sponsorship, contingency money, team sponsorship, winners purses, and performance in every motorsport discipline.
On a non-sporting portion of the market, it is almost universal that shop mechanics provide they’re own hand tools. And while they are each persons personal choice, shops don’t allow people working for them to use no-name consumer grade tools that you would buy at the local hardware store, or third world cheap knock-off tools from the swap meet. And yes, they ask you what brand of tools you own on the job interview. Because it makes a difference.
If your mechanic has to use cheap, inferior tools, what does that say about their skill level? To me it says the quality of their work can’t earn them enough money to use proper tools. Or maybe it says they aren’t serious enough about the job to pony up for the minimum required equipment. Or maybe is says they have no pride in their workmanship, or just don’t care.
But for sake of argument, lets say a person has decent skills, but for some unknown reason just chooses to use crap tools. Do you want that guy working on your car to use some cheap third world knock-off tools that round off all the bolt heads?
Or worse, do you want the guy torquing the lug nuts on your wheels to use a calibrated, quality name brand torque wrench, or some off-brand piece of junk he bought for 5 bucks at the dollar store?
Lets take that a step farther.
How about the guy working on the plane your flying in? Do you want some guy that just started doing it for a living, and can only afford the cheapest tools available?
When Alan Sheppard was asked what he was thinking about during his first space flight he said, “it’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
Aren’t you more comfortable paying the guy the guy with the experience to know what quality is, and how to deliver quality work with proper tools?
Which person do you aspire to be? The cheap guy, or the quality guy?
I’ve said it a hundred times, but editing is basically a trade like being an electrician, plumber, finish carpenter, etc. And when it comes to tradesmen, their choice of tools can tell you a lot about their skill, and quality of work.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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I think these tool analogies get a bit wacky. Editing is both craft and art. The closest analogy would be musicians and their signature instruments.
Any top guitarist can make awesome music and sound like themselves with just about any guitar they pick up. Yet companies go to great lengths to have signed artists with whom they have marketing deals. Most artists are pretty loyal to only a few brands over their careers. In turn, guitar buyers want to use the same instrument as their favorite player in the unrealistic belief that it will help them sound like their hero.
I view this as “aspirational marketing” and it works in the NLE world, just like it works in the music world. Editors are just as sensitive to the “feel” and “tone” of their favorite NLE as guitarists are to their favorite axe. Same for Pro Tools or DaVinci.
If all the A-list feature editors are associated with Media Composer, FCP, Premiere or Lightworks, then film schools will put those products in and in turn, people learning the craft will ask for those same tools. It’s somewhat circular, because those folks learn, grow and advance in the industry and hope to use those same tools when they have their own say-so.
That “plan” was a concerted marketing effort for over a decade with Apple, from which they walked away. Maybe only for the time being… Maybe forever.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[TImothy Auld] ” I just don’t know how you really evaluate editing for an award. Or Acting. Cinematography, yes. Art Direction, yes. Costumes, yes. Visual effects, yes. There are real standards by which you can judge.”
This is an eternal question that has been posed by many film artists throughout the years. Woody Allen thinks the awards are silly, and he never attends. He won this year for best original script and was not there to recieve his Oscar as usual.
The bottom line is, how is this relevent to the issue at hand?
None of the arguments here opposed to Oliver’s original premise really detract from the fact that there is indeed great irony in Apple’s decision to EOL FCP, the NLE of choice for some of the world’s most highly esteemed and “decorated” editors.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com
http://www.ProMax.comDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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[Herb Sevush] “every teamster who ever ate a doughnut on a set?”
Alright Herb, very funny, but I resent this unnecessary slur against doughnuts.
bob c
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[Oliver Peters] “I think these tool analogies get a bit wacky. Editing is both craft and art. The closest analogy would be musicians and their signature instruments.”
Craft, yes. Art, no. I know many of my brothers out there see the first violinist playing some heart wrenching solo, and think that somehow they are in the same category of talent and skill, a type of elite artist. Unfortunately it just isn’t true. Anyone can learn to edit. Anyone. I know a color blind editor, and there are editors whose eyesight is so bad they are legally blind. Back in the CMX linear days myself and another editor taught a friends wife who had no previous media production experience how to online edit in about two months, in our spare time after hours at work. Without any other training whatsoever she was able to land an editors job in our top 20 market. One of my interns learned the system in one semester and went right to work as an editor at a competing station without even graduating. But not everyone can learn to play, lets say, the violin, let alone play well enough to do it for a living. Even with a lot of natural skill and a good ear, to play at the concert level takes years of learning and practice. Most professional musicians start playing as young children, playing continuously into adulthood before they are even considered good enough to play at a concert level. Many of the big name editors didn’t even know what editing was until the got to college. At that same point of career development a concert level musician has been playing for over a decade. But still what those folks at that level do isn’t really art, since art is subjective. A skill which has no standards. There are standards for playing a musical instrument. The term virtuoso means an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability. So that means there is a standard to be judged by. Artist is such a vague label, anyone can call themselves an artist. You don’t even have to sell anything to be considered an artist. The day you want to become an artist, you simply start calling yourself one. Try waking up some morning and declare yourself a virtuoso, and attempt to earn a living as such. Good luck with that. Lots of art doesn’t even require any skill, or even require being human. There are several zoo elephants that paint, with the most famous being the now deceased Ruby. There are things like tramp art, and war trench art. Both are a type of folk art made with found objects, by untrained artists.
Then there is a skilled tradesman like a high end finish carpenter. The kind of guy that can take a dead tree, and turn it into a thirty thousand dollar conference table. You simply can’t just wake up one morning and decide to to become that either. But because its a learned trade, just like editing, anyone can learn to do it, but it takes time and patience to develop the skill. Unlike the musician, it really doesn’t require any inborn ability, other than a desire to do it. There are standards to be judged by, like how well the joints fit, that type of thing. Just like we have standards for how well things fit together. As an editor, you can’t simply ignore technical standards in pursuit of ‘your art’. You are much more like the tradesman who must use his skill to balance the technical requirements against the desired outcome, and choose the appropriate tools to accomplish that task. Which is different than an artist who is free to suddenly change tools, materials or whatever and whenever, on a whim. And no matter what comes out, it is still art.
Tradesmen, like the carpenter or the editor don’t have that amount of freedom and must work within the constraints of the job. I know how some hate analogies, but if the artist, had to work like the editor. He would be free to choose the brand of brush, but would still have to use a brush, and would still have to use paint. Where the artist is free to paint with his fingers, and paint in his own blood if the mood strikes him to do so.
So while editing can be used to create art, it is not an art. And the editor is not an artist. He, or she is a craftsman.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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[Oliver Peters] “But editors have a say in the NLE they choose”
Not sure that’s really the case. Mark R for example made the decision for his entire team. I’m confident he made the correct decision, of course.
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