Prognostications on FCPX compared to OSX and iOS from Alex4D

[Jeremy Garchow]

think of them as air quotes

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It certainly does not look or operate in a familiar way, and it is true there needs to be more functionality built in to the software, there are many advantages to the FCPX media management process, especially of you have a central storage system and multiple users. I think the separate event and project method is actually going to be quite nice, but it does take getting used to.”

I want to re-iterate that every NLE on the planet is fundamentally a database, but I agree that FCPX seems to have the most short- and medium-term potential in large part due to its architecture.

With all autosave all the time, FCPX may be more transactionally-oriented than other NLEs (which may be more state-oriented). If this is true, that’s a huge step toward multi-user collaborative workflows.

The separation between events and projects makes this much more meaningful, even if projects must be atomic and locked (though the parent-child structure suggests that even projects could be meaningfully subdivided for simultaneous access).

I thought this separation was dumb early on, but as Jeremy and Bill Davis have been pointing out, it offers a lot of new possibilities.

I don’t mind speculating on what FCPX might become — crystal ball gazing has become a hobby in the last year — but Franz has a point that we speculate more about FCPX than other NLEs. For example, Adobe actually demoed a concept for collaborative editing at NAB [link] with relatively little fanfare, but here we are talking about how a product that has not shown collaborative editing must surely be headed in that direction because its underpinnings may or may not allow it.

As the last round of Mac Pro updates has shown, we should be careful about assuming our speculation will become fact.

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

[Franz Bieberkopf]

Jeremy,

There is a long history of air quotes and scare quotes (uses breakdown below). None of them are the kind of caricatured arch summary that you used – though I suppose you meant something along the lines of snark?

Franz.

https://micusp.elicorpora.info/micusp-kibbitzers/1-scare-quotes-in-micusp-some-prelimin

So-called: to distance oneself from more common uses of the word(s) without necessarily indicating criticism:
[…] the students need to rely on other things outside of “experts” or textbooks […] (EDU.G0.01.1)
Sneer/Snarky: to critique common uses of the word(s), often using sarcasm:
Weitzman’s firm takes the “nice” way out, starving them for as long as they’ll take it (ECO.G0.04.2)

Style: to signal off-register language or the use of fixed “general English” expressions:
[…] colloquially this term has become synonymous with the idea of a “take home message” that the author of a text is attempting to impart on the reader (ENG.G0.02.1)

Term: to mark off a disciplinary or cultural term without direct citation:
[…] the result of refining the concept of “Assembly-line” […] (IOE.G1.05.2)

Coinage: to coin or invent a term for one’s own use:
In addition, I incorporate a measure of “other debt” as debt with non-regular payments, such as debts to an individual or to an employer. (ECO.G2.03.1)

Mixed/uncertain: to avoid having to force s-quotes into one-category or another, and also to categorize instances of misuse and otherwise uncategorizable usages:
The Forest Service attempted to “bullet proof” its NEPA documents […] (NRE.G2.05.1).

[Chris Harlan]

I took Jeremy’s use of quotation marks as a means to delineate the dialog of a fictional, hypothetical you, delivering a brief monologue that distilled and lampooned his notion of your point of view. This is not to say that I agree with Jeremy’s characterization of either the situation or the hypothetical you–quit frankly, I’ve forgotten what that was–but I think his use of quotation marks was both in bounds and effective. Is this as off-topic as I can possibly get?

[Bill Davis]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “”Secondary storylines could be modified by assistant editors while they are repositioned in the primary storyline.”

Solutions looking for problems …”

Hardly.

With fast connections – this could easily enable collaborative work between teams regardless of any individual’s physical location.

Pretty much what I see increasingly happening as I work more and more with ad hoc teams spread over wider physical spaces.

I’d LOVE to be able to have the audio editor able (via password permission) to link into a projects audio tracks to improve them. Same with a graphic designer for my titles.

The dying old idea that the only way to edit is to put a butt in a seat in an office surrounded by more butts and work hard to make the office building landlord wealthier? That’s what’s changing faster than anything else, IMO.

“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

[Franz Bieberkopf]

This was my take as well, though I would have characterized it more precisely as a monolog of a fictional, hypothetical Franz (whom we might call Faux Franz, for clarity) on the topic of fictional, hypothetical software. And I might add that Faux Franz seems a bit arch himself, and that fictional, hypothetical software seems fantastic. On the other hand, I do like how Faux Franz focuses on Apple’s database motives – a topic which has not seen enough discussion here (and which achieves the rare feat of using “database” as an adjective, unless “database motives” is actually a compound subject).

But Jeremy’s response seemed to indicate a much more sophisticated meta-commentary which I haven’t grasped.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Bill Davis] “I’d LOVE to be able to have the audio editor able (via password permission) to link into a projects audio tracks to improve them.”

Bill,

This is a bit of a holy grail (ie long sought after ideal) for my own workflows, though to be useful it would need to be open enough to allow connecting somehow with other software (ie Protools).

I react to the fetishization of things like work by assistants in a secondary group (sorry, “storyline”) rather than a more useful idea of timelines that can be worked on by more than one person in more than one way.

Franz.

[Chris Harlan]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “and which achieves the rare feat of using “database” as an adjective, unless “database motives” is actually a compound subject”

All I have to say about this is that I think that Database Motives will be the title of a either 1) a pithy 2018 off-Broadway RomCom (that will be hideously adapted to File the very next year), or 2) a blurry, washed-out attempt at a Tony Scott knockoff that will debut on iTunes sometime around 2019. Of course there is also option 3, but I’m not certain that porn actually has titles anymore.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Chris Harlan] “Database Motives … hideously adapted to File the very next year.”

I think we can stop there.

[Oliver Peters]

As an FYI, on my project and media status, we have settled on the Events and Projects being on an internal 4TB 2-drive RAID and all media is linked on the SAN volume. Renders are local to this internal RAID, which is fast enough for rendered ProResHQ files. I tend to render as little as possible. When it’s time to back things up, the session folder with all the media and elements is copied from the SAN volume to a removal drive. On that drive, I also create two folders for “Place in Events” and “Place in Projects”. These are where I copy my session Events and Projects folders. Before I do that, I will have dumped all render files. Seems to be working well, so far.

On the SAN performance issue, I have been in touch with Command Soft’s tech support and they are investigating the network traffic issues we discussed in another thread. The network should be plenty fast to have E&P folders live in the SAN volume, but for some reason the system isn’t happy when you do that. Maybe in the future.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com