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question about FCPX naming conventions
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[Herb Sevush] “Movie Premieres, Awards or Live televised concert are actual “events” – that is something that happens in one time and place.”
The most general (and, based on a survey of three dictionaries, the first) definition of an event is simply ‘a thing that happens’. Source footage records things that have happened. (Or, if you want to be really pedantic, it depicts things that appear to have happened.)
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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“People are reading far too much into this naming.”
I brought it up because I thought people were reading far too little into it.
“The word “Event” can refer to anything that is bounded in time, and virtually all video shoots start and end at specific points in time.”
Everything is bounded in time.
An event implies a singular continuous occurrence, that’s why people who do weddings and such are called Event Planners. Documentary shoots, feature film productions and many other productions are totally discontinuous and in no real way can be thought of as an “event.”
“‘Events’ is not an ideal word, but there doesn’t really seem to be a better one.”
How about “folder?”
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] “An event implies a singular continuous occurrence, that’s why people who do weddings and such are called Event Planners. Documentary shoots, feature film productions and many other productions are totally discontinuous and in no real way can be thought of as an “event.””
The word ‘Event’ is more generic than you’re making it out to be.
Moreover, you’re assuming narrative features and documentaries should group all footage for the whole project into a single event. Why? Events could be shooting days for a narrative feature, or could contain footage for specific occurrences (e.g. “Inauguration Day Footage”) for a documentary, and your entire project would pull footage from multiple events.
[Herb Sevush] “How about “folder?””
An Event isn’t conceptually equivalent to a folder, it’s conceptually equivalent to a database. I suppose Apple could have called them ‘Databases’, but they probably thought that was a little too geeky.
Mind you, it would be nice to be able to organize events into ‘folders’, particularly if you have multiple events primarily associated with a single project. But this is not an especially egregious omission for a 1.0 release.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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Good Chris, now we’re getting somewhere.
Why is an Event not equivalent to a folder?
You mean it contains more than the media, it also contains the metadata connections FCPX uses in conjunction with the media? But I thought you can also just drag clips into an Event, without going thru the import functions. Am I wrong about this?
Also, can you open an Event with the finder, and if so what types of files do you see?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] “Why is an Event not equivalent to a folder? “
Because it can’t contain or be contained by other events. It’s not a generic hierarchical container for data, the way a folder is. It’s a flat collection of data organized using metadata and saved queries.
[Herb Sevush] “Also, can you open an Event with the finder, and if so what types of files do you see?”
Events are obviously represented using Folders in the Finder, and can be opened. OS X has a hierarchical file system — obviously Events live in folders at some level. Everything lives in a folder at some level even in iOS, which has no user-facing file system.
What you see when you open an Event in the Finder is not what you see when you view one in FCP X. Consider the iTunes library, as a point of reference. If it’s set to iTunes, organizes your iTunes Library on disk by content type and artist name. Does that mean artist names are, conceptually, folders in iTunes? Does it mean the iTunes library itself is conceptually a folder? No. That’s just the on-disk representation.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “Because it can’t contain or be contained by other events. It’s not a generic hierarchical container for data, the way a folder is. It’s a flat collection of data organized using metadata and saved queries.”
Sounds like a bin to me.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Herb Sevush] “I never understood why an NLE would run from the simple and descriptive “Source” and “Record” monitor of TV production. Everyone in the business at the time understood it and new kids could learn it as easily as “Viewer” and “Canvas.””
Since this is a conversation about semantics, I think it’s important to point out that FCP’s Canvas window was fundamentally different than, say, Avid’s record monitor — you could actually transform media in the Canvas.
I think the canvas metaphor was actually carefully chosen — it’s a 2D space showing a WYSIWYG composite where the editor could grab and directly manipulate the content on it. It does not simply view the timeline as a traditional video record monitor does.
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 -
[Michael Hancock] “[Chris Kenny] “Because it can’t contain or be contained by other events. It’s not a generic hierarchical container for data, the way a folder is. It’s a flat collection of data organized using metadata and saved queries.”
Sounds like a bin to me.”
Oh, sure, with the minor details that bins can be nested, items inside bins aren’t organized according to metadata, and bins don’t contain saved queries.
Had the word ‘bin’ not had any previous meaning in the NLE context, I think its dictionary definition is sufficiently generic (“a receptacle for storing a specified substance”) that it could have been used in place of ‘Event’. But that wasn’t the case.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “Oh, sure, with the minor details that bins can be nested, items inside bins aren’t organized according to metadata, and bins don’t contain saved queries.”
Depends on the NLE you’re using.
[Chris Kenny] “Had the word ‘bin’ not had any previous meaning in the NLE context, I think its dictionary definition is sufficiently generic (“a receptacle for storing a specified substance”) that it could have been used in place of ‘Event’. But that wasn’t the case.”
Bin has a very clear meaning to most editors. Event doesn’t. Why change terminology when they do essentially the same thing? It’s confusing and seems completely unnecessary.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
isn’t the event my sister’s wedding? isn’t that the default intellectual architecture? (I’m tagging all the barmitzvah, disneyland references in the manual in good reader on my ipad – its my mission) – but can we all not agree that we are sitting in marshy useless ground born out of the fact that the event is an historical dated occurrence in the specific users life?
that the application is directly geared towards them? that a place in time has an occurrence, the occurrence has a project, and you might reach back as an iphoto video user into summer of 09 to grab that special event reference moment? because you can? so you can see them? because it is your timeline?
We are scrabbling so awfully to grab meaning from the small moments in this application – anything that might make us think that it is larger than it is. but all the events are there, they are all there to be seen, its an iphoto library, that’s all we’re all looking at, that’s all it is.
look – this feels nihilistic, because it feels like a – throw up your hands moment – we are basically clinging to meta data and Apple’s super duper long term intentions for VA handling to convince ourselves that this is a professional application – it’s why we are arguing so hard – we’re screaming around this thing and the truth is it’s organised like iphoto, it presents imovie’s timeline, the clip connections have no resonance or meaning really.
God but why did they come to NAB?
Really though, why – why – did they do that?
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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