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Roles: got ’em to work.
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[Michael Gissing] “I can’t see OMF export as a non core function.”
I entirely agree – whatever else one thinks about it all the fact that they consider OMF to be a third party problem doesn’t inspire me with confidence.
Having to rely on the oh-so-modestly-priced services of Automatic Duck for this function may all work fine both now and at every conceivable moment in the future, but presentationally this is a serious error of judgement on Apple’s part.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Here’s an illustration of why I think I prefer the track-based model for audio “track-laying” as things currently stand.”
Thank you Simon. Your picture sums it up perfectly.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
Thanks, David. Sometimes I find I need to look a things graphically to make this sort of point clear, to myself as much as anyone – especially since what we are talking about is graphical “readability” in the UI (which is something I know you have talked about a lot most perceptively).
It’s interesting that the first three months of discussion focussed rightly on how the magnetic timeline impacted on the video side of things and very little attention was paid to the ways in which it affects audio. The introduction of Roles has enabled us to be able to take a fresh look at how it all works on the audio side – and the considerations look to be every bit as complex, for better or worse.
That said, I am still prepared to be “agnostic” at this point – there is obviously some very clever work going on that we haven’t seen the full results of yet, so who knows?
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Again this is instant “visual feedback” that I find useful to keep things organized overall and during the nitty-gritty of editing. If I’ve edited out a scene and I need to find the music to trim it out to make a new transition, I know exactly where I need to go to find it on my designated music tracks. In FCPX I would have to hunt up and down to find where my music had go to because it doesn’t live in any one place and it can go scooting around.”
Maybe I’m seeing it different but I can go to the timeline index and select what I want to find and it’ll highlight and take me to the location. I can select the Role or the specific clip.
Again this may be a good example of the SpreadSheet vs Relational Database way of thinking. Maybe the Database visual front end isn’t intuitive enough (yet?) for some but I haven’t found a problem with it yet.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “Personally I still prefer the traditional version which gives me the at-a-glance “visual feedback” that I have been going on about, and I would trade any disadvantages of increased expenditure on screen real estate to keep that.”
I guess my question is, do you really need this visual feedback, or are you just used to it? If your Snacks and Cereal are all in the cupboard, would they need their own shelves? You lose all the space around it keeping everything segregated to itself. What if you hit a button and your snacks and cereal came ot the forefront?
In your example, the top sheet is an an example of how the OMF will look and the bottom sheet is the FCPX timeline. Once you sort what you need, the OMF will show up like you want in the top sheet.
With the growing mountains of data that encompasses each project, keeping everything in it’s own little place is getting harder to do as not everything has one description or one role. FCPX tackles this with the metadata. Throw it all in pile with a descriptor/category and take what you need instead of putting everything in it’s own container.
If you want to see how much fish you have, you simply look in the Index, or solo the role.
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[Craig Seeman] “Maybe I’m seeing it different”
There you go – I’m not saying for one moment that I’m right, I’m just saying what I prefer and what I think I need to be able to work most efficiently. The factors that I pointed out and tried to illustrate with my “spreadsheet” diagrams are pretty important to me and I don’t think these are being adequately addressed just yet by Roles or anything else.
[Craig Seeman] “I can go to the timeline index and select what I want to find and it’ll highlight and take me to the location”
Yes, you can do this but this seems to be adding an unwelcome (to me) level of “fiddliness” – I don’t want to have to check out the Timeline index, I want to see it right there in front of me in the timeline itself, where I am focussing in order to edit. Anything that makes me have to change my focus or attention is going to slow me down and break the rhythm of the process. For example, I hated Media Composer’s Segment Modes with a vengeance precisely because they forced an undesirable shift of attention, however momentary.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] ” What if you hit a button and your snacks and cereal came ot the forefront?”
I don’t think this happens in FCPX, does it, or am I getting lost with my own analogy?! Do my effects pop to the forefront under Roles? What am I missing?
[Jeremy Garchow] “In your example, the top sheet is an an example of how the OMF will look and the bottom sheet is the FCPX timeline. Once you sort what you need, the OMF will show up like you want in the top sheet.”
Although I do have a separate beef about the whole OMF situation, my point here was entirely to do with how I feel I need my audio to be laid out in the timeline and how the absence of the traditional type of visual feedback was not being made up adequately just yet.
[Jeremy Garchow] “If you want to see how much fish you have, you simply look in the Index, or solo the role.”
Solo-ing the role isn’t really going to cut it, though. Given FCPX’s propensity to jumble the vertical arrangement of clips at will I woulkd almost certainly have to keep scrolling up and down vertically to try and get an overview – in fact, an overview is the one thing I couldn’t actually get if I had anything like the number of tracks that I typically use.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I hated Media Composer’s Segment Modes with a vengeance precisely because they forced an undesirable shift of attention, however momentary.”
I agree. It was one (of several) key reasons why I moved from Media Composer to the original Final Cut Pro.
[Simon Ubsdell] “I don’t want to have to check out the Timeline index, I want to see it right there in front of me in the timeline itself, where I am focussing in order to edit.”
But the manage of the ever increasing amount of metadata and the greater flexibility make tracks a problem for me. For me, the timeline index means faster targeting to find a clip or see how a class (Role) of clips relate. If a Role is highlighted I don’t see much problem scanning that to pick what I need visually also.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “Do my effects pop to the forefront under Roles? What am I missing?”
Effects? No, I do wish there was a similar option for Effects in the Timeline Index. I was keeping this an audio only based discussion as I it seems that’s where most the concern lies. You can do text, but not effects on clips. FCP7 is terrible at finding/listing effects too.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Given FCPX’s propensity to jumble the vertical arrangement of clips at will I woulkd almost certainly have to keep scrolling up and down vertically to try and get an overview “
But what would stop you from layering the tracks as you like? Using your sheet, you know Veg will be towards the top, Nuts towards the bottom. I understand that not every clip will have the same amount of layers (as your bottom spreadsheet represents) but you as the editor know what is what. This is where FCPXs more vertical nature comes in to play.
Again, have you tried this yet, or just thought about it?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “If your Snacks and Cereal are all in the cupboard, would they need their own shelves?”
No, but if you eat Rice Krispies you might need Soundtrack Pro to remove the snaps, crackles and pops because the noise removal in FCX is sketchy at best.
That’s a joke.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com
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