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scrutinising FCPX and john davidson’s timelapse.
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What I like about the magnetic timeline is the fact that you never overwrite anything, unless you’re using P and don’t pay attention. The fact that you don’t need to assign tracks is a great plus, if I don’t like where FCPX places it I just move it up or down, with Avid and FCP7 you spend more time making sure you don’t overwrite anything. In avid you always have to click on a tool to be able to do anything. I prefer the intuitive FCPX Mouse.
Generally I place my clips on the secondary storyline and once I’m done with that portion move it down to the primary. If I’m editing documentary or corporate stuff I always place the interviews on the primary, leave gaps between the clips and edit the the rest of the footage on the secondary and leave it there I prefer adding dissolves on the secondary, dissolves on the primary still feel a little funky to me…
For Music Videos I only use the primary for the multicam clip if I’m editing performance. For a narrative only video I directed in Oktober I never used the primary, since I needed clips to stay put,…now that I think about it I could have used the primary for the song.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Going back to what I said about 80%/80%, I think the primary definitely works for me in most cases, especially interview-based or narrative projects. As many have mentioned before me, music videos and promos are where the paradigm is perhaps less applicable
There’s no one editing methodology that I use for EVERY kind of job, so whether it was AVID, or MEDIA100, or FCP, or now FCPX, there are always workarounds for different kinds of videos. So even if the Primary storyline isn’t the best solution for every kind of project, I guess I have to say that overall it works for me way more than it works “against” me. I’m generally using less keystrokes to get jobs done.
As for improvements to the primary storyline (and I’ll be writing a blog about this as part of my FCPX 2013 series), I would like to see Apple add user-adressable behaviours to connected clips. By that I mean, if I have a connected title that I want to fade out 5 frames before the end of the Primary storyline shot, or if I have a sound effect that i want to always bleed 10 frames into the next shot, I can tell connected clips to follow the behaviour of the primary storyline clip.
In general I’d like to see Apple leverage all the metadata gathered in the Event much better in the project timeline- most specifically for visual organization. The timeline IS messy in it’s current form, but if you were able to group audio by Role, for example, and colour code them for easy identification- that would be the bees knees.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Now, let’s say I have a selected clip and my playhead is not on a cut, and I want to select the right edge of the clip to trim. Logic tells me that I’d hit the right bracket because it’s the right side of the clip.”
When you’re not parked on the edit, DOWN ARROW moves the playhead TO the downstream edit. (UP ARROW) to the upstream one)
Then bracket at will.
FWIW.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Just more thinking from editors who approach it from the perspective of how it DOES work…
rather than relentlessly just looking at how it does NOT work.
To quote the Bard: “there the rub.”
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “When you’re not parked on the edit, DOWN ARROW moves the playhead TO the downstream edit. (UP ARROW) to the upstream one) “
I understand, but you assume there’s no cuts/clips between the edge of the clip and the playhead. If you hit the arrow and there’s 10 cuts underneath a clip, it sucks to hit an arrow 10 times when I can hit c then bracket and not only select an edge but move my playhead to navigate without a mouse.
If I have a clip selected, it would be nice to select the edge of that clip AND move a playhead as fcpx has great group selection capabilities, currently.
Fcpx has a start of a decent “target” system in its ability to select single or groups of clips quickly and easily. I’d like to be able to do more navigation with those selections.
I’m just going to keep repeating myself until it sinks in.
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I’m in a similar boat as Nik and Charlie. I find it much faster to roughly in/out a clip in the event and just drag it to where I want it roughly in the timeline. Then trim it in RELATION to the clips around it instead of the old way of patching tracks, playing some track tetris to move shit out of the way so I can edit it without deleting stuff or just to put it where I want it in the layer sandwich. Oh, and how annoying that 7 would unrender crap just because you moved it up a layer? X is amazing in it’s “render recollection.” If you have a stack of stuff rendered, then drag in a clip that happens to sandwich somewhere in the middle of that stack (unrendering the stack), and you then trim that new clip so that it’s not futzing with the stack anymore, X miraculously remembers that it has a render file on hand that is appropriate for that condition and it becomes rendered again. Probably saving minutes of time right there. In 7 you had to weigh pressing undo a zillion times to get the render back, or moving forward and rerendering.
I do wish that the horizontal magnetics (ripple) were not the default. Using the P tool isn’t really the same thing. And I think they could certainly ADD an audio section that has tracks at the bottom. so at least audio-only elements like music, sfx, and VO could be more easily managed.
And still, like FCP 1-7, you cannot copy and paste keyframes. To that I ask WTF? As a motion graphics guy as well as an editor I don’t get that. I’m keeping Premiere on the radar for my next project that needs some round trip to AE or even just lots of in-app keyframing as Premiere’s is very much akin to AE’s keyframing. But I like FCP X enough that if they bring back send to motion I’ll be digging into Motion. It would be hard to pass up on since it also works into the FCP flow so well now with generators and transitions and all that.
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John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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J-hog, you’re my agent from here on out.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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Gadzooks! (my brain says to me). There are 10 cuts between my play head and the edit point I have to target…
And by the time I consciously register the thought, my right hand – as if under the control of benevolent pixies – has reached out to grasp that wonder of magical engineering, the MOUSE and plopped the cursor where I want it.
I know, I know. I’ll regret the lost one-third second of productivity for the rest of my career … But I will soldier on whilst stoically shouldering the heavy burden of this first world problem as best I can.
(OK, teasing mode off )
I get that keyboard editors are at their most productive when they are not distracted -but honestly, is this a FLAW?
Must there be a keyboard solution to EVERYTHING?
And if so, does that take off the table the very idea of someday integrating touchscreen editing options?
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Did I say it was a “FLAW”?
No, I said I want more out of it.
Right could be right, while left remains left, you know?
The command says “select left edge” yet left is relative. I’m sure it will get better.
Touchscreen is a different animal, for now I have live with a keyboard as nothing beats it quite yet.
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