-
Smarter and Faster
-
[Simon Ubsdell] “But that doesn’t change anything about the point I was making which was that he’s not showing how FCP X is “Smarter and Faster”, he’s only showing how you don’t have to let it slow you down unnecessarily.”
I think Steve was demonstrating the less common (but not uncommon) needs.
IF (big IF) your workflow involves moving lots of “layers” (tracks) around and dealing with things like clip collisions, MOST OF THE TIME, FCPX is faster. BUT (big BUT) you still need to know how to keep things in place sometimes.
Of course if your work involves keeping everything else in place when you move a clip then FCPX will involve extra steps to make things “independent” (not connected).
I think the fundamental design of the FCPX is that lassoing multiple clips and avoiding collision was common and slowing down the creative process by the mechanical process of working with those issues.
Of course if you already grok the magnetic trackless timeline you can still trip over yourself if you don’t remember how to keep things in place, use connected storylines, know how to move the connection point, etc. when you need to. This is what I think he’s addressing.
-
[Craig Seeman] “IF (big IF) your workflow involves moving lots of “layers” (tracks) around and dealing with things like clip collisions, MOST OF THE TIME, FCPX is faster. BUT (big BUT) you still need to know how to keep things in place sometimes.”
Its very rare that Im taking a huge chunk of an edit and moving it to later or earlier in the piece. Its mostly extracting a chunk – but filling in that chunk with new material that fills the same amount of time.
And time is everything for me as except for a theatrical trailer – I have to hit exact times, so I’m putting my end card right up to the time I want to hit, and that end card never ever moves while I’m editing. I also have a tendency to make sure my ending will work as intended and then work backwards filling in the rest of the piece. In this situation I have to do alot more work in X, than I would in a traditional NLE.
Where i really find X to be faster is spotting and breaking down footage. Actual timeline editing is about the same in any NLE.
-
[Neil Goodman] “Steve’s presentation was well done and informative for people new to X but I feel like someone’s been giving this demo once every couple months for the last few years.”
Perhaps that’s indicative to how many new people need to hear it.
Another way to look at it, since these are less commonly used functions for some FCPX editors they can easily be forgotten so the reminders help.
Consider that an Avid editor can have as much as 28 years experience on Avid and many have more 7 years experience. Premiere in it’s Pro incarnation about 15 years (give or take). Final Cut Pro (legacy) about 11 years and users stayed with it beyond that.
On the other hand FCPX is 7 years at most for those who were their from the beginning. So there are many FCPX editors who’s ability to recall some of these may not be up to the level of the more experienced editors on other NLEs.
To put it another way, there may be many more Avid users and even Premiere Pro and FCP Legacy users who have important less common functions seared into their brains than FCPX editors and this point. These “reminders” from Steve are still useful to an FCPX editors whereas a similar dive into Avid would be unnecessary for a bigger plurality of Avid editors.
It’s not so much that it’s just for people new to FCPX but more FCPX don’t have such things burned into them like Avid, etc editors.
-
[Craig Seeman] “It’s not so much that it’s just for people new to FCPX but more FCPX don’t have such things burned into them like Avid, etc editors.
“makes perfect sense to me from that view.
-
No argument from me on that. As to whether FCPX timeline is faster or not really depends on the kind of work you do. If you’re predominantly fighting magnetism and tracklessness it’ll be slower. If they way you work really takes advantage of magnetism, connected clip and connected storylines (I like to call them virtual tracks personally) then you’ll find FCPX faster.
My NLE work predates Avid (using CMX 6000) and started on Avid in its infancy (1989 or so) and, for me the FCPX timeline is a dream come true… even though I had to cringe a bit at what it was missing for some time. Obviously this speaks to how (and maybe what) I edit.
-
[Neil Goodman] “makes perfect sense to me from that view.”
In fact, from my personal perspective, despite having used FCPX from its beginning, I still have less years experience as an FCPX editor then as a linear editor or as an Avid editor or as an FCP legacy editor.
-
[greg janza] “The “cheap” moniker that’s been attached to the product also seems to be a limiting factor in it’s overall adoption.”
No need to address anything here, except to note that anyone who feels X is “too cheap” to be any good, must therefore find Resolve Basic “worthless?”
Oh dear.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Neil Goodman] “Its very rare that Im taking a huge chunk of an edit and moving it to later or earlier in the piece. “
You are not making the argument that X isn’t faster moving huge sections, you are just saying YOU don’t do it very often.
For folks that do it often, that’s huge.
-
[Bill Davis] “No need to address anything here, except to note that anyone who feels X is “too cheap” to be any good, must therefore find Resolve Basic “worthless?””
Didn’t Resolve used to cost $250,000 or thereabouts? People are probably still mentally depreciating it… 😉
-
[Bill Davis] “No need to address anything here, except to note that anyone who feels X is “too cheap” to be any good, must therefore find Resolve Basic “worthless?””
No, because it already achieved a high level of brand recognition before the price cuts. Same reason Shake, Fusion, MC, PS, Teranex, etc., aren’t seen as ‘cheap’ tools even though they’re all more affordable now than ever.
On a more general level though, I think the software price race to the bottom is bad for the industry (and thus bad for end users) long term. It devalues the products and leaves software-only makers with no choice but to go subscription, freemium, ad-supported, etc., because there’s no way to compete with companies like Apple or BM literally giving away software for free.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up