So Inspirational & so lacking

[Shawn Bockoven]

Now that you mention it, we are playing and learning. We are exited to show each other what we did. I’m starting to like this ship.

[J Hussar]

Congrats on your first post.

You made think about my position. You honestly did. Most battles here don’t inspire me much, but your comments did.

You made me re-consider what editing is….

Well, first the basics – past goes to future, not the other way around. Time is linear – that’s fact. Also editing video is not the same as making interactive media, we aren’t editing a website, we are making a crafted, timed video/film, we aren’t asking the viewer to re-time the clips for us, or make our edit decisions, we time it for them. We control timing, it’s what we’re paid for. Our ability to know how to present information in a linear fashion is what we do.

For me, most of my editing is done in my head. Many times I need to get away from the machine and think about contrasts, symbols, juxtapositions, etc. I will try things and I adjust lengths of shots and transitions to give the impact I am looking for. I must find and organize the media I need for what I am doing. So here are my issues.

I need access to my media, wherever it comes from. So as many sources as possible – for the time being that includes tapes. I need access to all media to be easier for me. That helps me creatively. FCPX limits my sources. I don’t like limits.

Second, I like to work sequences separate from the main body of the work, effectively I like multiple sequences all in one project, some are just thoughts, sometime I like to make a bizarre experiment sequence and then pull pieces from that into main sequence. One sequence at a time isn’t enough for me. It limits my ability to experiment and not get stuck with an experiment gone wrong. I don’t want to think about saving a million separate projects. I want to keep my variations at my fingertips in one project.

Not having that limits me.

Ultimately I am not interested in a ‘cool interface’ – I don’t buy anything for a pretty interface, I buy software as a tool that works well – I am only interested in creative output. I need a controllable interface – I don’t need an interface to entertain me. I hope it is aesthetically pleasing, one reason I like Apple, but that’s it.

This is not the first time someone has attempted to make quantum leaps – in the nineties there was an interface designer named Kai Krause who made ‘artistic’ interfaces. The problem was, you had very limited control of them, it was horrible. People who liked playing around, rolling the dice on their output enjoyed them, people who knew what they were after did not. This ‘quantum leap’ in interface design died off fairly quickly because the interface was for Kai, not for us. I feel FCPX is for Randy Ubillos, not for us.

If FCPX would stop worrying about trying to be style over substance I would embrace it. Limiting my ability to be the creative controller is my main issue. I don’t consider making me fit the ‘program’ a good answer. I control the program, not the other way around.

I hope they fix FCPX and expand it’s abilities. I would like FCPX to be an app without limits – but I feel in it’s present form it will only let me do what it wants me to do. Not very creative at all.

Finally – I want some concrete evidence that Apple will take the training wheels off it – I’d like an official statement. That’s all I am saying.

And again, thank you for inspiring me!

[Chris Kenny]

[J Hussar] “I need access to my media, wherever it comes from. So as many sources as possible – for the time being that includes tapes. I need access to all media to be easier for me. That helps me creatively. FCPX limits my sources. I don’t like limits.”

Not being able to capture tape directly into the application hardly means you can’t edit media that originated on tape.

[J Hussar] “Second, I like to work sequences separate from the main body of the work, effectively I like multiple sequences all in one project, some are just thoughts, sometime I like to make a bizarre experiment sequence and then pull pieces from that into main sequence. One sequence at a time isn’t enough for me. It limits my ability to experiment and not get stuck with an experiment gone wrong. I don’t want to think about saving a million separate projects. I want to keep my variations at my fingertips in one project.”

You can have all of your versions at your fingertips in FCP X. Just create a bunch of projects and stash them in a folder in the project library. You can open more than one at a time and flip through them easily. about the only thing you can’t do is show two sequences at once.

Apple really should have just called the new ‘projects’ ‘sequences’ instead. It would have saved a lot of confusion.

[J Hussar] “If FCPX would stop worrying about trying to be style over substance I would embrace it. Limiting my ability to be the creative controller is my main issue. I don’t consider making me fit the ‘program’ a good answer. I control the program, not the other way around.”

I’m not trying to be in any way insulting or patronizing here, but I really don’t think you’ve quite wrapped your head around the magnetic timeline yet. You’re just not describing the kind of thing that it is. This post might help a bit.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[J Hussar]

I will take a look – I am willing to make the effort – it probably isn’t obvious, but I actually would like to like FCPX! I was a big booster of it to friends before I saw what they left out on release.

It’s funny, as I consider this launch by Apple – if they had just spent the time trying to make the transition easier they probably would have bought a lot of good will!

It amazes me that they didn’t stop to consider the backlash – even on OSX’s introduction they kept a classic layer so you could open your OS9 apps all the way through 4 releases up to OSX 10.4 Tiger. That’s why people didn’t bolt!

And why didn’t Apple know film production people are the crankiest people on earth?

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Chris Kenny] ” I really don’t think you’ve quite wrapped your head around the magnetic timeline yet. “

dude seriously. that phrase needs to get retired like we had to retire lens flares temporarily in the nineties. Nobody is allowed to say:
I really don’t think you’ve quite wrapped your head around the magnetic timeline yet.

The pope is issuing a papal interdiction on that phrase right now. The UN is going to block funds. That phrase is off. the. menu.
We have brains, we’ve all noodled around a fair bit at this stage and had a think – so that phrase is off the menu, its no longer about some hypothetical thing you somehow get and the other person doesn’t – its about the individual reaction of the editor to where apple has chosen to take the timeline.

phrase off the menu it be. off. totally off. ree-moved.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Kenny]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “We have brains, we’ve all noodled around a fair bit at this stage and had a think – so that phrase is off the menu, its no longer about some hypothetical thing you somehow get and the other person doesn’t – its about the individual reaction of the editor to where apple has chosen to take the timeline.”

People simply keep saying things that are incoherent with respect to the way the magnetic timeline works. It’s like, to borrow Craig Seeman’s analogy, asking what kind of hay the car eats. You can safely assume anyone asking that question hasn’t quite wrapped their head around cars yet.

What we’re seeing is almost exclusively “This doesn’t work like a standard multitrack editor, so it’s taking away my control”. What we’re not seeing is detailed critiques of the clip-relationship model vs. the multitrack model, with concrete examples of how the former is supposedly worse for fundamental editing operations. If those start showing up, I’ll stop pointing out that people don’t seem to understand the magnetic timeline.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[John Chay]

If it’s anything like iMovie than it’s really not that special.

http://www.john-chay.com

Editor/Videographer

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Chris Kenny] “asking what kind of hay the car eats.”

aaaaaaa…. well maybe the car should eat hay! mm? you know, like a corn biofuel.
or maybe we should stop marking car metaphors! how exciting would it be if that stopped?
(Although I do find plenty of craigs observations fascinating)

Anyway i would still advise retiring the “if only you could wrap you head around it, if only you could share the celestial light of understanding that now floods my brain, dear god its full of stars, the colours .. ohh the humanity”

anyway sorry that was a tad hyperbolic but – “This doesn’t work like a standard multitrack editor, it’s taking away my control” well maybe that’s just right you know? It could very well be over-simplistic, throwaway and wrong, ignoring the new worth of the new methodologies, but then again, maybe a truly exposed non-magnetic multitrack editor trumps everything in terms of control. Maybe it doesn’t, but that statement could be true. Likely as not the professional market will decide the question with their feet. If i”m being totally honest – I don’t actually think I’ve given it enough of a shake of the stick myself, but sure we’ll see.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[John Berpskin]

I can honestly say that after a week of using it I am starting to enjoy some of the features on it (background rendering/transcoding – meta tags/THE SPEED/etc) I think Apple has a long way to go with options but I see several spaces on the tool bar! And it’s true that when i got back to FCP it feels slow and archaic. Don’t know why…just does.

And for some reason the interface reminds me more of Sony Xpri than Imovie.

[Ted Levy]

Emotional trailers and promos?