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Spatial awareness and memory recall
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[Bill Davis] “What precisely is the “spacial awareness or memory” challenge that X fails to address that Legacy solved? “
I suggest starting at the top of the thread and re-reading. The differences in visual vs verbal workflows been discussed in detail. It’s interesting stuff.
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David Lawrence
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[Bill Davis] “Just because that workflow was required as a work-around for poor source organizational tools in Legacy doesn’t mean it’s going to continue to be the best way to work when you are given more sophisticated source ID tools.”
That’s assuming the workflow is a work around. What if for spatial thinkers it’s not? What if for spatial thinkers, it’s an essential memory building and associating method?
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David Lawrence
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If you had asked me prior to this thread, I would have said that FCPX was the most visual of any NLE I have used. So, it is interesting to hear that some folks think it is less so than other editing apps.
Off the cuff I would say that for me that is because FCPX’s metadata and database capabilities are much more efficient than other editing apps and allow me to move away from the verbal/textual to the timeline more quickly and efficiently.
For me editing is about perceptual absorption and intuitive reaction when I am wired up (as they say in the Social Network). Of course there is an intellectual/analytical component in making decisions. But I feel like FCPX allows me to spend less time thinking and more time getting into the audio/visual flow of editing.
Bottom line: I don’t agree with the original highly philosphical premise of this thread.
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[Bill Davis] “Period. “
Use that one or two more times and I think you’ll have trademarked!
[Bill Davis] “The ONLY difference between then and now is that there wasn’t a huge cadre of editors invested in NOT having to re-learn stuff.”
But see that’s just not true. A majority of the editors I know are constantly improving themselves, educating and reeducating themselves. You seem to believe, for instance, that Media Composer and Legacy are nearly the same beast, but, really, they are as far apart as Legacy and X. You have to rethink some fundamental things about NLE function, particularly if you have been primarily a mouse-driver in FCP, to go from one to the other. I think you are being truly unfair to people because they are not learning what YOU like.
[Bill Davis] “X is NOT simple software. But neither is AVID or Premier.
To judge any of them, you need to KNOW them.
“Do we? All Caps KNOW? Or, maybe just know about? You’ve got to make judgements because you can’t learn everything. Right? You looked around and said, “Okay, I get X; I like what I see; this is where I want to go.” You made a judgement not to learn or relearn Avid or Premiere. You looked at them and decided which way to go, and you can’t fault people for doing the same, just because they went in a different direction. I’m not going to sit here and donk on you for not taking 3 months to learn or brush up on your Avid skills, and tell you that you don’t have the right to say that it doesn’t appeal to you, and that you can’t make a judgement about it.
[Bill Davis] “But the whole “spacial awareness and memory recall” concept seems to me to be highly suspect.”
The feel of X was/is good for you. That’s cool. You like–heck, you LOVE (all caps love, you note?)–the textual organization and the rich searchable metadata. Having it all organized in that corner there makes sense to you. Your thought processes fit very nicely with X’s interface metaphors. But not everybody’s’ mind works the same way yours does.
[Bill Davis] “In that way X is EXACTLY like every other NLE program in existance. Those who don’t “get it” are those who don’t use it. True of AVID, and Premier, and Vegas and X in perfectly equal measure, IMO.”
Exactly. That’s what this whole thread is about. It’s not about X being better or worse. You get lists. I get “my best CUs are at the bottom left, my VO sellects are tucked behind the playback monitor, and my dialog picks are right over here.” Not better. Not worse. Different.
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I’ll take you up on it too! Nomar!
I also have a concert of The Grapes on New Years at the Cotton Club I shot (with GA Tech’s BetaCam no doubt) from 12/31/94. That one will be destined for YouTube as well as the Nomar spot. The audio was horrible, but I found a soundboard of the event on web archive. I was plugged into the board on one channel, but the feed was distorted.
Maybe early next week eh? I’ll buy ya some lunch.
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[James Culbertson] “If you had asked me prior to this thread, I would have said that FCPX was the most visual of any NLE I have used. So, it is interesting to hear that some folks think it is less so than other editing apps.”
Visual, I think, is the wrong word. Or rather, its the wrong word once you get past color coding. The point is that some of us use spacial relationships and landmarks like color-coding to map out our thinking, or even just to think, to prioritize. The relational spacing of bins and timelines often reflect hierarchical importances, often subconscious–closer, for instance, is for more immediate use, further away or on the other monitor is not for use right now but I want it floating in my periphery vision so that it stays in the back of my mind.
In some respects, its like a crowded, semi-messy desk. People who can’t relate to them don’t understand that there is an awful lot happening on them for their owners. There are a lot of reminders and thoughts, hanging there, frozen. People who can’t relate to that see only chaos and slovenliness. They don’t see thoughts or ideas in the little piles and groupings. That’s “spatial awareness and memory recall.”
X is very orderly and very efficient. And very visually structured. You call a collection up. You use it. You dismiss it. You call another collection. It’s capable of admirably fierce organization. But you can’t leave little piles of it around, tucked in corners, stacked side by side or in rows or on top of each other. And, for a lot of people that’s just great. Clean desk, clean mind. For others, it’s empty desk, empty mind.
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[Bret Williams] “I also have a concert of The Grapes on New Years at the Cotton Club I shot (with GA Tech’s BetaCam no doubt) from 12/31/94.”
THAT sounds cool. Shout out when you post, will ya?
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The keywording can be a mess in disguise too. I’ve had producers bring me an already logged event, or even multiple events. The keyword collections often make sense to them but are puzzling to me. They’re really just that person’s version of piles. Keywords like “steve’s camera” or “good extras” might mean something to someone else, but nothing to me. Heck, my own bins and keywords usually mean nothing to myself when I come back to a project months later. And if I pull up my own AE project at a later date just to grab some technique or effect, I often can’t figure out how I accomplished something. No matter how well I tried to organize it. It’s all very much in the moment. Part of why we all hate to stop and break our train of thought when we’re deep into something.
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Call me Tuesday, shooting Monday.
Be good to see you.
Best,
John -
Aindreas,
Thanks for starting a good thread.
The difference between “stepping back” and “pushing forward” aside, I have many thoughts on the subject that relate (of course) to sequence-based editing vs. browser-based editing (as I’ve now come to call it). I think the principal difference might be context, but that’s probably for a longer post.
But I thought I’d drop this here now, since it seems somewhat relevant and maybe illustratively useful:
Page 3 of an overly long review of the Palm Pre, 2009, Jon Stokes
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/06/ars-palm-pre-review/3/The interesting part is the comparison of approaches between Palm Pre and iPhone:
“The iPhone’s address book, just like its iPod app, expects you to immediately begin browsing for the desired record on launch, so it contains little touches that help you drill down faster through your collection. [Ed: ie. finding items within pre-ordered groups within groups, think of tracks within albums within artists] … the entire device is designed around the structure-and-browse paradigm, so the default mode of user interaction for the iPhone is that of browsing a structured collection (of contacts, of music, of applications, etc.).
When you launch the Pre’s address book, you’re supposed to just start typing the name of the contact that you’re looking for … If you try browsing for the desired contact, you’re wasting your time, because the data is just not structured for this kind of discovery. Pre wants you to query a service, not browse a repository.”
Though we could argue direct parallels, it’s stronger as an illustration of two very different approaches to organizing and finding, which ultimately seems to be a difference in both framing idea and emphasis.
Franz.
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