Steve Kanter: What FCPX CAN Do

[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “I don’t think that there’s anything inherent in the self-organizing, trackless, magnetic, relative timeline in FCPX that gives it new capabilities that the previous standard manually-organized, tracked, absolute timeline had. Am I missing something here?”

Not at all. I’ve never encountered a situation that I couldn’t handle in FCP 1-7.

[Walter Soyka] “I do think that FCPX’s pervasive metadata opens up new capabilities by essentially placing an asset management solution within the NLE, but I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t be added to a third-generation NLE. (Even better would be separating asset management from editorial, because though they are linked, I think they should be separate functions.)”

Absolutely right. The new metadata-based architecture holds wonderful promise. File management is currently broken, but even that could wind up in a good place. There are numerous advances throughout FCPX, none of which required a radical UI paradigm change. A UI/interaction model is an abstraction. It sits above the underlying architecture and can be whatever the designers decide. FCPX’s timeline design is a choice. The big question is how deeply that choice is baked into FCPX.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Thomas Frank]

Really I would think a multi clip would be easy you just take the clips that are in the sequence… I could do that manually. 😉

Isn’t all about in’s and out’s…. What I am saying is that if it’s possible then someone will make it possible and make that extra buck! It’s that easy so lets all see what happens.

[Thomas Frank]

Do you have to be one to see one or do have to know one? 🙂

[Craig Seeman]

I’m an editor and my ability to perceive things “differently” than others is an asset according to some of my clients. Breaking out of conventional thought avoids mundanity. It’s probably also why I see FCPX as an asset because the tool opens one to working a little differently.

[Gary Huff]

[Chris Upchurch]I think the “It’s impossible” vs. “Apple just didn’t want to” debate misses the point. Apple has a notorious perfectionist streak.

Apple’s “perfectionist streak” is merely an urban myth. FCPX being a point in that example.

[Paul Dickin]

[David Roth Weiss] “Had Steve Jobs told Randy Ubillos from the outset that his job depended on the necessary code that would open legacy projects, we’d all be better off now.”
Hi
Hmmm.
I think its OS X that’s going to be handling the XML, straight into CoreData…
Does OS X ‘understand ‘editing’?
There will have to be some sort of utility to turn random bits of QT FCP Legacy timeline XML into AV Foundation mutable gubbins. Then CoreData might have an inkling of what its supposed to be doing.

And Walter S. will say “that doesn’t make any sense”.
Which it doesn’t….
But that’s because Apple are doing ‘something’ we so far haven’t ‘understood’.

I guess that what SJ actually said was something along the lines of “Randy be sure to throw out all that legacy stuff, because where Apple’s headed nothing from the Apple Computers Inc era is going to remain.
After Lion, zilch!
OS XX Alto-Stratus (Cumulo-Nimbus?) won’t have a file system, won’t have a Finder, keyboard or mouse…”
The times they are a changin’….Bob’s avatar will do the keynote song :-).

And Walter S. will say “that doesn’t make any sense”.
Which it doesn’t.
Yet…: -(

So my bet (£10?) is on a x10 more cataclysmic Apple announcement a year or two down the line.
Which is the only way this summer’s debacle makes any sense to my way of thinking 🙁

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]FCPX needs more data about the edit that is available in the FCP7 timeline in order to make the magnetic timeline work. If FCPX were to open an FCP7 timeline, it would have to lose storylines, clip connections, and trackless magic.

What is this mysterious data that FCPX would need? What about an FCP7 timeline would cause an import into FCPX to lose all of these above? Will you care to elaborate?

[Herb Sevush]

I stand corrected on that point. AT least I’m safe to say that Avid invented Avid.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Paul Dickin]

[Shawn Birmingham] “After Effects was not invented by Adobe. It was invented by CoSA.”
Hi
A very apt reminder.
Adobe bought After Effects from Aldus (who had acquired it from CoSA) because…..
…..because users of Adobe Premiere v3 were absolutely clamouring for a motion control window bigger than Premiere’s postage stamp. And….
….and, you might guess it if you think about it….
….Randy said “sod off” (I paraphrase – I wasn’t there, I was clamouring) to Adobe when their managers asked Randy to ‘fix’ the aforesaid postage stamp.
So Adobe bought AE, to give users a proper motion control facility….

[David Roth weiss]

[Craig Seeman] “Breaking out of conventional thought avoids mundanity. It’s probably also why I see FCPX as an asset because the tool opens one to working a little differently.”

You need to find better material to work on Craig, it’s just that simple.

Christ, if we had known that was the issue we’d have been scouting for you since Jun 21st. Gosh, that would have saved a lot of reading.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.