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Stirring the pot…
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[Herb Sevush] “You put a premium on storing edit “decisions” before you begin to edit.”
I agree with Bill here, if I am correct in understanding his workflow.
I do a lot of detail work using keywords and favorites before one edit is made (doing that right now). As I do this, ideas come to mind, possible scene flows, etc. Once that process is done, call it “edit decisions before you begin to edit” if you will, I use the E key and append the sh** out of my selected cuts to the timeline to get a very rough storyline. Then the fine tuning happens. This is pretty much the workflow I have used with any NLE, but X makes it more efficient (for me). I am not sure what delaying these ideas in todays NLE world brings to the table.
I don’t sit there looking at an empty timeline and wait for inspiration. The inspiration comes out of the work, and for me, that starts right at the beginning.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Scott Witthaus] ” I am not sure what delaying these ideas in todays NLE world brings to the table.”
In Bill’s example he talked about the speed efficiency of making his initial selects so tight that he would loose the eye blink before the next line. I don’t want my initial selects to be that tight, I prefer to keep things as loose as possible till I have to make my final decisions – this way I’m always looking at and reviewing as much as possible. I like to keep it loose and whittle it down slowly, I realize other’s do not have the same approach.
None of this has anything specifically to do with X or Avid or any other NLE – these are basic workflow techniques and I could work my way as well with one editor as another.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
Herb,
Pardon me but you are still re-casting my point exclusively and narrowly from a point of view I don’t share.
You are stuck thinking about how X supposedly demands you to adapt to it.
Let make this crystal clear. It does not.
You can make X work EXACTLY as you ever have. If someone as an editor loves “whole tape” capture – never sub-clipped anything – and ONLY wants to spend their time endlessly manually trimming everything out of hour long takes to reassure themselves that there isn’t a single frame of vaguely useful content obscured by pre filtering – they can totally do that in X!
I don’t know WHY anyone would want to do that, but if they did, they could.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Pardon me but you are still re-casting my point exclusively and narrowly from a point of view I don’t share.
You are stuck thinking about how X supposedly demands you to adapt to it. Let make this crystal clear. It does not.”We seem to be talking at cross purposes here Bill. I agree with everything you say in this post. I do not think X forces you to do anything, I think it, like all other NLEs, allows you to work in a variety of styles. I’ve said this in all my posts, I can’t make this any clearer.
I was not discussing X, I was discussing YOU, and not in any sort of disparaging way, I hope. I was merely pointing out that you have an oft stated preference for “pre-editing” or “editing-in-the-browser” which X apparently is very efficient at. I was stating that this is something that holds little interest for me as a workflow, especially as it pertains to making very “tight” decisions early in the editing process. As in most aspects of what we talk about here, one persons strength is another persons weakness.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
Fair enough.
All my career, I’ve been seeing things that spark edit ideas during early stage footage review. It’s only since I adopted X that I feel I finally have a purpose built system to save those ideas in a way that makes real sense to me.
It’s nice, that’s all. The fault is likely mine in failing to describe it in a way that hammers home that it’s not a requirement, but an extraordinarily useful option.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
I see browser organization as homework, prep and the fun/creativity takes place on the playing field, the timeline. How much homework you have depends on the type of project and how much media you have imported. Some projects don’t require any key wording and some require a great deal – otherwise causing you to be seeking and re-reviewing and getting more and more confused.
I think FCP X certainly has a powerful browser but FCP legacy also used similar types of organization. I really don’t believe that X created a new way to edit. I think it added some new features and lost some others. But the most basic concepts are the same and the end results are the same. So its just a matter of which feature set works best for you. And I have noticed that other NLEs are stealing some of the good features that were introduced in X. Just as X put back some that were missing.
Even the so called trackless timeline in X is really a hybrid. For example when you open a multicam clip in the timeline and angle viewer everything is laid out in tracks on the timeline.
Isn’t nesting and compounding addressing the same needs? Aren’t connected clips following the same basic rules as layers in photoshop or track dominance in track based NLEs? I still would like X to move to tracks with connection points – i think that would be the best of both worlds.
I feel we live in strange times in terms of information and learning. Knowledge has certainly become more democratic with the revolution that the internet has created. But the constant practice to change how digital tools/interfaces work is in part counterproductive. There is such a thing as mastering a craft in order to be a more fluid artist/creator/producer. If people have to constantly be re-learning how those tools work, they will never be able to master them and will not be able to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. The tool is an extension of the worker not the other way around. And when it is the other way around, it’s not art. If you do all the heavy lifting in the browser and then just transfer the sequence to the timeline wholesale then its just a giant organized spreadsheet of media. Kinda like when screenplays were nothing more than a formula in which on page 90 you have a plot point which comes as a complete surprise (to no one) increases the conflict between good and evil to the point of being life threatening and drives the story home to its happy ending – boy gets THE girl on his way to blowing up THE bad guy.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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[Craig Alan] “If you do all the heavy lifting in the browser and then just transfer the sequence to the timeline wholesale then its just a giant organized spreadsheet of media.”
FWIW, and contrary to some opinions here, not everybody does all the heavy lifting in the browser. Personally I do just enough to let the browser do the heavy lifting for me. (Smart collections/Roles etc) To me, that is the major benefit of FCP X. And not just in the Browser, but everywhere in the app. Some tend to obsess about the metadata, but to me, that’s only a part of it. How I interact with the app, what it can do for me, or make doing much easier for me, is the big deal.
Other NLE’s can copy all the features they want, but unless they copy how X works -which they can’t because mean old Apple has it patented – X will always stand out. In a good way for me, YMMV 😉
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
~I still need to play Track Tetris sometimes. An old game that you can never win~
~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~ -
I think we are on the same page. I like the browser for the organization that it gives me both automatically and by allowing me to organize the way I wish. But its in the timeline that I make artistic decisions. And I like magnetism and connected clips in the timeline for quick and easy edits playbacks and experiments. I liked FCP legacy on the timeline because the keyboard short cuts to toggle between specific layouts was ergonomically vital. FCP X needs to add this feature. custom layouts which you can toggle between. For audio for color correction for cropping for rough cuts etc etc.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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[Craig Alan] “to toggle between specific layouts was ergonomically vital. FCP X needs to add this feature. custom layouts which you can toggle between. For audio for color correction for cropping for rough cuts etc etc.”
Totally agree. I resize/rearrange the relative size of the windows depending on what I’m doing. Be nice to save and recall the layouts. Pr works well-ish here with workspaces. But… you run into the same issue as in X if you rearrange windows/panels while in a layout. You still need to un-arrange stuff to get back to your “base” workspace state. As you noted, FCP 7 would save a recallable “base” state. We need that back 🙂
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
~I still need to play Track Tetris sometimes. An old game that you can never win~
~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~ -
[Craig Alan] “FCP X needs to add this feature. custom layouts which you can toggle between”
Well, you can sort of do this now.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/final-cut-pro-x-keyboard-tips/
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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