The Future of Editing

[Bernhard G.]

[Herb Sevush] “Which begs the question “why bother rethinking the process of video editing?””

I think what Apple has addressed with FCP-X is the increasing number of one-man-bands with it’s promise to have 90% of features for 90% of tasks available at the finger tips.

Many folks don’t have the time to learn 20 apps. But with huge and affordable packages it became a matter of course to be skilled in all of it’s apps.

The last 10 years can be characterized as an age of democratization. Features became available by bundling huge software packages, but also were inconsistently distributed among several apps.

IF Apple is right, then the next 10 years will be characterized as an age of consolidation. Features will be re-thought in the context of current market requirements and clustered into apps that fulfill those clusters of requirement. Other good examples for such processes are ClarisseIFX and HitFilm.

Best regards,
Bernhard

[Mark Raudonis]

[Herb Sevush] “You could rethink the car as well “

It’s already been done. Car “2.0” is called a “TESLA Model S”!

Test drive it and you’ll know you’ve seen the future of automobile transportation.

Mark

[Charlie Austin]

[Gary Huff] “The problem is that the “revolution” in editing is primarily the magnetic timeline…which doesn’t exactly engender warm fuzzies…plenty of people touting workarounds to get around that magnetic timeline. In my own experience, I found it worked for me about 40-50% of the time, with the rest of the time it fought me in what I wanted to do.

I agree about the “warm fuzzies”, and I also agree that magnetism, in it’s current state, sometimes requires workarounds. I’m curious what you felt was fighting you. For me, the ability to group for visual and editorial organization, bus roles for mixing, and the ability to temporarily “lock” Roles would solve 99% of the issues I have. Even now though, as far as the actual mechanics of cutting, It really is a revolution for me. I jump back and forth between various NLE’s, mostly 7 and X, but I have been in and out of Pr and MC recently as well. I feel like you do about X when I’m in the others. I’m fighting the rigidity of the timelines. Unlike some, I’m pretty confidant that Apple will improve the areas I noted above.

[Gary Huff] Everything else in FCPX is basically a “faster horse”, save for the database functionality which has already existed before (FCP Server) and has dubious benefit for someone like myself who tends to work on a one project basis and then archives it off into cold storage.”

Makes sense. For me, the database functionality of X is a huge benefit. Yes, all NLE’s use metadata, some more than others, but the implementation in X saves me enormous amounts of time. Especially on jobs with boatloads of sources to slog through. I get that not everyone works the same way, and what works for me won’t work for someone else.

Ultimately it really does come down to preference. At this point, IMO, the only major things lacking (there are plenty of little things, but no show stoppers -for me- really) in X are the TL improvements noted above, and better collaborative workflow options. The ability for multiple editors to simultaneously work with the same events/projects would be great for large organizations, and I’m confidant Apple is on this. As far as simply sharing or handing sequences and/or events back and forth like we’ve all done in FCP 7, X is pretty much there after the last update. Duplicate, give copy to other editor, they open it and go. Actually I only mention this because I just figured out an easy way to do it for our workflow 🙂

It was easier to go from MC to FCP back in the day, and it’s easier to move from 7 to Pr now. They look, and work, pretty much the same. MC is a stretch for people who’ve only worked on FCP, but at least it looks familiar. Ya know, what with tracks and all. 😉 I really believe that using X requires an editor to get over a sort of “hump” before it feels right. That’s pretty much true of learning any new software though right? And I think that many folks, particularly those who are busy, don’t get there. Whether due to time constraints, or just feeling like it’s not worth it. That’s not a “you just don’t get it” statement, I had to push myself to get over it. For me, it was worth it. For others, maybe not. All I can tell you is that I spend more time cursing at the screen in other NLE’s now because of all the stuff I now take for granted that they can’t do. YMMV. 🙂

————————————————————-

~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Kevin Monahan]

[Steve Connor] “Correct me if I’m wrong but Speedgrade doesn’t have dynamic link in the new version?”

Not quite yet. Make a feature request to add your voice: https://www.adobe.com/go/wish

We do have the Lumetri effect now, though. You can create a .look in SpeedGrade and save it. Then in Premiere Pro, add the Lumetri effect to a clip (or adjustment layer). The effect will allow you to open and apply the .look (or LUT). We also have presets you can apply. You can edit your .look back in SpeedGrade if you need to alter the grade.

Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead
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Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
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[Steve Connor]

[Kevin Monahan] “Not quite yet. Make a feature request to add your voice: https://www.adobe.com/go/wish

We do have the Lumetri effect now, though. You can create a .look in SpeedGrade and save it. Then in Premiere Pro, add the Lumetri effect to a clip (or adjustment layer). The effect will allow you to open and apply the .look (or LUT). We also have presets you can apply. You can edit your .look back in SpeedGrade if you need to alter the grade.”

I”ll do that, I’ve spent some time on SpeedGrade and it’s very good, I think dynamic link would be a major benefit and would certainly encourage me to use it more

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Derek Andonian]

[Steve Connor] I’ve spent some time on SpeedGrade and it’s very good, I think dynamic link would be a major benefit and would certainly encourage me to use it more

Dynamic linking to Speedgrade does sound really cool.

Of course, for that to work, Speedgrade would have to know what a .prproj is, so it can build your timeline into a Speedgrade project. Can Speedgrade open Premiere Projects yet?

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“Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Gary Huff]

[Charlie Austin] “And I think that many folks, particularly those who are busy, don’t get there. Whether due to time constraints, or just feeling like it’s not worth it. That’s not a “you just don’t get it” statement, I had to push myself to get over it. For me, it was worth it. For others, maybe not. All I can tell you is that I spend more time cursing at the screen in other NLE’s now because of all the stuff I now take for granted that they can’t do. YMMV. :-)”

But here’s the thing, it totally comes across as a “you just don’t get it” statement. I have done an entire project in FCPX, and had both good times and bad. But, at the end of the day, it was simply refreshing for me to return to Premiere for then next project. I feel like I know FCPX pretty well, and I absolutely do not hate it. But it’s a little too “pretty” in a way that takes up screen real-estate (not that Premiere couldn’t use some UI overhaul itself), and ultimately it’s just a different way of doing things…nothing of which I felt saved me time or headache.

[Charlie Austin] ” I’m curious what you felt was fighting you.”

Replacing clips in the timeline. My project was a music video and so it’s the constantly evolving piece. I found that the clips would go out of sync with the music if you tried to replace or trim anything (say you wanted to shorten one clip and extend another to keep everything else surrounding it in time with the music, but just wanted to trim up a particular section to make it work better. FCPX would constantly move things around on you and when you selected the mode to add the gaps, then you’d have to remove the gaps, sometimes which left just the littlest black space in the video…totally annoying).

[Steve Connor]

Gary, were you using the Primary? for music edits I tend to do a rough assembly in the primary and then lift everything up into a secondary for fine cutting and finishing.

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Craig Seeman]

[Gary Huff] “Replacing clips in the timeline. My project was a music video and so it’s the constantly evolving piece. I found that the clips would go out of sync with the music if you tried to replace or trim anything (say you wanted to shorten one clip and extend another to keep everything else surrounding it in time with the music, but just wanted to trim up a particular section to make it work better. FCPX would constantly move things around on you and when you selected the mode to add the gaps, then you’d have to remove the gaps, sometimes which left just the littlest black space in the video…totally annoying).”

I’m wondering if this is more related to understanding the FCPX workflow and feature set. Connected clips and Secondary story lines don’t lose sync if you’ve anchored them to music in the primary story line. It the purpose of clip connections.

If you’re editing in the primary (this is a workflow choice when doing a music video) you can use the P tool rather than the A tool and everything stays put.

If the connected clips need to stay anchored to a point in the primary story line while things move there, you use the tilde key. And, unless Apple has broken the “secret feature” you can even lock the tilde key into an Always On state and the connected clips will stay put.

I find the only sync risk is when you must detach audio and I find I don’t seem to need to do that much with the new audio component feature.

Granted some might find all the above a bit “modal” but, none the less, the functions are there to keep sync depending on the workflow. If a given workflow seems to be at higher risk for losing sync than perhaps the workflow is at issue.

[Ty Vann]

Love the Cow for this endless debate on the merits of editing systems. I guess that’s the point. It’s an end in itself, and most of it is about the technology and different variations on the same task by the NLE systems. That difference is actually not that big. That’s where this debate sometimes turns tedious. Because no matter the differences between the NLE tools and their iterations, editing is and will always be about visual storytelling. The language of motion picture storytelling, editing, will always be the same. The future of editing is the past of editing.

So what I look for in an NLE is the ability to stay out of the way and allow me to put a story together in the most efficient way. The best NLEs should strive for that. None has come close yet, though it seems Apple is creating a path to go in that direction.