The Magnetic Timeline – Time, Space and One Clock To Rule Them All

[David Lawrence]

[David Cherniack] “What’s not clear is how it deals with complex insert situations”

I think this is a huge question and it’s the how I tend to do the bulk of my work. My hunch is we’ll see the first scaling issues here and with sound mixing.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Richards] “both the traditional and magnetic timelines express a linear time scale against which media is laid out in sequence, so I don’t think there is a seismic a shift as David’s premise suggests.”

Linear time scale is not the issue, it’s about frame-of-reference in regards to spatial representation and object/space behavior. I think it’s a pretty big deal in terms of UI design change. In fact, I can’t think of any application that uses it’s main window quite like this. But I’ll keep looking 🙂

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
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[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Lawrence] ” In fact, I can’t think of any application that uses it’s main window quite like this. But I’ll keep looking :)”

Smoke comes to mind.

[David Lawrence]

[Paul Dickin] “In the late 90s a new program called mTropolis was born – OS 9 only 🙁 (It was later bought out and killed by Quark!!!)”

Interesting you should mention mTrop. Somewhere in my studio I have a copy of 2.0 given to me by the CEO of the company. In the pre-dot com mid-90’s I was partner in a Paul Allen funded start-up. Our company designed and produced two CD-ROM titles and were spun off as a new venture that became a national brand.

That story is for another time but the core technology my company bet on was mTropolis. I loved how it was designed as an object-oriented system for building event driven interactive experiences. Light years better than the Director UI model. So smart and efficient! I was devastated when Quark killed it.

But here’s the thing. We authored in mTrop, but we had a Media 100 to create all our time-based assets. Media 100 and Premiere for any and all time-based work. mTrop for integration and interactivity and interactive time-based play.

[Paul Dickin] “At that stage of the editing process a Node-Based interface paradigm could be totally appropriate (and productive), in my view.

A question to David L.:
How much time have you spent using Shake or the node-based part of Color?”

I’ve played with Shake, Nuke and a bit with Color. My brother Dan is way more expert than I am but we’ve discussed it a lot. My take (and bro concurs) is that node-based processes are fantastic on a shot/scene level. But they don’t give you much leverage in editing because editing is a fundamentally different kind of process with very different concerns driving the task.

To put it more simply, the timeline is optimized for time-driven manipulation, but thu layer stacking and filter ordering you can roughly simulate a nodal pipeline. A nodal pipeline is highly optimized for shots but may have a timeline attached because it’s comping in a time-base effect. You can work in both, it’s all about picking the best tool for the job.

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

[Andrew Richards]

[David Lawrence] “Linear time scale is not the issue, it’s about frame-of-reference in regards to spatial representation and object/space behavior. I think it’s a pretty big deal in terms of UI design change.”

I completely agree with that, but that isn’t what I understood your opening post to be about. This is the bit I’m referring to:

[David Lawrence] “This is where things get curious with FCPX. FCPX has changed the master clock.

FCPX changes the frame-of-reference for the master clock from what we’ve used for decades — the sequence window, a fixed, external frame-of-reference defined by absolute spatial position — to a container object inside the sequence window.

In FCPX the primary storyline is the master clock.

This is why there can only be one primary storyline. This is why connected clips only connect to the primary storyline. In object-speak, the primary storyline is the parent container for all media events in the sequence (project).

This change in itself is a big deal. It means that in FCPX, we edit the temporal frame-of-reference as we edit our piece.

And it gets more complex because FCPX’s master clock has gravity. Locked in ripple mode, the primary storyline always pulls all contained objects to the singularity of 00:00:00:00. This is useful if you need help avoiding black gaps in your program, but it has a side effect of constantly changing the time position of everything else you’re working on. This may or may not be a problem depending on what you’re doing.”

My initial understanding of your argument from that excerpt was that the media in the Primary Storyline is the base manifestation of time scale in the FCPX timeline.

I disagree.

The timeline is the master clock, just like it is in FCP7. In FCPX, you create a Project and set its frame rate. In FCP7, you do the same thing with a Sequence. Both offer the option to match the frame rate of the first clip added to their respective timelines. Before any media is added, before any Primary Storyline is created, the FCPX timeline has a “Master Clock”, to borrow your terminology.

The big change, IMHO, isn’t that time is rooted somewhere new. The big change is, as you put it, is with “spatial representation and object/space behavior”. This absolutely forces the user to adopt new habits for constructing an edit, but the way time is framed hasn’t changed, just the way it is filled with content.

Granted, a ripple edit, which is the default behavior for the magnetic timeline, will alter where on the timeline subsequent media sits, but this is true in traditional timelines as well. It just isn’t the default. FCPX has a Position tool for making adjustments to the timeline without incurring a ripple, just like FCP7 has a Ripple tool to do the opposite. The default behaviors differ, but the way time is metered does not.

I get the sense your main objection to FCPX’s default timeline behavior is that when you are editing, you do not want to ripple the edit because this ruins direct clip-to-timline spatial relationships you already placed further down the timeline.

I now understand your “master clock” to be not the time scale set for the timeline, but rather the spatial relationships of the clips relative to the timeline. I understand why the shift from placing disconnected objects in what is essentially a grid (traditional timeline) to stringing together explicitly connected objects (magnetic timeline) is significant, but my take on it is that any UI metaphor forces the user to adopt interaction habits based on the UI’s behavior. The UI metaphor you helped invent has been used for decades by every major NLE since, so it is a powerful convention.

Breaking decades old habits and muscle memory is a shock to any user, and I think that’s a huge reason why so many veteran editors recoil from the way default behavior of FCPX’s timeline. I was certainly very disoriented the first time I sat down at FCPX in February at SFO waiting for my flight back from the now infamous “jaw dropping” private briefing. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I they gave us tutorials to follow and I plowed through them trying to keep an open mind.

All things considered, I now like the new timeline. It needs some tweaks, well documented around here, like Precision Editor support in Secondary Storylines, persistent two-up Viewer any time Precision Editor is engaged, more consistent transition behavior, and the already-announced audio output mapping. But I love the potential in it, and honestly I feel I spent a lot of energy manually accounting for collisions in legacy FCP, and I won’t have to think about that in FCPX.

I can also appreciate how others might hate the new way even after giving it a fair shake, so to each his own on that one.

Best,
Andy

[Herb Sevush]

“I feel I spent a lot of energy manually accounting for collisions in legacy FCP”

Really? Can you give some examples of this and then describe how it’s easier in FCPX.

Personally, this whole “clip collision” issue is something I don’t get, I’ve never been editing in FCP and said to myself – “damm, these clip collisions are killing me, there must be a better way.” But maybe I just don’t get what you’re talking about so an example would be helpful.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Herb Sevush] “I’ve never been editing in FCP and said to myself – “damm, these clip collisions are killing me, there must be a better way.””

Most likely because you just intuitively maneuver your way around them. I know I do. Most often there’s 2-3 “moves” to be done before rearranging clips/timing. It happens so fast that most of us probably don’t even think about it anymore (tttt, slide thing out of the way, do the split cut, overwrite, insert whatever you’re doing, time that out, then, tttt and slide things back in to place and reposition, trim, polish and review).

With ripple or roll in FCP7, if you hit a clip that is not linked to either the incoming or outgoing clip (say another separate audio piece or graphic that is 2-3 tracks above/below the tracks you are working on), FCP7 won’t let you trim anymore. FCPx takes care of this by simply sliding the clips out of the way, but keeping them in place and the things connected to them in time, not necessarily at the same exact tc mark, but they are still together.

I find trimming and moving in FCPx way easier. I do miss the audio only cross fade, but splitting the a/v and doing two fades is pretty damn easy. Split cuts are ridiculous easy.

For the past seven months I have been working on a VO based project that consists of 10 or so videos that are VO, broll, text and graphics. In FCPx, it would be really nice as the VO would be the primary story line and I could connect everything to the appropriate sections of the VO. If things change up or down the timeline, all those connected pieces stay in place to the piece of VO and I won’t have to worry about which graphics might been knocked out of place, or selecting everything and moving it making room for a new/changed piece, or manually moving graphics/broll/audio/music whatever to a new track only to find that there’s something 15 seconds down the timeline that is getting in the way, so I have to create two new tracks and move everything down there and then move the music in, or rearrange the audio so that it all fits in their lanes. In FCPx they are all connected to their parts. Now, I know what I am doing in FCP7, so it’s not so bad, but there are many little moves I have to do in order to make sure that everything is in sync and still relationally relevant. The magnetism of FCPx would take a bit of that handling away from my responsibility as I know that all the other relational clips are connected to certain parts of the VO. Very handy if you ask me.

I also think people underestimate the audition feature in FCPx and how the magnetic timeline is so entirely crucial to it’s workings. Michael Gissing brought this up in another David L post as to how Fairlight works with audio (several clips in one track, and the top most clip always gets played) and I think the Audition function is exactly that. The nice thing is that the entire timeline will follow along depending on the length of the clip you use in audition. This also removes versioning of sequences. Hell yeah, it’s different, and I think with practice, it will be more efficient for me. Others might not think so, but that’s cool, you can always use the 64 bit version of FCP that is PPro.

Then there’s the compound clips. Finally, nesting that can actually be used in FCP. It’s funny, in AE I use nesting (precomps) all the time to keep the timeline tidy and effect whole sequences, but in FCP≤7 I don’t because nesting is so weird and a pain in the ass due to shotty XML handling. Compound clips are way more efficient than nesting ever was in FCP7 (or AE for that matter). Again, Smoke comes to mind.

Jeremy

[Andrew Richards]

Jeremy laid it out better than I would have. I yield the floor.

Best,
Andy

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” I do miss the audio only cross fade, but splitting the a/v and doing two fades is pretty damn easy.”

Check out Alex Gollner’s audio only transition:

https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/fcpx-transition-sound-only/

It works.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Herb Sevush]

“FCPx takes care of this by simply sliding the clips out of the way, but keeping them in place and the things connected to them in time, not necessarily at the same exact tc mark, but they are still together.”

But once you’ve slid these things out of the way, don’t you then still have to decide what to so with them. If I get it right, in the magnetic timeline if I extend or move a piece of audio, the already existing audio simply slides to a new track, but keep it’s temporal place in the timeline, and I now have 2 pieces of audio fighting each other.

Generally I don’t want the audio sliding to a new track, I want it to either be rippled down the timeline or overwritten entirely. It sounds to me like you have just delayed making the decision as to what you want to do with the 2 pieces of conflicting audio. If it’s video sliding out of the way you now have 1 clip buried by another doing nothing, waiting a further decision.

I’ll apologize if I’m being obtuse here, I haven’t tried X yet because I’m strictly multi-cam and for the time being it’s not an option, but ever since seeing the NAB sneak, this whole “clip collision” thing has made no sense to me.

I get the Auditions Feature, Compound Clips = Nesting improved, I get that as well. But even after your discussion, I still think most rippling, sliding, trimming operations are either too complex or too simple to need this feature. I’m not saying it would never come in handy, but I consider it a fairly trivial addition to an editors tool kit. Again, maybe it will have to wait till I actually try it, if ever.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions