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The Magnetic Timeline – What’s The Paradigm?
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “[Paul Dickin] … on AV Foundation. “It seems to me that the section I’ve emphasised is an excellent description of a basic FCP X timeline.”
Yes, indeed. It is also an excellent description of any timeline in any editing software.
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Hi
But its not describing ‘editing software’. Its describing the OS’s media-assembling foundation.
No other OS does things this way. So its freed the ‘editing software’ so that it can, if appropriate, present something else to us. -
[Andrew Richards] “I’m just pointing out AVFoundation isn’t the reason for the Magnetic Timeline.”
Hi
Agreed.
But I think it is an underlying reason for FCP X’s Project = Timeline (singular) = ‘one complex big mutable composition’ structure, which is more of a sticking point to me than the magneticness of the timeline display. -
[Franz Bieberkopf] “I find the idea that an editing software package needs to explain better what I’ve done in the timeline a bit amusing. As I implied in my post above, there are many things that I wish were clearer and easier to access in the editing software that I’ve used. Understanding the timeline has never been an issue in any of them.”
I don’t necessarily see the harm in allowing the timeline to capture more information about the editor’s intent, rather than less. It’d be especially helpful when handing a project from one editor to another.
That doesn’t meant that FCPX’s implementation of the idea is the best way to do it.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “This example seems to me a bit simplistic. When you think of supers, generally you think of them layered over your piece as a whole (a layer of supers over a layer of ongoing visuals); this assumption is borne out by the common practice of versioning for language. On the other hand, when you think of greenscreen, for example, you think of individual clips layered together. In the same way, you have vocal comping in an individual audio segment within a track, as opposed to mastering compression on a master track, as one example. There’s room for a bit of complexity in the way this is applied and the audio world is a useful reference.”
I chose the supers example because they are elements you must manage separately for versioning, but they are really intrinsically linked to the clips below them. I’m actually working on re-versioning a project for international distribution now, and something like clip connections would come in handy, because different localities require different cuts from the original domestic edit as the actual translations and clean/dirty deliverables.
My point on clip layering within a track as a way of clip connection was this: if you’re able to layer a super on a video clip to connect them within a single track, you must also add some sort of metadata to the super that identifies it as such if you want to generate a clean version (like muting a specific video track). This is the same problem that FCPX faces with delivering trackless audio for mixing — there was meaningful editorial information that we used to be able to store implicitly in the spatial arrangement of clips in the track layout which must now be handled explicitly with metadata.
Trackless editorial means we can’t use spatial arrangement as metadata anymore. I think that’s giving up a very fast, simple, and powerful tool that is well-suited to how our brains work (spatial arrangement), in exchange for a slower, highly flexible, and powerful tool that is well-suited to how computers work (relational database).
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Paul Dickin] “But I think it is an underlying reason for FCP X’s Project = Timeline (singular) structure, which is more of a sticking point to me than the magneticness of the timeline display.”
Why though? Why couldn’t they have just as easily gone with their old structure of sequences in a project? The whole organizational structure of Events and one-timeline-per-Project is independent of the underlying APIs being called to stitch the video data together (which is all AVFoundation does).
I think the new Events & Projects structure is absolutely a nod in the direction of the iMovie crowd looking to move up (the former Final Cut Express crowd), it creates a conduit to FCPX up from iMovie with 1:1 organizational methods. Apple seems to have merged FCE and FCP into FCPX, and the feature set in the current release is heavily skewed to the FCE end of the spectrum.
Best,
Andy -
[Paul Dickin]“…its freed the ‘editing software’ so that it can, if appropriate, present something else to us.”
Well, I’m not sure editing software needed to be freed of editing … but I’ve an open mind here. I’m just not seeing much – does FCPX, indeed “present something else to us”? If so, what is it?
I followed up my initial post with questions and comments about the details. This discussion was to be about “The New Paradigm”. I haven’t seen much new to suggest a shift in paradigm. In terms of new things (and I’ll omit the negative for the moment and stick to discussion of the timeline), this is what I can gather so far:
– auto managed tracks (a mix of positive and negative)
– auto collision avoidance (related to above)
– better implemented nesting (?)
– “sticky” clips or persistent relationshipsNone of this suggests a new paradigm.
What others seem to be suggesting, without really outlining their meaning, is the the underlying changes (AV Foundation) offer the possibility of new paradigms or that the new paradigm exists in the way media and data is handled and might one day surface as something new in FCPX. (Is this really new, or just a better database?)
The possibility alluded to [Andrew Richards] that FCPX may allow different views of the same timeline seems interesting (and perhaps fundamentally new). That is something I’d like to know more about – is that the paradigm shift?
But I’m using the software for editing. I can only assess what is actual and usable right now. If we’re speculating on “what might be”, why stop at FCPX?
Franz.
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[Andrew Richards] “Why though? Why couldn’t they…”
They didn’t 🙁
Designer’s whim.
As old FCP always had its Capture Scratch folder set by the application’s preferences, not by the project.[Andrew Richards] “…the new Events & Projects structure is absolutely a nod in the direction of the iMovie crowd…”
As is having still graphics in iPhoto and audio assets in iTunes.
In this iteration of FCP X – beta 0.9? – the media management design philosophy seems no further developed than iMovie. -
Quite right, Herb. As a general principle I trust my mind to organize how I want things more than I trust some decision tree algorithm, no matter how intelligent. Especially in complex, changing relationships.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Michael Aranyshev] “Interview audio is rarely left unedited under a cutaway. Often interview audio is edited first to a rather final cut before cutaways are overwritten.”
Sure. I was simplifying to illustrate the point. Clip relationships still work — and are still meaningful — even if you’re cutting primary around audio.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Herb Sevush] “While I need the ability to re-establish sync, easily accomplished in FCP7 with the sync indicators in the timeline, the idea that the software is trying to establish connections between elements is horrifying. The only connections that I want are in my perception of the elements”
This is basically saying “I’ve built my routines around the the way the software has worked up until now, and the new software is incompatible with them”. That’s fine, but it’s not actually anything wrong with the new software. Routines built up around the new approach could very well be better, for all anyone knows.
[Herb Sevush] “My B-roll cutaway can extend past the underlying VO morphing into a new master shot using stolen sync I’ve cobbled together from an outtake. And once I’ve cut it this way I’m likely to want to unscramble it into a totally different pattern tomorrow. I couldn’t know I was going to do this before I did it, how could any software expect to organize that for me?”
And this sort of thing is presumably why FCP X offers the ‘Position’ tool. The name of that tool is pretty interesting, isn’t it? It hasn’t got some conceptual name, related to performing a specific edit task. It’s literally the “put this exactly where I want it, and don’t guess what I’m trying to do in the process” tool, and it’s born out of a recognition that while the software understands more now than it used to, the human editor is still smarter.
[Herb Sevush] “I had the same reaction to the whole notion of the software “intelligently” organizing shots into WS, 2 shots and CU’s. Who on earth would let software organize their footage. Organizing decisions are at the heart of the editing process, what third party is going to understand my specific working patterns without my input?”
The beauty of metadata-based organization is that, because any shot can have an arbitrarily large number of tags, and you can create an arbitrarily large number of organizational schemes around those tags, you’re not married to a single organizational scheme. If you could only organize your footage in one way (as is the case with bins unless you duplicate clips all over the place, which quickly becomes impractical), then it would be crazy to let the software pick that way for you; it’s not smart enough. But with metadata-based organization, the organization the software is doing is just another way to find clips. It doesn’t preclude your own organization. And, in fact, you can use the automatically attached tags as part of your own organizational schemes, via smart collections.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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“This is basically saying “I’ve built my routines around the the way the software has worked up until now, and the new software is incompatible with them”. That’s fine, but it’s not actually anything wrong with the new software. Routines built up around the new approach could very well be better, for all anyone knows.”
I wasn’t talking about routines built upon previous experience with specific tools, I was referring to my way of conceptually approaching media. This is true for my work whether on an upright moviola or in a digital NLE.
The first and hardest thing for me to teach a young editor is to unlearn the apparent connections that you think exist – this sync audio is NOT married to this image, the beginning of this shot does not have to go before the end of this shot – every element that you have is totally free from all connections except those you, the editor, impose on it. And most importantly never think of anything you have done as permanent and connected until it’s out of your hands, and for me even when I see it projected I generally wish I could refine the connections I made.
This does not seem to be compatible with the design philosophy you just detailed for FCPX. I’m not being judgmental about wrong or right, I’m just explaining my own problems with it conceptually.
“And this sort of thing is presumably why FCP X offers the ‘Position’ tool.”
I’m glad FCPX adds tools that go counter to the fundamentals of the design, but it seems odd that one would have to use a special tool to do that which was natural to an editing systems before. I guess what I’m saying is that other NLE’s have never needed a position tool, and there’s the difference.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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