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The Magnetic Timeline – What’s The Paradigm?
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I don’t see how the “track model” is based on anything but how clips relate to one another; FCPX continues in this continuity.”
With the track model, clip relationships are only implied by where clips fall in time. Put a cutaway on V2. It’s probably timed in relationship to something that happens in a shot on V1, right? But a track-based NLE doesn’t know that. All it knows is that there are a bunch of shots on V1 that start and end at specific time indexes, and now there’s this shot on V2 that starts and ends at specific time indexes.
FCP X allows for the explicit representation of relationships between clips on different ‘tracks’ via clip connections, and the explicit representation of relationships between clips on the same track via storylines.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “When you write “timed to …” I suspect you are trying to describe something else – maybe “triggered in reference to” or a similar concept. This is a very useful idea and a welcome addition to tools in timelines. In agreement with other comments, I don’t see how this requires a “trackless model”. We may well see similar tools coming in other NLEs.
“If you keep tracks around, your sequences have two basic organizational principles interacting with each other in various ways that aren’t necessarily going to make sense. For instance, the connection-based model implies one thing about what to do in the case of clip collisions (overlap clips, which is displayed by showing them layered in vertical space), while the track-based model implies another behavior (overwrite, because the new clip is explicitly being placed into the same ‘slot’ occupied by the old one).
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “For instance, the connection-based model implies one thing about what to do in the case of clip collisions (overlap clips, which is displayed by showing them layered in vertical space), while the track-based model implies another behavior (overwrite, because the new clip is explicitly being placed into the same ‘slot’ occupied by the old one).”
The behavior could be the same with a tracked model as it is with the trackless model — promote clips to other tracks to avoid collision. It would then be up to the editor to manually resolve the proper track assignments.
Having direct control of track assignment does make some sense when your NLE is also a compositor.
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 -
[Herb Sevush] “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.”
I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but this just isn’t true. I’m certain you didn’t decide, before ever learning how an an NLE (or a Moviola) worked, on some sort of purely abstract way of “conceptually approaching media”, and then figure out how to use these tools to implement that. Your approach to these things has inevitably been a consequence of an interplay between your brain and the tools you’ve used. This is simply how humans function in the world.
And this makes very hard to objectively judge a tool that works in a significantly different way.
[Herb Sevush] “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.”
In other NLEs all of the tools are like the ‘Position’ tool, in that they cause the software to perform some particular low-level mechanical manipulation on the timeline. FCP X tries to provide tools that use the explicit shot relationships the editor conveys to the app to perform higher-level functions, but still provides the Position tool as a fallback.
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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 reminds me of the last AZFCPUG meeting which was about ZFS.
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I don’t think your being a jerk, at least not here, I find this interesting.
Your approach to these things has inevitably been a consequence of an interplay between your brain and the tools you’ve used. This is simply how humans function in the world.
True to a point, but since I started out working with 16mm film, rewinds, a viewer and a splicing block I would suggest that I was essentially tool-less.
It was the media itself that taught me. All you have to do is look at a bunch of film and mag track hanging in a bin and you begin to understand the essential un-connectedness of the editors job. it was only when I moved to “single system” tape, with audio physically attached to picture, with CMX style editing in which you basically could only move forward and never correct what already had been committed to tape, that the illusion of connections had to be overcome.
That was the great pleasure of NLE, the freedom of film, along with the freedom of not being tied to a finite work print, but instead given an infinite work print that could be pulled apart and reshaped endlessly. If you’ve ever had to search for a 3 frame clip in a bin or been stuck in an “on-line” tape session, you’d know what I mean.
So I would say that my approach has been shaped equally by both the essential nature of the media itself and the various tools I have already worked with.
Would I approach things differently if I grew up with FCPX – possibly, but I hope not.
“In other NLEs all of the tools are like the ‘Position’ tool, in that they cause the software to perform some particular low-level mechanical manipulation on the timeline. FCP X tries to provide tools that use the explicit shot relationships the editor conveys to the app to perform higher-level functions …”
Yes, I get this exactly. It’s just that I find this a serious flaw, while you find it a major advance.
If FCPX ever comes out with a multi-cam I can use, I’ll give it an honest whirl, and I’ll let the experience prove me wrong.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] “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.”
Great post, Herb. This seems to me to be absolutely right – the complex multi-faceted relationships of shots to one another and to all the separate audio components and a fluid and open approach to restructuring those relationships are fundamental to what editing is all about … as opposed to merely assembling shots back to back and slapping in the odd cutaway.
It does seem as though the FCPX editing model is predicated on an essentially simplistic view of the process.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Walter Soyka] “The behavior could be the same with a tracked model as it is with the trackless model — promote clips to other tracks to avoid collision. It would then be up to the editor to manually resolve the proper track assignments.”
Sure. But that’s the thing — track assignments, in a traditional track-based NLE, are often meaningful. Bumping things to other tracks is, therefore, an action that can destroy organizational structure that the editor has imparted. Trackless design avoids those sorts of side effects.
[Walter Soyka] “Having direct control of track assignment does make some sense when your NLE is also a compositor.”
That just requires you to be able to set the stacking order of connected clips, which of course you can do without tracks. Connected clips are overlapping clips — stacking order is one property that determines how they overlap.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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Thanks Simon. I think this has become the most interesting thread on the forum, so thank you David Lawrence.
And I should also tell you that I have been quoting one of your posts repeatedly (with attribution) all over the place. It was the one about Apple not being on the same path as us and our vulnerability because of that – that was a great post.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] “Thanks Simon. I think this has become the most interesting thread on the forum, so thank you David Lawrence.”
Thanks right back at you, Herb 😉 Agreed this is probably the most interesting thread so far – props to David L.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Chris Kenny] “Sure. But that’s the thing — track assignments, in a traditional track-based NLE, are often meaningful. Bumping things to other tracks is, therefore, an action that can destroy organizational structure that the editor has imparted. Trackless design avoids those sorts of side effects.”
Understood — which is why I said “it would then be up to the editor to manually resolve the proper track assignments.”
[Chris Kenny] “That just requires you to be able to set the stacking order of connected clips, which of course you can do without tracks. Connected clips are overlapping clips — stacking order is one property that determines how they overlap.”
I get that, Chris, but I’m talking about being both an NLE and a compositor at the same time — not just one or the other. I don’t think that track assignment matters in the context of compositing a single shot, but hard tracks are a very immediate visual representation of compositing in the context of the entire edit.
Of course I understand that you can also do this tracklessly with metadata. I only bring this up because I think the concept of arranging media spatially as well as temporally may have a really significant advantage based on the fundamental design principles of repetition, alignment, and proximity.
My most basic point is this: tracked editing allows an editor to use 2D space in the timeline to convey meaning. Trackless editing removes that ability.
I’m not necessarily passing judgment — just trying to point out the difference.
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
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