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The Mother of All NLE Demos
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[Walter Soyka] “A track can only accommodate a single element at a specific time in Premiere Pro today, but that doesn’t mean that a tracked system can never avoid clip collisions.”
There’s some precedent for that already. Logic and Vegas both will apply automatic dissolves/crossfades as one clip collides with another on the same track. There are also some applications (Soundtrack Pro?) that will move a clip behind another clip at overlap points.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Jeff Markgraf] “I think Bill’s point is that “I like working this way/I’ve always worked this way” is absolutely NOT equivalent to “I MUST work this way.” If we stay focused on the result, rather than the process, we can evaluate and perhaps adopt new and different ways of working.
“True. But in my case there is so much about the design precepts of X that run counter to all my editorial leanings that while I find, at a distance, much to admire about X it has never struck me as the place I would want to invest my time. My dream NLE hasn’t shown up yet, but I’m still waiting.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
I don’t have issue with your characterization at all.
But what you wrote did bring to mind the young Indy editors panel at the FCPWorks suite at NAB. They were hiring the sound team and somebody with beaucoup experience pushed back on doing daily sound reports via Lumberjack on an iPad. Being accustomed to paper reports, the potential hire requested he be allowed to do it as he was used to doing it. The Producer said something like “THIS is how we’re going to do it. And if you want the gig, it’s how you will do it as well.” The point is that the inefficiency of paper sound reports compared to real time Lumberjack logging was simply something the filmmakers were unwilling to accept..
Link to the piece is here:
https://youtu.be/ke3heAasfdEWatch and listen at 11:15.
For good or ill. That moves the needle.
Something that gets more done for less money survives. That’s all.
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[Oliver Peters] “FWIW – PPro has its own set of audio gotchas. If you don’t correctly assign channel configuration of source clips BEFORE anything is edited to the timeline, operator errors occur. Usually this means dual-mono (2 mics) camera tracks are edited to the PPro timeline as stereo. There, you can’t change it after the fact, but you can make both left and right be one channel/mic or the other. For that sort of stuff, I prefer FCP 7 or MC over PPro.
“This has what I have been saying. I even sent a library and a project over to Aindreas to show how hard this is in Pr and how easy it is in X, and I haven’t heard back. Pr certainly has some strong audio features, but the tracks, and all the different types of audio tracks are severely over complicated, and if things aren’t set quite right, you can find yourself down a huge rabbit hole, as you point out. If all you need are stereo outputs, Pr is fine, but once multichannel output starts, it can get pretty messy pretty quickly. Fcp7, at least, has a one track per channel method that made sense when mapping, Pr is much harder, and I’m not taking about hard to figure out, but hard to use. This is why I have a hard time when people say Pr’s audio is superior, then I suppose that people haven’t tried exporting stems. Compare that to X where it can be as easy as just a few clicks if you took about 10 seconds to setup even the most rudimentary of Roles after import.
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“The Producer said something like “THIS is how we’re going to do it. And if you want the gig, it’s how you will do it as well.” The point is that the inefficiency of paper sound reports compared to real time Lumberjack logging was simply something the filmmakers were unwilling to accept..”
I’ve got to say that I watched that piece originally and honestly their attitude rubbed me the wrong way. The editor looked supportive, but not completely. I understand the value of how Lumberjack works, but in reality, as an editor, I would want both – electronic and paper reports. If I had only electronic reports, I’d still want them printed, same as the script. To have a producer with minimal feature experience, telling people what tool they should use or not use as an ultimatum isn’t in the best interest of the project.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Andrew Kimery] “I don’t find the idea daunting, just not as good as the color coding and track assignments approach I took for this one specific project I’m referencing. What can I say, I really like using color coding as an organization”
I get it, completely, but I would challenge the “not as good”. I’m not saying you would like Roles or a data sort based approached any better then color coding and strict track assignments, or even that, on an existential level, the data based model is better, but I could make a strong argument. If you receive other people’s timelines to send out to final grade and mix and get back for conform, X’s approach allows me to quickly rip through and organize timeline outputs on timelines that I have little knowledge of. With messy track based timelines, I have to go through clip by clip and make sure I’m not missing anything. X allows assigning organizational points to big groups of clips very very easily. To me and for my needs, it’s a huge plus, but it does take some ramp up.
[Andrew Kimery] “Also, I assume you mean keyword-centric workflow as things like track assignments and color coding are metadata too.
“Absolutely. That’s why I mentioned Roles provide very similar function, but look completely different than color coding.
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[Oliver Peters] “My point before was that people would be more likely to do this, if those settings options were part of the import window. Seems like a very easy addition by Apple.
“I’ve asked for it for a long time too as it would help me, but this omission, in no way, prevents learning fundamental organization in X.
I also think that it may get tricky with programs that send Role information in the XML, as there’s a chance that the information could get overwritten.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “So – does the “trackless” structure of X preclude the implementation of the mixing and bussing techniques commonly associated with “tracked” NLEs? (Not that I expect you to have the final answer, Herb!) I think this is a much more useful extension of the seemingly endless tracks vs. trackless merry go round.”
Easy to answer. There should be no reason that Roles cannot emulate everything that is possible with bussing, track based processing and buss based signal processing to a final mix bus. After all tracks to busses is just a visual way of organising a signal workflow which is not what is happening under the hood. DAW mixers are using tracks as an organisational tool and a display order of processing of the signal flow. Sure a trackless Roles based system should be able to do the exact same.
If they get it right it may even be better for some workflows like features with hundreds of tracks which often have so many tracks because they are using individual dialog tracks for each actor. A lot of inefficient tracklaying happens because of using tracks to organise so I am the first to admit that a trackless Roles based system may have efficiencies in such workflows. Under the hood coding however if designed with that in mind should have potentially been incorporated to some extent by now. It worries me that it hasn’t which makes me wonder why something that useful if easy hasn’t yet shown itself, even in basic form.
Some here will argue that they don’t need it and fair enough if your workflow is simple and deliverables do not require sophisticated stems with signal processing. Meanwhile Pr, Vegas (and soon Resolve 12) have that capability of track based processing, bussing and insertable plugin processing. So it is already a feature of track/bus based systems. I am keen to see if Roles can be made to emulate that as many require that in a finishing tool.
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[Walter Soyka] “A track can only accommodate a single element at a specific time in Premiere Pro today, but that doesn’t mean that a tracked system can never avoid clip collisions.”
[Oliver Peters] “There’s some precedent for that already. Logic and Vegas both will apply automatic dissolves/crossfades as one clip collides with another on the same track. There are also some applications (Soundtrack Pro?) that will move a clip behind another clip at overlap points.”I’ve said it so many times here that clip collision is a problem that was solved last century by dSP and Fairlight with non destructive clip stacking on a track. Why that never made it into an NLE staggers me along with ergonomic controllers. Two elegant solutions that have been field tested for twenty years.
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It might be lovely if we lived in a world where money always flowed towards talent and/or experience. But sadly that is not the system we live in. Money more typically flows to those who can prove that when they are entrusted with capital, they are able to both manage the risk and deliver a return. Like that or not, it’s been capitalism since day one. Demonstrate the capacity to control costs on movie one, and it’s much more likely somebody will trust you with the money to make another. And so it goes.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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