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The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example
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[Chris Kenny] “Err… these are absolutely implementation details. Neither of these behaviors is in any way required by the process of editing in the abstract.”
Chris, the problem with that argument is that the process of editing never happens in the abstract. Editors work in the real world. Lots ideas are fantastic in the abstract, but quickly hit a wall in actual use. FCPX is filled with them. Implementation reflects design intention.
[Chris Kenny] “I imagine the debate is over whether to allow the main timecode viewer to be switched to show source timecode, something that would be useful, but potentially confusing, thus the debate.”
Confusing to whom? This is supposed to be professional software for professional editors. I think we can handle it. Just sayin’ 😉
[Chris Kenny] “As far as persistent in/out points, I suspect the ‘con’ argument is that explicitly marking favorites is better practice and not very hard to adapt to.”
In/Out points and favorites have different uses in a typical editorial workflow. I think of favorites as virtual sub-clips. In/Out marks are something entirely different. The hypothetical ‘con’ argument just doesn’t make sense. As far as In/Out marks go, it’s a no-brainer. I expect we’ll see them an update eventually.
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David Lawrence
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So, how’s everyone doing?
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[Chris Kenny] “Source timecode for clips in the timeline can be trivially found by using the ‘Open in Timeline’ command.”
Or selecting the trim, blade or range tool and skimming over a clip in line.
[Chris Kenny] “I imagine the debate is over whether to allow the main timecode viewer to be switched to show source timecode, something that would be useful, but potentially confusing, thus the debate.”
Yes. What happens when you have 5 layers of video and 16 tracks of audio, all with their own tc? Which one do you show?
[Chris Kenny] “As far as persistent in/out points, I suspect the ‘con’ argument is that explicitly marking favorites is better practice and not very hard to adapt to.)”
I agree, but it would be nice if I select a range, then click off of that clip to get check something else (like double check I have the right shot or something), then click back on that clip that the range will still be there. The range remains until I click somewhere.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “So, how’s everyone doing?”
It’s been hard to think about this stuff the past couple days. Finally getting my wind back.
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “It’s been hard to think about this stuff the past couple days. Finally getting my wind back.”
Yeah. I hear that.
https://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/399182/october-06-2011/tribute-to-steve-jobs
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[Jeremy Garchow] ”
Yeah. I hear that.https://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/399182/october-06-20...
“Nice. Love Colbert — he had me laughing all the way up to the end bit with the email. Sigh.
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David Lawrence
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Thanks again, Jeremy for the thoughtful and well-documented response and for keeping this conversation going.
Apologies for the delay, last week was hard and flew right by. Let’s dig back in.
[Jeremy Garchow] “OK. In FCPX There’s a couple of ways to do this…
…An alternative way is to log all the clips in the browser, marking favorites as you go. You can then name those favorites, select them all and hit ‘e’ to put all the different favorite ranges in the timeline. Screen grabs of event and subsequent timeline here:”
I’m with you all the way here. I really like working with favorites in the browser. As soon as that XML transfer utility is available, I’m ready!
[Jeremy Garchow] “Moving on to the edit.”
Here’s where we run into trouble. There are two main bottlenecks — one slows me down, the other is a deal-killer.
The first bottleneck is inflexible layout options. Aindreas’ subthread did an excellent job covering the issue. My bins are usually much fewer and simpler than his example but I share the same need of getting a quick overview of all my source at a glance. It’s crazy how much UI space is wasted on chrome and empty space in FCPX. Even setting font size in the browser to small doesn’t help that much, gaining only a few extra lines. Still, I can manage. It takes more fussing and scrolling than I like but I can get to what I want. And as you’ve demonstrated so well, the flexibility of favorites and keywords are really great.
The second bottleneck is the timeline itself. Your example above is similar to my own attempts to match my FCP7 cutting style in FCPX. As you’ve demonstrated and I’ve found for myself, it’s certainly doable. All the techniques work.
But it’s not very efficient and feels like it’s fighting against the design of the program. The reason for this has to do with the nature of the position tool and gaps. This is probably one of my biggest issues with FCPX and one of the most misunderstood aspects of the magnetic timeline. It’s big enough issue that it deserves its own topic so I will address that here:
The Position Tool Does Not Disable Ripple Mode – Here’s Why
Please join me in that thread to get into the nitty-gritty of ripple-mode, gaps and the Position Tool.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Where it does differ is that you can’t mark in and out and export from the timeline. In that case, you’d either dupe the timeline and delete everything you don’t want, or you’d send to compressor and mark the ins and outs in Compressor to compress, definitely not as convenient for sure. It is functionality like this where FCPX needs some help, but these refinements seem like programming add-ons, not undoable impossibilities. “
Yes, hopefully we get In/Out points for export soon. Case in point – here’s a timeline that has nothing to do with story:
Those are sixteen 15-second interstitials. I export them one at a time by setting In/Out and choosing export. You can imagine the headache of dealing with this right now in FCPX. The current project architecture doesn’t seem to consider the many possible uses for a timeline besides linear story. There’s so much more you might want to do. I do things like this example a lot. To be fair, I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to set persistent In/Outs for export soon. I can’t imagine any debate over this 😉
[Jeremy Garchow] “As far as the STPro workflow, perhaps STPro isn’t needed in FCPX anymore? The filters are there, the real time is there, and provides a bit more flexibility for changes. If changes come, you don’t have to deal with a change list, you can simply work right in the timeline. Tracks on clips can be easily tuned off en masse if needed in the inspector > Audio > Channel Config, even before the clips hit the timeline, or after. Secondary story lines/Compound clips can make adding filters to similar clips easier. Hopefully an update to Roles will help to being an audio bus functionality to FCPX. An Effects tab in the Timeline Index would help here too.”
I’ve experimented with this and I see potential, but it’s not there yet. First off, it’s great to be able to use VST plugins directly in the program. Excellent to be working with the plugin’s native UI instead of sliders. Real-time performance without rendering is awesome. That said, it’s just not good enough yet. It really feels like my computer is maxing out after I add a couple audio filters. In my test, adding VST noise reduction and compression slowed everything to a crawl. I also was getting audio pops that would not go away no matter what I tried. It felt slow and flaky until I turned audio filters off. Maybe my 3-year old unibody macbook pro is a bit too old, but I have no problems when I round trip to STP. Everything works smooth as silk.
I think it’s asking a lot for one program to do everything. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that these features are there and I’m sure they’ll be useful. But specialized tools will always carry the day in terms of power, flexibility and quality. Fortunately, the tools for data exchange are moving forward. That actually brings up an interesting point that David Roth Weiss raised in another thread:
[David Roth Weiss] “Should proper “tracked” exports in FCP X ultimately be implemented by Apple or a third party, the question is, will long-form editors will really want to work for months with one view of their project, only to look at and implicitly trust an entirely different view of the same complex project just before taking it to their favorite mix facility?
Personally, my intimate knowledge of the layout of every event on the timeline in one of my edits is always quite helpful when I go into a mix, as the mixer is almost always seeing the project for very first time. Do I want to be seeing it for the first time too when I’m on the clock at a mix facility? I don’t think so…”
I haven’t gotten into tracks vs trackless in this topic, but I think this is an interesting and salient point to consider.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Trimming in X is a lot easier, J&L cuts are very simple, and once you start laying in broll, the connected clips make moving things around very easy. I guess my question is, how can you see this not being accomplished with the magnetic timeline?”
Let’s get into this in the new topic linked above.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I think that using the browser to help organize your selects is a pretty efficient way to start telling the story. I understand that maybe that’s not the way you work, but it wasn’t the way I worked either as FCP Legacy’s browser kinda sucks, so putting everything in a timeline was logical. FCPX allows for objects and visual thinking, but it also allows for text based searching as well. This is the best of both worlds if you ask me.”
I totally agree this is a powerful way to work in the organizing stage. Once we have the ability create our own layouts, I’ll like it even more. But there’s one key advantage of my timeline method that your example doesn’t address — when I’m marking my favorites, my favorite ranges are soft. I may know that a particular sound bite is good, but there’s always surrounding contextual speech that I may not know I need until much later in my editorial process.
With everything exposed on the timeline I have instant visual access to my marked sections, and I can easily skim to find related material that I didn’t realize was important at the time. When you Control-f to create objects as in your example, you only see the ranges that were marked ahead of time. In order to see the favorites in the context of the clip, you need to go back into clip-view. I can select ranges and add to the timeline from the browser, but there appears to be no way to see favorites on a whole clip once it’s added to the timeline. I would expect to see favorites in the clip’s timeline index at the very least. Maybe I’m missing something here?
How would you do something like this or is it a feature request?
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David Lawrence
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[Steve Connor] “and well done for starting the most interesting and productive thread on this forum so far IMHO”
Thank you Steve. I appreciate your questions and comments along with everyone else’s. A couple people have questioned the value of the FCPX debate forum in general, but I find I learn a lot here. Let’s keep it going!
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “The first bottleneck is inflexible layout options. Aindreas’ subthread did an excellent job covering the issue. My bins are usually much fewer and simpler than his example but I share the same need of getting a quick overview of all my source at a glance.”
Yeah, it took me a long while to grasp what he was saying as with FCPX, I find that I can do much more (meaning have access to my footage) with much less space, and quickly. But if you don’t work that way, you don’t work that way and you should have the option to change it. I get it now.
[David Lawrence] “But it’s not very efficient and feels like it’s fighting against the design of the program. “
I would agree here. I think a lot of the organization stays in the Browser with X, while the assembly happens in the timeline. With the almost immediate access to footage in the browser without opening anything (or by just typing) I think it saves a lot of pre-sequence assembly, but again, you don’t work that way.
[David Lawrence] “Please join me in that thread to get into the nitty-gritty of ripple-mode, gaps and the Position Tool.”
Done and already done!
[David Lawrence] “That said, it’s just not good enough yet.”
Yeah, it might not be, but it’s a great start, IMO. As far as your computer not being up to the task, it might because you are processing video, too? Perhaps try muting the video and see what happens as a test. Are you running 64 bit with lots of RAM?
[David Lawrence] “To be fair, I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to set persistent In/Outs for export soon. I can’t imagine any debate over this ;)”
Agreed. You’d have to do with this with in/out points in compressor right now. Not very handy.
[David Lawrence] “I haven’t gotten into tracks vs trackless in this topic, but I think this is an interesting and salient point to consider.”
It’s true, but if an OMF export makes the audio timeline look like your FCPX timeline, then it’s good, no? As was mentioned (and as Michael Gissing mentioned) the audio layering is mostly going to change (time still remains for the most part). I know my audio guys totally rearranges my timelines to something that makes sense to them. As long as they have clip by clip access, they are good.
[David Lawrence] “when I’m marking my favorites, my favorite ranges are soft. I may know that a particular sound bite is good, but there’s always surrounding contextual speech that I may not know I need until much later in my editorial process.”
And that the beauty of ranges/favorites, they aren’t locked like sub-clips were, they are simply ranges connected to the main clip, if you need surrounding media, you can “open in timeline” or match frame back to browser and skim the whole clip, or resort the bin (Show all clips) and you get all the long form back.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Perhaps try muting the video and see what happens as a test. Are you running 64 bit with lots of RAM?”
Will give that a try. Laptop’s maxed out at 8GB and I’m running 64-bit.
[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s true, but if an OMF export makes the audio timeline look like your FCPX timeline, then it’s good, no?”
Maybe, I’d like to see if roles will make it possible to see audio in a track-like manner. I’m skeptical but curious.
[Jeremy Garchow] “And that the beauty of ranges/favorites, they aren’t locked like sub-clips were, they are simply ranges connected to the main clip, if you need surrounding media, you can “open in timeline” or match frame back to browser and skim the whole clip, or resort the bin (Show all clips) and you get all the long form back.”
Right, but I never make sub-clips so that’s not a problem. What I’d like to do is drop an entire clip onto the timeline and see the green favorite ranges on the clip, just like they appear when viewing the clip in the browser. Is this possible?
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David Lawrence
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