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The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I understand what’s in 2 but i cant see it are, so to clarify, are those just the little dialogue edits with overlaps (checkerboard)? Looks messed up, but sounds great? :). And 3 is a few or more left overs?”
Here’s a couple close ups so you can see what’s going on:
Section 2 (marked with In and Out points) is the edited segment
Section 3 is the scratch area. This area is where I experiment as I build in section 2Zooming in closer:
This is the zoom level I typically work at for fine cutting. I have dedicated buttons on my mouse that make zooming in and out super fast.
Some things to note:
I use volume curves to get subframe accuracy with audio transitions. I frequently use two-frame dissolves as well. You’ll see one at 3:33:14. I create them with a single click and can easily set them to start, center or end of edit. I find these tools to be more accurate and responsive than the tools in FCPX. Technically, FCPX may be more accurate, but the gratuitous UI chrome and animation makes it feel sloppy. BTW, did you know you can’t do a two-frame dissolve in FCPX? Three is the minimum. (feature request?)
Using these tools and techniques, I create seamless audio right in the timeline. I rarely need to make any edit adjustments by the time I go to Soundtrack Pro for sweetening.
The second track is room tone.
Maybe I’m not being clear about what I mean when I say “checkerboarding”. I’m referring to a process, not necessarily how the timeline looks. Checkerboarding is actually an old-school term that refers to CMX linear days. The CMX operator would program in the EDL and because the tape decks were computer-controlled and frame accurate, it was possible to “checkerboard” all the material from the source tape to exactly where it needed to be on the record side. This made assembly efficient because you never needed to swap back and forth between source reels. When I was at LucasFilm, we made laserdiscs that were used as frame stores for database-driven multimedia projects. Each of the 54,000 frames was either a single-frame edit or a segment of moving stills. We used checkerboading a lot.
In the context of NLEs when I talk about checkerboard workflow, what I mean is the process of building a sequence in a totally random access manner. Starting at the end, middle or beginning; working backwards or from the center. It doesn’t matter, it’s completely fluid because that’s the nature of the digital medium. NLEs made checkerboarding a completely natural way to work in video.
[Jeremy Garchow] “and you can do this in FCPX before you hit the timeline. With the favorites sorted you can make a compound clip (in the browser) of just the favorites and make one clip if you want to, and that clip is then editable in to the timeline, and can be broken apart at anytime in the timeline (or opened in another timeline, and necessary parts copied and pasted). To this compound clip, you can add/remove/reorder whatever you want, including more layers of video/broll/audio.”
See my response to Jeff regarding favorites. I’m not sure this would work with my method because I don’t know what I want until I’m in the process. Agree about compound clips, but I think jumping in and out of context would break my flow and slow me down. I feel like my efficiency depends on having everything available all at the same time in the same place. I’ll give it a try and let you know.
[Jeremy Garchow] “Alternatively, keeping the favorites as separate clips in the browser, you can easily skim to the next clip. Skimming, is awesome. I didn’t like it at first, seemed a bit out of control, but I learned to control it.”
I like skimming 🙂
[Jeremy Garchow] “I will craft a detailed response when I’m in front of FCPX and can provide more screen grabs. “
Looking forward!
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] ” I create them with a single click and can easily set them to start, center or end of edit. I find these tools to be more accurate and responsive than the tools in FCPX. Technically, FCPX may be more accurate, but the gratuitous UI chrome and animation makes it feel sloppy. BTW, did you know you can’t do a two-frame dissolve in FCPX? Three is the minimum. (feature request?)”
If you are talking about audio dissolves then you are not correct, you can create audio mixes at a subframe level
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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Jeff – I agree with you 100%. I recently cut together a talking head piece and it was much faster than I could have done it in 7 (FYI I’m an FCP user since 1.25). It just doesn’t seem so clunky as it did in previous versions.
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Hi,
I come from the field with hours of footage and ITWs (10/40 hours, after 1/3 weeks) on any subject, and just a general idea of how to put all that together.
I select, edit and write the text, that will link all the elements, all at once. Sometimes I write text in FCs subtitles as it comes to my head, so I don’t waist time to put it down somewhere else and i don’t forget it.
A sequence of mine could look similar to one of those posted by David:
10/20 minutes; few more layers for the titles, subtitles, Lower-firsts, and 6/8 audio tracks (ambience, 2 languages and music).
Can’t do that in FCPX.[Jeff Folland] “But it’s ignoring the even better way of doing this which is tagging in the event window. Go through clip by clip like you would in the timeline. Set ins and outs and mark sections as favorites and tag them with various tags like ‘must use’. ‘interesting’ etc…This adds signifanctly to the speed of zeroing in on a clip you are trying to find. Then filter your events to show favorites and select the ‘must use’ collection. It’s like you already have a rough edit of the must use stuff in the event window. Then you drag them into the timeline in the order you see fit for fine tuning.”
The BEST WAY is the one that works better for each one.
That’s may be the best way for YOU, but not for ME.
That’s the best way for you because when you start to edit you probably have NO IDEA of what you gonna edit and probably you will have no time to go properly through all the stuff.But that’s a waist of time for me.
I shoot my footage, I download it and back-it-up and I import it to FC, so, when I go to start to edit I have a very good knowledge of my stuff.
So, before you even have decided how to tag your clips, I my footage selected and organized in and WITHOUT TYPING all day long (but few sequences and bin names).When you have finished to select, tag and mark your stuff, I have my movie half edited.
If I would go the FCPX way, I would never finish.
In short, the best way in doing this is not FCPX way, but mine. Believe me.
If you would have your own way you would agree with me that is better than FCPX.Supposedly FCPX brigs “creative freedom”, but all this is cleric work and bureaucracy.
rafael -
David you said…It’s not even close. I don’t work with a script, I make everything up as I go along. I may know something is “must have” but I have no idea how or where I’ll use it until I start building the piece. And as I build, I may change my mind several times. I never know what the finished piece will look like until it’s done. It’s a creative, organic process. The process is what defines the workflow.
I’m not saying it’s close to a final edit but it is a bin or a collection or a timeline (call it what you want) of all the stuff you marked as must use. And it really is no different than what you are already doing. You are going through a big long interview(s) in zone 1 and flagging the bits you really like with a green marker. Then when that’s done you go through and collate all your favorite bits into zone two and shuffle them around finding an order that works. Zone 1 has been replaced with the tagging and collection. Ripple preferences aside, you no longer have to go back and forth on the timeline from zone 1 and zone 2. Zone 1 and 2 are both open at the same time in x (the timeline and the collection). I don’t see how that is any less creative or organic. You are still arranging clips in the timeline to preference. You still have a marked subset of all your footage you are using as a palette. you still have freedom to place any clip anywhere. That is no different.
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Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest this is the BEST way ever in the history of editing. I simply meant that if you are using fcp x and editing in zones as suggested in the first post, this is what I have gathered to make most efficient use of the tools. Not that this is THE way.
However I don’t agree that this is any longer of a process when you suggest you would have half the edit done. I also work on content that I am very familiar with before the edit. You still at some point have to say this clip starts here and ends here and at this point it will work best tagged for this section. Tagging and key wording is no slower than sorting into bins and multiple timelines for me. You still at some point have to get your arms around the beast. And I don’t see how adding subtitles, titles and lower thirds is any less efficient. In fact I think with compound clips it can be easier to turn this stuff into one unit on the timeline rather than a stack that needs multiple selections.
I’m not trying to sell anyone on using fcp x. There are all sorts of issues I’ve had with it and I have a long, long running list of things which I think they should improve. But when I read this thread I thought that I could share my experience going from editing in the zone fashion to switching to the collections and tagging method. It is a mindset change and maybe for some it’s not for the better. And there are some longer, more complicated edits I still default to fcp 7 for because I am used to arranging on the timeline both horizontally and vertically. Maybe it’s comfort in how I’ve done it over the past twelve years or maybe it is that fcpx is flawed for me. There really isn’t a right or wrong or best or worst way and I did not mean to suggest that. But If you want to force fcpx to work like you did in the past with fcp it will be a long, hard, uphill road.
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[David Lawrence] “Imagine cutting dialogue or music on a timeline that’s in fixed ripple mode — the only way to hold time apart being with explicitly-placed spacer objects. Audio people would never accept this. I think it’s a deal-breaker for most advanced video people as well.”
But “fixed ripple mode” isn’t really an accurate description of how the Magnetic Timeline works. First, the rippling behavior differs for storyline clips and connected clips. Rippling only occurs within storylines, not not between ungrouped connected clips or between separate secondary storylines.
Secondly, even within a storyline the Position tool creates gaps without the user explicitly placing spacers, and while I guess you could say “Replace with gap” is placing a spacer ‘explicitly’, this is only because it’s name has been changed to indicate this; in terms of behavior it’s just a non-ripped delete, which I don’t think most people would describe as ‘explicitly’ placing a spacer in FCP 7.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[David Lawrence] “FCPX’s metadata and tagging features are one of its greatest strengths. They’re so interesting in fact, that I think FCPX would make an excellent logging and preflight assembly tool. If there were some XML translation utility, I’d be using it today.”
Would this do the trick?
https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/09/announcing-project-x27/.-daniel
Daniel Annefelt
Producer, Creative & Design
MTV Networks North -
FCPx lovers are assuming that FCPx critics are non-educated enough.
Well, the converse is also true, ironically. Because I am assuming that
they can’t grasp the myriad of intents one should have in crafting an edit.I appreciate Jeremy’s position when he tries to engage in a healthy
and thoughtful debate here. Cheers, mate.
But I suspect that having a compound single clip placed in the timeline
won’t give you the visual clue of the original set-up, where the edits are just there.Instead, in FCPx, it’s buried in a nest that you HAVE to work with in a exclusively fashion.
And surprisingly (not so much, alrite) we have to to think of it beforehand.I have read your ideas on how dynamic panels could be
the right response for a lot of the problems people are facing.
From all the useful input you have provided, those should be pretty obvious…Sure one could just build all your footage into one-single-big-fat-project-string, but
where did all the alternatives go? Should we create an additional project?
I am sure you’re going to need it right there as fuming memories chips are melting.Some people have to deal with tens of hours to get to a less-than-ten-minute-piece:
That’s what I’m talking about, primarily. Depending on the complexity of the subject
that tool they use (sometimes only tool) should help them. Not hinder them.Has anybody here suggesting to leave Apple’s rocky boat ever heard
of the definition of freelance job? No choosing anytinhg!
OK, now go put your iphones in your tight pants pockets and sit down 🙂Expanding David’s example, where one could have the select’s cut
itself presented right in the scratch timeline at a glance,
all the Clip created markers could be combined with Timeline created markers
additionally as you work within the edit.
Though markers be it on clips or compounds should make a viable feature request.I see how compounds work well with a lot of things, but is crucial
to have tracked based sequences and the ability of having trivial features,
such as duplicating a timeline, custom auto-saves, custom window lay-outs
and finnaly the Viewer for the intertwined edits of sequence content
or the beloved and essential “gang” feature.Not mentioning here the legacy expected features, of course,
just the core-design ones. And speaking of them…
As long as FCPx’s flawed design doesn’t catch-up,
it won’t fly beyond the hipster’s desk. (or hands for that matter)It’s still full of restraints and the worst part is that they are blatantly scrammed in there.
And on purpose. It is sad but true: There will be plenty more hands out there
than workstation desktops – for FCPx’s glory.At the end of the day (or the decade) we wish this tool to improve itself…
AND the craft of editing as well. -
[Jeff Folland] “You still have a marked subset of all your footage you are using as a palette. you still have freedom to place any clip anywhere. That is no different.”
This is my view as well. As far as I can see, the workflow presented in the original post is simply using an unoptimized general purpose tool for an organizational task that FCP X actually provides more optimized task-specific tools for. Scrubbing in filmstrip view in the browser view makes it much easier to move though large quantities of footage. Tagging and marking favorite regions of clips is far more powerful than simply dropping markers, and more streamlined and flexible than doing something like creating named subclips (which wasn’t part of this workflow, but is another common approach to pulling selects in FCP 7).
People keep accusing Apple of not understanding what editors do. I think the truth is more that Apple designed Final Cut Pro without regard for how current NLEs work. Instead, they went back and looked at what high-level tasks editors perform, and designed a new interface from the ground up specifically to facilitate that. Some critics have confused the mechanics of how these tasks are performed in current NLEs with the tasks themselves.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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