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The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example
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David-
Woking on my response to this, just have to get the timeline together, and also show some options. It might take a little while!
Jeremy
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No worries, Jeremy, take as much time as you need. I appreciate your thought and effort. It’s not like writing COW posts is the only thing we have to do all day 😉
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “This is my log sequence. It is every clip from a roughly one hour interview laid out on the timeline. I’ve skimmed thru every clip in the browser, adding a commented marker at every interesting point in the actuality. I have a simple color coding system — green markers are sound bytes I’ll definitely use; red markers are interesting sections worth going back to. Anything in between I’ll skim thru only if needed. This is my metadata.”
OK. In FCPX There’s a couple of ways to do this. Directly copying your method, you can layout the interview and use markers. Unfortunately, the markers aren’t color coded at this time, so, you can use the timeline index to mark which is good, and which is OK in the notes. The timeline index also allows you to jump to each marker just by clicking on it. See screengrab here:
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:
You can even sort the browser by favorites only (control-f), select all those clips and make a compound clip if that is easier or more beneficial to you. That would create one big skimmable clip of all of your selects if you want them.
Moving on to the edit.
Taking your selects, you can then use the range tool to copy and paste selected ranges to add to your more refined edit at the end of your selects reel. You can copy/paste your starting clip at the end of the timeline, then using the Position Tool “p”, you move the starting clip as far away from your selects reel as you want, or you simply move the playhead beyond the end of the timeline and paste and a gap is automatically created. You can also start you “Scratch” area over at the very end of the timeline using the exact same method. Of course, You can also always add gap with option-w and revise how long/short that gap is by hovering over the clip, c to select, control-d for duration and the type a duration (such as 1.. for One minute). This prevents you from hitting tttt to select the select from here tool, selecting then dragging, the timeline simply moves along with. You asked how is this a better way to work, in my view, it works the same, just a bit faster. Keep the gaps, and you still have what you need, separated by space. Screengrabs:
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.
I didn’t have time to complete this piece this morning, but I will post a grab of that later when I’m done. 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.
[David Lawrence] “What are my intentions as an editor for each of the timelines in each step of this process?”
It’s organization and workflow. Your intention is to deliver a final product, something that can be done in both programs, using the same methodologies.
[David Lawrence] “How would you accomplish this workflow with the magnetic timeline?”
With gaps. 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?
[David Lawrence] “How would the magnetic timeline make this workflow any more efficient? What would the benefits be?”
Well, it’s not the magnetic timeline per se, but the Timeline Index helps you to find what you want faster, as well as selecting a range to copy/paste without having to cut an in and out, copy and paste. it also gives you a text based “bird’s eye view” of what is going on in your timeline and allows you to click and go to wherever you want without having to scrub if you don’t want to. Once editing the magnetic timeline allows you to swap clip and order extremely easily without too much fuss.
[David Lawrence] “In the context of this workflow, how are the clip relationships emphasized by the magnetic timeline meaningful?”
In the case of broll, they stay with the main comments. If you want to switch the order of the story around, you simply grab the clip in the primary and all the connected clips go with it.
As has been mentioned here, 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.
First you do something like this:
Then you hit Control-f and turns that in to this, which is skimmable objects that can be added to the timeline as you see fit:
Jeremy
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “In FCPX the browser exposes one keyword collection at a time – I’m really not being argumentative – I find that a reasonably significant limitation in the software”
You can select multiple keywords in the Browser and have them display what’s in both bins. Perhaps I am not understanding what you mean it shows one collection at a time?
Jeremy
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[Chris Harlan] “unless it adapts a less rigid, multi-monitor interface.”
If multicam is coming, I would imagine they are going to need to add a few dimensions to the interface, including but not lmited to a way to see both all angles and the program. Curious to see what happens there.
[Chris Harlan] “It is a bit sad that FCP went from what was arguably the most flexible UI to one of the least flexible in a single, albeit drastic, iteration.”
It is just the beginning stages. With help from everyone, it will get to where it needs to be.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] ” i want a broad canvas of stored physical video objects -“
Isn’t that what the event could be, or is? What if you used an event as a bin instead of a keyword collection? Then you have your containers, which I still maintain the Event is much more of a container than a bin will ever be.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Which is the trick really isn’t it?
because once you’ve got the assets at recall, all the relational tagging is happening in your brain at el warp speed.”Yeah, until 9 months later you are working on the same project, but haven’t touched it in two months due to client delays. At that point, text based searches become much more reliable. Tagging becomes much more useful. At a glance, you can see what you liked, what you didn’t, what’s used, when you might have forgotten due to time passing and 18 more projects in between then and now.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “I am piggishly ignorant on Avid, i’m just unable to go there.”
Andy, (can we call you Andy?) I think we are in total agreement here.
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Bravo Jeremy!
Thank you for this detailed and thoughtful post. There’s actually a lot we agree on, and a couple key places where we diverge. I’ll need some time to gather my thoughts and maybe a screen grab so hang tight. I really enjoy and appreciate this dialogue.
best,
David_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “I really enjoy and appreciate this dialogue.”
Me too. Thanks for hanging in there.
Jeremy
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[Aindreas Gallagher] ” don’t like how cramped the event browser is, its just really really cramped”
And have you put this on the second monitor in FCPX? You can go back and forth between list and filmstrip with option-command 1/2. You can also change the text size.
It appears to me you use both text and thumbnails. It’s been mentioned, but compound clips in the browser can be just like a “skimmable timeline” as you mention just without the timeline. If you want the timeline, you can then right click on the compound and “open in timeline” if you want, allowing you to grab what you want from it, then left arrow back to your edit timeline and paste in to it. Almost like a tab, but no tabs, just a browser style, back/forward interface.
Jeremy
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