Tonight’s the night

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Richard Herd] “It all comes down to a simple question: how can you listen to 7 — nay: 2 — tracks of audio at the same time and evaluate a single one? “

You can’t, or,

You don’t, you solo each until you find what you like, and X makes quick work of that as well with clip skimming and disable tools.

Also, I might need something from one of the other tracks that wasnt picked up on a boom, but rather only exists in a lav. Without looking at the waveforms, I might miss it. When I am creating the edit, I need all options on the table.

Also, in the png I posted, those are the tracks I used for review. When I send an OMF, I might include more than what I am listening to as the audio mixer might use a combination of the lav, the boom, or even the mix, basically, I give the most options possible, even if the audio engineer throws most of it away.

I might use what sounds best the fastest, the audio engineer might choose the lav over the boom as they’ll be able to “get more out of it” after the eq/mix.

I’m not saying fcpx isn’t viable, but multi channel audio mixing needs help.

[David Lawrence]

[Michael Aranyshev] “That’s a part of the whole FCP phenomenon. There are usually at least three ways to do the same thing in FCP. Some very apparent but less efficient, some extremely efficient but not so obvious. So often talking to a fellow FCP editor is like talking to a user of completely different NLE.”

Exactly. Like a musical instrument, once you learn the basics, it’s completely open to individual style. Many different ways to do the same thing. Even after 10+ years, I still make new discoveries.

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David Lawrence
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[Alban Egger]

Chris you didn´t get my sarcasm, as I copied a text and replaced phrase, about them not understanding how to edit.

FCP7 is maybe fluid to work with, but just like FCPX you need to adapt to it or adapt it. That´s what I am trying to say. To me FCP7 feels very clumsy. Maybe I don´t master it like many here, but then at least I have watched “masters” over the shoulder and I didn´t feel like they did treat it much different than me.

Is FCP7 flexible, sure. More flexible than FCPX or others? Hmm…probably depends, because also in FCPX there is often more than 1 way to achieve your result.

What makes FCPX so extremely fluid to me is the skimming, the regional keywords in clips and the magnetic timeline (which can be turned off).
Once you are in the timeline FCP7 is powerful also, sure. But editing nowadays is more than the timeline. It is system-management, media-management, clip/bin-management, editing and output in various formats and versions. The overall experience of FCP7 vs. FCPX in the complete workflow is what makes FCPX more fluid to me.

Of course the disclaimer is still valid, that FCPX is not finished yet and prevents me from abandon FCP7 especially in the output process, if want to work with the current broadcast-world.. There is work to be done, but the overall experience already now shows what potential lies in this software.

[Chris Harlan]

Alban, I apologize for not getting your sarcasm, and I’m happy that you are delighted by FCPX. My main contention was with your statement about the J/L cuts, which lead me to believe that you were not fully familiar with FCPL. Forgive me for not picking up on your tone.

[alban egger] “Once you are in the timeline FCP7 is powerful also, sure. But editing nowadays is more than the timeline. It is system-management, media-management, clip/bin-management, editing and output in various formats and versions. The overall experience of FCP7 vs. FCPX in the complete workflow is what makes FCPX more fluid to me.”

IMHO, editing has always been more than the timeline, and while I respect many of the new media management features of FCPX, it is my belief–and I DO recognize that I am less than a novice in regards to FCPX usage–that their value is somewhat over-stated, and that the downside of some of the media management tools–the lack of a manual save or the ability to easily save a range of backups, for example–is that they have the potential to be downright crippling. I also think that some of the media management tools of other NLEs (including FCPL) are too easily dismissed by some few X users whose enthusiasm borders on zealotry.

I’m not dissing FCP X; I’ve read enough comments over the last year to know that it is an extremely enabling tool for quite a few people. There are a number of enviable features, and I can certainly envision using it seriously at some point. Its just that FCPL has been so useful to me, and still has–despite all of the new competition–one of the widest tool sets available on any NLE, that I don’t like to see it so easily dismissed.

[Alban Egger]

Chris,
I think we all here appreciate your always fair tone and expertise. I think what we want to find out in these discussions is exactly what you say: are the new media-managment tools helping, overhyped or crippling us.

I agree it is crippling, if you are not able to export a region of a timeline. I would also welcome a versioning of projects instead of the one and all 15-minute-save. There are obviously features and tools missing still, that have nothing to do with the “paradigm”.

What I meant by “editing is more than the timeline” is this: some people here are true editors…they do nothing else. For those in fact Avid must be the best solution, because as far as I understand Avid thrives on multi-personnel setups, where one guy edits, one does grading, one does sound. It is this work-environment where FCPX is still behind despite XML. Adobe with its linking between apps is also ahead of Apple here. After all we can´t even send a clip to Motion yet (there is a 3rd party app, but it is not from Apple).

[Chris Harlan] ” I also think that some of the media management tools of other NLEs (including FCPL) are too easily dismissed by some few X users whose enthusiasm borders on zealotry. “

I can´t speak for Avid, but what Media Management was there in FCPL? It happens mostly on the Finder level and in the Capture Scratch, which is pretty much the same as the Event-directory.

In FCPX I insert a card into my card reader and Import from there into FCPX.
During the process of copying the clips and optimizing the clips (if needed) I can edit off the card/disk. I am editing while the media is managed for me. I have a copy of my media in the event, it has maybe already metatags added etc and without any waiting I can edit. In fact it is funny that I found you cannot export until the ingest is done. It happens sometimes, that I am ready with the rushes for a TV-news-cut before the ingest is finished and I have to wait for FCPX to allow me to export. So I don´t see any crippling in this part of media-managment.

It is true FCPL could read some metadata: frame size, codec etc. But in FCPX you can now create a smart collection of “all 1080p with 29,97fps from one individual Camera” from a multi day PAL-shoot with 5 cameras – in 10 seconds you have these “slower clips” in one bin. And you can conform them to your 25p timeline with one button instead of going the Cinema Tools way which was tedious and resource taking.
That´s where Media Management shines for me. Like everything this can be done in FCPL also, but it takes more steps and time.

Another experience I had which I am surprised about: since we have this event paradigm I realize how often clients want footage from different shoots, which are now collected in events. They want the sunrise from the educational video and the hiker from the incentive event and the smile from the commercial-shoot. Before you went into your hard drive and picked those clips, which can be a time-consuming task. In FCPX I pull out the client´s drive with their 8 events on it and search for sunset and triple-A-smileshot and skim for a good hiking scene they shot themselves. It is now that I realize who spot on some of these features are for a production like mine that does many different projects for the same client. It won´t help for that one 30-second ad, but it helps for the investor´s-meeting-clip, which is just as important to them 😉

Again…all this can be done in FCPL just as good, although with a little more time needed. But the idea behind FCPX is not as bad as some editors believe. This doesn´t make it a good NLE for dialogues yet. But the foundation that it will become that seems to be there in my opinion.

[Walter Soyka]

Apologies for the delayed response!

[Bill Davis] “Say that in my market, I can hire a typical carpenter for anywhere from $15 an hour to $40 an hour and I think the job I need done is gonna take 10 hours. But then there’s Dave. Dave’s work in outstanding – everybody says that – but after a lot of years of outstanding work, Dave won’t take a job for less than $1000. He promises that unless the job goes way outside the scope of work he’s agreed to in advance – his bill will be fist at that rate. $1000. Period. You’ll never know how many hours it takes Dave. He might take 10 hours. Or not. He might spend 20 hours just THINKING about how he’s going to design and approach your job and only 1 hour doing it. But he still gets his $1000.”

I usually work on project fees, much like Dave does.

But here’s the thing — my fees are still largely based on the time I think it will take me times the resources I will employ to make my deliverables. Why? Because as professionals providing a service, the biggest limit on our capacity is time. Taking on a project creates an opportunity cost for us; once we dedicate resources to one project, our capacity to do others is at least partially blocked until the first commitment’s obligations are met.

Put another way, we can only do so much editing in a week, because the process is bound by time. If you take on projects that do not make up the cost of the time they take to complete, you’ll eventually be out of business.

I am not saying that you have to count your client’s billing in hours — like I said above, I often do project-fee-for-agreed-scope billing just like Bill. I am saying that the phrase “time equals money” is really an equation, too, and even when we don’t literally bill for time, we must be cognizant of its value.

[Bill Davis] “My billing approach is to give my clients a firm quote. Not on the time, but on the value I can put into the whole project to align the work with their overall business purposes. “

This isn’t necessarily opposed to time-based billing. Value is accounted for in time billing by the rate.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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