Walter Murch won’t use FCX

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jim Giberti] “Hey Jeremy, Remember, the idea of using the one frame “anchor” at the top of the Primary doesn’t have anything to do with my basic points about mixing and mastering with Compound Clips and Secondaries”

[Jim Giberti] “You can use Secondaries and CCs to emulate and give the visual reference of tracks without anchoring them that way.”

Yep, I get it. Compound clips are a way to go, but it still doesn’t allow the visual organization of tracks that some of us miss if the underlying clips don’t extend the entire length of the timeline. Also, the clips inside the compound will take on the Role of the compound, which could also cause problems for export. You can’t assign an effect to a secondary, although that would be kinda cool. Then there’s the problem of changes. In your example from the other thread, if a change came to the timing you’d have to move all those SFX back in the secondary by hand as there’s no relationship to those SFX and the rest of the timeline anymore. Also, I think this workflow assumes there’s going to be a music or any other track that is the entire length of the timeline (or most of the length). That might not be the case for all of us. To be specific, if you look at your screen grab and the timing of “gshairlights” changes, that means the SFX “f16” is now going to be out of sync, as will the rest of the clips in that secondary.

I think your example is really awesome if everything is locked, but that means you can’t really give a rough mix until the very very end. I wish my clients understood this, but changes come heavy and fast where I’m from so having everything working cohesively is essential. I think Roles need more visual organization power below the primary storyline as I think that would solve a lot of confusion. Again, in case I missed something, please fill us in as I want this to work as bad as anyone!

Here it is in case anyone missed it:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/18954

Jeremy

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You can’t assign an effect to a secondary, although that would be kinda cool.”

For me if you could do more with secondaries, especially assigning effects to them as you can with CCs, it would be a huge improvement..

Most of all I would like to be able to move things in and out of a secondary with ease (as in a Lift from/Overwrite to kind of thing). I think working with secondaries as temporary locations for stuff that – for now – belongs together would solve a lot of problems.

I’d like for example to be able to set up a secondary in such a way that I know that I could drop my dialogues in there and my basic/standard EQ and compression would apply as if I were bussing them.

I agree that CCs have undesirable limitations – not being able to see inside them, and hence edit everything in context, is a big negative for me. I don’t want anything hidden away from the main business of the edit. (This is something that used to really bug me when I worked a lot with AVID DS.)

Secondaries on the other hand are much more like “open containers” that you can see inside at a glance, and that you can move stuff in and out of at will whenever you need to adjust the edit and suspend the secondary relationship – then it’s as easy as anything to restore the relationship or make a new one.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” I’m sure he works that way because he has to. There’s no other way. At least no other way that makes sense. You say Fcp7 allows it, I say FCP7 mandates it …”

Jeremy,

This is demonstrably not true.

Take a poll of this forum and you will find people use FCP in a variety of ways to organize themselves and their projects.

Discussion here has included at least two models: “bin oriented” and “timeline oriented” and I would wager that these aren’t even two extremes on a continuum, just two methods amongst many.

Franz.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks for the response, Franz.

[Franz Bieberkopf] “Take a poll of this forum and you will find people use FCP in a variety of ways to organize themselves and their projects.”

I am specifically talking about Murch’s timeline here with a bunch of specualtion, not the greater project organization of which we have no info for Murch.

I am talking specifically about the number of tracks. Here’s the posts I am talking about:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/19243

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/19268

Jeremy

[Franz Bieberkopf]

Jeremy,

While I think the “greater project organization” is an important, related discussion, even just limiting ourselves to the timeline I think you’ll find people use it in different ways. I think you’re statement “There is no other way.” is simply false if you look at the way different editors organize themselves.

Incidentally, if you are interested, WM has written and talked in some detail about his method and organization (no need for you to speculate). Recommended as a point of reference.

Franz.

[Bill Davis]

Aindreas,

Clearly I annoy you deeply.

I regret that. It’s never my intent.

But as much as you rail against my perspective on things, you would do well to examine why it makes you so emotional. If what I was saying was merely dismissible dreck, it shouldn’t annoy you so much, should it?

It’s just one guys opinions after all. If you’re correct and I’m wrong it won’t make a bit of difference to your life and career.

However, if I’m even partially correct, it may indicate that theres another viable not so exclusively “only working TOP pros like me have ALL the answers ALL the time” view that could be informative for those who want to carve out a career that doesn’t necessarily involve clawing their way to the top of the shrinking pyramid of “massive project” based editorial work.

As I often say. We’ll see.

Peace, dude.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Jeremy Garchow]

I know different people work differently Franz. I’m not saying that FCP7 allows you to work one way and not another, but there is a construct and a method, and it’s not simply a free-for-all that some might claim it to be. I think this is important to keep talking about as I think it gets forgotten. FCP7 lends itself to certain types of organization and for us long time FCP users, it is now changing if we want to use any other program.

[Franz Bieberkopf] “While I think the “greater project organization” is an important, related discussion, even just limiting ourselves to the timeline I think you’ll find people use it in different ways. I think you’re statement “There is no other way.” is simply false if you look at the way different editors organize themselves.”

Again, I am specifically talking about Murch’s timeline in this example, as it’s what this post is about. If you want to talk about different timelines, let’s talk about them, but we need some pictures. David Lawrence and I have gone on and on (and on) about different timelines. Here’s one if you’d like to join us:

Opening statement:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/13281

Reply:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/13325#13465
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/13325#13999

Let me try and put it differently. If you had as many elements that are in Murch’s timeline, and you need to separately export each track for whatever reason, or if you had to denote all those different sections for whatever reason as we have already mentioned (conform, character, media type, whatever), how would you do it?

Perhaps a better question is, what way does FCP7 lend itself to? If you had to export all the text (or turn off all the text) really the best way to do this is to have all that text on their own separate track(s) that is floating in limbo somewhere in the midst of the 40 tracks. Would you agree? Sure, there’s other ways to do it, but why would you? It is obvious from the timeline that staying organized is important to Murch and his team, so they go about it the best way that FCP7 lends itself to, which is to stick all the necessary parts on tons of different tracks and fragment. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but it is a way that FCP7 seems to dictate that you do things if you want to do things quickly and you know what you’re doing. If not, you’d have to go through every single piece of media and turn off all the disparate text clips while sifting through 99 tracks. No one is that crazy, but sure, you could do it. The picture of the timelines tells a lot, don’t you think?:

https://www.chris-portal.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SPRMT038.jpg

https://www.chris-portal.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SPRMT039.jpg

[Franz Bieberkopf] “Incidentally, if you are interested, WM has written and talked in some detail about his method and organization (no need for you to speculate). Recommended as a point of reference.”

Thank you.

Jeremy

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” I’m sure he works that way because he has to. There’s no other way. At least no other way that makes sense. You say Fcp7 allows it, I say FCP7 mandates it …”

Jeremy,

I’m not putting you down when I say this, but it’s quite clear to me from many of your posts about audio in general, and more specifically about Walter Murch and his techniques, that high-end audio post is not really your forte. And so, you do not give Walter Murch sufficient credit for the incredible sophistication of the techniques he has developed over the years for achieving his sound design.

Going way back to Apocalypse Now, a film edit, he had approximately 125 separate tracks he was working with. I’m sure that seems like overkill to you, because it sounds like overkill to even the most dedicated audio professionals working at the very highest levels. However, Walter Murch has very specific goals that he has determined can only be achieved as precisely as he wants by doing things with techniques he has developed.

What you don’t understand is that Walter Murch uses a system of extremely elaborate premixes and EQs on each and every sound effect and/or group of sound effects, which he separates onto separate tracks so they can be bounced to ProTools and tweaked and controlled independently during both the edit and in the final mix.

In addition, his FCP timeline is also setup to facilitate a highly sophisticated 5.1 or possibly 7.1 mix, in such a way that he can also tweak and control his many separate tracks and sound elements in 3D space using additional proprietary techniques that he has devised for that.

The bottom line is, Walter Murch did not have to look at X for more than a few minutes to determine it wouldn’t work for him, certainly not without devising an entirely new workflow that he knew may or may not ever be possible in X, but which most certainly isn’t possible today, due to the many limitations of X in terms of it’s very limited interchange with other track-based apps.

And, I would venture to say that, for you to suggest he should have spent more time with X before arriving at his conclusions, constitutes a lack of understanding and appreciation on your part, not his.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

Jeremy, thanks. I did follow those previous posts a bit, as well as posting my own response.

I stand by statements, though. The “open timeline” (as David has come to call it) just seems much more flexible. The “auto-managed” timeline of FCPX strikes me as convoluted … unless you use it within very narrow parameters, in which case it’s probably optimal in many respects.

Which leaves the question – are those narrow parameters constricting to me or not?

Franz.

[Jim Giberti]

[peter dunphy] “Jim, your thread about the audio capabilities for FCPX has given me great hope.
“

There is hope Peter. A few days more of experimenting with things and it’s still looking good. Have you spent anytime in X yet? I’d be glad to answer any questions with what I’m doing so far.l