Walter Murch won’t use FCX

[Jeremy Garchow]

Awesome. Thanks, Juan!

He definitely said way more than “I’m not going to use it”.

Grain of salt, folks.

[Chris Harlan]

The last lines are great. Sums up the whole thing since April.

“Do they love us? No. They like us. And SAY they love us.”

[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks for the response, Oliver. I’ll check out those references.

It was interesting to hear what Murch’s biggest gripes were after watching the video. The top two are already “fixed”, number three is announced for the next update, and then he went on to describe Roles, which he didn’t seem to like or dislike.

I did look at Murch’s timeline and as I mentioned, the first thing I saw was all the empty space. Some of those tracks are pretty sparse, and even Murch himself said he could probably get rid of about half of them.

While I too am intrigued with Jim’s workflow, I think it breaks the magnetic timeline in dramatic fashion (no offense, Jim. I enjoyed your post). Visual organization is still needed for audio tracks. Compounds are a way, but I feel they aren’t “THE” way. Putting them all in a secondary is not the way, either, that’s where things get broken fast.

In another post, I talked about how much can be done in such little space with FCPX. I know, people are opposed to the “rigid” interface. The idea of compound clips, I think is a step in the right direction. They way to use them in the browser relives the clutter of timeline selects reels. We just need more control of them in Projects. We talked about the clips being “a drawer” that we could open and adjust content in context, and then close it back up. That would be pretty ideal rather than breaking apart, adjusting, selecting, and compounding. It would also allow all the advantages of the magnetic and trackless timeline. That means that all of Murch’s sections could be combined in to about 7 “clips” or however many sections he had. He could work on what he wants, adjust it, then put it all away.

At any rate, I’d be curious to hear what he says after he actually uses it.

Jeremy

[Alban Egger]

[Tim Vaughan] “One of my clients requested 7 different versions of one timeline, then all 8 of those translated in to 2 different languages with subtitles. So in all, I had 24 different movies. I suppose if one had to do that the “Great Apple Gadget Co.” way, it would be one long “story” LOL. It is an absolute joke of a professional software application.”

I don´t know if you tried FCPX, but if not I suggest you look at the tools “compound clip”, “audition”, “replace-edit” and “roles/sub-roles”.
These tools might help handling your project with 24 versions much faster and easier than in FCP7.
Which ones you use depends on your project (is multilingual only different VO and titles or is it also combining different actors speaking various languages). Both ways can easily be handled in FCPX. The only feature missing is color-coding clips to different languages (at least in 10.0.1 it´s not possible to have all chinese clips and titles in green and all spanish in yellow, for example).

I have been part of a project with 12 languages (main language english, but also versions in 11 other languages where the german speaking people speak german in their version, the rest sticks to English. Then the same for spanish, italian, turkish etc. )
It was done in AVID (project was last year). Once FCPX came out I thought about this workflow and FCPX would be better IMO. So don´t underestimate it, only because it does things different.

[Bill Davis]

Oh settle down, folks.

This is boring. Unlike the X-files, not only is the “truth” out there, it’s finally pretty evident to all but the zealots on both sides.

In the beginning nearly EVERYONE got FCP-X significantly wrong. We did that because it was nothing like we expected. It was significantly harder to understand it’s new way of approaching NLE operation than everyone thought. That’s, IMO, partly because it was so fundamentally different, and partly because with so many people so knowledgeable about Legacy the natural tendency was to compare it TO Legacy rather than take it on it’s own terms.

Now the picture is a lot clearer. They moved many “legacy” needs down the importance list in order to elevate a host of new features that they believed would be critically useful to the future of editing. Those largely revolve around data management and smaller, less complex and formal productions the kind of which are well suited for web deployment rather than theatrical distribution and episodic TV creation.

From their public statements, it appears that the FCP team is fully aware that to make a great “general purpose” editing tool for the future, they’ll have to add many things back in that they “de-prioritized” in the initial release. But Apple has pretty clearly said that they are working on precisely that.

I admire Walter Murch like everyone else. Possibly more so. (I was lucky enough to run into him at NAB one year in the Grand Lux cafe at the Venetian and he graciously took 15 minutes to chat with me directly about FCP, having no clue that I was helping put on the users group event that night. That night I saw him do EXACTLY the same thing with a huge line of fans who lined up for a moment of “personal time” with him. He treated each and everyone in line incredibly graciously – staying for HOURS after the program had ended to make sure everyone who wanted to talk to him, could.. The mark of a man who truly cares about his craft and has a wonderfully generous spirit about sharing his knowledge.

I don’t know what “genius” is so I’m not qualified to comment on whether Mr. Murch is one. But he’s clearly and unarguably a superb film editor, a world class sound for picture artist, and an amazingly decent and generous guy. And that’s way more than good enough for me.

I suspect that like everyone else, he will come to FCP-X in his own way and in his own time. And whether it “gets” is better than anyone else is entire dependent on the amount of time he’s been able to personally spend with it, because as we see time and time and time again in these debates – what’s different about FCP-X takes significant time to learn and understand well enough to appreciate.

But please, don’t invoke his name on the pro or con side until he makes a clear pronouncement that he has explored it to his content, and has formed an opinion either way.

Then take that opinion and do him the respect of acknowledging that it will relate most closely to the kind of work that HE does, and that as thoughtful and well schooled in the editing arts as he clearly is, it won’t necessarily relate to the kind of editing tasks he does NOT regularly do. Unless he makes wider pronouncements on his opinions of it’s general utility. If he does I too will listen.

But I’ll still make my own choices based on what I have to do. Not what any Hollywood film editor does, regardless of how much I respect him or her.

FWIW.

“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

[Bill Davis]

Walter,
[Walter Soyka] “I think that a DAM (digital asset management system) that’s bottled inside an NLE is there for the editor. “

Of course, Walter, but the funny thing about databases is that while you may build it for some internal purpose, once it gets created, it’s much MUCH easier to build some hooks into it so that it can be accessed OUTSIDE the internal structure of the existing database.

That’s the whole point of being “relational” after all.

I think a HUGE clue is right in the design of the FCP-X Project Library.

It’s already a very useful “world view” level that gives one a clear view of the current state of all the included “content” visually. You can not only PLAY, but scrub through dozens of “timelines”, see if it’s been recently updated, and what is and isn’t available for use.

Currently, you could argue that distribution and consumption is done as a separate set of processes after the editor decides that the project is “complete.” And that there’s little linkage between the editing stage and the consumption stage. X seems to be poised to break some of that down.

All it would require is a way to “publish” one’s Project Library. Then suddenly, you have the core of a very agile, very accessible, very updatable CMS ready to go.

“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

[Martin Curtis]

[Tom Wolsky] “A couple had used iMovie and were loving it, the natural upgrade path. Those with legacy backgrounds were frustrated”
This mirrors my experience with iMovies 1 to 8. I could not use iMovie 8 (the “different” one) and so threw myself into FCP (which was a life-changer), while I read of kids who had no previous iMovie experience who would just jump right in to the new one with no preconceptions and no problems.

Perhaps Walter Murch was able to use FCP Classic so easily because its metaphors mirrored the film world so well, whereas the new one breaks all that.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

saying that people are coming into the creative arts uninterested in the finest expressions of narrative film drama, narrative television drama, or documentary, or short form spots is lunatic and untrue.

there is no new lumbering class of magnetic timeline afficionados preparing to storm youtube to produce substandard content.

People are by nature ambitious. Ambition in the creative arts means applying your skill at the highest level.

[Bill Davis] ”
Most people edit to communicate. A significant portion of them edit to communicate for others for money. Of that sub-group, Movies and traditional TV are a further sub-group. The larger play is increasingly “direct to an audience” via the web. If one can’t see that tectonic shift, it’s because you’re not looking.
“

this statement means nothing, it literally means nothing, the sub group argument makes no sense, the reason why people work years to attain editing skills features nowhere here.

The larger play is increasingly “direct to an audience” via the web.
What larger play? by who? what editors are they employing? are you speaking of production companies? documentary houses? studios? what are you actually talking about? are you speaking about repurposed content via hulu, iplayer, etc? why does this sentence make no sense? it read so emphatically, I was sure it actually meant something.

I noted here in another thread months ago, the story of a young intern in that works on the same local TV show that my wife appears on. That bright, attractive young talented girl had NO interest in working on TV. She had secured a primo entry job in the web world. And viewed broadcast as “old school.” She might have been interested in working on a “movie” – but knowing how painfully slow that process is when done properly, I suspect she might have been bored to death with that kind of career.

yes of course, you must be right, she’s bored to death of the idea of editing narrative cinematic film, I’m sure we all are. Its such a boring concept.
God but you crack me up.

[Bill Davis] “That’s where we’re going. And X is being designed for her world. Period. “
there really is nothing like overly emphatic statements and a few caps eh?

[Bill Davis] “Initiatives like VIMEO PRO and the “branded channel” model that Google is clearly building with the YouTube channel ecostructure”

yeah sure, youtube’s umpteenth attempt to gain entry to real content delivery, this time with a 100 mill sweetener, and a 5Dmk2, trapcode particular, showcase site like vimeo are indeeeeeed the future of creative content.
Not the studios, production companies, broadcasters, film makers, documentary makers, lighters, gaffers, editors, scriptwriters, colorists, storyboard artists, researchers, ap’s, location scouts, audiences, tax payers, cinema goers – no no – it all about a few websites, and some youtube videos.

this all makes glorious sense.

can we not please agree that we are talking about the craft of editing?
bill’s supposition that there is a great lumbering ignored underclass moving to vimeo and the financially worthless youtube by an unseen force wielding a magnetic timeline and an akward DAM is lunacy.

this is about the craft of editing. Apple have chosen to wilfully throw a large part of the agreed basis for its operation out the window, right down to matching eye levels with a source monitor – leaving editing practitioners from high to low, to poor murch traumatised.

and even if they were to have succeeeded as bill so gleefully outlines, leaving niche areas of excellence in television, documentary and film to go whistle while bill’s glorious FCPX vimeo on a 42″ plasma future comes about, (really – think about that proposition) aside – what have they achieved?

they have forcefully bifurcated the very operation of editing itself, creating a totally different nomenclature for casual purpose which then, in effect, locks their new adherents from the ladder of skills attainment to all that old boring highest definition of the craft, a place FCPX is blatantly uninterested in travelling to.

Even if this whole mess they have created works on their terms, Apple will have destroyed the continuous environment of editing by demanding FCPX be something they can sell, for cheap, for profit, to anyone.

Apple’s argument is false, mendacious, and will create harm to the basic craft of editing if it comes to pass as they wish it.

As currently envisioned, this application not only may fail – it actually should fail, and needs to fail. comprehensively.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Jeremy Garchow]

Andy, I respect your opinions. They are always thoughtful and based in a bit of reality through rhetoric. I always enjoy reading your posts and I like a lot of what you have said here. I have a few questions for you.

Do you really think FCPX is going to destroy the craft of editing because it makes some processes easier or different? Will cameras like the Red or even the Alexa which is arguably “easier” to use and certainly “easier” to post than film, going to destroy cinematography?

Murch alluded to it and said that the culture and language of editing is being introduced to a greater audience. He said it was important, not destitute.

In what way do you see FCPX teaching bad habits? Maybe the habits we all have are bad habits? I’m just asking rhetorically, do you think it’s OK to explore this new language? Is it about the money?

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Even if this whole mess they have created works on their terms, Apple will have destroyed the continuous environment of editing by demanding FCPX be something they can sell, for cheap, for profit, to anyone.”

Maybe the opposite can be said about companies like, Avid. There was a report the other day about the decently steep cost to go from ProTools 9 to ProTools 10 HD, and the users complained, very vocally, on Avid’s forums immediately. Won’t that cause people to search for something else, that’s probably less expensive? What’s that going to do to the craft? I’ll have to find the article.

Thanks for your time,

Jeremy

[Tom Wolsky]

Bravo Bill. Bravissimo.