What does FCPX teach new editors?

[Craig Seeman]

They will learn good project organization habits.

Keyword and Smart Collections teach good organizing given it’s advantage over simply dumping all the clips into a bin or two. I suspect some people starting on FCPX will find other NLEs deficient in that respect. That a single clip can exist in multiple collections is hard (but not impossible) to replicate in other NLEs. That a single clip can exist under multiple collections can encourage a “non linear” way of organizing.

FCPX handles clips as relationships to each other rather than relationships locked in time. It’s not a good or bad value judgement but it’s very different than other NLEs. In some respects it’s like nodal compositing vs track based compositing.

[Jean-françois Robichaud]

Every editor’s got his own way of doing things. A flexible enough tool allows one to develop his own approach, using it in a way that it wasn’t necessarily designed for, but fits the editor’s mindset.

I also started out with linear editing, but moved on to NLE with Premiere, then Final Cut Pro (around V4). For most projects, I start with a cerebral, analytic approach to editing: I spend I lot of time browsing my clips, organizing them, picturing the edit in my head, before I even start putting anything together in the timeline. This might be a leftover from my linear beginnings (or it could be constructive procrastination), but it works for me. However, once I start assembling in the timeline, the process becomes more impulsive (in a good way).

I’ve been playing around with FCP X since its release. I haven’t yet edited a full project in it, but I’ve run many tests and used it to synchronize audio to interviews. It’s obvious that the media management features are very well suited to my style (keywords collections and all). It will be interesting to see how beginners will use these features to organize media. They might learn to spend more time thinking about the edit before putting anything in the timeline.

Beyond the obvious lack of interaction with an editing ecosystem, I’ve met my share of quirks, bugs and other strange behaviours in the timeline (all reported to Apple). Yet it don’t feel FCP X forces me to work in one specific way. There are still many ways to construct an edit using the primary/secondary storylines, connected clips, compound clips, etc. Some operations are very efficient, others require too many steps to accomplish. Once again, how will a newcomer adopt it, since they have no preconception of how a timeline should behave?

It’s too early to tell if I will be editing any faster in FCP X than FCP 7, but overall, I find its approach more attractive, despite its quirks. Sure, part of it is the novelty aspect, but there is something substantially smart about it. Once the interface has matured (2012? 2013?), it should be quite an efficient tool.

[Noah Kadner]

Yeah it does let you focus more on the creative aspects and enforces organization from the moment you ingest footage. It’s kinda like having an assistant working alongside you. Of course you might find this unexpected if you’re used to working in a less ‘active’ NLE, well which is pretty much any other NLE. But if you get used to it you can get projects from ingest to completion a lot faster with much less boring busy work.

Noah

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[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “Keyword and Smart Collections teach good organizing given it’s advantage over simply dumping all the clips into a bin or two.”

Great point. I’ve seen people make the argument that FCPX will separate them from their footage, but I agree with you on this.

If you’ll pardon the overgeneralization, I’ve found that editors with linear experience are a lot more willing to spend more time upfront with the footage — possibly because constantly scanning through it all randomly on a linear system was out of the question. I’ve found that editors who started on non-linear systems were less afraid to jump right in without spending all that upfront time with the footage.

Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe.” Perhaps pervasive metadata will make logging (tree pun welcomed but not intended) attractive enough again that new editors will spend more time with the footage before beginning the edit?

[Craig Seeman] “FCPX handles clips as relationships to each other rather than relationships locked in time. It’s not a good or bad value judgement but it’s very different than other NLEs.”

Agreed here, too — but what do you think this means in editorial? Will this change the way editors assemble their cuts? The way they adjust them? The way they perceive the timeline? Will an editor who learns on FCPX be less inclined to view these relationships fluidly because the software is less inclined to treat them that way?

[Craig Seeman] “In some respects it’s like nodal compositing vs track based compositing.”

I see where you’re going here (nodal compositing is about managing relationships), but I wonder if this analogy isn’t a bit superficial. I think that FCPX’s design philosophy is abstraction, hiding technical detail where possible and moving the editor away from the underlying mechanics of what the computer must do to assemble the edit. Nodal compositing requires the compositor to manually manage the comp in excruciating detail and understand exactly how the renderer works to get the result they’re looking for.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Noah Kadner]

[Walter Soyka] ” I think that FCPX’s design philosophy is abstraction, hiding technical detail where possible and moving the editor away from the underlying mechanics of what the computer must do to assemble the edit”

Really this is the underlying philosophy of all of Apple’s products if you look closely enough.

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and GoPro HD Hero.

[Walter Soyka]

Nice post, Jean-François. One question for you:

[Jean-François Robichaud] “Every editor’s got his own way of doing things. A flexible enough tool allows one to develop his own approach, using it in a way that it wasn’t necessarily designed for, but fits the editor’s mindset.”

I think that flexibility was the design philosophy in FCP — there were always multiple ways of doing the same thing.

Do you find that FCPX allows this same flexibility, or is there one easy path with FCPX, and others that are possible but much more difficult?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Noah Kadner] “Really this [abstraction] is the underlying philosophy of all of Apple’s products if you look closely enough.”

I think this is true today, Noah, but as I just posted in response to Jean-François, I think that flexibility was the design philosophy of “classic” FCP. This feels like a big change.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Noah Kadner]

Oh totally- there was more flexibility but also a steeper learning curve. Now those of us who knew how to drive FCP 7 well already probably don’t care so much about the latter but it’s still an important consideration. The genius of great design is striking that perfect balance between power and usability.

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and GoPro HD Hero.

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “[Craig Seeman] “FCPX handles clips as relationships to each other rather than relationships locked in time. It’s not a good or bad value judgement but it’s very different than other NLEs.”

Agreed here, too — but what do you think this means in editorial?”

Currently, the most obvious feature of nodal based editing is sync and compositing relationships (cutaways, layered fx, sync to primary storyline clips). It’s important to point out that the nodes (connection points) can be moved. They default to the first frame but they can be moved to any frame of any underlying clip (a connected clip and secondary storyline can cross multiple clips in time) in which their existence in time overlap. By itself it has no value until one starts moving the underlying clips.

Therefore, it’s biggest impact is in moving around stacks of relationships in time. Movement in time is both horizontal (track) and vertical (stack). This vertical movement doesn’t easily exist in other NLEs (short of lassoing or very complex selections). This makes the movement of such stacks much easier. As to whether that’s of value, depends on the project. It does facilitate moving sound synced to specific clips, cutaways, composited fx, titles, as a unit though.

In other NLEs one might build the track and then add layers. In FCPX it’s possible to build layers, knowing you can comfortably move them if you find the entire stack should happen at a different point in time.

[Walter Soyka] “I see where you’re going here (nodal compositing is about managing relationships), but I wonder if this analogy isn’t a bit superficial. I think that FCPX’s design philosophy is abstraction, hiding technical detail where possible and moving the editor away from the underlying mechanics of what the computer must do to assemble the edit. Nodal compositing requires the compositor to manually manage the comp in excruciating detail and understand exactly how the renderer works to get the result they’re looking for.”

See above. I don’t think it’s hiding things in this context. I think it exposes vertical relationships which previously were difficult to manage in other NLEs if you had to move the base of the stack. It allows the computer to do something that wasn’t done easily in an NLE previously.

Maybe you’re thinking of the “magnetic” timeline and clip collisions. Now the computer moves things out of the way for you . . . although even that doesn’t “hide” the problem the editor needs to deal with. In this case it’s really changing the sequence of how you handle such problems. Previously you’d have to resolve the collision to rework the move. Now you can make the move first and then decide how you want to handle the media that just became layered.

For those who tend to want to move things first this solves a problem. For those who’d work out the timings first, this wouldn’t mean much because they’d not have the collision so this would be a vestigial new feature. It does mean that you have more flexibility because you can still avoid the collision first. It’s just not a “block” if you tend to move things first.

[Jean-françois Robichaud]

[Walter Soyka] ”
I think that flexibility was the design philosophy in FCP — there were always multiple ways of doing the same thing.

Agreed. In fact, I’d say it’s the design philosophy of all successful NLEs.

[Walter Soyka] ”
Do you find that FCPX allows this same flexibility, or is there one easy path with FCPX, and others that are possible but much more difficult?”

The first thing one notices when using FCP X is how it breaks with the traditional multi-track timeline shared by most NLEs. One tends to think: it forces me to work in a specific, “alien” way, rather than what I’m used to. But that’s just the first impression. Differences in the timeline are mechanical; they don’t force you to change the way you construct a narrative, but you do need to adapt to the new tools and features. After a few weeks, I do get the feeling it’s very flexible (organic might be the word), certainly less rigid. Some timeline operations still lack precision.

I don’t see a problem with the base architecture, but with some of the secondary design decisions: the unified viewer is very well implemented when working on a laptop, but for one who has the screen real estate, can I get a separate viewer please? Some things shouldn’t have been hidden from view: it should be more timecode-friendly, etc. Hide some things by default, sure, but just let me turn it back on if I want to see it.