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What does FCPX teach new editors?
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[Craig Seeman] “They will learn good project organization habits.”
Craig,
I think your response seems to imply that all previous NLEs encourage bad organization, and that FCP X changes all that. I know better to think you think that, but the implication is there anyway.
The fact is, good organizational skills are learned skills, and anyone lazy enough to get around good organization or who doesn’t know enough to appreciate good organization, will always find a way to edit without organization, no matter what app they’re using. FCP X is no exception to this rule, and it could easily be argued that it actually encourages bad habits by automating parts of the process.
[Craig Seeman] “That a single clip can exist under multiple collections can encourage a “non linear” way of organizing.”
Or, it could just as easily encourage a “non linear” way of disorganizing. There are many very highly organized editors who would suggest that a single entry filed in a single location is better organized and gives them a much greater sense of confidence.
There’s no right or wrong, just what works for some does not work for all. And, lazy work habits won’t go away just because Apple built in a better system for handling retrieving clips with metadata.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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Walter, This is a great topic.
I think editors who learn on FCPX may lack a very important skill in editing: Problem solving.
Let’s face it. FCP 7 had a lot of problems and you’d often run into those problems. Any Editor who uses FCP day in and day out has had to become a very good troubleshooter.
Moreover I feel like most of the people who started editing in linear environments are much more versatile editors. They can come up with a thousand different ways to accomplish the same thing and figure out how to do that thing ( a lot of times) faster than someone who didn’t learn editing in a linear environment. It took way more planning to do edit’s in linear form and that’s why people who came from that Background are often much more oganized editors than those who started on NLE’s.
It’s like learning to drive a stick shift. If you learn to drive on the crappiest car in the world you can pretty much drive any stick shift car. But if you learn to drive a stick shift in a brand new corvette, when someone has you drive their 85 honda civic, you’re gonna have some problems.
FCPX is sort of the same if you learn to edit on it, you pretty much only know how to edit on it. If someone puts you in front of an avid, you have no idea what’s going on.
While I feel like the new way of FCPX’s editing is incredibly fast, I feel like it may be at the cost of certain flexibilities.
-mattyc
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[David Roth Weiss] ”
The fact is, good organizational skills are learned skills, and anyone lazy enough to get around good organization or who doesn’t know enough to appreciate good organization, will always find a way to edit without organization, no matter what app they’re using. FCP X is no exception to this rule, and it could easily be argued that it actually encourages bad habits by automating parts of the process.”Good point David. While i do think FCPX has tried to make it harder for editors to be unorganized, you are correct, people will find ways of being disorganized.
I fully agree that taking the organization of footage etc etc out of the equation for you is encouraging laziness. I hate when clients (or bosses) want me to capture a whole tape, B/c it’s lazy and dissoranized (in most cases). It’s a cheap easy way out of having to log your footage, which is how you learn your footage if you did not shoot it.
-mattyc
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[David Roth Weiss] “I think your response seems to imply that all previous NLEs encourage bad organization,”
FCPX adds a key way to organize more easily. One clip can now exist in multiple collections (bins). That’s the way my brain thinks and I’ve always felt previous NLE’s bin methodology obstructed that. Of course one could apply keywords, notes, markers so that a clip can be tagged multiple ways in previous NLEs. I think FCPX makes that easier though.
I also find keywording ranges a major improvement. Sure you could have ranged markers and subclips in previous NLEs but now the clip can bee seen in the various collections and even if one looks at everything unsorted (the master dump bin?) you can see the single clip with its multiple ranges of keywords by looking at the color coded bars on top.
The act of keywording itself is amazingly easy. It can be as detailed as selecting range after range in a clip and typing in a keyword … or as easy as dragging the same clip to multiple collections so it takes on the keyword of each for the entire clip.
Sure one can do the same organizing in past NLEs but making it easier means one is more inclined to do it IMHO.
I’ve been using NLEs before Avid existed and I can honestly say I’ve never encountered an NLE that easier and more flexible at organizing clips.
BTW I’m excluding the “Event” methodology here which I do think has some problems that need to be “explored.”
[David Roth Weiss] “Or, it could just as easily encourage a “non linear” way of disorganizing. There are many very highly organized editors who would suggest that a single entry filed in a single location is better organized and gives them a much greater sense of confidence. “
But I wouldn’t want to be limited to that way of organizing. Of course others would. I like that FCPX allows me to organize the way I want to. I could not do that easily in other NLEs.
A single clip can be interviews, two shots, daytime, exterior, Chicago, summer, and a selection of bites from the interviews. Depending on what I’m doing in the project I can find what I need in context. Smart Collections afford me certain combinations of the above. The entire clip allows me to look at multiple range selections when I need to see it that way too.
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“I think editors who learn on FCPX may lack a very important skill in editing: Problem solving.
Let’s face it. FCP 7 had a lot of problems and you’d often run into those problems. Any Editor who uses FCP day in and day out has had to become a very good troubleshooter.”Matt –
I’m sorry but this is a pretty flawed argument. Extending your thesis everyone should use the worst possible iteration of everything to increase their problem solving abilities – word processor, spreadsheet, food blender, hand drill, surgical tool.
Problem solving skills are developed by solving the core problems – how to tell a story with this limited material, how to work with even the best NLE in the world, because even the best has problems and needs workarounds; not by extolling the virtues of incompetence. Lets elect the worst government so that we can learn the value of civic action … oh wait, we’ve already done that.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
I think Matt’s point was that serious contraints teach discipline — and with it, valuable skills or a valuable perspective that might be unattainable or unfathomable without those constraints.
[Herb Sevush] “Extending your thesis everyone should use the worst possible iteration of everything to increase their problem solving abilities – word processor, spreadsheet, food blender, hand drill, surgical tool.”
Looking at Matt’s argument through the lens of discipline and understanding fundamentals (or problem-solving in a specific domain rather than generalized problem-solving), I do actually think that professionals should begin their education as close to the basis of their domain as possible.
Writers should use pen and paper before word processors. Accountants should use their minds and ledgers before calculators and spreadsheets. Cooks and chefs should use knives and hand tools before food processors and blenders. Carpenters should use hand tools before power tools. Surgeons should use scalpels before DaVincis.
In all cases, this separates the why from the how — the purpose of the tool from its mechanical use. It teaches more about the process as a whole, develops discipline, and builds appreciation and understanding. It allows the practitioner to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the tool separately from the process. I think all of these are good things and important to professional development.
Moving back to my original questions: whether FCPX gets us closer to the basis of editing, or further away — I think that’s still an open question, and that’s part of what I’m hoping to explore in this thread.
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 -
“Writers should use pen and paper before word processors. Accountants should use their minds and ledgers before calculators and spreadsheets. Cooks and chefs should use knives and hand tools before food processors and blenders. Carpenters should use hand tools before power tools. Surgeons should use scalpels before DaVincis.”
As someone who started in film and who believes that anyone seriously interested in the visual art of storytelling needs to start with the films of DW Griffith, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Sergei Eisenstein – I couldn’t agree with you more. I didn’t get that from Matt’s posting, and for that I apologize.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] ” I didn’t get that from Matt’s posting, and for that I apologize.”
Thanks walter, Most likely my fault, Sometimes I focus too much on certain specifics rather than focusing on the root of what I’m getting at.
While you do come up with really good stuff Fiddling around with the edit. Which FCPX is great for. Planning and conceptualizing is a really big part of the process, that I’d imagine someone learning to edit on X would skip.
-mattyc
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It’s not hard (or uncommon) to have a single clip in multiple bins in Avid. Do it all the time.
Chris
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Let's face it. FCP 7 had a lot of problems and you'd often run into those problems. Any Editor who uses FCP day in and day out has had to become a very good troubleshooter.and this is the Problem I find with all applications, I don’t want to solve or troubleshoot I want to create content.
But again that what Computers are there for right? Fixing them!
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