-
what is editing speed ?
-
In this interview, Matzdorff said once he stopped trying to make FCPX work like Avid he made good progress.
Well, for what it’s worth, Avid is what I know and will continue to use. Progress (beyond basic cuts) in FCPX holds no appeal for me whatsoever. I did knock out a 1:00 long music video in it earlier using my Avid key mapping. Didn’t take long to do but something simple – like color correcting – was awful. The chroma keyer, something I played with when I first started with it, is not nearly as good as Specrtramatte, and, well, I already mentioned trying to do simple dissolves is a chore, especially on audio.
Even he said the precision editor (???) leaves much to be desired. And why do you ned a precision editor anyway? Precision should be built into the very interface itself, not a separate tool you have to open!
I have no doubt in my ability to bend it to my will, and will get the most basic edits I will need to do with it done using it my way. Beyond that, I don’t care. It’s simply not anything I need to go any deeper into.
Thanks for the discussion.
-
If that’s your goal, stick with Avid and avoid the frustration.
I am sticking with Media Composer, as I stated earlier, for my freelance work. I am being forced to learn FCPX to do news editing at the station where I work. I am not going to give up everything I know and the financial investment I’ve made in Avid for basic, simple news editing on, what is, in my view, a glorified version of iMovie.
Obviously, were I not compelled to use it at all, I wouldn’t even be in this forum.
Would love to hear from the non-manogomous editors out there how they manage to remember what keystrokes to use as they move from ap to ap.
When I used Premiere Pro, I did remap Premiere’s keyboard using my Media Composer settings. This made moving from one program to another virtually seamless, and there’s one simple reason for that: muscle memory. Take a professional secretary off a QWERTY keyboard and put her on a Dvorak keyboard, and productivity drops significantly until her muscles and hand-eye coordination are familiar with the new keyboard. Now, once she’s used to that, giver her back her old keyboard and watch the productivity drop again.
Much of what comprises editing is “rinse and repeat”: repetitive keystrokes and mouse moves. Sometimes using more than one NLE may be unavoidable, as one program may do something you need that the other doesn’t do as well. Not having to retrain your muscle memory moving from one program to another keeps you consistently fast in both. If time is money, productivity is money in the bank. Anything that makes you think about what you need to do in any given program, just to do the job, costs time.
When I worked on a Newscutter, there were some shots I wanted to affect in Premiere Pro because Avid’s default effect palette is “lacking.” Being able to do basic edits in Premiere with effects using my Avid keystrokes got me where I needed to be in both Premiere Pro and Avid faster.
Muscle memory, or being familiar enough with a program’s shortcut’s to access the keystrokes you need without even thinking about them, is what makes editing on any system fast.
Protecting that investment in training I made to move my muscles instinctively across a keyboard is precisely why I remapped the FCPX keyboard to my Avid settings. Will those settings be as efficient in FCPX as they are in Avid? Probably not. But when I get home at the end of a day of cutting news vo’s, I don’t want to have to think about which keyboard I’m using when I sit down to do my long form work.
Hope that helps.
-
[Herb Sevush] “Would love to hear from the non-manogomous editors out there how they manage to remember what keystrokes to use as they move from ap to ap.”
I don’t remap PPro to match FCPX and I jump between the two a lot, like you I prefer the full immersion too.
It isn’t a problem – eventually! -
[Joe Marler] “His first attempt to use FCPX was editing a little video interview for his wife. He figured it would be a piece of cake for him — a professional Hollywood film editor. He struggled for a long time, gave up and had to finish the video in FCP 7. He was so angry he asked for a refund from Apple.
“Wasn’t he the AE?
I can see how FCPX is great for pre pro and can make the life of an AE better.
I want to hear from the actual editor(s) who cut Focus, the people actually working on a timeline and being creative. – no diss on AE’ing, its an essential part of the process.
-
[Neil Goodman] “I want to hear from the actual editor(s) who cut Focus, the people actually working on a timeline and being creative. – no diss on AE’ing, its an essential part of the process.”
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/focus/
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
That would be Jan Kovac.
I got to spend some more time talking with him last month in LA at the FCPExchange event.
He’s deep into the new Tina Fey / Martin Freeman movie – and yes, he is cutting it on X.
Most interesting was how X is working to help him track the various takes he’s working with – IIRC he was talking about how the X organizational system helps him track the differing “emotional temperatures” in scene takes – plus quite a bit of chat about X’s ability to store and recall specific “beats” in the material for later use.
It was a very interesting chat.
I’d invite him to drop by to discuss it – but sadly, after my prior experience with doing that kind of thing – the general feeling in the X community is that this particular Forum is pretty far down the list as a place where high end X users want to spend all that much time.
Go figure.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
[Oliver Peters] “[Neil Goodman] “I want to hear from the actual editor(s) who cut Focus, the people actually working on a timeline and being creative. – no diss on AE’ing, its an essential part of the process.””
I’ll add that I recently had a loooong conversation with director Glenn Ficarra about how they evolved their use of X on their next feature, the upcoming Whisky Tango Foxtrot, that I hope to get posted this month.
(You may have seen previous references to the movie title as Fun House and The Taliban Shuffle, but in any case, here’s the IMDb listing.)
Rather than a specific workflow profile like Oliver’s piece, we were mostly talking about speed. (What’s that you say? SPEED.) The context for our conversation was their work on-set, where they were not just cutting, but roughing out VFX (shoutout to CoreMelt Track X in particular) and audio (what’s that you say? AUDIO).
Glenn’s feeling is that the speed (what’s that you say? SPEED) of FCPX enabled them to save big money on set, which is where the biggest savings often are. He actually started telling me that they’re going even further with their next film, with the bottom line for now being that they’re remaking their entire moviemaking process to take into account how much more they’re able to accomplish with X.
That sounds pretty creative to me. 🙂
To your point, Neill, I also spoke with First AE Kevin Bailey, who was personally roughing picture, VFX, AND audio (what’s that you say? AUDIO) on set, and he likewise was very moved by X’s speed.
So the takeaway from the Focus team was to push X even harder for their next movie, and harder still for the one after it — and loving it more.
btw, I really loved talking to Glenn. When I say he’s razor sharp, fast, and funny, keep in mind that he also wrote Bad Santa. (What? That was 12 years ago?) I mean, he’s written and directed lots of other stuff, plenty of it kind, generous (directed Crazy, Stupid, Love.), and even for kids (Angry Beavers, Wild Thornberrys), but duuuude, Bad Santa. I’ll get this posted as soon as I can, honest.
-
[Phil Lowe] “I have no doubt in my ability to bend it to my will, and will get the most basic edits I will need to do with it done using it my way. Beyond that, I don’t care. It’s simply not anything I need to go any deeper into.”
Hey, if Avid’s for you, more power to you. Careful though. If you don’t look out X just might pleasantly surprise you, and then what!
😉
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Herb Sevush] “Would love to hear from the non-manogomous editors out there how they manage to remember what keystrokes to use as they move from ap to ap.”
It is interesting. I was on jobs using Premiere and FCPX over the last few weeks. I use X as my primary editor and ouse Premiere when it is the only option. What I find is that I can remember most of the basic Premiere functions that keep me moving along at a decent pace. But just the differences in those basic commands can slow you down (hey, back on the original topic: speed). And that’s because I have to actually think that the backslash key works like the Shift-Z, A versus V, periods and commas versus E, Q, and W. I find myself using drop down menus in Pr a lot more because I simply have not memorized the shortcuts yet (and can you only get to the color corrector by going to Workspaces?). In X, I barely recognize that I have done those commands as it’s so baked in to me.
I remember a quote from Duane Allman where he said something along the lines of “the guitar has just become part of my body and I hardly have to think to play”. Speed is where you know the software so well, only a fraction of your concentration is on the software and the vast majority is on the visual story in front of you. Doesn’t matter what software you are using, because when you get to that point where you “hardly have to think to play” then you are enjoying “editing speed”.
My humble opine.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Tim Wilson] “btw, I really loved talking to Glenn. When I say he’s razor sharp, fast, and funny, keep in mind that he also wrote Bad Santa. (What? That was 12 years ago?) I mean, he’s written and directed lots of other stuff, plenty of it kind, generous (directed Crazy, Stupid, Love.), and even for kids (Angry Beavers, Wild Thornberrys), but duuuude, Bad Santa. I’ll get this posted as soon as I can, honest.”
Looking forward to that
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up