what is editing speed ?

[Tony West]

[Joe Marler] “Have there been any behind-the-scenes accounts of FCPX being used in docs?
“

I used it on my doc, but I would be curious to see the workflows of other doc makers.

I did a great deal of keywording and made notes in favorites. One of the things that we don’t talk about much is the time it takes to do a doc.

I worked on mine for 5 years. I had over 30 interviews in that time and I really relied on my notes in favorites, not only to find things quickly but just to remember what a person was talking about 3 or so years ago. Who said it best, interview 9 or 27

I spoke with the Producer of Dateline: Saigon (an amazing documentary that you will be hearing about no doubt) He told me it took him 14 years to put it together.

It’s not really about speed of cutting over that length of time, but what it is about is the speed in which you can find the shots that you are looking for. It’s all about organization.

I had never directed a doc before or been on the big screen. All in all it was a good experience.

[Andrew Kimery]

Tony,

I hope the screening the other day went well. I had to work late so wasn’t able to get to it.

[Tony West] “I worked on mine for 5 years. I had over 30 interviews in that time and I really relied on my notes in favorites, not only to find things quickly but just to remember what a person was talking about 3 or so years ago. Who said it best, interview 9 or 27”

I too have found that organization in docs seems less about getting ready to start editing and more about being able to find something 6, 8, 12 months down the road after all your initial familiarization with the material has faded away. The kicker, of course, is that inevitably what you thought you would need when you started isn’t what you actually need once you are deep in the edit so even the most steadfast attempts at organization and prior planning feel lacking.

-Andrew

[Steve Connor]

[Andrew Kimery] “so even the most steadfast attempts at organization and prior planning feel lacking.”

Which is where the ability to “skim” ALL of your footage really helps.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Steve Connor] “Which is where the ability to “skim” ALL of your footage really helps.”

My current doc has around 120hrs of footage. Use the Skimmer still sounds sucky even if it less sucky that some other options. 😉

For me the best organization tools are some of the least sexy. Transcripts for interviews and fairly detailed logs for broll and verite footage. Skimming and/or using the Find command in a text document is still way faster than skimming through footage in the NLE. I’ve only had the pleasure of using ScriptSync in Avid on one project and it was amazing. I’ve been kicking the tires on SoundBite from Boris and it’s pretty good at finding the word(s) I’m searching for.

[Walter Soyka]

[Simon Ubsdell] “Almost all applications that I know of, however good, have noticeable speed bumps at certain points which seem to break the flow.”

I’m the guy who said “speed is a creative feature [link],” but I’m also interested in Herb’s observation that speed reduces perspective. Sometimes delay is a creative feature.

After all, Franz forgive me, even race cars have brakes.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Tony West]

[Andrew Kimery] “I hope the screening the other day went well. “

Thanks Andrew, yes I did. I can’t say enough positive things about the Laemmle theaters. They really know how to treat an independent filmmaker. They digitally put my movie poster up and had the Q and A mic ready for me. Just awesome.

On the transcripts, I would have liked to have had them but I just didn’t have the budget for it. With that many interviews would have cost some cash and I wanted to spend what little money I had on rights to music and footage.

Bringing it back around to the thread and speed when it comes to X, to me in a word………multitasking

When Apple decided to embed the audio with the video on the clips in the timeline that really changed things, because when you move a clip that has video and audio you are moving multiple things at one time. You are doing that over and over again.

So if you have a video clip that has 4 tracks of audio on it, you are moving 5 things at once, instead of selecting 5 things.

It’s as simple as you picking up 5 items on a table and the other person picking up one bag that has 5 items in it. They are going to pick that bag up faster than you can pick those 5 items up every time.

Even when you move something and something else moves out of the way in X that’s another form of multitasking.

That’s what the video that I posted shows. That video is one big multitask move.

Thomas Grove Carter’s video that started this was really cool, but his audio was separated already and focused more on organization.

I love the organization in X but other NLEs can do much the same these days.

What they can’t do as well because of the tracks is what I’m talking about here.

Of course X has other things that help in speed also like the skimmer and others.

I know it’s not “highbrow” to talk about, but it’s a big factor.

That’s why I will still work with X even when it begins to bog down on complicated TLs

All the multitasking that I’m doing outpaces any spinning.

I’m also having fun with it : )

[Phil Lowe]

Same small project. Same keyboard settings (Avid). Roughly same edit time (equally fast in both, X took a little longer because I reshot material and added more shots to its version). Using X, I worked mainly with the Position tool (OPT-A for me.) Nothing more than a series of 3-point b-roll edits in both cases.

The biggest thing for me – in looking at both – is how much more information the Avid timeline presents me without having to hover or click on anything.

Small projects, like these, are what I will be cutting in news. This shows me that I can be equally proficient in both using my Avid keyboard, and that’s good enough for me.

[Steve Connor]

What that shows me is the ugly Avid timeline hasn’t changed a bit since I first used it in the 90’s!

[Phil Lowe]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And while I don’t think the Avid timeline is “elegant”, if I want to look at something pretty, I’ll look at one of my still pics.

(This isn’t my best shot. Those are for sale on Shutterstock.)

https://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?gallery_id=1737520&safesearch=1&prev_sort_method=popular&sort_method=newest&page=1

[Charlie Austin]

[Steve Connor] “What that shows me is the ugly Avid timeline hasn’t changed a bit since I first used it in the 90’s!”

Sure it has. See? (offline media looks the same though! lol)

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