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when to invoke the magnetic timeline and what is a fragile timeline really.
sure while we’re jawboning –
the swapping behaviour seen in the demo, where the stuff slides back and forth, or the clip avoidance seen where audio stuff jumps out of the way, which seems to me a precursor to necessary cross fades I guess.. where does one see the work uses?
So say I do a fair whack of sizzle reel stuff – so that’d be largely pic edits over tunes with a little sync, its not all I do but ok say – I can see clip swapping while retaining the automatic cut points as being ok – but really that’s just saving a small step that i might enjoy – shaving a frame off the clip I’m about to land on before moving it can be a deeply instinctive choice.
in the depths of the edit those momentary choices can be a bit precious no?
the – quote randy unquote – fragility of the timeline is, I believe, another way of speaking to its sensitivity to necessary change really –what I mean i guess is – (and look – god knows – this can be turned off – this is for intellectual fun and group discussion)… if we have prior edit decisions automatically swapping themselves around – how do we feel about that? if the default edit behaviour to new entrants is not to be fragile -do we feel that that is an unnecessary pair of mittens?
Gents: please do not jump on me. This here be the FCPX jawboning forum. this here be bone, I have duly thrown it and am backing away from it. 😉
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
10 Replies
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I don’t see the problem at the moment. It looks like we can just trim that offending frame after the tracks move.
Apple Certified Master Pro FCS 2
Sony EX-3
MacBook Pro -
well….. sure, maybe the frame did, or did not offend, and maybe it was an instinctive move to slice a hair there.
If we are to suppose randy’s scenario where edits slide around each other like jello, then I’m not entirely sure I understand where the next edit decision comes from?
editing requires some deliberate, continuous clip alteration no? I’m not exactly sure I understand apple’s thinking here – I’m not sure I understand what they are protecting the editing timeline from. If the clips just slide around each other – what exactly is happening?http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Hey Aindreas
Don’t think we’re looking at anything more there than the “Swap Edit” function thats existed in FCP for yonks. The action may be sexed up with a bit of core animation goodness, and the built in logic of the mugnutic timeline allows it to work more intelligently with attached audio, but its still just a swap edit at the end of the day and would be used no differently than normal. Did you see anything to suggest that you couldn’t perform an edit normally ie without doing a “Swap”?
Cheers
Andy -
You will recall that Randy said nearly everything can be done by keyboard.
We must assume you can toggle Magnetic on and off with a keystroke, if the UI is to be user friendly, and not “user hostile.”
In which case, as Andy says, Magnetic is for swaps or for slapping together assemblies, dropping in clips and whole sequences (a la “Compound Clips”).
But I agree that manual control during fine cutting is NOT A CHORE and in fact is your final crack at rhythm and timing. And 3-point fit-to-fill is a beautiful thing!
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Amen to the three point. And nah – absolutely – magnetic, she can be turned off for sure, it was just that point where he was like ‘look I can swap clips around!’ and I’m looking at it with the clip connections going to myself ‘zany!’ but after the fact I wondered just how often I would invoke that kind of clip swapping global behavior, and I don’t think it’s that often. But given that clip swapping, audio avoidance and snap basically comprise the magnetic timeline, do we like that as out of the box default behavior? Should clip swapping be the default timeline behavior? Why should it?
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “But given that clip swapping, audio avoidance and snap basically comprise the magnetic timeline, do we like that as out of the box default behavior? Should clip swapping be the default timeline behavior? Why should it?”
Just cos it was demo’d doesn’t mean it was default behaviour. I could “demo” Swap Clip to you in an FCP 7 timeline … see how I click and drag this clip, and look now as the cursor changes to a swap edit icon (its magic), I drop the clip and viola … doesn’t mean it’d of happened if I hadn’t have held down the option key but it’d have looked automatic to you. But it’s just a demo, showing what can be done, not teaching “how” to do it so those details I might have not gone into. Makes sense, right? So what was presented as the Sneak Peak was just a demonstration of whiz bang features, we don’t know whether they were all necessarily default behaviours or not. I’m not saying magnetic timelines are not default, and am not saying that having magnetism enabled doesn’t make “swap” a default action, am just saying that just because it looks like a bone and smells like a bone doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a dogs dinner.
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hey Andy – I have used FCP from time to time, or professionally in broadcast since 2001 to look at it another way.. I have rocked clip swapping as currently implemented from time to time..;)
I’ll bet you though, that this is the default behaviour of the timeline, and it is certainly – clipswapping – audio avoidance – and snap – rolled into one, because all those behaviours are on show when he describes the magnetic timeline – the question is –
if, if it is default behaviour for the timeline, should it be?http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Well that may be the prosumer aspect. The thinking, in building an NLE for “the rest of us” would be, default is easy, and those of us who tend toward pro use can figure out how to turn it off. Whereas Joe Consumer shouldn’t be expected to find and enable all the “easy-auto” functions.
Look at Apple’s dialogue boxes. Out of the box, many apps give you the simple box. Those that know better will click the triangle button and use the full navigation and save as window.
Another analogy is the prosumer video camera. Note the All Auto easy setting. Anyone can turn it on and shoot, auto focus, auto exposure, auto everything. THEN if you are ambitious, try Manual or Aperture preferred, etc.
It seems clear that FCPX will be VERY prosumer friendly out of the box; whether it has real depth, that’s what we’re waiting to learn.
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Haha … sorry man, I wasn’t suggesting you actually needed a demo! I was just trying to illustrate that to someone (or a hall full of people) who hadn’t seen the UI before, well they’d only see the action, not how it was done, and so wouldn’t know it wasn’t automagic. Is it the default behaviour? Sure, if and when magnetic is turned on it did appear to be the default behaviour as presented in the demo, but ….
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “if, if it is default behaviour for the timeline, should it be?”
I would say yes. It’s generally a good idea when designing an interface to have your software work in the most user-friendly, least destructive way by default, and then, if necessary, give the user the option to activate less intuitive or more dangerous functionality.
With respect to the general usefulness of this feature, I wonder if it might not enable new editing styles. As far as I can can see you’ve mostly been discussing it with respect to just swapping clips around in an already largely edited sequence. But what if you just pick out the media you want to use in a very rough way, dump it all on the timeline only roughly organized (perhaps just by scene), and do your editing on the timeline? The non-destructiveness of the Magnetic Timeline seems like it would make this much more convenient.
Not an approach for every editor, and certainly not on every project, but it might have some value.
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