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Why do Events still exist?
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[Robin S. Kurz] “Aside from that I find events a very welcome and very logical organizational tool. I do an episodic. Instead of making one library per episode, which would make for a complete mess, I make one library per season and one event per episode. Exponentially better and easier to handle.”
Exactly how they were meant to be used in my opinion and how I use them.
Very simply and fast to get to things that way, but if someone would rather dump thousands of items into one event they have that option also.
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[Robin S. Kurz] “So then why not get rid of folders in the Finder and just dump any and everything on the top level of every disk and just use Finder tags to filter everything? By that same logic I guess folders were a mistake of the original OS “
In most file systems, folders are an intuitive orgizational and navigational UI construct which maps to the underlying directory structure. Whether the UI draws a folder object or not, a heirarchical file structure exists. Using folders and sub-folders was an easy UI step, plus approachable and familiar to users.
FCPX is more like a relational database. In an RDBMS there is no intrinsic heirarchy of data, it exists in unordered rows that you query by attributes. On ingest you can define (ie tag) additional attributes to facilitate later retrieval. If the UI chooses to display that in folders corresponding to those attributes, it can, but (unlike a file system) the data is not heirarchically organized.
Since the advent of the RDBMS there has always been a conflict between human perception and relational data management. People often think of data navigationally or heirarchically. In their mind, rows are in an intrinsic order, like papers in a file. People have an ingrained (or is it learned?) tendency to store things within things, items with folders, folders within folders, etc.
This is likely one reason why FCPX originally used events. Not doing so would be too foreign, and transitioning or new users had enough to struggle with anyway.
Re “So then why not get rid of folders in the Finder and just dump any and everything on the top level of every disk and just use Finder tags to filter everything? By that same logic I guess folders were a mistake of the original OS…”
As previously described, a file system is very different from an RDBMS or FCPX. Today you can use FCPX perfectly well without any events, although events may have some residual value besides a comfort blanket of familiarity.
Object or database file systems have been proposed and some built, but none widely adopted. The lack of these is one reason we have so many problems when manipulating data outside iTunes, Lightroom or FCPX, which the app is then unaware of. Current file systems are very dumb, have no two-way communication with the app, and force database functionality to be redundantly implemented within each app. Each app must implement its own database, verification and repair functions — often rudimentary, undocumented or even non-existent.
Some apps have moved toward diminishing a pure folder-like organization. E.g, Gmail folders are not real folders but attribute tags which it displays as folders.
I’m OK using FCPX without events but I understand the need for them, at least for the foreseeable future. Eliminating events might make the FCPX storage model more pure, but I don’t see it bringing any other advantage, and it would create chaos if done.
To answer Oliver’s original question, even if database, query and performance factors would have allowed the original FCPX to be without events, I don’t think it would have been sellable to customers. It would have been too foreign.
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[Joe Marler] “This is likely one reason why FCPX originally used events. Not doing so would be too foreign, and transitioning or new users had enough to struggle with anyway.”
Actually I think the answer is far simpler. They started with Events and Projects because they were working from the iMovie paradigm (no slur intended).
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Well Brett, I think the “Except the Library” is a pretty Huge Deal.
I’ve had corporate Gigs with a single client (Library) creating convention videos for multiple division presentations: e.g Sales, Operations, Training, etc. (Events) Each of which commissioned multiple videos for a big annual conference. (Projects)
The problem is editors who perhaps think that the only organizational structure that should matter is the one that meets needs precisely like theirs?
You and Oliver may not see a need for the added organizational buckets from inside your working style, but some of us have been very pleased to have them.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
IIRC, Randy Ubillos conceived and prototyped many of the concepts he folded into X while re-writing iMovie.
What would have been the possible value of doing a bunch of seminal thinking about advancing the NLE structure you originally created first for Premiere 1.0 and then FCP Legacy – for a more modern approach to editing – then arbitrarily throwing all that conceptual stuff out?
It would be like any artist doing a series of study drawings for a major painting, then arbitrarily painting something ELSE that used none of the prep.
The fact that quite a few geniuses dubbed X “iMovie Pro” only goes to show how few of them had actual real world experience in conceiving anything genuinely new – and then working long and hard to revise and perfect it.
The people who actually do follow that path generally have a term that describes them.
Inventors.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “You and Oliver may not see a need for the added organizational buckets from inside your working style, but some of us have been very pleased to have them.”
No one is arguing against organizational buckets. The question is whether there is a need to have Events as a specific, separate structural element.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joe Marler] “FCPX is more like a relational database.”
Just to be clear, Quantel did this in the late 80s with PaintBox, EditBox, Harry and Henry. So the concept didn’t start in NLEs with FCPX.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Robin S. Kurz] “As Bret already stated, there is no way to only have clips in the library. They can only be in an event IN the library. Selecting the library will show you everything of every event in that library. If you’re seeing anything else, well…
“While this is structurally true within the package contents, it’s apparently not completely true inside to user interface – although it should be. I agree that something went wrong in the situation I had, but that’s just another example of how buggy this version is at the moment.
Yet the question still remains… Why are there still Events as structural elements within the package itself? It seems to be a vestige left over from 10.0.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Robin S. Kurz] “And by the way, for the sake of memory usage and speed alone, getting rid of events would be a horrible idea. Since otherwise FCP would load the entire content of a library upon starting up. This way it is only loading the content of whichever event/project you have selected (but scanning the rest on open to check links, yes). Unless of course you do e.g. a search at the library level, in which case it reads everything i.e. projects etc. as well. I’m sure everyone has had to wait for the progress bar to finish when doing that. There you go.”
I agree that’s an issue with FCPX. However, it never was much of an issue with FCP “classic” and isn’t with PPro or Avid MC. So doesn’t that point to other “under the hood” issues? I’m sure thumbnail/filmstrip/waveform generation in FCPX is the biggest culprit here.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joe Marler] “FCPX is more like a relational database.”
[Oliver Peters] “Just to be clear, Quantel did this in the late 80s with PaintBox, EditBox, Harry and Henry. So the concept didn’t start in NLEs with FCPX.”
I think all NLEs employ relational databases; FCPX is unique in its data model and the (meta)data-driven functionality it delivers to the user.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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