Why gaps are great!

[David Roth weiss]

[Chris Harlan] “This is the crux right here, right? All of this trackless insanity exists because this kind of edit is slightly more awkward to make than other kinds of edits? That’s madness.”

Absolutely! This is what I’ve been saying since day #1. To force 2-million users to abandon what they know and to retool and retrain because of clip collisions on the timeline does not rank as “efficient” where I come from.

Here’s a post I made on this subject way back on Aug 5th:

[Geoff Dills] “A huge problem with X is it’s NOT intuitive to anyone who has ever edited on any other piece of editing software. You have to rethink, relearn and struggle to use it. It may be more intuitive to a novice, but even there I think it is a steep learning curve to acquire the deep toolset hidden from view on initial contact.”

Very good point Geoff. This is in fact a major issue with FCP X that’s been overlooked by most, because it’s overall efficiency is typically discussed in a vacuum, without any consideration of the costs of both time and dollars retraining the huge base of existing editors to whom traditional track-based timelines are completely intuitive.

We know there were 2-million FCP 7 users, because that’s Apple’s own number. So, there are 2-million users to factor-in, in terms of time and money for retraining. And, retraining on other NLEs would actually need to be factored into the equation too, as Apple’s decision making process ultimately requires retraining for every current user of FCS 3 on one NLE or another.

The bottom line is, if FCP X is actually more efficient for newbies than those with previous training, a cost-benefit analysis would indicate an overall break even point would only be reached when approximately 2-million new users have adopted FCP X.

Will there ever be 2-million totally new users who’ll pickup FCP X more efficiently, to balance the scales, (if it is in fact more intuitive for newbies)? If not, then it naturally follows that the overall efficiency of FCP X and the ratio of its overall costs to overall benefits would be suspect.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

Don’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[David Lawrence]

[David Roth Weiss] “Will there ever be 2-million totally new users who’ll pickup FCP X more efficiently, to balance the scales, (if it is in fact more intuitive for newbies)?”

At $299/seat vs $999/seat, it’ll actually take a lot more than 2-million users to make up the difference.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Simon Ubsdell]

[David Lawrence] “1) zoom out to reveal your tracks first
2) TTT – make sure you select forward in front of any overlapping clips
3) A – use command-select to select any clips you missed (you can drag to rubber band multiples) or deselect any clips you don’t want.”

I’m sorry – I obviously didn’t make it clear what I was talking about (certainly not the first time!). What I was describing and illustrating was exactly what you have described and exactly how I would deal with this situation. My focus was actually more on the audio side where things tend to get even messier (more elaborate!) than your video example and where I think FCPX particularly scores the advantange.

Here’s why I think the track tool method in FCP is laborious – let’s take a typical example of something that I deal with.

To simplify let’s have one track of video and 16 tracks of audio (typically I will have more like 24 but I know this is unusual).

Let’s also assume that half of those audio tracks “overlap” the selection point and let’s assume that half of them have dissolves on at one end.

So here are the keystrokes:

1) Hit T three times (incidentally you can simplify this by hitting T once and then using the Shift key as you make your selection – I find this a lot smoother and quicker).

2) Hit A to start deselecting your tracks.

3) Click eight times to deselect the overlapping clips you don’t want included in the selection.

4) Click eight more times to deselect the dissolves.

And you’re just about there.

Except that you almost certainly need to zoom out, zoom back in, scroll horizontally and scroll vertically to make sure you’ve made the appropriate selections/deselections.

I make that well over 20 actions to achieve the desired result in this case. Bear in mind that in my situation there will be more tracks to take care of and more actions.

This being the case I really don’t think the one action Opt/W (Insert Gap) FCPX method comes off too badly!

I have yet to try it out over hundreds and hundreds of different edit situations (I can’t use FCPX professionally yet for reasons that should be obvious) but I find that this technique does actually work 100% accurately 100% of the time.

The only wrinkle I could see affecting it is if you had some very eccentric clip connections in the first place.

In the case of a music overhang where of course some “healing” is always going to be required whatever method you use, I suppose I would make an edit in the music clip, attach the end section to where I wanted it to end and proceed with the insert gap method as normal.

I hasten to add that I am in no way an FCPX apologist – I do think there are major issues with everything not least the magnetic timeline (but most of all the lack of essential interchange tools that for me are a non-negotiable must-have for which no dodgy third party workaround is going to cut the mustard, now or ever).

That being said, I wanted to applaud the one thing that I have been able to find that would make my day-to-day editing life substantially smoother. (Maybe it’s because I’ve been stuck on Media Composer for the last three weeks that this feature seems incredibly appealing right now.)

Also I’m not saying I have any special difficulty making any of this work in either Media Composer or FCP Legacy, it’s just that I resent the work involved and the consequent disruption to the speed the creative process (that crucial thing called “flow”). A few extra seconds is still a few extra seconds – individually they represent a hiccup, collectively they add up to significant loss of time over an editing day and believe me I have to perform this operation a lot!

[David Lawrence] “”Jawdroppingly” elegant quickly becomes jawdroppingly frustrating.”

“Jawdropping” in this case was more in the nature of what we Brits like to call “a joke”. I’d stick by elegant though, if that’s OK with you 😉

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Chris Harlan] ” I just use ctrl-V to split all my tracks, then “t” or insert edit to move all else over, then I heal as needs be. I can do exactly the same thing in Avid.”

But not if there are dissolves in the way – same thing applies in both FCP and MC. You’d have to take the extra step of removing the dissolves first. (Incidentally why not map the Ctrl/V function onto just plain V? You’ll never look back, especially for ease of adding edits on the fly.)

As I mentioned in my reply to David L., it’s not that I don’t know how to do this stuff in FCP and MC – there are plenty of ways of approaching it. The point I wanted to make is that for all the scenarios of this that I come up against FCPX is the clear winner. On this one point alone, I hasten to add.

I notice that you like me do quite a bit of complex short form spots/trailers where the audio really stacks up in highly complex ways – this is exactly the kind of situation where the FCPX way of opening gaps would be far preferable. If only we could find ways of coming to terms with all the other currently unworkable nonsense!

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com