Why the Magnetic Timeline is Good…

[Michael Garber]

Carsten –

This is great to know. Didn’t know you could do that. Thanks!

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Garber] “Carsten –

This is great to know. Didn’t know you could do that. Thanks!”

I just went and redid some music cuts and uh… it’s great. I’ve been using expanded components with dialog in the primary, but never thought of using secondary’s and components this way for music. Great tip Carsten! Love this stuff 😀

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Michael Garber]

Ok, thought about it some more. Your method is great for using two clips of audio and that would work for me most of the time. But let’s say that I add in a third clip — a drum beat, sfx, or anything to add more depth to the music — anything that needs to stay in sync with those two clips that are joined in a secondary. To do that, I’d still have to turn the third clip into a secondary storyline and add gap before the clip to keep it in sync with the same cut point. Given that scenario, it would still be useful to be able to group connected clips so that they stay locked to each other.

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X

[Carsten Orlt]

Just did a test:

edit 2 clips or more in secondary.
add additional audio at edit point as connected clip.
selected all 3 and made compound out of them.
done 🙂
when you open the compound the clips in the secondary moved to the primary and the extra clip is connected as before.
because it’s now one clip in your timeline you never loose your beautiful work again.
need to lengthen the music: break apart compound, do the edit and compound again.

nothing could be easier, well actually a lot but that is another story.

[Joshua Pearson]

I’m sorry but what you are describing sounds slightly ridiculous… why in the world would you want to perform all those extra steps to bury edits within compound clips within secondary storylines when you can do all that so simply and easily and quickly right on the “front page” of any other NLE? Shackles of laziness? Sounds more like unnecessary extra work that simply slows one down. Overly complicated.

[Jeremy Garchow]

I think you may be underestimating the secondary storyline, and it does not work like other NLEs.

You can move parts of the timeline while keeping other parts of the timeline where they are with minimal clicking and track tetris, collisions and overwrites. They also allow j/l cuts in one “lane” unlike tracks, which needs a whole new track. None of this is really straight forward, and most of it is a brand new way to work, which is true even if you like the way FCPX operates. To me, it isn’t unnecessarily complex, it actually makes some things easier and solves complexities, but it does take some understanding, which only takes time.

I agree, that compounding clips needs work, having layered secondary story lines or containers would “solve” all of this (kind of like multiple primaries in their own containers). Just like the tilde key was a huge missing part of the equation, having clips that don’t HAVE to be linked to the primary would bring a whole new level of FCPX interface.

I’m looking forward to what comes next.

[Carsten Orlt]

It’s really all the same complications in all NLE. There are things that need some fiddling.

The argument you made I could easily make for track based editing where I would need to select multiple edit points of clips on multiple tracks to make one simple trim on the video track to not throw things out of sync. I remember when FCP legacy got the feature to be able to select multiple edit points on diff tracks, something Avid had I think from the beginning.

I prefer the new method because it gives me the possibility to edit something in fine detail and then forget about it and never be worried that I might destroy it by trimming something else 30 min before or even just above it.

I like the new world and I don’t want to go back 🙂

[Charlie Austin]

[Carsten Orlt] “I like the new world and I don’t want to go back :-)”

Me too. 🙂 I want to move this thing I’m looking at to here. Why should I have to worry about whether I’m screwing up something earlier or later that I can’t see because I’m zoomed in. Or jump through hoops to prepare the timeline for my edit. I just want to do it and move on. Huge time, and sanity, saver.

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Herb Sevush]

[Charlie Austin] “In closing, I’d like to encourage all editors (nobody specific of course… just generally) to stop being such lazy, whiney, babies and learn how to use X. You have no idea what you’re missing. Not a clue. Yeah, it’s different than MC, 7, PPro, whatever. Boo freaking hoo. It’s better. And yes, I’m annoyed. ;-)”

Do you edit on Lightworks? Sony Vegas? Edius? Why would I try X ahead of them?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Charlie Austin]

[Herb Sevush] “Do you edit on Lightworks? Sony Vegas? Edius? Why would I try X ahead of them?”

Hey, I was having a bad day… 😉 But, since you asked, because they have tracks. 🙂

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~