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why would anyone want to use FCPX (SERIOUS discussion – no bashing)
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That’s my impression of PPro. When my son asked me about doing a modestly convoluted workflow, I looked at PPro and said, basically, “I’m too old to waste my time learning and untangling this interface. Even Adobe’s Help documents require a level of study (they are too verbal, no easy-to-get pictures like FCPX). I volunteered to help only if we did it in FCPX, which as I described above we did quickly and easily. In spite of certain pitfalls (see Oliver’s troubles with audio on this forum, about 4-6 months ago I think) … I still find FCPX’s methods of dealing with audio simple, easy to get and fast to use.
Doug D
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John, you opening comments are basically what prompted me to invoke the Walter Murch anecdotes. For whatever reasons he doesn’t want to use FCPX, I found it ironic that from his first use of FCP v1, consulting with Apple along the way, he has massaged the way it is used, worked up a powerful database to use alongside it … to the point that, for the less technically-inclined folks like me … it almost looks like he was forcing FCP Legacy to do the things that FCPX now does out of the box, for $300! THAT alone is reason to try it out.
Doug D
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The thing thats still bothering me a lot (and this is something that doesn’t fully make sense to me YET but I know I have to get used to it) is the secondary story line (I am sorry if I might be using wrong terms) and the fact that the MAIN story line has a lot of great editing features I need in my daily life but the connected clips above don’t have any of those editing features. If I use IN and OUT to select a range I only select the main time line but everything above just gets ignored. That’s really annoying to me and I have no real idea how to edit anything above the main time line. The way it looks like to me: Make up your mind FIRST- already try to do your editing as good as possible- throw your broll in there and then if you have a few connected clips you can group them and turn them into a secondary story line so you gain the all the editing abilites again. This is kinda odd to me. Really I just want to use in and out to maybe remove something but NO I can’t. So what I have to do is use the blade tool and move my connected clips around – just why? I get that they are connected but say I have 5 clips ABOVE (“track2” – I don’t know if the term is just connected clips here I guess?) 1 main clip. I can not simply remove the end or the beginning of a middle clip of those 5 clips. I will need to use the blade, cut the end of that clip and then select the 2 clips that are next to it no the left and move those to close the gap.
That’s really something where I am still like WHY?
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I also fail to get the reply feature on Creative Cow even though I am on here for so many years already. Isn’t there a feature to add a reply to this entire thread? I think if I will reply to my original post my reply won’t show up at the very bottom of this thread as the latest reply or will it? So I am replying to the last poster even though this is just a general reply and not directed towards you.
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[Michael Paul] “I have no real idea how to edit anything above the main time line……. turn them into a secondary story line so you gain the all the editing abilites again. “
Basically connected clips are cutaways (though they don’t have to be) that ride above the primary storyline. Whatever is topmost is what’s visible, unless you are scaling down or compositing. You can turn connected clips into a secondary storyline. For example, if you want dissolves between connected clips – makes these a single secondary storyline and then add transitions.
If you want, then it is possible to edit inside the secondary storyline. This lets you have several connected clips travel as a single group, which is connected at a single point. This is a good way to deal with music edits and narration VO. In order to edit within a secondary storyline, you have to highlight the group (select the top bar), not a clip within the secondary storyline. Then you can insert or overwrite from the browser. However, in-outs are determined by the source only.
So, these don’t work exactly like tracks nor like the primary storyline, but gets you close. And yes, you can have multiple secondary storylines. Does that help?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I did a bit of consulting at the local Scrips/Howard/ABC TV station who’s currently doing national programming in X, and one of their longtime editors had positioned their second monitor with the Event Browser on the right side of their Main Monitor and it just looked and felt to me REALLY weird.
For me, the layout Apple created mirrors metadata flow in the software.
Incoming files and pre-work on the left – assembly in the center – outgoing on the Share side to the right.
I believe in editor choice – so I didn’t push it, but it seems to me that this “FLOW” process in X is conceptually very real – and it reminded me that this particular editor was very new to X.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Michael Paul] “I can not simply remove the end or the beginning of a middle clip of those 5 clips. I will need to use the blade, cut the end of that clip and then select the 2 clips that are next to it no the left and move those to close the gap. “
That’s exactly what secondary storylines are there for.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Michael Paul] “Anyways I am just really curious and I would love to hear it from you because the Apple page isn’t very convincing. It lists features like “you can add audio and EDIT your footage” – oh wow…
“Okay, back from vacation.
Here’s some of what I would have written back when you posted this.
First comes the fact that while the core concepts of “editing” (storytelling, pacing, guiding the viewer, etc) remain the same as they ever were – the vast majority of our editing workflows have changed and reacted to advancements in the modern era. That’s just a fact.
Traditionally, the technical process of video making was piecemeal and disconnected. Audio was a thing. Principal Photography was a thing. Graphics was a thing. Organization was a thing. Different departments and different teams did their jobs at different times. But now, in many cases, it’s all converged. ALL digital editors regardless of their NLE, manage sound AND are required to organize and manipulate files across the spectrum of a project. Most NLEs before X simply virtualized that traditional process while remaining as close and as comfortable to the traditions so that editors would remain “familiar” with the new digital tools.
Then Randy Ubillos was given a gift by the culture at Apple. Remember, as the father of Premier and then FCP Legacy, he was the guy who had – more than anyone else in history – spent his career putting professional digital NLE concepts in more hands than anyone else. He KNEW the pro side well, but also always respected those that just wanted to communicate, via video, on all levels. The key Randy (and the whole X development team) was given, IMO, was the gift to not just iterate, but to conceptually IMPROVE the tools of modern video editing.
I personally think he took stock of what was POSSIBLE rather than just what was expected. And I’m glad he did.
He didn’t go totally “wild.” – which is the blessing and the curse of X, IMO.
It “looks” familiar. There’s a central timeline-ish area, and lots of familiar stuff. BUT – not all of the familiar stuff works the way it used to. Expectations do not translate directly for skilled editors. You try to drive it, and your preconceptions start to fail. Not in Huge, catastrophic fashions – but in too many small, medium-sized frustrating ways.
But if an editor can get beyond that frustration – something starts to emerge that is surprising and actually, quite glorious. You start to realize that things that you felt were “required” as a part of your workflow – that you’ve long stopped noticing (like track patching) are gone. Dozens and in time, hundreds of small decisions that were rote and actually meaningless have disappeared. You notice that while you once spent the VAST majority of your career thinking horizontally – you’ve started thinking vertically, in magnetic assemblies. And notice that once you have a vertical assembly done – it’s DONE. You can move it and ALL your work stays intact. That and a hundred new X specific ideas start shaving minutes, hours and eventually whole DAYS off your editing schedule.
I could go on talking about the database and keyword trimming etc, etc, etc, but I won’t. If you adopt X you will find this along your own journey.
And If you decide NOT to systematically learn X and just grudgingly use it when forced – you’ll have an annoying time coming. But that’s OK. Not everyone gets it. We’re all different. That’s fine.
I just happened to look at it and instead of getting stuck on the negative like so many others – I just got fascinated with it early.
Due simply to my early finding merit in the X ideas and being a web blabbermouth about my feelings, I now have pretty good X industry contacts all around the world. From HUGE enterprises to small agencies. I watch the flow of X sharing and ideas from everywhere. Globally, X is kinda on fire. (And likely to accelerate soon, I suspect!)
I know it’s doing great because I chat with the actual people using it. And the growth and breadth of the group globally is STUNNING. I think it’s far and away broader than anything AVID and/or Legacy ever achieved, not necessarily because of the tool itself, but because the world is smaller today. My friends now include a young lady cutting tasteful weddings and learning in the shadow of the Taj Mahal – to my friend who’s huge company just moved him from the Czech Republic to Ireland to manage massive corporate visual content for a major global consulting firm. The globe is definitely being digitized. And video is useful everywhere. And X exists because there’s a need everywhere. And that need is NOT basic, nor trivial. It’s complex, professional and RELENTLESS. Video fuels the information transfer of the world like never before.
X is an awesome video tool. Period. If you’re still thinking in terms of “is it pro” I think you’re asking the wrong question. The actual question is “which of the tools provides the most advanced capabilities for digital manipulation in the ways I’ll need to manipulate digital data in the present and for the future.”
The magic about X is that the same tool that my young friend Surabai, in Mumbai can use to make her living in a small team of editors cutting weddings ALSO can totally cut a major studio motion picture out of the box, no handholding, nothing different from what you can I get from the App Store. Stop and think about that for a second. Why? Perhaps because digital is digital and content is content and the way programs develop today is NOT how they used to? The zillion dollar tape machines are gone, right? Heck, the smartphone captures light nearly as well as some of yesterdays high-end cameras could. The same NLE codebase can be EXTENDED into particular use groups with specialized needs IF the CORE code is strong. And the X code is young and very strong, IMO. Apple sells a modern digital digital editing core in two flavors. iMovie for modest needs – and a highly extensible and stunningly robust FCP X for heavy duty commercial and industrial users needs. The core of both is modern, fast, and agile. And developing.
My global friends also have learned what Hollywood is also learning. The cutting is ONE thing. Critical, seminal, and transcendent. The work has to ROCK. But in the modern era – the cut isn’t the only thing that needs to ROCK. Taming the data whirlpool that gets bigger the more people who are involved AROUND the cut is also ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. From weird incoming sources to managing tablet screeners for big-wigs, it’s not enough to do the work, we all need to manage the work efficiently. And the built-in tools in X are absolutely amazing at that.
The point of the spear in editing is one brain in one seat. Alway has been – always will be. Collaboration and sharing is great – but the tool has to let one brain at a time connect to the material AND to their collaborators, no matter where they may be – at home, on the road, or in the seats of a fixed facility. Metadata, sharing, revision, – basically the AGILITY necessary to manage the inflow and the outflow is every bit as critical as the cut today. And to echo my earlier thoughts, THAT is another area where Apple has created a singular tool in FCP X.
FCP X helps a single editor “fit in” to the swirl, I’d argue, better than any other tool out there. Interestingly, that same tools – because it’s steeped in metadata handling – makes collaboration possibilities incredibly robust as well – and I know a lot of “shop” editors who work in teams who love the X system as much as any solo guy like me. Yes, I get it. All NLEs do metadata. But only X was purpose CREATED to manage it – from the ground up. It’s not an overlay to a program designed as an overlay on top of a direct reflection of 1980s A/B roll techniques – it’s the CORE of the program.
What X editors know, is that it’s not the timeline alone that has to make sense to the editor to be proficient in X. It’s the entire X system. And when it clicks for an editor – it brings a sense of ease and fluidity that is pretty special.
To the OP.
Actually learning X isn’t easy, but wrapping ones brains around powerful things usually isn’t.
Regardless, I wish you well with your journey.
That’s enough for now.
Sorry it’s another long post. Blame it on over-rested fingers.
And here we go again…!
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Douglas K. Dempsey] “… it almost looks like he was forcing FCP Legacy to do the things that FCPX now does out of the box, for $300! THAT alone is reason to try it out.”
That’s an interesting observation.
Like I said, some writers still use typewriters. 😉 People get attached to their workflows. It’s understandable.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com -
[Michael Paul] “is the secondary story line (I am sorry if I might be using wrong terms)”
Yes, you are. At least in this case. Because you go on to described simple CONNECTED clips, not a secondary STORYLINE. The only things that have the magnetic timeline features are the primary or secondary storylines, not regular connected clips, no.
Five CONNECTED clips:
Five clips in a connected STORYLINE:
The latter (created with ⌘G or by holding G and moving them together) will give you the desired auto-closing of gaps, the former will not. Also SELECTING a secondary prior to hitting one of the edit keys (Q, W, E) will perform that in the secondary, not the primary.
[Michael Paul] “If I use IN and OUT to select a range I only select the main time line but everything above just gets ignored.”
Have you tried turning on the Clip Skimmer (⌥⌘S)? With that you can set ins and outs on a secondary or connected clip. Or use the Range tool (R).
[Michael Paul] “I can not simply remove the end or the beginning of a middle clip of those 5 clips.”
Sure you can. In a myriad of ways. Either select an edit point and hit ⇧X with the skimmer at the position you want to move it or even (assuming you’re on a US keyboard) ⌥ and [ or ] to trim in or out. Whether they ripple depends, again, on whether they are just connected or in a storyline.
Bottom line: you need some decent basic training! These are ALL things that any decent training will cover. That would have saved you this entire thread if you ask me.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[John Rofrano] “That’s an interesting observation.”
It is. And exactly the same one I actually made years ago as well. I couldn’t help think that HE of all people MUST find X absolutely brilliant because of the way he works himself. If not, he must never have actually gotten into the nitty-gritty of it or only spoken to people that knew just as little.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!
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