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Woah. This time it’s not me. It’s the filmmaking team from Focus…
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Glenn Ficarra “I could cut at least twice as fast if not three times as fast on Final Cut Pro X as I could on Avid.”
And the faster you cut it the better the film for sure.
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[James Ewart] “And the faster you cut it the better the film for sure.”
I am actually a big believer that speed is a creative feature.
1) Any time you reduce the friction of performing a task, you keep the user focused on what they are doing something and why, not how. Distractions are the enemy of focus, and interruption incurs a real mental task-switching cost.
2) Operational speed (with non-destructive tools) leads to interactivity, interactivity leads to experimentation and iteration, and iteration leads to quality.
That said, your point is well-made. The tool or the process is not always the bottleneck. Our subconscious mind does real work, too, in the fullness of time.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “[James Ewart] “And the faster you cut it the better the film for sure.”
I am actually a big believer that speed is a creative feature.
1) Any time you reduce the friction of performing a task, you keep the user focused on what they are doing something and why, not how. Distractions are the enemy of focus, and interruption incurs a real mental task-switching cost.
2) Operational speed (with non-destructive tools) leads to interactivity, interactivity leads to experimentation and iteration, and iteration leads to quality.
That said, your point is well-made. The tool or the process is not always the bottleneck. Our subconscious mind does real work, too, in the fullness of time.”
It’s posts exactly like this that’s always made me such a big fan of Walter.
(Even if he does cut on Premier too much!)
Well structured reasoning and big picture/small details balance as always, Walter.Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Walter Soyka] “2) Operational speed (with non-destructive tools) leads to interactivity, interactivity leads to experimentation and iteration, and iteration leads to quality.
“This goes back to what Shane said in the second post of the thread. Cutting faster doesn’t necessarily mean getting done sooner, but it could mean getting more iterations in the same amount of time. To Jame’s point, that’s no guarantee of a better end product, but generally speaking I think being able to get more looks at something is better than being able to get fewer looks at something.
On a related note, I came across an interesting interview yesterday with a former Disney animator that talked about the advantages of computer animation. Former Disney Veteran Explains Why Big Studios Have Abandoned 2D Animation
From the interview:
“I’ve worked on CG features and I’ve worked on hand-drawn features. And hand-drawn features are harder to make. Hand-drawn cartoons take a year to produce. Once you’ve produced sequences, it’s hard to change the work. You have to go back and do everything over.
.
.
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But with CG, you can animate the movie in three or four months, change things close to the release date. You can’t do that in hand-drawn animation. If you find out the story doesn’t work when you’re two-thirds done, you’re stuck. With CG, we change the story and rework sequences until late in the process.” -
I would add to this thought…
Getting things done faster does not necessarily mean jamming more stuff into a day.
For me, being able to execute what I’m trying to do more quickly means more “down time” to think and contemplate what I’ve done and what I want to do. So the purported “edit faster” still generates better work, but not necessarily more work.
On a related note…
While I dig the massive tagging/metadata party that is X, I’m not a big logging guy. Never have been.
Much to the occasional annoyance of some of the promo houses I’ve worked for, I don’t obsessively log and subclip source material. Partly because I can see the “bones” of the piece without having to write it all down. In terms of looking for b-roll and montage-y shots, I find that scrubbing the source on the way to one shot frequently yields several “happy accidents.” Like when you see something better on the way to what you thought you wanted. Or you see some random shots in a random order and suddenly inspiration strikes. Always getting immediately to where you’re going doesn’t really allow for that sort of thing.
Not that everyone should work that way. And not that X doesn’t have awesome metadata/tag/search capabilities. I love it. I just don’t get that warm feeling about it, compared to skimming & connected clips, and seriously faster and more capable compositing (even if it is just temp), and way better audio capability.
As Bill says, just my 2 cents.
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[James Ewart] “And the faster you cut it the better the film for sure.”
Clearly why they opted to released it in February.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “While I dig the massive tagging/metadata party that is X, I’m not a big logging guy. Never have been.
I can understand this, as I don’t log a lot of what I do in FCPX save for using keywording as bins mostly (i.e. my current FCPX project has keywords for each camera and element so I can quickly grab it, but if I was doing it in Premiere, it would be organized the same way just in bins).
I think the best example of what I would use (if I had an extra pair of hands with me) is with Lumberjack. If I could do it on set right then and there and come back and have it already logged for me, that would be incredibly useful.
But I can’t monitor audio, video, and keep eye contact with the subject so they don’t start looking all over the place and use Lumberjack. But in a situation where I have a producer who is comfortable with the app and will dutifully maintain it, that could be really nice, especially for longer pieces.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “For me, being able to execute what I’m trying to do more quickly means more “down time” to think and contemplate what I’ve done and what I want to do. So the purported “edit faster” still generates better work, but not necessarily more work. “
I think there are some areas where X is definitely faster, because it doesn’t stop the timeline playback and, therefore, doesn’t interrupt your flow. Premiere has a bit of that, too, but Avid pretty much stops with every click of something. For example, when cutting down interview soundbites that have been assembled into a sloppy stringout, X lets you play and mark in/out/delete on-the-fly without stopping playback. That’s very fluid.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Sam Mestman] “Honestly, if there was one brilliant thing that was done as a part of the Focus process, it was bringing the departments (editorial, vfx, sound) closer together, and having them all working together under the same roof until it came time to close the show.
THAT IS THE REAL INNOVATION. You don’t need a million people working in a million places to get something done.”
There’s a similar theme at Camp Fincher. The more that can be kept in-house, as a sort of filmmaking “collective”, the more interactive and creative the process can be. It’s just a matter of getting the right talent in. Not only is it more collaborative, but key departments, like sound, can contribute earlier in the process.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Because the film was released at a time of year that is generally regarded as a dumping ground does not have a whit to do with the efficiency of the workflow.
Tim
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