[Aindreas Gallagher]

I wish.

Still. who knows right?

you could argue that the fate of this incarnation of FCP depends on Apple’s basic strategic inclination in editing.

Apple may honestly be supremely relaxed at the fact that they have an editing product with the general professional impact say of motion, or maybe aperture type stuff. It will derive profit, but its mission would be to provide a vernacular extension of editing as understood by a mac audience.

Not a bloke screaming for OMF export.

If Apple’s primary goal here is to serve and enrich the methodology first expressed in iMovie (I am not denigrating it) then the mountain will simply not move.

No one will ever see independent tracks, the viewer, customisable GUI, mutable tracks, etc etc.

however, if Apple still think of their editing platform as what was in truth a four quadrant mover in cinema parlance – one that could cement Hardware and software across the entertainment industries, while enticing masses of new industry entrants (FCP was really easy – seriously) then it is not **entirely** inconceivable that they might consider a partial reset.

It boils down to this: if they care about the position held by 7, then they might re-tool, because (and let the hordes dump down) there is no, repeat, no, not an iota, of FCPX anywhere in the world that occupies industry leader movement.

this simple fact doesn’t get stated enough.

In London FCP is essentially mortally wounded.

in: the BBC dead-ish. CNN dead. Discovery dead (I think). And then there’s a bunch of massive commercial places that won’t say what they’ll do with stuff like FCP server because they’re lumped with it.

Also its virtually dodo in all doco production houses over here – (quote from mate who cuts for C4 and Discovery “last year 30-40% FCP – last six months None.”) She meant it and she was irritated – she deeply prefers the FCP.

Like it or not, (and laud the recent updates as one might, plus I utterly adore the CC power windows) – it is a simple fact that as it stands, the industry of editing has literally zero chance of adopting FCPX in any timescale reasonable for FCP’s professional survival in its current form.

Apple’s reaction to this fact will be dictated by what we don’t know: what they actually intended this software to do for them.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
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[Aindreas Gallagher]

[John Pale] “Steve Jobs would never allow it, but Tim Cook is much less dogmatic.”

there’s a real point to that. I’m near driven to reference the next doctor – said the Tardis man.
Apple is irrevocably Apple at this point, but it is a new incarnation at the helm.

One way or another we will see change. I nearly buy tight OSX licensing to solve workstations.

We’re a universe away from Umax/power computing?
Given that this is now the largest corporation on earth after all.

One single share equates to a retail iPad for God’s sake.

A microsoft share couldn’t get you drunk.

Forgetting FCPX for a moment – let’s machead system 7.0 drink it in – I mean it: take that, you sweaty screaming Ballmer.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Simon Ubsdell] “Sorry to hear AVID is still giving you grief “

fear not bud, I am barely trying. I’m still mostly strapping on a colostomy bag and refusing to move in any direction.

It is hard to see avid though, for the likes of lowly me – avid is just nuts – they just heralded the coming of tabs.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

no absolutely – that’s a dandy answer – that you genuinely plop for the timeline in operation is worth broadly noting –

I’ve ran a rant on bloody mindedly learning Avid, and roped a bona fide avid long form poor sod in to tutor whatnot, and avid themselves are throwing training material like confetti with the promax stuff..
but – i swear – being a pleb who started editing via FCP from a design background, avid is just wrecking my head – I’m flagrantly editor-lite at the best of times relative to some of the hard core practitioners – but in terms of editing reactively relative to messy broader workflow; chaps throwing AE bits to you/you messing in AE and roundtripping type concerns – avid just feels nitrogen heavy – all you’re breathing in is extremely specific editing exclusive workflow conception and methodology – although i get that it rules in scripted drama as a cutting tool. After watching examples why. their trim tool is awesome.

But I sort of find it near impossible to see Avid replacing historical FCP as that broadly understood interplay editing component?

And that component is about everywhere these days. Because that actually was FCP. Before They Killed It In Cupertino While Eating Baby Lobsters.

Pause.

Still: three editing system providers are way, way better than two, said, like, Sun Tzu.

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promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

ello, what with you being eminently sane, do you want to blab for a bit in a general sense about how you approach this timeline in terms of material organisation and laydown?

I’m vaguely short form too, in me humble way – do you want to give a notion on how you get into the FCPX timeline in anger? am madly curious –

Its not FCP7, you’re not whacking from bins into viewer, then reviewing and dragging or stamping into timeline – the three step is collapsed – I’m still a trollish toe dipper with FCPX, but that seriously aside how do you find your approach to the timeline altering?

Do you find yourself constructing the video assembly differently? how are you using projects? do you pop a duplicate off to hold an edit version? are you still looking to throw stuff down the timeline for a play with a gap clip separator?
How much in practise do you hold with the ripple behaviour? general malarky – not looking for super detailed but more where furniture is in the room – do you stick with list with top lozenge for reviewing clips? will you stack a crude edit and refine as fcpx seems to want you to do, do you still try and hone a shot edit back in the event, ((i want a dedicated viewer)) do you use the precision editor much?

Basically I am demanding a pithy communicable precis of altered habits and processes..

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promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

I’m always around for the occasional crazy..

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

and lo cry: DW Griffiths, Moliere, George C Burns and the Wright Brothers have voted for a standard bearing statement in the FCP sh*t storm sanity brigade.

[Jeremy Garchow] ”
The difference is that people that are using other systems and don’t rely on FCS 3 exclusively is that, they haven’t been forced to look around. With FCPX’s fairly limited feature set, the reason to switch isn’t as compelling as someone who is using FCS 3. The features keep improving with every new FCPX release, but right now, FCPX can’t compete with the likes of Avid Media Composer, Premiere, Smoke, or whatever. That doesn’t mean it’s not usable to some people, but to others, that means it’s not usable. Simple, really.
“

I will personally wee and throw every FCP toy out of the pram for.. some seasons.. however.
My own personal essential hope is that apple find a way to hew back to just enough of the broad established norms – roles is sort of something, multicam is a biceps rip, stability is.. something else, the power windows in colour correction are heartstoppping on an imac.

but its the central timeline isn’t it? I do think the footage library is overly imploded into events and keywords personally, I don’t think the spatial aspect is being respected enough as a discovery process; nice things happen in spatial bins.

but I argue that apple have to address the implications of their timeline, in our tangential use scenario – as in – the professional editor is a tangential use scenario.

If Apple are right, and video literacy is burgeoning, they still have to sustain and encourage quiet pathways to proper free unencumbered complexity in their software at some point. If they hold editing in their hands, they hold its finest expression – it can’t all be cuts on beats for h264 lulz right? where do we get our next murch?

there have to be secret preferences. Apple are not the arbiters of editing. They have to retain the paths of idiosyncrasy and skill somehow.
they just don’t get to lobotomise editing. its too risky. The primary is a metaphor baldly sitting on a V1 track.

the secondary is a metaphor baldly sitting on a V2 track. i can use editing shortcuts on one of these two.

At some point any FCPX editor will hopefully want to dissuade themselves of apple’s limitations? they are going to want to manipulate the underlying structure?

Absolute time based video and audio sub structure is irreducible. Its mechanics are clean. FCPX needs to at least begin multiplying primaries. And creating proper waveforms. And folders.

Apple have an obligation here.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Jeremy Garchow] “And you’re right. Give me some speed. I can make decisions faster than ever, but then I have to sit and wait for the GUI to catch up. Preference turn off the animations, and figure out what the hell is taking the autosave so long. Why can’t compounds work as fast as muticlips?
“

and right there – your people’s congress at work on shared issues that count.

more of the real critical speed please. its a fine starter.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Jeremy Garchow] “The motion tab postion tool needs to be changed from px (which as Andrea Kiel pointed out is perXent) to actual PiXels.”

Oh you’re fun… 😉

basically – I think the current clip tied key frame presentation is a mistake? I can access the key frames left and right blind in the inspector, but attempting to invoke a keyframe editor, spatially, over the real estate of a given clip is lunacy. Its ridiculous.

it is preferable say, to have a narrow contextual keyframe representation across the base of the entire app/screen that might be more appropriate.
3DSMax has essentially had this for ages as selective complexity/control.

2 cents. IMHO. etcetera whatnot.

either way – the entire keyframe apparatus physically spatially hanging off the clip?

NEIN. try harder.

look up the 3DSMax. I worked the app for six years. the keyframe thing works.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Michael Gissing] “It is a bit like a train with sloppy linkages.”

I’m a troll for the ages really, all I want to do is foster communally kicking apple to see what it gets us – BUT some elements here are insurmountable. I keep getting left at the timeline – even the verticality of the clips at zoom levels. the legibility of the FCPX timeline – the way the clip lozenges bunch into pixel heavy narrow stilts at median ranges – the range at which I can usefully interact with the media is crazy, the options for clip and audio waveform balance is so bad – I keep clicking the lightswitch and making nuts manual adjustments right at the left edge of the clip scale parameters is ludicrous.

we need to be honest in our criticism.

we’re talking about the visual mechanics of the timeline here. there is no worse timeline, in lazy pixel heavy conception or reactiveness than the FCPX timeline. purely based on GUI zoom scales and attributes. there simply isn’t. call me a liar. that timeline – forget what its trying to do – is a dog.

also –

A: the keyframe editor as a physical attribute of the clip is horrible. makes no sense, is very hard to deal with. Also the transfer modes break if brought over a transition point with an effect attached.

B: the power windows for colour correction are the best thing I have ever seen in an editing system running like a breeze on a current iMac. Ever. its insane.

C: apple, with the multiclip window have already chosen to push things off the primary left edge of the gui. the conditionality of the GUI needs to be increased

also: Adobe introduced a preference option to pull the gradients off AE around 7 point something, – we’re asking for the same. No dissolves, less chrome. Reactiveness is key. we need a speed demon version. the posted examples of realtime triming have, when you try them, horrible lag. if apple want to win here, they should win.

Lawrence is asking for the provision of multiple primaries – that’s not crazy and it wont wreck apple’s deeper goals. Apple need to introduce this behaviour in the inverse of Avid – we need to go to a preference to open up crazy – i think this is possible because, even with the run in, they ran out a crazy multicam in no time. flat fact – there has to be an option to re-conceive the methodology in that timeline – we need the room. there is currently no room. personally – I bloody hate the timeline. please let me change it a little.

we cannot only have two editing systems on the pitch. that would likely be extremely damaging. Apple have to get back into this.

And Not with Jesuit trolls like myself screaming on either side – we need to make the conversation about this software generally viable.

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