Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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[Shane Ross] “Electric windows break? Dude…”
I had to laugh at this.
Three weeks ago – we decided to replace one of our two Honda Elements we’ve been using for 10 years plus for run and gun shoots. But just as we took it out of service to sell, the passenger side electric window failed.
The mechanic looked up the part and labor and quoted $300-400 for the fix.
Out of curiosity, I checked YouTube. Sure enough there were no less than 3 videos on how to pull and replace the window regulator. Got the part on eBay for $47 Those ugly, slow and totally less-than-professional “how to” videos were PERFECT. I has SEEN the repair step-by-step and knew all the traps and tips before we took out the first screw.
My son and I spent about 2 hours on Friday collaborating, (occasionally bitching at each other), and laughing as we took our sweet time replacing it.
The green Element is now ready to sell.
And I suspect I’m going to remember those two hours fixing it – with my son – for a long time.
FWIW.
.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Andrew Kimery] “While you were cutting your stuff on FCP in AZ, other people were cutting docs using FCP in NYC, music videos on FCP in Chicago and TV shows on FCP in LA.”
Not really, Andrew.
I walked out of NAB 1999 where I went looking for a platform for a specific corporate monthly magazine program I had just pitched to my largest client.
It’s where I saw FCP 1.0 at its initial introduction.
Ordered a system the next week and was cutting on it a week later.
I undoubtedly wasn’t the first, but I was AMONG the first guys using FCP Legacy (via Hi-8!) for corporate video LONG before it was even a glimmer in Hollywoods eye.
Seriously, I remember all the events you are referencing and by the time they appeared, I’d been cutting on FCP for quite a while.
Well before I flew to LA to help Mike Horton do the very first LAFCPUG meeting and years before I flew back to LA for an early DV Expo and wound up chatting with Rami Katrib of Digital Film Tree about how excited he was because Walter Murch needed to set up a home cutting situation and they were going to be going to his place to instal a FCP system for him.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[andy patterson] “Apple users may say touch screen is a waste of time but keep in mind they haven’t really used it. “
Gosh.
Swap “Apple users” in the abovequote for “the internet”
Then swap “touch screen” for “Touch Bar” –And you have totally described the end of of 2016 in on-line tech forums.
Of course this time it’s Microsoft looking to innovate – so it’s … different, I guess.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Andrew Kimery] “For example, during my first stint in Los Angeles in 2001 a lot of indies, docs, music videos, etc., (pretty much anything that was “budget challenged”) was being done on FCP primarily because of cost reasons.”
But that was nearly 2 years after it was launched, Andrew.
Some of us had cut literally hundreds of projects on Legacy by that time.
That’s pretty much on point.
By the time Legacy worked it’s way FULLY into professional edit suites as a “safe bet” – it was a couple of years after THAT. It flew for a LONG time under the radar during it’s development phase going through at least 3 major iterations of the code base while the “big time” editors were generally dismissive of it as an “amateurs platform.”
Around 3.0 people started taking it seriously. And it was a year or so after THAT that Legacy really making serious noise.
Probably why it all the X hue and cry has always sounded a bit familiar to me. ; )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Charlie Austin] “I have no desire to wave my hands around on a touchscreen day after day.”
Maybe you just need to re-conceptualize it as “edit Tai Chi?”
Center yourself – time to edit.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Brett Sherman] “You’re desperately clinging onto that last thread. What will you do if Apple fixes that? :)”
Brett – you need to read Aindreas more carefully.
He pulled out more than one slam for the “Tool that he MUST NOT UNDERSTAND” because he’s been wearing the same blinders for going on 6 years now and the light or reality would surely fry his optical nerves.
In that post he trashed the hardware, the software AND the entire Apple brand. Proving beyond doubt that he’s what he’s always been… a VINTAGE EDITOR to the core!
He’s still betting that his opinion will somehow stop Apple from continuing to be what it’s always been. The company that pioneers the stuff that his beloved software gets a few YEARS later.
Heck, proxy sweetness … then “hover scrub”?? Watch for that sharp new sidecar program introducing……… “keyworded subclips!!! It won’t quite work the same – but their users will be all giddy at their hot new effort saving capabilities – fur sure!
(Sorry, I just can’t stop – It feels like it’s 2014 all over again – and I feel oddly younger while writing like this!) ; )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Oh poppycock. Again, somebody who doesn’t use the software moaning about something they don’t understand.
There are THREE systems for doing keyframing in X.
You can use the keyframe system at the CLIP LEVEL if you want to set or adjust clip parameters.
You can go to the Inspector and set numeric values for moves in the Inspector (which is what I do 95% of the time as I like numerical precision over “eyeballing” things.
BUT if you’re all about eyeballing stuff
And you can go “full automatic” and invoke position adjustment in Viewer by simply invoking the visual transform controls – which let you dragging the elements around to set position offsets.Is it PERFECT? Heck no.
Is it perfectly useful for those who understand how it works such that can we get our work done with little fuss?
HECK YES.
Once again, everyone upset because X didn’t work they way their old NLE USED to operate and so they need to learn new techniques.Again, it’s not perfect. But it’s PERFECTLY functional and if you don’t want the efficiencies of Keywords, Magnetism, and the hundreds and hundreds of efficiencies that the X team have built into the software in order to preserve access to a more traditional keyframing system that you’ve known how to use for 25 years you have the option to do that.
This “oh it’s just so DIFFICULT to operate X because its NOT WHAT I’M USED TO” is kinda tiresome.
(Aaaahhhh – (stretching languidly) I haven’t had a nice rant in months and months! – Thanks Herb for the OP!)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Walter Soyka] “Some folks even let you subscribe monthly for training. And if both parties get something valuable out of it, why not?”
Have NEVER had a problem with rental or subscription. Have used services like Lynda.com since they started.
Only have a problem if somebody either makes it unnecessarily more difficult to Un-Subscribe -then to subscribe … or locks a subscriber out of their own intellectual property if they fail to pay.
Don’t do that – and I’m totally cool with it all.
: )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Shanes post has a lot of accurate and valuable information – but it reflects his perspective as someone who’s focus is Hollywood feature oriented production.
But it was NOT that that drove the successful adoption of FCP Legacy. Not much at ALL during it’s first 5 years.
Because the FCP revolution happened bottom up – NOT top down – and the biggest reasons for FCP Legacy’s success had NOTHING to do with Hollywood style work at all.
While Hollywood was dragging their feet – the rise of both home desktop computer power AND the rise of the first basic 25Mbps digital video cameras are what REALLY propelled FCP to success in it’s early days.
Years before it was a glimmer in Hollywoods eyes – basic FCP systems were successfully supplanting the 3/4″ and Beta workflows that had been in place on the industrial and corporate video areas for years.
That somebody could finally buy an inexpensive digital camera in like a VX-1000 or the Sony PD-100a, digitize the result into FCP Legacy on an affordable Mac via Firewire – and make a damn decent video master that you could duplicate and distribute via VHS – was TRANSFORMATIONAL in the spread of video as a communications medium.
Without the market of NON-Filmmaking – FCP Legacy would not have developed into a tool that filmmakers FINALLY got to access for THEIR needs.
I suspect that what’s happening globally with FCP X will follow the same pattern. For everyone today who sees in terms of what it isn’t – there will be a dozen world wide who can see what its becoming. And they might just own the next set of keys to the future.
Because today – we’re not in a scarcity situation like we were back in the 1990s. Then, it was HARD to obtain and deploy production tools and expertise. Today it’s laughably easy. So a tool that ONLY does what the other tools do is an inherently WEAK tool.
In todays environment of plenty – we have to do more. Do it faster. Do it cheaper. And at the same time, do it BETTER than anyone else.
It’s the new normal.
My 2 cents.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “THAT’S what I’m getting at. They seem to go “these computers are fine for OUR media software…and that’s all we really care about.””
It’s a fair criticism, Shane.
The thing is, Tim Cook expressly said very recently that they still “Love” the Mac and that they have big plans for it. At this point, we’ll just have to have faith.
I get how people think they put too much emphasis on iDevices. But it’s simple reality that the income stream that has turned them into the largest company on the planet is built on stuff that EVERYBODY wants to use – not just stuff that one class of high end professionals use.
The hope is that they continue to find ways to leverage the expertise they have at both ends of the spectrum to make great products for all the constituencies. Basically, Retina screens that don’t jack the price of any of the laptops up needlessly, because that R&D is spread over the entire line.
That monster ACER Preditor is ALSO designed to target a constituency. Perhaps Gamers without budgets? So you get a head tracker before you get a trackpad under your home row thumbs where you don’t have to move your whole arm to actuate it? It’s always trade offs.
But sure, there won’t be a TOTAL focus on just what any of us would ideally like to have which is a single device capable of working at the highest end possible – but sill cheap enough so that unlike when I started out – ONLY those in a network level facility could afford to use the tool. (I’m looking at YOU 4 channel ADO in the 1980s!)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.