Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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[Herb Sevush] “Well then, happy birthday Bill.”
Thanks!
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “Not really.”
On one level, I agree. It shouldn’t matter.
I have exactly the same clients I did last month, even tho I’ve moved 357 miles away from where used to live.
But for some clients, location still matters.
It’s probably why you still live and work in LA. It’s a huge industry HUB.
In the Phoenix/Scottsdale metroplex where I used to live, once upon a time 95% of my clients were in state. 15 years later – 95% of my clients were out of state.
I agree I could work from anywhere. But it still seems like being major media market adjacent will be a useful thing.
Location isn’t the only thing, certainly. But it’s still a thing. Maybe. We’ll see.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Neil Goodman] “since adoption rates of FCPX at least in the markets I look at are basically null”
Well, all I know is that 15 years ago, I bought a Honda Element to haul my production gear around. Before that, I hardly ever noticed them on the streets. The moment I became an Element driver, I started to see them everywhere. That’s just how it works.
Those 2.5 million X seats are out there somewhere. As are all the Premiere Pro seats. And the Resolve seats, too.
X editors can see plenty of X folk. Premiere users see plenty of other Premiere users. And AVID and Resolve folk surely perk their ears up and pay extra attention when they encounter that tool in use.
It’s what we ALL tend to notice.
Different strokes…
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bob Zelin] “And you are done. I mean – Bill – after all – you are paying for Gigabit ethernet, that is MORE than enough bandwidth to support this workflow !”
Oh, I get this perfectly. It’s just that the “Gigabit ethernet” service I’m paying for is currently delivering between 75.3Mbps and 175Mbps at my computers input port according to Speedtest.
The IDEA of high speed remote networking is wonderful. The reality, (at least for now) a bit less so.
I had no less than 3 escalating levels of technicians trying to suss out why the wall port showed 900Mbps and yet the minute anyone plugged an Ethernet cable in and ran a speed test at the end of it – it dropped to a third or worse of the promised speed.
At the end of the day replacing nearly every bit of copper wire, we got it up to 200-300 Mbps.
Ain’t technology fun?
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Herb Sevush] “So they want an experienced editor, one who lives in England, knows FCPX, and works in Broadcast. I guess that lets both you and me off the list.
“Yep. It’s my birthday and instead of just kicking back and eating cake – I’m surrounded by Cox Internet engineers who are trying to get my home internet speeds up to the gigabit level that I’m paying for.
Someday, maybe it won’t matter where an editor is physically located — but today, it definitely still does. : )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “which is one reason I’m going to give it a fourth go.
“Shane. If you’ve got budget enough for a SD to LA train ticket and maybe some couch space if it takes overnight – I’d be happy to come up for a day or two and see if I can ease you into X.
All you have to do is ask. ????
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “FWIW – there’s nothing in the actual ad that asks for anything specific to features only found in FCPX.”
Never said there was.
My suspicion, however, is that there ARE aspects to X that caused the hiring party to settle on using IT – as opposed to any of the other NLEs. Might be keywords, might be the magnetic timeline, might be it’s implementation of multicam – might be all or that or just one thing that caused them to adopt this particular shop approach. Who knows. We only know they did. And they’re happy. And now they want to hire people who deeply “get” the system they use. Exactly like businesses have historically always acted.
While all the software does much of the same stuff – HOW they do it is significantly different. That’s why it’s not a “know one and you kinda know them all” environment any longer.
And so it goes.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Neil Goodman] “To me thats the scariest thing about today’s Job market. Anyone can learn the menial tasks at home in their underwear for free.”
Totally agree.
The point of the post, for me at least, was to note the type of things that X-centric shops might expect to see as the qualifications of a potential job candidate.
It appeared they wanted a kinda hybrid skillset that spanned from AE tasks through finishing – but remotely in a way that the web interface and delivery stuff would maybe be handled by the company itself.
Increasingly the new process where the “shop” idea is broken down into virtual on-line touchpoints and the overall work is farmed out more. That resonates with what I’ve been seeing as an X editor for a while. Where you are doesn’t much matter. What you can connect to and DO is what counts.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bob Zelin] “But I am giving you a hard time Bill, because I see this now – “If you can’t finish this in Resolve, then you are NOT hired”.”
Oh I totally get that.
But I still think it misses the wider point. What’s changed isn’t how the tools work, so much as it’s how the world works. It’s the new constantly connected, constantly evolving media creation and distribution landscape.
I know many others have jobs where they just need to make the best version of THIS video that they can, and their job ends there. I respect and honor that. But just don’t see that as necessarily my overall goal anymore.
X feels less and less to me like it’s JUST a “videomaking” tool – and more and more like it’s a cohesive environment that looks well beyond just the timeline.
Maybe AVID and Premiere and Resolve are going there too. I don’t know because I don’t use them. But I haven’t heard much about any unique or revolutionary approaches being built into them. It SEEMS like they just want faster and more dependable versions of their existing toolset. And I get that.
But I don’t think that’s going to be enough to keep up with the pace of change.
Well, at least the change on the “general editing” side. There are certainly niches like motion picture or network TV where the workflow is pretty fixed and pushing change is really hard.
But out in the wider world of video creation, one way to meet the stress of increasing pace, is with more automation and enhanced throughput.
The tools in X such as magnetism, the keyword system, auditions and Roles – take HUGE swaths of effort out of creating and pushing separate versions of the same basic video to clients. Heck, Auditions alone, used smartly, let you re-edit a video from approved pools of content components in a few clicks.
Maybe all the other NLEs will move more toward this type of automated metadata driven assembly. If so that will improve things for a lot of editors. But so far, I don’t hear other editors asking for stuff like that, much. .
If and when the other programs adapt this way (if they do) I hope they have an easier time than X did getting “buy-in from their constituencies on the re-learning needed to operate these new types of systems.
Editors apparently all want change – but not too much. As always.
YMMV.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Neil Goodman] “btw this is the first job post Ive seen for FCPX in ages. Nothing else really indicates in the current climate that this will be “the shape of things to come”.”
A: Hardly anyone from the wider X communities come here anymore. It’s been too hostile for too long. It’s just us long timers left.
B: I made the “shape of things to come” comment basically indicating that it’s getting to the point across the industry where it’s no longer enough to be a part timer or a casualist in ANY of the tools we use to make our livings. Get really good – or someone else will. And they’ll likely land the gig.
Nothing more implied than that.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.