[Bill Davis]

[Jules bowman] “So, dear Billiam, what exactly is this shifting of the editing industry then? SNIP
a high octane capitalist environment that demands delivery yesterday and results right now’: but actually factual proof that my “high end” skill set is not enough for me to continue to make the perfectly acceptable living I have been doing so for 10 years.”

Tried to resist but I can’t.

As to “Billiam” congratulations, you’ve joined the hallowed company of Lisa, the annoying 9 year old I went to grade school with. Please note that since I, myself, am no longer nine, I will refrain from taking the bait and referring to you henceforth as Julie-poolie-woolie – though God knows it’s tempting.

Now to the fun.

I never claim I have a “high end skill set” tho I suppose some of my larger clients might argue otherwise. The problem is that I learned young that if *I* am every the one saying *I* have high end skills – instead of letting others say that about me – I’m all too often deeply misguided.

That’s worth considering Mr. bowman. (by the way, is that lower case bowman an homage to Mr. cummings? Or just sloppiness? Oh, never mind. I screw up my typing a lot. I just seldom let it slide in every single post I make – but thats a digression, let’s keep on point.

[Jules bowman] “Or is this shift something else Bill? What is it. Pray tell. Enlighten. Illuminate (*Factually please. Thanks in advance) “

Sure, happy to play.

In a nutshell, the increasing density of constantly available information we all have to contend with and the elevation of SEARCH as the primary driver of work efficiency. That’s the change that X is built to address in my thinking.
I suspect you’re stuck in thinking that “editing” is the important game here. But I think less and less so. The primary game in the world today that drives financial success is migrating toward information access. Period. Everything in business may well be subtly transforming into a functional subset of that.

IMO It’s increasingly a waste of time to edit a “video” and then cut if off from the distribution and management links that enable people to find and use it as they like.

You want facts? Here’s one. Google ascended because they understood that in a persistently connected world, SEARCH is the central core that brings order to chaos. Why did Apple dump Legacy? My suspicion is in large part because it was (extremely charitably speaking) a marginal digital asset management system at best and couldn’t be transformed into much more than that. OTOH, X is entirely built around metadata and databasing.

You see X as an “editor.” Because that’s where your thinking appears to start and stop. I see it as a new tool that makes the editing functions an integrated part of creating and managing and tagging and searching and sorting and managing digital information that just HAPPENS to be video, audio and still content.

That’s enough for now. More might make you feel I was being “condescending” somehow – and your risible tendencies takes too much of the fun out of any serious discussion with you, IMO.

[Jules bowman] “But no mate, you have no sense of anything other than your own navel fluff, and that is why you are so irritating to so many.”

I must step back and try to get my poor brain around this cleaver endgame of yours, sir. You post “you may actually start feeling a little warmth” – then you refer to me with the presumptive intimacy “fella” and proceed to make reference to my navel. This sequence (which I pray is totally inadvertent) has me reeling. Nobody outside of my wife and my dog ever is in a position to have my navel be a part of their consciousness let alone spends any time at all speculating on what possibly might reside there.

This has me feeling ever so slightly “creeped out” – so I must withdraw from the field of textual battle to re-group.

Later dude.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “1. Two primary storyline clips, each with a connected clip attached. P1 with C1, P2 with C2. Now, swap the P1 and P2 clips with each other WITHOUT swapping the order of the connected clips. So P2 with C1 and P1 with C2. This would require 1 keystroke with a modifier in most NLEs. It takes 3 or 4 with X and the exact locations of where C1 and C2 end up are very imprecise.
“

Isn’t this precisely what Auditions is built to enable? Build P1 with C1 and C2 in Auditions – do the same with P2. Arrange and re-arrange magnetically as you like, and pick your Cutaway. What’s the problem?

[Oliver Peters] “2. When you have a nice, tighly organized timeline and the client asks you to “open it all up a bit”, letting it be longer. This is reasonably easy with asymmetrical trimming in most NLEs. In X you end up adjusting primary storyline clips, often have to change connecting points and adjust each and every connecting clip.
“

Not sure I’m understanding this second point either Re-trimming the clips in the precision editor to new lengths seems like all you’d need to do – and magnetism keeps the connected clip relationships intact globally.

I must not be understanding what you’re trying to do that X makes unnecessarily difficult.

(But maybe that says more about my lack of understanding of your issues than anything else! ; )

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Jamie Franklin] “You don’t have to agree, but you can’t, CAN’T, pretend nothing happened that didn’t change the game for the worse for a lot of people who had huge stakes in this that Apple completely ignored. That is complete and utter rot
“

Jamie,

If you had “huge stakes” at risk, you’re a professional. If you’re a professional, you’re a grown up. If you’re a grown up – stop acting like such a “victim.”

The single most tiring thing in this group is watching talented professionals who’ve worked hard and achieved success to the point where they’re doing excellent work at the top of an industry – and with one business move by a single vendor, they’re reduced to bitching and whining like somebody took their bankie away.

Many of you guys shouting about how terrible Apple has behaved ARE the freaking editing 1 percent at the top of the professional ladder. You’ve earned that kind of position with hard work and tenacity. So it’s amazing that you’re now reduced to bitching all the time.

Stop talking about how badly you’ve been treated. Your talents and abilities are expected to be such that you can get the job done no matter any client, vendor, or software company does.

Legacy EOL should be at best an annoyance to you. Not a career ender.

So stop kvetching about how you’ve been so “wounded” and nobody understands your pain.

It’s tiresome for everyone when the pros at the top of the heap feel justified in moaning about how bad they have it.

(there, now I feel better – a good rant can be so psychologically restorative, huh.)

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

B>[Chris Harlan] “I was going to AFI new media convergence seminars back in the last century. You may or may not have noticed but our two most recent labor disputes were over issues related to this very subject. You constantly talk as if we in film and television are somehow oblivious to the Internet. That might have had some cachet in 1993, but trust me, we’ve moved on.”

Geez, dude. Your slip may not be, but you’re arrogance is showing. In your world the only editor worth listening to is one who can drop by an AFI “new media convergence seminar” at the drop of a hat. Or for whom unionization is a functional issue.

News flash. Over the globe, that’s a fraction of a fraction of the people who edit for money. Some for a LOT of money.

And for sure, let’s not tell the poor folks outside LA, NY, Chicago, and London that they’re just dismissible rubes – might make them feel like their editing isn’t REAL editing, okay?

[Chris Harlan] “And you keep talking about how X is somehow key to this whole thing. I don’t get that. I mean other than classifying it as wishful thinking on your part. It just ain’t that special.
“

Well Chris, if you’re correct and what’s happening in editing is “just ain’t that special” – then this whole forum is a waste of time. Isn’t it.

We’ve spent a year talking about what X and it’s competitors strategies might be for the future -and what that might mean to ALL editors. Not just those who have Broadcast Engineering sitting on the coffee table in the waiting room of their stand-alone production building.

You actually amaze me with your single-minded focus that all “worthwhile” editing must be what’s done by people just like you.

And screw the poor saps working everywhere else. Anything that meets their needs, but not yours is crap. I get it now.

I’ll get right to work on a new T-shirt for you. “If you don’t cut in LA, you don’t really count.’

I’m sure you’ll wear it with tremendous pride.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Richards] “I agree- they seem to be at that momentum tipping point FCP was at around FCP5. I doubt they will unseat Avid as the king of studio features and episodic TV, but it will fill most of the vacuum left by FCP7.

Best,
Andy
“

The monster question in the room is whether those industries will remain what drives success in editing software.

Studio features and episodic TV have traditionally been the top of the heap. But I noted some months back the story of an extremely sharp and camera friendly young intern who works on the local TV show where my wife does a regular segment who literally dismissed an offer to go on salary at the TV station because she just didn’t feel TV was the place to be. She wanted a career in web development because she was firmly convinced that’s where the eyeballs of her generation were largely going to be served over her lifetime. Broadcast had no “cachet” for her.

That’s the elephant in the room. I believe the other A’s already see that and are adding to those capabilities fast – but as long as their teams are focused on winning broadcast or TV shop share away from Legacy – and relying on the hope of a halo effect from being the best tool for a 100 editor reality show empire – well, how’s that going to influence those “new media” youngsters like her that will grow into the power seats in the next decade or so?

Tactics have to serve strategy after all. And catering to the elephant riders is a risky business plan when large numbers of people are electing to ride smaller and smaller beasts.

Just food for thought.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Richards] “Takeaway: counting CUDA cores”

Woah,

And a new voice talent exercise has thus been born.

As fast as you can…

counting CUDA cores – counting CUDA cores – counting CUDE cores – counting CUDA cores…

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Shawn Miller] “I’ve felt for a long time that FCP users (and Mac users in general) have needed to ‘get out’ a bit more and understand the wider world of post production. Apple certainly is innovative, but no moreso than Autodesk, Avid, Adobe, Pixologic, Nextlimit, Maxon, Triple Squid Software Design, Anderson Technologies or any of the few thousand other hardware and software vendors that service the creative community. “

I will quietly and respectfully note that this is *you’re* definition of what Mac users need. Mine is decidedly different.

I actually think that for most working editors, all they really want to do is decide the platform – then start down the long, long road to gaining mastery of it.

The central truth of editing, is that it really doesn’t start to pay off until your tools disappear from your conscious thought and you can work instinctively – paying careful attention to the flow of your program and hardly any to “how do I make the software do function A.”

The people who need to fully understand all the editing programs you note above are the decision makers in the shop/workflow/hardware managerial class – and system integrators.

This thinking brings to mind another thing that’s always surprised me…

I’ve known quite a few professional writers in my time. A fact that’s alwsy surprised me is that someone who’s superb at writing advertising copy, or screenplays, or novels, or technical manuals – is hardly ever at that same level writing in any other genres. They can be competent – but very seldom are they really excellent.

A few outliers can do really well in multiple even somewhat closely associated areas of professional work – but just a few.

I think it’s the same with editing software operation.

You can certainly be competent with with quite a few. But it’s hard to excel above the pack if you’re always trying to be a “jack of all trades.”

Those who disagree, feel free to make your case.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Bret Williams] “Within the event itself you can create a new compound clip and copy and paste the contents of your timeline. Now you have a sequence that lives in the event, completely outside of the project. A backup of sorts.”

I think this is a very dicy idea.

You’re taking a process with a defined metadata flow and trying to circle that flow back on itself.

And I think a workflow like this is going to cause you trouble in the long run.

If you want to make a persistent yet unchangeable copy of any Project – just use the Share menu to export one.

You can certainly pull that into a new subsequent Project if you like. But it’ll never have the flexibility or power of a project that remains connected to it’s original events and still has all it’s editable metadata connections in place.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Jeff Kirkland] “Hi Bill,

Not quite sure I get this bit… are we talking about the media used in the project? In that case, wouldn’t the project just show the red missing media clip? Not sure how you can take the media away from a project and still keep it skimmable…”

It’s another one of those things that only make sense once you stop seeing X as only a video editing program and start to approach it as a database and asset organization tool.

If you keep in mind that literally everything in X is expressed as metadata, then it makes sense that the reason that anything would go off line is that the program just doesn’t have a record of a place to “lookup” the resource to make it visible. But unlike Legacy where the Capture Scratch or specific linked default location were the ONLY place where the software would ever look for assets, X can look anywhere.

So with that in mind. Just take your project and use the Share Menu to Export an iPhone clip for your project. That’s going to generate a small file to be stored in the Sharing folder – but the moment you do that – your project library has a “new” place to reference the clip – so BINGO – that new persistent reference clip becomes what “populates” your project library if the original media is not available.

This is what Phil and Greg at Intelligent media have finally started to successfully drum through to my all too often cotton-filled head.

I have to stop thinking of a clip as “a thing in a Capture Scratch” as I did for the past 10 years – and start seeing them as “references to a thing’s location that the database is happy to alter and track for me if I let it.”

In X literally EVERYTHING is expressed as metadata. And metadata is infinitely flexible. And until you shift your thinking about that – it’s hard to understand the rest of the underlying concepts that the software is built around.

So it’s absolutely possible to have your “media offline” yet still have skimmable clips. The software just needs a pointer to another usable reference place to generate the skimmable data from.

Hope that helps.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Loren Risker] “I find if I’ve keyworded thoroughly, which usually takes 2-3 passes, then the edit goes very quickly. I’ll generally take one of my favorite bits I caught, something funny, or a stunning shot, and then it’s very easy to work backwards. It’s because of the keywording that I actually dread going back to FCP7 for doc editing anymore.”

Well done Loren.

This exposes the central theme I’ve been talking about.

Loren didn’t approach key wording as if it was just an extension of “markers.” He spent time thinking about what the database in X might do – and developed a strategy for using that flexibility to serve his particular style of working.

I’ll do things a bit differently – but certainly no better.

That’s the point. A database – any database – is an incredibly flexible tool. It’s as powerful as you wish to make it. You can make it behave like “power markers” if you like. Or you can ignore it and bemoan the fact that “favorites” don’t work the way you might, at first blush think they should OR – you can explore what this system does allow you to do and maybe surprise yourself with capabilities that the old software simply didn’t feature.

To me “Favorite” is actually “initial temporary tag.” It’s my tool of “first sort” to narrow a range down for each pass. Then I add the tag I actually WANT for that keyword collection, remove “Favorite” and free it up to use for the next temporary sort.

I don’t view “favorite” it as a TAG in itself. For me it’s more a “sorter” to mark out the group I’m interested in at that moment – just until I can change that groups tag to something more meaningful.

And the point of working tags in the Event Browser before you move to the timeline is that TOTALLY unlike “markers” in Legacy – tags set in the EB stick to the assets in the EB and are therefore available for ALL projects, not just your current timeline.

It’s another good example of why, if you try to use X like Legacy and go right to the timeline for all your editing, you’re missing a chance to build a persistent, powerful library of edit decisions in the EB that grows in usefulness the more work you do in the software over time.

Again, nice description, Loren. I can see you’re truly understanding the fundamentals of how the database in X can enable some useful new thinking about clips in the more “connected” state they can reside in inside the X interface.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor