Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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[Tony Brittan] “and it’s many times faster than any of my FW800 drives. Just sayin.
“Quite possibly faster, but at least for my work, not sure its meaningfully so.
My MacBook Pro has a FW800 port. My stock of little Seagate Free Agent GoFlex Pro drives are cheap, small, light, have been quite reliable so far, and work beautifully with X. If my next laptop has an eSata port, I’d convert, maybe. But this works fine for now with no need to change.
Faster is nice. Easy, cheap and bulletproof is a bit higher on my list. And so far, this rig has been precisely that.
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
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[Bret Williams] “Now the producers won’t be learning Smoke, Premiere, or Avid any time soon. And even X is cheap, but they made it pretty intimidating for all the FCP 7 using clients out there. :)”
Holy cow.
I never thought of this.
If X is inherently “unusable” for pro work – then mere client’s will never be able to operate it and it’ll save legions of “pro” jobs!
This might be a path to real “stealth success” of X.
Job security for anyone who transitions to it! Cuz if a “real” editor can’t wrap their brains around “magnetism” what chance does a poor civilian button-pusher client have?
Salvation is at hand! Rejoice!!
(for heaven’s sake please note the silliness with which this is intended and don’t point the hate canon at me – it’s just a joke!.)
“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
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[Alex Hawkins] “Do you really think you’re that outnumbered? I’d place it at almost a 50/50 split.
“You must be new in these parts! For the longest time it was no more than 90-10. Yes, today it’s swinging more towards an even split. If they trend continues – that’s going to perhaps be a bit of a problem for those who just tossed this particular baby out early and never learned the value of the new approach.
My personal opinion is that X was always a LOT harder for people to understand than they imagined when they first looked at it. Remember the “iMovie Pro” meme? Here we are nearly a year later and exceptionally talented editors with fine editing brains and tons of real world expertise are still not comprehending some of the fundamental changes Apple made in this tool.
I get that this is largely because they can’t “live” in it since it doesn’t fit their workflow – but it still indicates that what’s “under the hood” of X is not in any way, shape or form trivial as to an alternate approach to the craft of editing.
The ones who appreciate it best appear to be the ones who use it most. So what does that mean?
Are we fools who confront a bad program but are too self-conscious to admit we’ve made a terrible choice and are just maintaining “appearances” and blowing smoke up our client’s pant legs so they never find out we can’t actually do efficient pro work with this tool? Or have we just taken the time to learn the complexities and nuances of the tools – and after doing that – find that it actually works for us in ways that other software has not?
Because if any other thing is true – wouldn’t we have simply jettisoned it and gone back to the “money” software we used to use – if out of self-preservation if nothing else?
[Alex Hawkins] “Cool. Just play the ball and not the man.
“Works for football (soccer) but fails massively for basketball – where the coach almost universally sends the player in off the bench with an instruction like “you’ve got Johnson”.
That’s my fundamental point in all of this. We’re NOT always playing the same game. So adjustments MUST be made.
“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
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[Jules bowman] “You still bang on about those left behind by the advancement often editing paradigm and how those are struggling with this evolution, among many other comments. Do you not see the insult and pompousness of that comment alone? If you don’t Bill, then I would move on from forum posting and perhaps embark in some self awareness programme. “
No thank you.
I see every bit as much arrogance and intolerance in the paragraph above as you accuse me of.
I suspect you’ve earned the right to criticize my opinions in precisely the same way I’ve earned the right to criticize yours. Thousand upon thousands of hours behind the camera and in the editors chair.
As a result of that, we still see things very differently. If nothing else, that should be useful to many others who come here not knowing WHAT to believe.
If you can’t see the shifting of the editing industry, I can’t help you. If you think some vaunted “high end” skill set is enough to prosper in the world where there are millions of new people taking up editing every year – where there once was thousands – again, I can’t help you.
And if you want to keep believing that alternate voices and opinions to yours are the problem and represent nothing beyond arrogance, than I wish you good luck with that view.
I’ve learned quite a bit here from those I disagree with. Even those I spar with regularly typically come up with reasonings that I have to consider carefully to see if there’s value in what they post. But I find I’m learning nearly nothing from you because I don’t remember you ever trying to do much beyond getting mad when someone questions your view.
You have reasons why my analysis of something is wrong say so. Tell me what counter-forces you see that makes a more traditional approach to editing the right path to growing success in a shrinking market. Tell me how YOUR approach will change any editors practice or chances of success beyond what editors have been doing for the past 20 years, and I’ll listen.
Cuz I see a nice group of ideas in X that might just do precisely that.
You’re ball.
“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
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m sure that you won’t to hear this, but this is a perfect case for the use of Auditions.
Jeremy
“
Jeremy – don’t waste your time.
To some people, the fact that first gear is no longer the lower left part of an H pattern simply is too much to wrap their brains around – to them it means first gear is GONE, period.
You can tell them how to shift into it. But they won’t be happy until it’s back where they’ve been conditioned to expect it.
Yeah, this is simplistic. And yeah, the changes in X are much more complex and deep than this. But some folks either can’t or won’t stretch their brains around the new processes or possibilities.
How do you expect them to move to Auditions when they can’t even get past magnetism?
Just isn’t going to happen.
I’ll try once or twice to help them shift their thinking – but after that – I’m afraid I’m just going to go back to working with the people who are open to the reality of the software and who can get past their personal sense of betrayal.
Life’s too short. I’m producing and directing a 16-camera DSLR and GoPro shoot on Saturday – so as much as I enjoy trying to help others, I just don’t have time to waste on those who can’t stretch their thinking enough to understand the basic stuff the rest of us figured out six months ago.
Sigh.
“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
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[Alex Hawkins] “Bill can you please stop insulting and patronising those of us who are happy with editing conventions that have been around for at least the past 30 years. “
I’m sorry you see this as patronizing. It’s honestly not my intention to be so. It IS my intention to articulate my difference of opinion on why X has been designed the way it is. And why that re-design can work really, really well for editors with practices like mine.
There are plenty of editors here who represent your view. And just a couple who represent my view. So why are you so concerned at a voice like mine being represented? If I’m correct and some of the thinking behind X is forward thinking and useful – then people here can perhaps consider the alternative positions I propose? What’s the problem with that? Traditional tools are well represented in editing. Why are you guys so bristly when someone wants to argue for the value of a different approach?
I get that editing as an industry is under a lot of stress and there are big changes afoot. But don’t that argue for listening MORE closely to alternatives, even if they are currently inadequate to the way you work today?
I actually write pretty regularly here in acceptance of other peoples work flows. Noting over and over that I have no issue with those who use Avid, Adobe, and Vegas in pursuit of perfectly reasonable editing requirements that make those a better choice than X for many situations.
[Alex Hawkins]
You love it, that’s great. But I don’t keep reading posts from other people intimating that you, and whoever else is using X, are: Apple fanboys; don’t really know what editing’s all about; aren’t really professionals and just love new toys.
“Uh, then perhaps you aren’t reading the same threads I am. The term “fanboy” has been applied to FCP-proponents here in about the same percentage that the term “metalhead’ has been applied to fans of the band Judas Priest.
[Alex Hawkins]
However I do keep reading posts from you suggesting, or at least intimating, what I’ve said above.”Okay. Point taken. I”ve probably been too vociferous lately.
I clearly don’t have the writing chops to articulate my points without causing reactive pain in those who hold similar views to yours.
Sorry about that. My failure. I don’t know how to suppress my ire about what some here write that seems dismissive of X as a tool and an entire approach to editing without resorting to the same (or worse” dismissiveness in response.
Mea Culpa.
But I honestly don’t naturally try to “trash” others. If you go back and look at where I get bristly – I suspect you’ll nearly always find it to be in response to someone who’s written something I feel is wildly off base about either the software’s operation, design, philosophy or capabilities.
I know a good deal about it’s operation. Not more than others here – and certainly not with any definitive understanding. But I do use it consistently for paid work for pretty well known national level clients – and it works for me. So when people say it’s crap, I get a bit riled. I’ll try to keep and eye on that.
I’m happy to entertain any debate about X’s actual approaches and functions. I just don’t really cotton too the trashing and the wholesale misrepresentation of what it does or how it works.
Simple as that.
“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
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[Jules bowman] “Perhaps you’re just foolish enough to think the emperor’s new threads are hipster fashion. We are all aware the fool is butt naked Bill, and we giggle at your inability to see it.
“Giggle if you like, but
And let me make this crystal clear so there’s not mis-understanding…
You – do – not – understand – how – to – edit – in X.
Period.
You can absolutely “save” in and out points for any edit. You simply select a range and apply a key word to it.. You do it in the Event Browser. You do it before you start putting clips in the timeline. Doing it this way preserves your in and out points for EVERY edit you’ll ever do with the clip from that point into the future. These are “saved edit points” Period. They’re precise. They are persistent. They are re-usable. You can use these persistent in and out points to do 3 point editing all day long. You can used the IN – and/or you can use the OUT – and you can do a 3 point edit from an IN or an OUT on your primary storyline using either a standard insert or even a back timed insert.
I’m sure you don’t believe me – so here’s a Steve Martin lesson show you how. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miIUfbK09Nw
I’m so tired of people who keep coming here and trying to tell me that I can’t do stuff I do all day long simply because it doesn’t work right in the timeline in EXACTLY the way they are used to it working and they simply can’t break out of their pre-conceptions long enough to look at whether the new way might actually be valuable if they can just stop being so intransigently stuck on how they think the want it to work. (Yeah, yeah, who am I to tell you how to edit – I get it. But the reality is that YOU are the one trying to edit with X and having trouble. I’m not.. And in your frustration, you’re the one coming here in the public square to tell us you “can’t” do something (in this case, “preserve in and out points”) that is pure BS.
If the software keeps in and out points – it keeps in and out points. If you can’t figure out how to make it work for an edit, and I can – it’s on YOU. Not on the software. All that means is that X doesn’t work the way YOU think it should. You see that as the programs failure. I see it as yours.
It works in X the way it works in X.
If you are not adaptable enough to use the software it the way the software is structured, it’s NOT the software’s fault.
It’s your fault.
That my sound harsh and dismissive and even downright rude, but I’m merely matching rude with rude based on your not very subtle attempts to besmirch me as an individual that appear directly above this post.
I think you don’t like X because you just can’t figure out how it actually works – and that’s making you frustrated.
I understand that. After 10 months, I’m still learning it. So I know it’s not easy.
The difference between us is that I know enough about how it works to understand whether or not it actually does something objectively confirmable like “save in and out points” – and you got stuck when you thought it didn’t do it because it simply asks you to do it in a different operating part of the software that will be more powerful as you learn how to work with the new design.
Simple as that.
“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
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Sigh.
Back up.
Rethink.
Tags (keywords) are universal, flexible, and as specific or general – as targeted or broad as you wish.
The “interface tags” (favorite, rejected, etc) are just a convenience. “Favorite” could be labeled “blue” and it would have exactly the same weight and function the same as every other keyword.
What does this mean?
It means that if you stop thinking of tags (and markers) as being only what they were in software prior to X – you are very much short circuiting your X learning..
The central reality of X is that nearly all of the work you do in the timeline is just modifiers for the more permanent data that lives in its Events. This is so very unlike Legacy that until you understand it, you’re actually not working “in” FCP-X- you’re working kinda on top of it.
I can’t emphasize this enough.
Until you study how X actually works. How the modules like the Input module, the Event Browesr, Keyword Collections, and the export conventions like the Project Library, and the Share menu – function in concert with their connected Primary storylines – you’re going to be stuck trying to use it like it’s “Legacy with new stuff.”
It is not. My advice is honestly for new X editors to try to spend at least 70% of their time working in places OTHER than the timeline. The timeline is easy. And it’s not where the big power of editing in X lives.
It’s a suite of deeply integrated new approaches, all working together in a new approach to overall editorial flow.
Look, I’m a 20 year editor who’s been working with it nearly every day since day 1. And I’m still discovering interesting new things about the software.
It’s not simple. At all. It requires effort and time to understand.
And the worst thing you can do, IMO, is to try to drive it like you used to drive any other NLE..
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
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[Frank Gothmann] “[Bill Davis] “It’s clear you’re a software engineer. I’m not. So I’ll defer to you or others who’ve examined the code inside X and would know if it’s as “sloppy” as you’re publicly stating. ”
I don’t have to be a software engineer to see bugs when I run into them on a daily basis. And that related to lots of software from Apple. That’s only half the problem. The issue is that a lot of those bugs are there for years and years – unfixed.
“Oh. Then you’re NOT a software engineer. And as such, what you’re saying about the software engineering in X is simply unsupported opinion. Fine. Now I can assign the appropriate weight to your opinions on that particular topic.
Actually, I too use a lot of Apple software. I seldom find it to be “buggy.” Perhaps I and the hundreds of millions of other people on the planet who keep rewarding Apple with their purchases are just unable to see the flaws that annoy you so.
I’m sure it’s just all of us not being quite as “discerning” as you.
“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
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[Paul Ray] “Also, I’m editing in FCP7, and using the audio filters included at the moment. I’ve set the frequencies, what does “Q” stand for, and what should I set it to? “
It’s the setting that widens or narrows the range on each side of a chosen center frequency that a boost or cut acts on.
That’s over-simplified – but it’s a decent starting shorthand.
“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