[Bill Davis]

[Rafael Amador] “What I don’t like in FCPX Is the lack of intuitiveness and the lack of a GUI where I can see every single element of my editing at a glance and move it in time and space at my will.
rafael”

Yes rafael, we get that it’s not “intuitive” for you.

But your “intuition” and mine may just be different.

I happen to be currently reading a novel set in the Arctic among indigenous people. The author does a great job of expressing how those people relate to the natural world in very different ways to what I understand through my daily life. Their “intuition” is very different than mine. They consider things like weather to be daily “life and death” issues – because for them, they are.

So their “intuition” about climate is finely honed. Mine, living in Arizona, is astonishingly dulled by comparison. Weather is a factor (in the form of heat) during the summer, but largely irrelevant otherwise. So I have developed a good bit of “heat” intuition. And almost no “deadly cold” understanding beyond simple reason.

In the same way, someone who has been conditioned to edit in one particular fashion – based on the editing tasks they’ve been MOST exposed to on a day to day basis, will “color” their entire approach to editing.

It really can’t be otherwise.

The issue with the X-dismissers is often that they can’t see “editing” as anything other than the way “they” edit.

But others with different challenges and needs DO see it very differently.

And we’re not wrong because of that.

You want to thrive in your editing climate. I want to thrive in mine.

The larger question is if “Hollywood” editing is more reflective of the overall climate that most people live in, or is my more “general and increasingly web oriented business editing” the more widespread climate?

Worth considering, anyway.

“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]

[dermot shane] “Good point…. the entire roll out was OTT, and not in a good way – the name iMoviePro has really stuck, even with agency creative directors who would be a perfect target market will not be caught dead with it – it’s just so vastly uncool a thing to admit to haveing installed.”

Actually, I think looking back from where I am today, I think the big hue and cry was the very BEST part of the rollout.

Every day I’m more and more delighted that it’s being largely dismissed by lots of people who are so busy that they have no time to really learn what’s actually underneath the hood.

Because that’s giving me precious time to build expertise. Each editor who dismisses it makes my skill set slightly more rare.

If X evolves as I suspect it will, I have a nice head start. And every passing month, it appears that it’s growing quite nicely, thank you.

I find that very comforting.

“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]

[David Lawrence] “The reason I keep bringing up audio and DAWs is because if Apple’s trackless paradigm is truly the revolutionary improvement that they claim, then it should work as a general solution for all time-based media. This has been my core argument from day one of the FCPX release.

By eliminating tracks, Apple changed something that wasn’t broken. The problem they solved wasn’t a problem for anyone skilled in the craft. The convenience their design affords is minor compared to the problems they’ve created for anyone who uses an NLE as a general purpose time-based editorial environment. Not to mention the interchange issues that are still getting worked out.”

But David, I would challenge you on the concept that Apple “eliminated” tracks. They did nothing of the kind, unless you define “tracks” as “how tracks operated in Legacy.”

The moment you import a digital asset into X, you essentially create a TRACK. That track persists and relates to the “tracks” you create above and below it just fine. The real difference is that these tracks aren’t persistently and necessarily “pinned to zero” as they were in Legacy. But you can’t actually argue that the aren’t there – because when if you look at any X timeline that has content – you can see them as easily as you can in Legacy.

I also firmly disagree with your contention that their convenience is marginal. I find it tremendously powerful and efficient to be able to assemble a stack of assets, and simply drag and drop that assembly around in time is literally orders of magnitude more sensible to me than being stuck in a world where every box in every stack in the warehouse of my timeline is always a discrete element that can be pushed out of time alignment by actions taken outside of the visual space I might be working in.

We’ve all had to restrict our thinking to this reality in the history of NLE design – the “what I do over here can break what I’ve already done down there that I can no longer see” and we’ve come to accept it and accommodate it – but honestly, it’s fundamentally crappy design to have a system where changes in one place can mess up previous decisions in another that you are no longer looking at. It’s something we’ve mentally had to learn to “anticipate” through rote learning. But it’s bad design. Period.

I actually LOVE not having an arbitrary “Zero” point like in Legacy. I can’t work the middle first, go back and do my titles later, Swap the back and front with the middle, and drag stuff around just to “see how it feels” with a freedom I never had before. ANd that freedom persists no matter HOW complex my timeline becomes. That’s no less than liberating to my mind.

I know it’s instinctively hard to change long set thinking about how an arrangement of virtual assets in time must behave. But some of us like the new system much, much better than the old.

I don’t even THINK about editing the way I used to. I like the freedom of knowing that the “stack” I created over there – will ALWAYS be there when I come back to that section, with all the clip timing and relationship decisions preserved, no matter what I change before or after it.

You appear to largely see X in terms of what you feel you’ve been forced to give up.

I largely see it in terms of the benefits of what I have now, that I didn’t have before.

I understand that these differences are based primarily on the kind of work we do and what we need most in our specific editing workflows, but you have half a dozen programs that do things YOUR way.

And I have ONE that’s shown me a different way that works better for me.

So sorry, but I’ll fight not to have to do what I consider to be “going backwards” to accommodate people who want X to be “more like” the tools we had for decades.

Working the way I’ve worked for 15 years as an editor, I’m significantly more productive in X than I ever was in Legacy. I’m getting more done faster, and since I “mentally migrated” to X, I’ve seen a massive increase in my billings. Attracting that work hasn’t been based on the software, but the software HAS allowed me to cut and finish work signifacantly FASTER than Legacy allowed, primarily because of the render issues, but also because the whole program just seems somehow more efficient to me.

So I’m just not sympathetic to your view. I think every day more and more general editors will discover the “point” of X.

If you never do, that’s fine. It’s likely because it’s NOT a good tool for the way you think and work.

But it’s an excellent one for the way I do.

Simple as that.

BTW, sorry to go off topic in this. It’s not about multi-track audio, per se – but then, neither was David’s post, so hopefully it’s fair game to respond directly to is assertions.

“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]

The question about this stuff that interests me is whether or not there IS a fair system that’s even possible in these kinds of situations.

In a “perfect” world, the taxpayers would get the lowest cost. The chosen vendor would make a decent living. Everyone in the “bid pool” would have an equal shot at the work. And very day of “government video production” would see a nice layer of clouds diffusing the sun so that nothing is over or underexposed and nobody needs the generators, 20-bys and HMIs to make things look really nice.

Nice fantasy, but we all know that all that is simply not how things work on a regular basis.

No two brains will do these videos precisely the same way. No two production companies have precisely the same talent and resources.

So the whole exercise has less to do with the creation of actual work with exceptional VALUE to the commissioning party- but rather with balancing economic interests between and among “constituencies” in the broadest non-political sense (and perhaps in the political sense as well.

The big problem for me is that I can’t actually think up any better way to commission video services for parties like an official “government” that would actually be any better.

There HAVE to be “insiders” who best understand what the project needs. People judging the bids have to become informed about the “actual” capabilities of the bidding parties in order to select the “best” fit – but that’s hardly ever done by looking at what’s in the bid documents, is it. There’s no place to indicate whether “Vendor A” is wildly creative or dull as a stump. Whether the project even NEEDS to be at level A, or level B, or Level C to succeed in whatever it’s “mission” might be.

Maybe the truth is that there must be place in the world for “government bid videos” just like there must be a place in the world for government cheese.

Nobody really values it – but at some point, the case was made that it could be useful under the conditions that could reasonably be foreseen. And when (after a decade or so) the stuff ends up in some school cafeteria and actually lowers some costs and keeps some kids from being honestly hungry – then the fact that creating, storing, transporting and managing it at least does some small amount of good.

And if the worst happens and you have a flood or something and a lot of people REALLY need something to eat – and somebody remembers the cheese – then the cheese planners get nice pats on the back and everyone notes that “government really can do something useful” for a few days.

Until they forget.

Probably the best we can ever hope for with government video production of the “open bid” type being discussed here.

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]

[Bob Cole] “But this kit has three fresnels, no open face – isn’t it kind of a waste to put a fresnel into a Chimera? (I’d be interested in others’ opinions on that score, btw.) If you will often be using the Chimera you may want to find a kit that includes a simple (and inexpensive) open face. Also, that Chimera is kind of small, imho.”

A to the fresnel in a soft box deal, it”s certainly not ideal., but it can work. Specifically, Photoflex soft boxes designed for hot lights were traditionally designed deeper for this very reason. They work OK with Fresnels since being deeper than, say, Chimeras, they allow the beam of a fresnel to spread out to more of the soft box panel. (not perfect, they still vignette a bit – and they are “nose heavy” so you need good grip gear – but it’s a very usable light if you want to do soft box interviews and want to do nothing more than toss the box and rods into a Fresnel kit.

But, don’t forget that lighting is a bit like cooking. You can get nice results with a good piece of protein, spices that match that well, and a couple of more things to round out the plate. But nobody wants to face every meal with just one arrangement on the menu. Dining is more interesting when you can change main courses – change how you spice them up, and change the side dishes.

That’s lighting as well. Taking a light kit on the road is like packing a picnic. Nothing wrong with having a “go to” picnic lunch always based around, say, cold fried chicken. But the more you learn about lighting, the more you want to be able to vary the main course, vary the sides, and vary the spice profile so that you learn, practice, and expand your idea of what a “picnic” can be.

Make sense?

“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]

Hi Joe.

I’t kinda counter-intuitive, but what you’re seeing is pretty much the result of how all lenses function.

Know how kids love to take a magnifying glass and use it to burn holes in dry fall leaves?

What’s happenin is that the lens is concentrating the light from a large area into a smaller one. Light energy concentrated by the lens is stronger than it is naturally.

So (all things being equal) zooming into stuff typically makes it brighter.

The corollary to this is that it’s a lot easier to light small things than it is to light big wide scenes. The power required to raise a wide shot to the same values that you can get pretty easily in close ups – is why people invented grip trucks and generators.

Outside on a sunny day – it’s not a big deal. Inside a warehouse, it’s a major hassle. (It’s why those hollywood stages always have a zillion lights hanging up on the grids.)

In the future, set your exposure for your wide shots – use whatever lighting you have, then open your lens up to make that scene look the best you can. Remember the more open you set your aperture, the shallower the depth of field you’ll have for a given sensor size, so if you truly have inadequate lighting, you may be fighting focus issues a lot.

But when you use your lens to go tight, you’ll normally have enough light to do what you nee if you start with good lighting for your wide shots.

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]

Not since the dawn of time – but since V1 of X.

And yes, it’s a major convenience.

Learning to duck or boost audio this way my intro the the entire “range” idea – and now I can’t imagine working differently.

“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]

Daniel,

If I might, I think you’re getting dangerously close to over-thinking this.

It’s a cart for your gear. It’s not a lifelong commitment. Pick one. The cheaper one if money’s tight. The more expensive or durable one if you can afford it.

There is no “business killing” choice here.

One aspect of the “endless information stream” on the internet, is that is that it’s really easy to get caught up debating things that are mostly unimportant.

Like the “most professional” cart.

For what its worth.

“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]

The moment you put a DSLR in “video mode” you disable many of the things that make it a world class still camera.

In video mode, it becomes a video camera in the upper middle of the quality pack.

It still likely has better glass and a lot of light sensitivity – but it’s saddled with H-264 compression and an extremely cropped pixel array.

You can fire stills and interrupt your video stream, but in my experience, this results in mediocre photos, and needlessly interrupted video streams. Not excellence in each.

Trying to do two complex jobs at once is NOT a path to quality in either, IMO.

In practice, I’d recommend picking ONE mode and working in that. Anything else will split your focus and drag down your results in both.

My 2 cents, anyway.

“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]

[Simon Ubsdell] “Agreed – but is it entirely for the good of the consumer, as I think perhaps you might be suggesting?
“

Not entirely, Simon.

But the consumer seems to value “speed of access” over quality consistency right now.

I suspect App store purchases are often “impulse” buys. And if you’re searching for – say – a plug-in – you’re likely doing so because you have a problem you need to solve immediately.

So the value proposition is based on becoming the “vendor of choice” for that user when confronting “problems like this” – rather than your current product becoming the ONLY tool they’ll purchase.

So initial sales are driven by being first to market – and long term sales will be driven by satisfying customers, as it’s always been.

There’s little penalty on being “imperfect” if you’re first to market – as long as you diligently improve things from that point on.

The App stores distribution model allows the “perfection-process” to be both rapid and on-going.

I think this is a powerful new business model. It’s not without it’s hassles, but it seems to be what’s working in the marketplace.

“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