[Bill Davis]

Richard nailed this IMO.

While standard lavs can work, nothing trumps the inverse square laws of physics.

Notice that the folks doing play by play court side in basketball arenas are perfectly legible even tho the space is a huge hollow cave – and there are quite possibly 20 thousand screaming people surrounding the play by play.

A headworn boom mounted mic positioned less than an inch from the mouth solves a LOT of audio problems.

With units like the Countryman E3 and other “micro-element” full range headworn mics, there’s usually a good solution unless you’re trying to appear like there’s no mic anywhere in the scene.

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]

Alternately, go to SoundDogs or one of the other thousand on-line audio SFX sites and search “rumble.”

You should be able to pick from dozens if not hundreds.

“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]

[Walter Soyka] “FCP7 was a great general-purpose editor that was adopted in many niches. Since FCPX required everyone to re-think their workflow anyway, many people are exploring the unique strengths of competing NLEs and trying to figure out what works best for their specific needs.”

Makes sense to me.

And can also be seen as “if you need to keep working the way you always have – X is not the right choice for you.”

OTOH “If you want to explore other ways of working and your shop structure will allow it – then X might be a great tool to enable you to start to explore how editing might be done somewhat differently in what looks to be an increasingly “data driven” future.

Both views make a lot of sense and are consistent with Oliver and Walters thinking.

Horses for courses, once again.

And no, Chris and Herb – this is NOT the same as saying “no other tool on the planet but X will allow this.” So settle back into your chairs. ; )

“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]

Good to hear.

Has anyone had success the other direction with Phil’s X to 7 app?

I’ve got a project that needs to ship out to California that I did in X and the clients want to do additional editing there in 7.

I was able to break up the projects compound clips as required, but while the resulting file presents the “Export XML” choice, the resulting data file appears to be empty.

I’m confident this will sort out, but they’d like to work this weekend so I’m hoping there’s something simple and stupid I’m doing wrong.

TIA.

“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]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Every time a new release comes out with new features, there are new default shortcuts. If you have a custom set going, those new shortcuts are left blank. Itd be nice if something could populate my current custom set with the new shortcuts, but leave my custom settings in place. I smell an app opportunity!”

Jeremy,

I vote you hire a programmer. To help, I’ll cede you my instant name idea “KMC.”

short for Keyboard Musical Chairs.

“Okay functions, before we go to work, you all start marching around at random – and when I yell MAP – you grab a vacant key and I’ll try to figure out what you do!”

; )

“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]

[Michael Aranyshev] “Did they obviated the need to pre-render Red R3D, DPX or ARRIRAW? Was there the need to pre–render DV or DVCPRO-HD in Legacy?
“

Fair point, perhaps.

However, you list three “rising in the future” big data file formats – and then directly cite three “long in the tooth” small file legacy formats.

Apples and oranges.

Since X is a modern work in progress – it’s up to the reader to consider whether as X moves into the future where Red, DPX and ARRIRAW are increasingly relevant – X might adapt really well to those needs.

It’s already more “file format agile” than Legacy – tho certainly no more “perfect” than any other editing platform in handling literally “everything” that might be tossed at it today.

“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]

[sandy shapiro] “Alan,

I was leaving “professional” open. But if you’d like a label, I’d like to hear from every type of professional – corporate vid, commercial, film, tv, doc., etc – who makes their living editing.

and by professional, I mean “no home movie editors.” sorry if anyone takes umbrage to that.

All thoughts are sincerely appreciated.”

OK then.

I’m a “professional” editor since I’ve made my entire living the past two decades plus by producing and editing video. It’s my only source of income.

I don’t work in LA or in NYC. So here, broadcast opportunities are limited. So are network TV production seats. Corporate video is the big jobs driver. I’ve edited on FCP since Version 1. I’ve never been an Avid or Premier editor. FCP Legacy has taken me from small firm work to editing high profile programs for some of the largest corporations in my state.

I embraced X fully and I’m having great success with it. In the past 60 days, I’ve earned more on X then I did on the previous nine months of using Legacy – tho I actually attribute that less to the software, and more to the increasing health of the economy – projects that were stalled, seem to have broken loose in a flood.

X has earned my admiration and trust because in the increased workflow I’ve faced, I doubt that Legacy’s “render-first – cut second” workflow would have kept up with the pace I needed to succeed with so many projects stacked up.

I’ve done projects that were video based – still photo based – hybrids – motion graphics based – and consulted with professional video colleagues, DSLR photographers, and corporate clients – used X to meet ALL of their needs. And haven’t missed even one of my sometimes insane deadlines.

To do that I had to essentially totally re-train myself. That’s an on-going process and I expect to keep improving for many years.

X is not simple. It requires re-thinking. I find that re-thinking to be personally expanding since I’m considering lots and lots of areas where I’d never previously been pushed in my decades with Legacy. I feel more organized. I feel like I’m building a workflow and a key wording environment that not only pays short term benefits today – but will pay massive benefits in the long run when I can access my global “asset library” and make better use of stored material than I personally ever could before.

For that reason alone, I’d encourage you to carve out the time to add FCP-X to your toolset – I wouldn’t suggest you dump everything else and rely exclusively on it unless you determine that the kind of work available to you fits what it’s very good at. That’s a personal choice and nobody here can help you make it – since none of us has a clue about where your talents, style, and interests best fit in the video editing universe.

I’d encourage you to think more about where you want your career to go. Don’t let the path meander unless you’re willing to go where the winds blow you. If you aspire to a seat at Disney – then seek out the tools they value and learn those. If you adore pets and aspire to do the great ASPCA documentary – then you can shoot with, edit with, and sit in front of whatever the heck you like.

That’s the excitement of video today.

Good luck.

“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 Roth Weiss] “Is the magnetic timeline really necessary?

Is it really more efficient?

In the overall scheme of things, is the cost in dollars and in man-hours spent retraining millions of editors really worth it?
“

Yes, to A

Yes, to B

and Yes to C.

A. Necessary because the single most common editing function is assembling scenes without gaps in a string on a timeline. Making that the default serves the majority needs of the largest group of editors.

B. Yes. I personally found I can get projects done faster in X after 3 months experience than I could after 10 years using Legacy. I’m certainly not smarter than any other editor. I’m certainly not more talented than any other editor. I am an AVERAGE working editor. Period. The only difference between me and most others is that I didn’t succumb to the temptation to let my discomfort in the initial changes spoil my entire outlook about the new program.

X is a much more efficient editing program compared to Legacy primarily because they obviated the need to pre-render everything in order to get to work – just like FCPs competitors. I also find that the combination of pre-trimming in the Event Browser – AND the magnetic timeline seriously shortens the time from ingest to rough cut by very, very significant amounts. That time shortens even more during my common “stage 2” edit where I watch through the timeline for the first time and determine if there is benefit to re-arranging the order of either individual clips or any series of clips.

If you’re editing to a “fixed script” and know the order of each and every scene in advance, this advantage will fade. But if you have the freedom to make order changes to your scene, magnetism can be a huge efficiency boost.

Finally, C is yet another example of pushing your individual view ahead of fact.

The truth is that nobody “forced” anyone to re-train on anything. If you don’t want to re-train, fine. keep using Legacy. Sure you’ll eventually have to change programs. But nobody has EVER had a guarantee that ANY piece of software would last forever.

So again, get over it.

FCP is no longer Legacy – it’s X. Use it or don’t.

But stop the incessant single minded drumbeat that you and the entire industry have been somehow mortally wounded.

David, you have NOT been wounded. You were likely a fine editor yesterday. And you are one today.

You do not resonate with FCP-X – fine – but what’s the point of coming back time and time and time again proffering the same POV that X must prove to be somehow “more superior” to every other editing program in every area to be worthy of any respect?

What’s up with 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

[Bill Davis]

Lance. I get what your saying. And even agree at first blush,

But I’m wondering if Share is a bit like Versions in modern word processing.

At first the shock of losing “save as” was kinda traumatic – it was so very ingrained in my thinking.

Now I’m starting to understand that the whole “versioning” paradigm has actual advantages over “freeze and dump all previous iterations” which is kinda what “save as” was.

Share isn’t “Export this range of the timeline” either. Since implementing that would likely have been trivial, I’m trying to see why.

And the best I can come up with at this point is that maybe there’s a larger plan (kinda like the versioning thing) that isn’t fully evident to me at this stage?

“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]

Look,

A lot of this is merely some people getting stuck on the fact that they just don’t handle change well.

For years we had a rope to pull that rang the bell. We got totally conditioned to sounding the bell to signal that we were hungry.

Some people are stuck on the fact that when checking out a potential new place to live, there’s no rope! No bell! Some found that terrifying. “Will I starve? With no bell can I survive? The bell is central to my happiness” will be where their thinking gets stuck. Yes, I’m horribly and unfairly simplifying to make a broad point.

X has never been the end of all that’s good in editing.

Those who didn’t panic figured out that while, yes, the bell was disconnected, there’s now a button that operates a buzzer that gets you the same food.

Argue all you like about how much a rope and bell is “superior” to the buzzer.

But really, who cares?

If you’re any good at making videos, you can do so with any of the NLEs commonly discussed here.

Stick with the bell. Move to a place with a buzzer. Buy yourself a Gong if that floats your boat.

We’re at the point where there’s a new option in town and it’s exciting, capable and evolving rapidly.

It doesn’t diminish or invalidate other choices -it just presents a nice new one.

FCP-X is working well for many editors. The missunderstandings are fading away. The truth of the new design is earning its rightful place, in the wide arsenal it editing tools – one editor at a time.

Nobody knows what that place will be in the long run, but with a company as financially strong as Apple backing it, and a pedigree so strong in the engineering lineup – only a fool would bet against it as a wise alternative choice to keep an eye on. It will earn it place by virtue of the needs it meets for each user.

Totally fair. Totally consistent with any other competing tool.

Good time to be a video editor, in my opinion. Yes the competition is fierce, but with change always comes opportunity.

And X is opportunity writ large in my mind.

“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