[Bill Davis]

Excellent riposte, Marvin.

The old fallback “you’re just a dummy” argument.

Nice use of reason, 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]

Gosh, Marvin…

Are you saying that a group of those in the “priest class” of a particular profession have NEVER dismissed the newcomers who see new possibilities, or methods of thinking, or yes new tool sets with a curmudgeonly “that’s not how we PROS do it” knee jerk dismissal?

Jeez, dude, history is rife with that. Like it or not, the new ALWAYS pushes aside the old.

Experience and talent both have great value. But NEITHER of those are enough to protect you in times of great change.

For a civilization to advance to dismiss EITHER the experience of age OR the energy of youth and progress are equally stupid IMO.

And sorry, but there are plenty of “old pros” around here who appear to be stuck in their existing business model and can’t see any picture outside of their suites. I honestly hope they get it precisely right and time their migrations from their old practices to more modern ones at exactly the right time. And I hope the brash youngsters last long enough to temper their enthusiasm for the new with the experience and wisdom that comes with finally seeing that the “old ways” grew that way for good reasons –

But just like in politics, the extremes are usually where the plodders typically get stuck.

And I do believe that has happened here a lot.

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]

[Marvin Holdman] “As for me, I can’t wait until the new Passive-Agressive 2.0 rig comes out. Man, I’m gonna look GOOD on the set!”

Made me laugh! Thanks.

I enjoyed reading the OP too. But I’m stuck thinking that while he’s absolutely correct on one level – there’s another level in play that’s changing things even MORE than the problem of the faux professional he addresses here.

It’s the rapidly changing nature of the entire game.

Once upon a time I was a young creative in RADIO. I honed those skills to a fine edge and essentially salivated when I got my paws on my first 4 track Otari in a radio station that could ping-pong and build complex mixes.

Then a funny thing happened when I transitioned into Video. Those audio skills were only PARTIALLY useful. In the world of pictures AND audio, the audio that was my passion didn’t solve my problems the way it had before. When you could SEE the character speaking, you could understand them perfectly well in the context of a mumbled phrase that valued the on-screen EMOTION over the precision of each syllable.

The game I was playing had changed. And I had to notice and appreciate that.

Here we go again. If you’re goal is making a Hollywood Movie, yes, you need to learn a WHOLE LOT of craft if you’re going to do a good job. And the problem of the inexperienced NOOB with delusions of grandeur is very real.

But while you’re trying to get one of the 2,000 rarified slots at the top of that Hollywood pyrimid – or even one of the 20,000 “noted professionals” slots at the level down from that, or the 200,000 slots down at the “working craftsman” level – over on the web, in corporate suites, and on the screens of millions of iPads there are other games being played. And out there, there are probably 20 MILLION opportunities to craft a reputation and a decent life.

The real disaster, IMO is propagating the idea that the ONLY game that makes sense to play is the shiny one being shown at the Movies or on Network TV in an era where new communications patterns and new income streams are cropping up literally every day.

IMO the big problem isn’t helping the new kids see the real trees in this forest. It’s allowing ourselves the freedom to ask if we’re even IN the right forest at all.

Just thinking out loud here.

“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]

I don’t have to “research” much at all.

Here’s an example in your own text from the top of this thread above.

[Bill Davis] ”

What has Walter Murch said in this video that many here, myself included, haven’t been telling you all along right here?

Please, just name one thing?

However, if you can hear the words better, because they come from Murch’s mouth, then so much the better.”

You took a post of mine, and instead of concentrating on WHAT I said, you spun it toward WHO said it. You took ME personally to task for it, trying your best to paint me as someone to dense to “get it.” about Walter’s opinions (in this specific case)

You (and everyone else here) can clearly see the personal pronoun “you” (referring to me as an individual) appearing twice in the exchange above.

At issue here is that YOU clearly tend to focus your wrath (Roth wrath?) on individuals who annoy you rather than their ideas.

When *I* do that (and I’ve certainly been guilty of it, at times, myself) I do my best to step back and apologize when I realize that I’m dismissing the PERSON rather than arguing their ideas.

You probably don’t even realize that you consistently do what you did above.

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

[Bill Davis]

I’m wondering if Motion Graphics will experience an additional boost from Apple offering Motion 5 for just $49 via the App Store.

I’ve been going through the Ripple Tutorials on it and I have to say I’m pretty astonished at what it can do at that price.

Particularly since it’s now kind of a “bolt on” integrated right into FCP-X.

“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]

And if he’s the most accurate prognosticator, then the real “take away” is that he seems to acknowledge that it matters VERY little what 1500 “professional movie editors” think, as he defines the group with the biggest problems with the state of FCP-X.

I’d bet EVERY SINGLE one of them has had the opportunity to read, discuss and even USE FCP-X (provided they have the time to fiddle) and if EVERY SINGLE ONE of them ditches it, it won’t make a discernible blip in the fortunes of AVID or Premier, OR Apple.

That revenue stream is simply gnat-like in a world of elephants.

History is LITTERED with the carcases of high-end professional toolsets that were ideal for the highest level users but because they didn’t attract a broad enough base, they faltered and died under their own weight.

There’s no way to predict if or when Adobe or AVID might go the way of, say, Silicon Graphics – (and I pray none of them EVER do – because I truly believe that competition drives the whole industry forward) but it’s likely going to be touch and go.

The biggest threat to the old “big iron running big software” model is probably the “touchscreenification” of Windows 8 right now. If they do to their development pipeline what Apple did to theirs – re-tool and re-focus on personal devices over “big iron” — then that’s going to put MASSIVE pressure on software and hardware development that doesn’t view massive, fast computers chock full of slip in cards and big assed monitors as the path to profits over the next 3-5 years.

Who would be left to do the OS development that would support that traditional work mode? Anyone?

Will Adobe or AVID need to morph (again for AVID) to being combo hardware/software vendors just to keep boxes around that run their stuff “properly?”

I keep reading about supply chain issues where other hardware vendors are pissed because Apple keeps buying out the total delivery capacity of everything from NAND chips to the drilling machines capable of putting the micro holes in the aluminum that let’s the “camera on” light shine through the skin of the MacBook Pros.

It’s a world where everyday people keep saying “I personally don’t need something with a big massive power supply.” Which means that the company that manufacturers those has to worry about survival in a shrinking market.

Scary, a little.

“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,

Look back over all you’ve posted here. Unlike Mr. Murch, who divided his time and words nearly equally demonstrating not just what he felt was unfinished or lacking, but what he felt was a solid indication of the FCP-X potential relevance to a new future – most of what you, and others in your “spin class” have proferred, has been relentlessly targeted to a single, monolithic view. That of the disappointed professional who could ONLY see what FCP-X was not, and had to be brought, kicking and screaming, to acknowledge what it might represent for the future.

That is my interpretation of what I’ve seen here the past 4 months of daily reading. Perhaps you never saw your contributions that way – exactly in the same way I never saw mine as relentlessly “pollyanna-ish” (something I’ve been accused of time and time again here) but that makes sense since anyone with a point of view is prone to bristle when they say the world is BLUE and someone steps up relentlessly to attack that view with “NOT BLUE – GREEN!!!) over and over and over again.

I’ve come to understand that this “disconnect” makes the most sense when you take into consideration that you and others here could well be stuck behind YELLOW LENSES of a particular professional orientation that make them see ALL blue as green. (I also freely acknowledge that I may have been wearing my own sunglasses that may be too dark to see the entire landscape clearly.) But so what?

It simply makes each of us flawed in our perceptions and that the reality that wins will be decided by the larger group of those who can see more clearly than either of us.

Mr. Murch, unlike you and others here – started out acknowledging that knowing whether or not you have colored lenses in place as you judge a picture is pretty smart.

It’s what I saw in this clip from him – and have yet to see from you and select others in the discussion here.

That clear enough for 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

[Bill Davis]

This is precisely why Walter is such an icon in the editing world.
Unlike any amateur, if you ask him “why” about any part of his craft, you’ll instantly grasp not only that he has a solid answer, but that he’s come to his answer after measured reflection and openness to the entire scope of possibilities.
Thanks for this.

“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]

Of course.

A bug that affects “round tripping” from FCP-X to a “plug in” that so far nobody owns?

That’s clearly what they meant by the Apple announced 2012 update when they elected to use code words like “multi-cam” et al.

I hear Red Giant’s pain. They came across a bug that’s slowed their finalized development and that’s caused them not go get to market as quickly as they might like. Might even screw up the “Holiday Season” gifting period when some App Store customers might have bought the new MB package for a FCP-X editor they knew. That’s a shame. But hardly a disaster. The engineers will track things down like they always do. And if their product hits it’s target market then it will sell fine.

(I personally hope this doesn’t drive the already vastly overused “vignette” look onto a zillion more marginal videos, but, if so, such is life! – it took half a dozen years for typesetting to recover from the original Mac type capabilities – so it’s not like we haven’t trod this path before! (raising a glass to the San Francisco bit mapped font of my editing youth!)

Work in progress? Absolutely. But in an increasingly large number of situations for an increasing group of users, software that seams to have 99.9% of it’s feature set working solidly given the correct hardware and OS configuration – just like most other useful software.

So the rest will get sorted out over time while we get our work done.

That’s all that really matters to most “early adopters.”

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]

Timo,

Unfortunately what you’re asking just isn’t practical.

On a video signal, you can separate out and “blur” some pixels leaving others clear because you’re working with a grid of individual addressable pixels.

Sound is NOT like that.

It’s a stew of frequencies all of which reach the microphone at (more or less) the same time. What makes some sounds stand out over others is their amplitude verses the other parts of the sound stew. That amplitude is a property of physics that is based on proximity of the sound causing source to the microphone. So someone closer to the mic will “stand out” in the mix from the other sounds – and there’s simply nothing you can do to alter that fact (other than to tell the person closer to the mic to shut up.)

There’s simply no way to artificially PUSH BACK a particular sound into the mix unless theres something significantly DIFFERENT from it and all the other voices being recorded. And human voices are in such a narrow range of tones and complexity that one is just too similar to another.

Sorry.

“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