[Bill Davis]

Herb,

A week ago, I was shooting in a hotel gig – typical Spyder Pod at the back of the room with a 24x lens tracking back and forth on a 4 person panel. I realized that we’d be getting MUCH better video if I could have rigged 4 iPod touches w/video on desk stands, one on the table in front of each presenter, and simply switched them via WiFi.

We didn’t because we’re still all still stuck in thinking that what we did 10 years ago is STILL the best way to do things today. But it’s not. Video Village is down from 5 large road cases to 3 laptops. The images were being Flash encoded and sent via telco to an uplink sight in SF, and beamed to the world in real time.

And the audio was a FOH feed duplexed at the laptop so your “XLR at the camera” obsession is also stuck in past. (Haven’t you noticed all the double-system DSLR shooters who work around on-camera audio issues every day?)

You may want to cling to the idea that your way is the ONLY way to get the job done right, but some of us have learned that if we can’t at least look beyond our own personal mental limitations, we’ll never see any path to improvement.

For what it’s 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]

“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]

Craig,

Don’t bother dude.

Herb sees the word “APPLE” and the “red mist of push-back” descends upon him. It’s emotional.

From the un-retouched stills Apple posted today and the exemplar video shown at the same time- it’s clear you cannot do with the iPhone 4s what a person can accomplish with a six figure video configuration and a crew of 10. Further, having some enhanced video capabilities like better image resolution, better lens performance in low light, and iOS 5’s faster “in the moment” camera access capabilities are all nice, but I guess Herb is correct, they don’t really make the iPhone a mini Thompson Viper for $299, now do they?

Heck, if they they could just build a “world phone” into the Viper, carve that down to a few ounces and sell the result at sub-$300 … then we could all be insanely happy, no?

“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]

Purely because it was more fun when people were posting timelines in the beginning of this thread, I thought I’d post a snap of one of mine from back in FCP v5.

Branded graphic heavy long form training with many embedded video examples that had to function like a video driven powerpoint in live training situations.

Even the client wanted a picture of it when we were done to justify the huge number of hours/decisions (and update/revise points that remained accessible right down to the delivery wire) that were represented by the visualization scheme of classic FCP.

No, I’m NOT going to try the same thing in FCP-X right now, but I suspect that Connected clips et al and clearly the collapsing timeline could have made this whole thing a LOT easier to navigate.

Enjoy!

“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]

Maybe my thinking is too simplistic, but it seems to be that before X, all editors worked on stacks of separate entities.

In X, the stack is it’s own entity.

That is the fundamental abstraction they shifted.

Links (metadata) reach into the connected clip entity. But the entity remains discrete. And as such, you’re less assembling a timeline of disparate, discrete entities, than you are building new entities that become a flexible library of assets in and of themselves.

At some point, if they are linked by metadata tags – those discrete entities may form foundational building blocks that can be mixed and matched (and more importantly SEARCHED and RETRIEVED) based on their tags.

Right now, there’s no way to “reach in” to a FCP legacy timeline and link to it’s building blocks. With connected clips, it should be trivial at some point in the future.

That could be a useful new holistic overview that would work very well in connected editing distribution models in the future.

Just imagining.

“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,

While I heartily agree with your (sound post is a skill set outside most editors experience) what I find most fascinating is how little regard outsiders typically have for ANY skill set outside their own in this era.

I’m working more and more with still photographers who are coming into video since their DSLRs allow them to shoot motion work along with their stills.

Exactly like sound oriented people are aghast at how “devalued” their skills are in some video production situations, the still folks, while appropriately placing GREAT value on skills similar to their existing ones (lighting and composition) often can’t get their heads around the complexities of sub-disciplines like directing actors, blocking for motion, camera movement and scene pacing – and are MOST challenged when they have to approach totally alien disciplines such as sound for picture.

In the best possible world, everyone will respect everyone’s expertise – neither dismissing nor elevating the importance of quality talent in any area. But it’s also going to be a part of the modern producers job to understand when “enough is enough” in pursuing perfection, since the market is making stern judgements on what can be accomplished given today’s stressed to breaking budgets.

“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]

It seems to me that this thread has been largely a look at the “foundational thinking” behind the entire idea of the NLE interface.

Which reminds me of how Walter Murch set out to include similar foundational thinking with “In the Blink of an Eye” – examining some of what our brains do as they “edit” our experiences.

So what are the essential differences in function between sight and sound in humans?

Obviously humans developed many skills for species survival – but can they be prioritized? Is there a hierarchy to our senses? And if so, does that inform us about how we should weight content in our editing work?

It seems to me that danger has often been HEARD first (particularly since sound, unlike sight is essentially omni-directional), but the next, instinctive step is to use sight to analyze the threat potential.

When we see threats first, we listen, but having already identified that threat, we don’t listen so acutely because we already know much about the nature of the threat.

If we hear first, we universally look if we are able.

We value visual recognition over auditory because it gives us superior information about the world.

So it seems to me, as video artists, we follow this pattern when it makes sense. We value the visual information stream ahead of the auditory one – simultaneously understanding that the picture of a bear in the woods will always be incomplete if we can’t judge if she’s growling.

Interesting stuff.

“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 know I’m going to get yelled at for this, but so be it.

I came out of audio (radio actually) and didn’t transition to video work until long after I’d spent time doing basic multi-track audio work, not for music, but for spot work in broadcast.

During that part of my career, the quality and precision of sound editing was EVERYTHING to me. I obsessed over signal to noise ratio and wept tears when ping-poinging tracks added a few db of hiss to a complex mix.

And I tried to carry that audio obsessiveness along with me when I started working primarily in video – but I found I simply could not do it. And I’ve always wondered why. The best answer I can come up with is the layered complexities of visual work made it critically important that I keep my attention on the visuals and accept a standard for audio that was less than what I was accustomed to when it was my primary concern. I hated this reality, but I found I had not choice but to accept it.

I came to see that most of my audiences were engaged in the visual realm first and foremost – and that the soundtrack – while absolutely essential to the experience and clearly the vehicle that carried MOST of the communication heavy lifting in every project I did – did NOT need to be absolutely pristine in order to satisfy the audience. It needed to reach a solid, professional standard – and anything that damaged intelligibility was anethma, but an audience engaged in the visuals simply did not DEMAND the same level of audio precision that they did in audio only production.

I’m NOT for one second saying that sound is not critical to the video experience. It obviously is among the MOST critical aspects. But I also believe that when it accompanies picture, the fact that the audience is presented with a complex mix of visual and sound, their processing of the audio information gets less of their “concentration” than it would otherwise.

I’ve seen this time and time again in production. People will watch a movie on DVD coming out of a cheap korean combo DVD-TV set and be every bit as “engaged” as they are sitting in a Dolby 5.1 surround theater.

I suspect this reality is why audio gets the contemptible treatment it often does in too many video productions.

Again, please, I’m NOT arguing for poor audio quality standards at all. I’m saying that audio for video has NEVER been equal to standalone audio. I’ve never been on a movie set where someone is running every mic into a Grace pre-amp and attempting to push for music industry studio audio standards – and think there’s a reason.

So to think that an audio for video system should start with a DAW approach and simply build a video layer on top of that is a poor idea to my thinking. It would be excellent for those with a sound obsession, but not for the general market.

Quality directors like Walter Murch have certainly come out of sound. But a whole lot more of them have started with sensitivities to other parts of the movie making process. Sensitivity to acting, to classical storytelling, and perhaps sadly to pyrotechnic techniques have been equal or even more common ways for successful directors to cut their teeth.

Sound deserves every ounce of care and craft that can be brought to it. But to put it at the dead center of the requirements list for an NLE is, IMO, not the best path to general success. If so, I suspect that VEGAS and FCP would have swapped market share long ago.

For what it’s worth.

(stopping to put my flak jacket on)

I believe this is because most video work is done at a consumption level below “archival” requirements. While a feature film will potentially last for decades, most visual content has a much shorter functional life.

“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]

Sure.

It couldn’t possibly be a web encoding glitch, an internet distribution anomaly or a freekin’ cosmic ray hitting a logic gate anywhere along the thousands of miles of the distribution chain between Apple’s servers and your screen – whatever happened to make this video playback imperfect on your personal computer screen must be proof that Apple is rife with incompetence.

I’m totally with 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]

Interesting.

But if iCloud is a play to “sell hardware” it’s an odd model – because isn’t access to its virtues pretty much identical whether you’re accessing it from an $8000 desktop tower or a $229 iPod touch?

I thought the point of traditional “hardware driving software” was at least partially built around the concept that in order to run a powerful and professional app, you were forced to the top of the price pyramid to buy a professional class hardware box.

That noted, Tim, I agree with everything else in your post.

And I think my quibble is addressed by the reality that as long as “iCloud” makes people feel good about being an Apple brand consumer, it will do it’s job.

Brand perception and loyalty being, as it is, the ultimate goal of modern commerce.

“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