[Bill Davis]

Take some advice from someone who has owned a personal studio space for the past 6 years.

The space size, capabilities, and equipment are astonishingly insignificant. Every knucklehead with a spare room, a digital camera, and a bucket of paint fancies themselves a “video studio.” (myself included!)

All the matters is whether you have a realistic functioning MARKETING PLAN that will actually drive enough business to your operation to both cover your overhead (including those pesky on-going marketing costs!) and turn a significant profit.

Everything else about the whole effort is secondary.

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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Well that’s kind of presumptuous, don’t you think?

You think the FCP development team sat down and said “Hey, lets’ screw with our customers and change what we call things in order to make their lives miserable.”???

The thinking behind their changing naming conventions might not be intuitive to you or to me – but that does NOT imply that it was done without thought or consideration.

Perhaps someday we’ll learn why.

But until then, the contention it was done just to piss current editors off is a pretty massive stretch, IMO.

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

But Walter,

This is to argue that FCP-X is an fatally limited or insignificant tool in and of itself. Something that it a LONG way from being proven. Don’t forget that a swiss army knife, in the hands of one of the last generations “slicing block and razor blade” editors could undoubtedly edit a world class motion picture – no problem. Because the central necessary process – cutting celluloid – could be done with many, many different tools.

And since the vast majority of motion picture style editing is fundamentally knowing how to place cuts – your analogy only holds up if FCP-X can’t do that. But it most certainly can. A Swiss army knife can’t functionally build a deck. But once upon a time all decks were built with hand saws. Today, virtually NONE of them are. The power saw changed everything.

The current debate is whether the 10+ year grown ecosystem of enhancements, bells and whistles which have been appended AROUND the FCP central editing system has been functionally lost in the move to FCP-X. And the clear answer is that a good measure of that has.

But that’s not the end of the story to the chagrin of many of the early voices who seemed pre-disposed to stop the debate at what the software in it’s initial release LACKED.

By way of a cooking analogy, most of the loudest voices here appear to be complaining that they (and by extension everyone else cooking on FCP – MUST have access to a fully equipped “world class” automated kitchen – with dedicated tools for everything from slicing bread to piping colorful rosettes in icing – if that kitchen is to be considered truly “professional.” And further if too many of said capabiiities are missing, professional cooking will be necessarily impossible!

At one level they are correct. For the top flight chef that must turn potatoes into mini-sculptures for 1000 tonight – then pivot and build snap pea castles for 1000 the next – every possible tool and food prep device that can help must be at hand – all a reasonable “workflow”.

But there are also plenty of cooks out there who are willing to work in less fancy kitchens, with more basic tools and can STILL turn out KILLER meals.

FCP-X it seems to me has said, hey, here’s a new cooking machine. It can’t do the stuff your zillion dollar hundred-gadget kitchen can currently do – and you need to spend some time learning how this new gizmo works if you want to benefit from what it can do particularly well – but if you take the time to learn what it can do – you’ll be surprised at how convenient and efficient it can be!

Maybe FCP-X will turn out to be something akin to a brash new microwave oven in a shop full of classic Vulcan ranges.

It is absolutely true that microwave ovens are NOT ideal for all cooking. But I don’t know of a single professional kitchen that doesn’t have them around because what they do well – like softening butter in seconds rather than minutes – is a HUGE improvement over the traditional process of leaving it out on the counter for an hour.

And there are whole very successful restaurants that are based on the modern “commissary kitchen” concept where all they do is essentially heat and serve “dish-out” concoctions – and make a handsome profit by keeping the need for too many in-house “top chefs” minimal. In fact, that’s the typical structure of most Mexican, Chinese, Thai and many, many other types of restaurants. Dish-out rules over “cook to order” – precisely because it’s much, MUCH more efficient and much less labor intensive – so restaurants of that type are typically more accessible to more people than chef-run “fine dining” establishments.

And here’s the big deal, to my mind. When the microwave oven got to a certain stage of development – some smart person noticed that while it heated INCREDIBLY WELL – it had difficulty with browning – so they combined the super-efficient microwave oven with a convection oven in the same device and like magic – people suddenly get the faster cooking times of the new gadget WITH the nicely browned crusts that were missing for awhile.

Times and tools change. So must we. 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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Like every complex software package EVER released, you’re supposed to do precisely what you’re doing.
Build comfort and operational expertise day by day, encountering challenges, solving them, adding to your base of operating knowledge step by step over time.

FCP-X may be the first software ever developed that had such a MASSIVE installed base in place when the company realized that to make necessary changes to the underlying engine that they would have to gut and re-build the whole damn thing.

I think there’s bit of a parallel in homebuilding these days.

For decades around my average neighborhood the standard was add a room here and there as the family grew and changed. But after a certain point, people (at least in my neighborhood) looked at the old construction standards and practices and instead of re-modeling – started doing “scrapes” – taking area homes down to the dirt – and installing new everything from the plumbing to the wiring in order to take advantage of modern homebuilding concepts. (Having pulled a LOT of wire into existing walls in my time I have to say it was refreshing the last time to be able to install the outlets, computer wiring and conduit that I WANTED instead of hacking it into a home built to 19th century standards!)

Remodeling and total tear-down/re-build both have their place. And judgements have to be made as to whether the community is better served by working with the old architecture because it’s particularly beloved or unique – or moving on to building something more in line with modern design ideas.

Adobe and AVID have the same opportunities to gut and re-invent and have so far decided to honor their base with nothing beyond solid, functional remodeling. Apple decreed that FCP-X required a teardown in order to make big, substantial changes in how the plumbing works.

They think their plumbing will be a superior platform for the future.

Only time will tell whether their bet on a future where data flexibility and more automation rules the industry. Or loses the competition because more players feel traditional tools and workflows and compatibility with a high end user base are the necessary requirements of on-going success.

Only time will tell.

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Can’t remember the B-movie, (actually, it might have been a TV show episode) but the primary characters struggled mightly to figure out how to save themselves from the hell of the ragged, island cove where they had washed up in their storm tossed-boat. (No, this was NOT Gilligan’s island!)

They moaned, fought, struggled and whined hour after hour, day after day in constant fear of their lives.

Right up to the point they went looking for food one day – and discovered that, instead of a deserted island, they were just a few miles from a 4 star island resort.

Perception is everything.

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

In copyright issues there are layers within layers within layers.

You own the copyrights to the tapes you shot. They are your creative work. That has NO bearing on any other copyrights that might be embedded in that work. A good example is if you shoot in a restaurant – a background music system was playing a song – the rights holders of the song copyrights STILL have those rights if their work ends up on your tape – and they can legally sue you to prevent you from using their song on your tape without their permission.

That’s why I’m saying that if your tape is a recording of someone speaking – that SPEAKER maintains all rights to the speech they’ve written and presented on your tape unless they specifically assign those rights to you.

What you “own” is the copyright to YOUR work. Nobody can use your footage without your permission. And it’s perfectly possible that YOU can’t use it either – if it contains someone elses copyright material.

The ONLY safe situation is when you’ve paid attention to all the parties work contained in your “derivative work” and secured release from all the rights holders to all the copyright works contained therein.

This is why those professionals came equipped with RELEASES when they showed up. They wanted to DOCUMENT that the rights to broadcast or otherwise use the footage they shot had been cleared.

It sounds like neither YOU – nor the people who hired you – did that. So your stuck with everyone having their own copyrights to the parts of the content that they created (the speech and the separate recording thereof ) and as a result – neither party can turn it into anything marketable without the other parties permission.

That’s simply how this stuff works.

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

If you’re stuck doing it this way – go right ahead.

But if you’re open to some advice…

a lot of us here are saying that what you’re planning is a VERY unusual technique in the grand scheme of an industry that’s been cranking out interviews by the thousands for many, many, many years.

if you’re going to attempt to re-invent the wheel – we believe it would be an extremely good idea to TEST OUT your new wheel design before you attempt to balance the success or failure of your entire project on this very unusual method.

Assemble your rig. Call up some friends. Divide them into two groups. Do the first group with method A and the second with method B. Compare the results.

If you believe the results in A are superior – have at it. If not, you’ve just saved yourself a HUGE amount of hassle schlepping and setting up a bunch of stuff that can break down and cause you grief during your shoot.

Nothing to lose with this “test first” method — and everything to gain.

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

So you’re saying Apple has programmed something akin to analog “soft clipping” into FCP-X?

If so, that’s going to REALLY help a new generation of FCP editors to avoid messing things up.

I guess everything old IS new again – if you wait long enough!

“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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

Sorry I was unclear.

I was using the 255 video clipping idea to reflect how a signal over WHATEVER digital max setting is baked into the software – in audio OR video causes CATESTROPHIC wave form breakdown.

Back in my young FCC license radio days – we all understood that there was a gentle “soft-clipping” area (represented by the red “technically over-modulated” but still very much usable (and sometimes DESIRED) part of metering.

When the change to digital came – we had to re-order our thinking to understand that if you took digital meters to work like analog ones – you were risking DISASTER.

When I read your post, I thought you were suggesting that FCP-X might improperly map levels such that one could inadvertently be shielded from audio levels that would FAIL in FCP-X.

IF, on the other hand, these values ARE being mapped properly – we can relax about it.

That’s what I was trying to get at. Does metering in FCP-X lead you to a functional and destructive “brick wall clipping” situation such as one faces in 255 video – or is it reliable as a way to set audio levels.

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’Conner

[Bill Davis]

This is simple.

Be polite, reasonable, and sensible about it. Sensible is that unless he pays you for your time and efforts shooting this – he doesn’t get the footage – period.

If he tries to trash your reputation – he can be sued for liable. It’s his choice to risk that.

Tell him to look up “work made for hire” on the internet. He’ll get a thousand hits. All the credible ones will tell him that in the absence of a signed agreement stating otherwise, the copyright to any creative work vests with it’s CREATOR. In this case, the footage is a creative work. You created the footage. You own it. He may well own his part of the CONTENT displayed on the tapes – and the other speakers will likely own THEIR content on the tapes (absent a signed agreement specifying otherwise) – but YOU own the rights to this particular “fixed in a tangible form” expression of it (the footage)

So you’re at a standoff. You can’t do anything with his content without HIS permission – and he can’t use your footage without YOUR permission.

Unless the law has changed recently, it’s usually as 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’Conner