Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Tim,
It’s not a comparison of FCP-X and Photoshop itself.
It’s a comparison to the introduction and development PATHS that each took. (but I guess that’s WAY too complex an idea for some here to grasp.)
Those of us who truly had to struggle with adopting and then waiting months, or even years, for our early software to mature into robust professional tools – are TRYING to pass along the hard won wisdom that 1st gen software has traditionally and TYPICALLY been a process of trial, revision, and then success or failure as maturity is reached.
Today, the squalling children want it both PERFECT and RIGHT NOW. (and as a father, I understand that as well as most.) But it’s not how large strides in technological evolution works and it will never be.
Apple, more than others has proved this over and over and over again. When you see where the market might move – you go there EARLY. You don’t wait until everyone is already there before you set up your play.
Every great tool you use today is the result of the SAME EXACT PROCESS. Introduction, early adopters, refinement, re-introduction, base growth, and evolution. Some software dies before ever maturing. Other BECOMES the standard after years of development.
That evolution is precisely and exactly true of Photoshop – and of Final Cut Pro.
The POINT was that version 1 of ALL THREE were underpowered, feature poor, and laughable as to their regard by the working professionals of the time.
Two of those went on to dominate their respective industries and became the market leaders.
The jury is still very much out on FCP-X. But I still think it’s useful to look back and understand how today’s dominant tools were every bit as much reviled as FCP-X when they were starting out.
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
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Andreas,
I love your passion, but it’s counterbalanced by your woeful grasp of how things were before you likely started playing the Photoshop game – For those of us who were around for it, let me tell you that in the beginning outputting Photoshop 1.0 work for professional use was an exercise in frustration that makes FCP-X feel like walking out of the desert only to be handed a bottle of Evian, a case of cold Carta Blanca, and a $1000 gift certificate redeemable at the local massage therapist/supermodel school.
I used to have to BEG local Linotronic operators to accept my early Photoshop files. It took 6, 7, 8 revs before I could get the 1.0 versions of the RIPS to put out a page with any reasonable grey-scale fidelity.
And god forbid you wanted to combine raster elements like photos with Postscript stuff!
Kearning pairs? You’re joking. Font substitution? Every damn time.It took patient YEARS to get that stuff sorted out into a consistently working model with the NEW standards.
I get that everyone has something that WORKS now. And that means there’s way more resistance to the change. But tech IS a change or die world. Anyone who doesn’t get this central reality is going to have big problems in the long run, IMO.
I don’t know if using FCP 7 is some day going to feel like ordering up an 85 line screen halftone for a newspaper ad. But I suspect that it will. The question is how long will it take the industry to lurch forward the next big jump.
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’Conner
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Obviously you’ve never tried to write on a dry erase board with a piece of chalk.
“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
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Don’t know why this sprang to mind…
but some years back I was video taping a group counseling session dealing with a popular “youth in crisis” discussion for parents. – and one of the therapists posed the classic question to the assembled group of parents: “what’s the opposite of love” – of course half a dozen voices popped up instantly with the expected answer: “hate” – only to draw a patiently waiting response from the group leader. Then a quiet voice in the group said the word that finally caused the therapist to smile.
“indifference”
In relationships, love and hate are poles that BOTH demonstrate exceptional engagement.
In that respect, FCP-X is nowhere more successful than right here in this Cow forum. And every voice that tears it down OR pumps it up – does nothing more or less than build its’ stature.
That EVERYONE is obsessing about what it is and isn’t means it’s clearly skyrocketed to the kind of industry cultural mind-share that means it has already become central to the entire modern editing discussion in a way that no other software program EVER has.
Like it or don’t – feel Apple was right or wrong with their process – it’s another inarguably HUGE home run in the business battle to create an undeniably “top of mind” brand identity.
And lest you think that it in any way hurts the brand that people are saying “negative” things about it – remember that both sinners AND saints are culturally singular for their distance from the disinterested norm – NOT for which pole they occupy in their singularity.
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’Conner
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Andreas,
I would dismiss anyones opinion of the quality of, say, a movie’s editing, if that person knew nothing about the craft of editing. It’s easy to be a critic in a world where no standards for criticism are followed – a pretty fair description of the modern blogosphere, IMO.
So sorry, but I’m going to disregard your opinion of the “quality” of FCP-X “as software” since I doubt you (nor I) have the slightest clue about the code that underlies it. It could be a truly bad story – or it might be the dawn of a new way of looking at writing – only TIME will tell.
You can bark about features or implementation all you like (to extend you favorite canine theme) but unless you’re an assembly language or Objective C (or whatever FCP-X is written in) code crafter, neither you nor I have the slightest clue about whether the underlying “software architecture” is good, bad or indifferent.
I accept your loud and constant quarrel that software does not FUNCTION as you wish it would. Fine. If everyone thinks in a similar fashion to you – it will rapidly fail.
If, on the other hand, more people think differently than you do about this – it will do just fine – and you will have to either ignore that reality or adjust your thinking – just as I will in the areas where FCP-X doesn’t currently meet my needs.
I’m just trying to see the forrest for the trees.
The tourist and the hunter see the same forrest very differently. Your view – and my view – are both valid – right up to the point where they are not.
Such is 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’Conner
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Jared,
This type of question gets asked over and over and over again here.
And it’s the hardest kind to answer. Partly because it’s a chicken or egg question. If we don’t know HOW you’re going to use your lights – it’s really tough to recommend lights to use.
One small example. My first “real” lighting kit was an Arri kit with 2 650 and 2 300 fresnels. (Something I still own and use quite often today!) As I started to use them, I was DELIGHTED with the results. At that period of my career, I was doing a lot of videos of stage speakers in hotel ballrooms. A 650 Arri fresnel is a WONDERFUL tool for projecting light a significant distance from the back of a hotel room to a stage in order to bring up faces a bit and fill in eye-socket shadows. The 300’s were under-powered for back of house use, but flown overhead on stage they made sweet rim lights.
As I used them more, I learned that I could use them with softboxes for interview setups. BUT – they weren’t ideal for that. The very thing that made them GREAT for speaker support – a focused soft beam that can be thrown and controlled with barn doors – make them just OK for interview lighting – since that controlled beam seldom could fill the entire front of a softbox fully. So I Added Lowel Totas for the softboxes which were nearly IDEAL for filling the whole front of a softbox for close up interview lighting.
See the point? The very strength that made a light perfect for one thing, made it weaker for another.
ALL lighting gear is like that. Everything has it’s place.
Arri makes SUPERB lighting tools. Rock solid, totally professional, repairable, reliable, and often worth a pertty penny when you eventually go to sell them.
But nobody can every tell you whether they’re the right tool for you – at least until you can narrow the task you’ll ask of them most often into something that can be judged against the capabilities of the tool.
Simple as that.
Hope this 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’Conner
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Hi Andrea,
It’s a little like being asked to build a “car.” There are a LOT of sub-systems and parts to consider.
A simple car – like a soap box derby racer – can be built in a week or so – using kit parts – and anyone with general skills can expect to be reasonably successful on their first time out.
Building a modern automobile like they do in Detroit, however, requires vast resources, years of design skills and huge amounts of time, effort and money.
Obviously you’re not trying to create a hollywood blockbuster – so you aren’t going to be playing in the rarified relms of the pros – but if you want a quality result when doing anything inherently complex, you need a good plan that you can follow.
Morley’s fine book will start your thinking in excellent ways. But thinking isn’t the same as doing.
The critical components are A) an overall plan (sometimes called a “treatment” that outlines what you’re going to try to accomplish with your project. The treatment leads to a script. The script leads to a shooting plan (who and what you need to have in order to execute the script and where and when those assets need to be in place!) The script and shooting plan taken out on location or into the studio to do the actual shooting. The resulting field work is brought into Editing – where the parts are assembled into a whole. Then typically the last step is to output the finished project in a form that the client can use – e.g. files for broadcast, web assets, discs, whatever.
That’s the general workflow in it’s simplest form.
Most here who do this professionally, will tell you that the pre-production (everything before the camera records the first shot) is the most critical to a projects eventual success. And that time, effort and resources spent on developing a good script, acquiring competent talent, and making sure all the logistics are good to go before your first day of production – is the most critical part of getting quality results.
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’Conner
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To support what Phil said…
Renting a steadicam rig for the very first time and going to do a paid job is a little like buying a harmonica then going directly out to give a concert. Really good results pretty much depend on having the time to learn to play it well!
Drop back and let us know how things go.
“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
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BOTH discussed methods have a significant effect on performance.
If your working with professional talent – ASK them what they’re comfortable using.
Most will have teleprompter experience – some will have ear prompter experience – but some talented performers will have neither – but a trained ability to memorize and parrot info given a bit of time.
CIVILIANS on the other hand (anyone without formal performance training) can get EXTREMELY wooden when they try to use ANY prompting method. It freezes them like a deer in headlights.
After 20 years of this stuff, I can tell in 2 minutes when it’s time for Plan B, then Plan C, and then the desperation of Plan D. And if you don’t have experience with all of the above – good luck – working with untrained talent can drag any project down from tolerable to painful pretty quickly.
You can get the words out of them – but seldom the spark that elevates a performance from tolerable to engaging.
Your mileage WILL vary. 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’Conner
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I think I would be just fine with 40% of 250 million potential customers – particularly since that represents the entire populations of virtually ALL of the major cities in the country.
If you couldn’t drive business sustaining revenue in a situation like that with essentially NO cost of goods sold outside initial development. – it would be entirely about the lack of a successful marketing strategy – not in any way shape or form the dearth of a viable market.
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’Conner