[Bill Davis]

Locate the boy (or girl) friend that the 16 year old daughter is listening to telling her it’s not “RAD” enough – and said boy or girlfriend can do it MUCH better with the new MacBook that their dad bought them – and kill them.

Or alternatively watch INSTAGRAM with your eyelids taped open for about 60 hours – and make a video just like the ones that are most popular with 12 year olds.

You’ll know you’ve got the “vibe” down when there are so many “glitch” edits in it that you can’t figure out what you’re looking at – let alone what the story might be or IF there even is one.

Just make sure there are occasional flashes of smoldering looks by pretty teens and a LOT of swirly “artistic” stuff that nobody can figure out.

They WILL approve that.

Your clue will be the use of the term “sicc” when it’s watched.

Have fun.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Joe Clark] “Hello,

I am looking to create a Animated marketing video that uses the same as this video How to use your tastecard
I would like to be able to so the 3d shots with roadmap style movement animation. Also voice overs.

Will any of the adobe products be able to let me do this.
If you need further clarification let me know.

Also forgot to mention that this video will be uploaded in places like YouTube and similar social networking platforms.

Any help will be appreciated.
Thank you.”

I edit a couple of these a year for a big financial services firm on the West Coast.

My process kinda goes like this.

The client teams assemble and report the statistics on company performance.

Agency writers do an outline establishing the order that they wish to highlight the areas and results.

This gets vetted by management and an “information order” is set.

Next the information components are sent to an Art Director – who is responsible for the overall design of the visuals. They get created (typically in a vector based program since it’s often charts and graphs)

THAT gets approved. When it is, it gets sent to me.

I initially digitize the whole artwork pages so I can create a rough anamatic Storyboard that shows the sequence flow.I do this for timing purposes. I want to know: given X number of images – and perhaps a song timing or max run time – how long should each image ideally stay up – this is including any time for animation into – out of – or during the image being presented.

Then, I look at the individual elements of the storyboard drawings to figure out which of the graphic elements can benefit from motion. (things like growing bars or moving characters to add dynamism to the work)
I create and/or animate those in Motion 5 – exporting discrete moving sub-elements.

Now I move to my video assembly space in FCP X.

Which usually starts with importing all the graphic, and animated sub-elements.

Typically I’ll have had the Art Director send me “plane plates” of the stage designs for each slide – over which I can move the animated or static elements.

I will re-create most of the Art Directors work inside X (especially the TYPE) so that while the design is honored, the actual assets are in a format that I can access and change as new figures or copy changes arrive.

Build the video.

Send it off for a few approval/change rounds.

Master it.

Get a distribution list. How many public facing services might it go to – what playback devices will the people using it have access too? Does it need to go to YouTube? Vimeo Pro behind a password due to priority info? Thumb Drives for a sales team? Etc.

Thats the process in a nutshell. Hope it helps.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “Perhaps it is when you try both with an open mind that you will find which is better for you. I use a combination of all in various parts of my work and I’m always open to finding new ways to improve everything. Some hardware developments have been pretty amazing too. Touch screens for mixers and DAWs have been around for a long time as well and not compared favourably.

“

It’s a valid point.

But I’m still concerned with the question of whether those Apple associates would have become the speed demons they often are using virtual keyboards on iPads – IF they had been allowed to stick with the keyboards they’d likely learned to type upon in high-school.

At some point, your mastery of a technology seems substantially tied to constant, evolving and improving experience with it.

It may be seductively attractive to opt to improve something you already have expertise in – rather than climb a new learning curve that MIGHT improve things more.

Maybe.

THAT is my central point here.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “I love your consistency Bill.”

Thanks! ????

[Michael Gissing] “Even when it sometimes takes a step backwards, you see the positive”

Well, people spent a full two years constantly telling me I was “taking a step backwards” by adopting FCP X. Yet, here I am, WAY WAY faster getting my work done than I’ve ever been before. It’s more fun and I’m WAY more efficient. You might not have had results like that. But I have. So it’s made an impression.

[Michael Gissing] “What pleases me the most when young editors watch me grade and mix is they drool over hardware controllers and how they work with software like Fairlight. The ah ha moment when they see what you can do with ten fingers on a mixer and how you can go for hours without calling the physio. “

I’m quite pleased for the one hundredth of the one percent of the video creation market that will continue to make their livings grading on Fairlight systems, then. Good for them. I hope they can continue to make a living long into the future.

[Michael Gissing] “I don’t expect you to understand there can be a better way that is not new. You can’t see it through your bias but I can and do accept when things improve and when they take a step backwards from all software and hardware vendors. Just don’t expect respect for your views when you have such a limited single vendor view of the word.”

No problem.

My “limited view” seems extremely widely shared all around the globe. So I think I’m going to be fine.

Sure there might be better ways that are not new. But I’ll continue to bet that with the massive amount of development money still being spent by ALL the technological companies working globally – that advances are not only possible – but common.

And what *I* don’t want – is to always presume that because I felt I had the best practice yesterday – that means that thing is necessarily going to remain the best practice going forward.

This is all colored, of course, by (in my opinion) so many “technological” people getting the gestalt of X so completely wrong for so very long. All that virtual acrimony and ink spilled by the clueless – bellowing that it was useless out of the gate – when in fact it was TREMENDOUSLY useful to me literally from day one.

So once burned / twice shy and all.

Good luck with your process.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] “One of my main take aways from reading the “Innovator’s Dilemma” years ago is that existing tech is rarely eclipsed by better tech, it’s eroded away from the bottom by newer, inferior tech that’s less expensive but ‘good enough’ for some segment of the population. As the newer tech improves more people adopt it because the performance gap narrows while the price gap typically remains broad.”

All I’ll note is that I’ve had to visit my local Apple Store for Peripherals twice in the past month.

In both cases, while talking with store associates – I’ve watched them whip out their iPads and type in either search queries or notes on issues we’ve discussed.

In both cases, the 20 or 30 something associates have been able to enter textural information at a clip equal to or better to me as a 40 year pretty darn good touch typist.

My point is that if you only improve on the tech you’re most accustomed to using – it may be self-fulfilling that THAT will be what you see as a superior process.

PERHAPS – it’s only when you accept that the new touchscreen has the CAPABILITY of being close to or equal to that tactile input device – do you can begin to achieve equivalent mastery?

Just food for thought.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “Sometimes buttons are better for some people, even if they’re not better for you. That’s why options are always nice.”

I know – it’s HORRIBLE how they outlawed buttons and put in those laws about how no cel phone company can offer buttons anymore.

We should be free to move on and use new technology or stick with older stuff as we like.

And it’s lovely that nobody around here gets “individually” pushed at as foolish or painted as intolerant for advocating either option.

????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

No, TOTALLY!

Hey! While we’re at it let’s get REAL BUTTONS back on our damn cel phones too!

This new fangled “sheat of glass” as a control surface SUCKS.

Tacitily RETRO FTW!

No reason to change perfection!

????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “Although we are probably saying the same thing. “

I think we are – at least a bit.

The way I conceptialize it – when they did the “clean slate” tear down from Legacy to X – they had the chance to change the entire audio plumbing. They also had lots and lots of high quality programming modules available with Core Audio calls and Apples Logic code to deploy so they didn’t have to custom create everything.

They also maybe had permission to jettison skeumorpgic “shorthand” ideas like just tossing something That looks like a virtual 8 bus Mackie on screen – even tho that would have been super easy and super popular with the traditionalists.

I prefer to imagine they decided to figure out what audio MIGHT look like in a magnetic and non-track construct – get the virtual wiring and patching imagined first (the signal flow) and THEN figure out how to provide the user with ways to control things.

It might someday be a mixe-rish gizmo. But it also might not. It might be a host of mini mixers you can put where needed. Or a metadata defined patching and level controlling “something” I can’t yet conceive – kinda like I didn’t see Roles coming before it arrived.

All I know is all along the X development path, even if they’ve added things I was familiar with (I.e Multicam) – they managed to improve the basic idea and implement it in a way to provide both outstanding performance and utility.

My patience has been well rewarded to this point. So I have LOTS of incentive to look forward to whatever comes next.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] “FCPX has a set of filters from Apple’s Logic Pro X audio application available right inside FCPX. (This is pretty comparable to Premiere’s built-in audio effects.)”

Basically what Walter said.

In particular, the entire titling and graphics suite in X is just a connected subset of Apples Motion code – while the audio engine is based on Logic X – so X’s audio filters and effects are the same ones musicians working in Logic would use.

The thing that’s really unique about sound in X is the Roles sound asset targeting system.

Basically it lets you to assign metadata tags to audio information in your storylines that allow you to group like assets into classes – no matter where they reside on storyline levels, or as part of clip bundles – and when it’s time to export your work, this tagging system makes multiple audio stems and alt deliveries something you can setup – save – and re- use with what’s called a “share destination.”

Basically it’s a pretty new type of database driven audio export automation process for an NLE and still being developed.

The future of the system may hold things like capabilities to do basic database based mixing and effects at a clip level (speculatively) rather than needing to route audio signals through a virtual mixer – as it does with track based systems that still pretty much hold to the traditions borrowed from analog workflows.

The last big X update was pretty much focused on Roles expansion – nobody knows what any anticipated fall updates will include.

Hope that helps.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Sounds like a pleasant weekend, Herb.

Takes me about an hour to record, post, and deliver a 15-page AV Script formatted VO like this one.

So Weekend work is seriously no bother anymore.

Sure is different from all my “go to the studio full of engineers” days.

Now it’s a slim, small 12″ MacBook (cuz no fan noise!) for running X – an iPad for the script AND a live session FaceTime with the client (if requested.) – and a USB interface for the mic. The “VO recording stidio footprint” literally fits into a Manila envelope. It’s crazy.

(VO has come a LONG way, Baby!)

I now try to dedicate my VO earnings to fund “nice surprises” for my wife of 30 plus years – so spending weekend time on this sort of work always seems like one of the best investments I make.

And since this is part one of a 5 part series – I’m extra grateful to FCP X for making it easier to produce than it was for all the years I had to wrangle multiple digital signal processing tools.

Life’s too short.

Hope next week is awesome for you as well.

Take care.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.