Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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In my experience the SPEED of X is exactly what enables me to slow down.
Too much of my time used to get wasted in unproductive busywork.
Said another way, the less time I waste moving stuff around and fixing things – patching tracks, avoiding overwriting my prior decisions with new ones – the MORE time I can spend on what’s really the most fundamental part of editing.
THINKING about WHY to structure things the way I eventually will.
For me, that is precisely the hallmark of an X edit compared to how I cut before.
Basically, magnetism, clip collision avoidance, and persistent vertical as well as horizontal asset relationships – set once that will dependably remain how I set them initially – means I can spend far less time on the HOW of editing. And that’s precisely what leaves me with significantly more time to consider the WHY.
When you watch Tom edit fast, it’s not that he’s trying to jam more work into less time. He’s simply shortening the time between conceiving the tasks he wants to accomplish – and getting them done.
As he notes in the video, he’s actually using that time saving to do MORE iterations, to explore things like the question of how few shots he can can use to tell the essential story. Do a cut down alt 30 or 10. In sum, To Explore.
I don’t know anyone who’d rather do MORE busywork so they can be less efficient in achieving their goals.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
I watched Tom’s demo from in the audience. Hearing whispered comments around me like “wait a second, he’s editing that fast WHILE the timeline is playing back in real-time?”
I kinda wanted to whisper back “Yes, and on a totally stock TouchBar MacBook pro – the exact same rig you can buy at the Apple store tomorrow” – and the same one people who don’t actually edit in X keep saying is “underpowered and lame” all over the internet.
Kinda doesn’t look all that “underpowered and lame” here – huh?
Oh well.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
This is exactly the clarification I think the original discussion was lacking.
“Finishing” as a term of art, still means widely divergent things to different people.
One persons “finish” is another’s woefully amateurish and totally unacceptable effort.
At the other extreme, a different producer finds the look and sound of the submitted master file meets ALL their criteria for effective communications right off their desktop.For either party to get to tell the other that they must change their practices in order to be doing things “correctly” is more about defensiveness than it is about objectivity, IMO.
The producer paying big bills for outside expertise may find those increasingly unacceptable as the bottom rises and more grading and audio skills move into the general editing population.
And the less experienced folk NEED to constantly build appreciation and knowledge about the value of traditional post processes.
The middle ground will almost certainly expand. Less so, perhaps, the market for those who refuse to budge from a polar position.
Maybe.
Time will tell.
My 2 cents.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Again, we’re down to a semantic gulf.
If the group in this thread accepts that “finishing” now includes an editor at home using X’s color board or Color Finale, we have no difference.
My assumption was those taking umbrage regarding my blasphemy ???? were of the “unless you’re sending it out to an expert – you’re doing it wrong” variety.
My mistake.
If the hive mind agree henceforth that a Kid using Premiere to match a 2 camera switch, and a dedicated Baselight artist are all “finishing.” – then we we have no disagreement here.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[David Lawrence] “[Bill Davis] “But it’s also true that “finishing” is changing. And worse, becoming less and less relevant in the modern era.”
Have to disagree. Finishing is changing, but it’s certainly not becoming less relevant, and won’t long as people continue to pay to see movies in a theater. Try grading a stereoscopic DCP for stereo projection on your laptop and you’ll quickly see what I mean. ???? That’s just one example.”
Not realizing that this would catch on, I realize that I didn’t post a link to the original YouTube video that caused me to mentally make that point.
Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmRXMZPDiQk
Based on the content – Justin does NOT employ any “traditional finishing” for his work, merely doing some “inside X” fundamental auto correcting and matching.
But if you WATCH his content, it looks functionally very close to the work produced by major operations.
THAT was my point. Not the “finishing” per se is obsolete. That’s silly. But that what kids like him (He does say his channel production is interrupted by his need to GO TO SCHOOL!) are doing, is aggregating massive audiences (does 100,000 plus subscribers not qualify?) without the need for any traditional outside “finishing” stages.
THAT is the change. The video quality and ” look” he can achieve (even without “finishing” TOTALLY BLOWS AWAY was I was able to achieve in terms of image quality for the entire first 20 YEARS of my career, at least in my self-produced work. And arguably, even in my professional studio and TV Station produced stuff, since that was all NTSC SD stuff for a LONG time.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
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[Oliver Peters] “People tend to forget that this is creative (“offline”) editing – not “finishing”. “
This is absolutely true.
But it’s also true that “finishing” is changing. And worse, becoming less and less relevant in the modern era.
Honestly, for a LONG time, finishing was a thing done by separate people in separate facilities using separate tools and deploying separate specific “hard to gain” expertise.
That’s still happens. But it’s NOT the only way things get professionally produced anymore.
This is the era where one person CAN touch everything from creation to delivery – at an impressively high level of success – and deliver content that doesn’t compare all that badly to what the “pro team” can produce.
Is it the most efficient way in all circumstances? Heck no. But that’s not the HUGE change. The huge change is that it was IMPOSSIBLE for a small team (or a talented individual) to compete with a huge team not so long ago.
And now it’s just not.
I was watching the work of one of those kids who go to school during the day – and produces a weekly tech based web-series in his free time. He’s got more than 100,000 subscribers. And his work looks GREAT. His shooting is clear. His graphic design aesthetic is solid. His delivery, both on-camera and via VO is totally credible. And his audience RELATES to him the way I related to the TV hosts of my era. He’s produced more than 100 “episodes” over the past few years for his YouTube audience and he’s killing it.
This tells me that anyone who clings too strongly to the classic production modes of yesterday is making a dangerous decision (in my opinion.) The traditional production process still works just fine today. It creates excellence. It leverages expertise built over long hard work. But if you don’t understand that there are NON traditional production processes nipping at the traditional ones heels – you’re delusional.
Basically, only a tiny sliver of the MOST highly conditioned professionals can discern the visual and audio differences between that young YouTubers work – and a high dollar professional production companies work. And worse, the cheaper process probably looks more “authentic” and more “organic” to that audience. And that audience is growing WAY faster than the one it’s replacing.
So do NOT get complacent about this stuff.
Do NOT think that what you (or I) know now, is what’s going to be what you need to know tomorrow.
Because it isn’t.
That’s all.
Heck, Look at what Apple just started doing in their public facing customer training right now.
Watch some of these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryi0mt_yr3kAnd it does NOT look like what I used to do in my training work.
And, to my distress, MUCH better than even what I’m trying to learn how to do now with my XinTwo thing. I’ve got to step up my game and evolve even FASTER than I have been. ???? Because the video space is now a very fast moving target.
More change coming. Faster.
And I still think that if you’re still doing the same kind of work you did a decade ago – the same way you did it back then, look out.
My 2 cents.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bob Zelin] “reply –
wow, doing major shows, with small SSD’s and no shared storage. Wow.
Bob Zelin”Tom works extremely high level short form projects for clients like global automakers – and equally high end music video work like Ed Sheeran’s recent Castle on the Hill project. I’m sure the field footage is stored on complex storage systems and backed up appropriately in their shop.
What’s changed is what’s required to load and work with that footage for the editor. This is the era of creating metadata ABOUT the footage – not so much always needing to touch the original footage and pass it around a facility. Sure there’s still a place for that. But it’s not the same place that it used to be. At least from where I’m seeing things these days.
I think I know Thomas well enough now to opine that what he likely values over all else, is the ability to launch a project and simply get lost in the creative side of it – with as few distractions pulling his focus away from the material as possible.
That he can do this on a Laptop with an SSD “not” tethered to a larger network – successfully – is likely liberating. I know it has been for me.
I’m pretty sure his shop has plenty of network capability and secure storage – but the point is that not that long ago, an editor had to be hanging directly ON THAT NETWORK for an effective workflow. But editing, itself, today – even with very high quality decently large raster video streams just isn’t the kind of network stressing process it was just a few years ago. Not in the era where the decisions are just modifying metadata that can show you the results on a laptop – and instantly scale the same creative choices against the highest available display tech back at home base with just a mouse click
And if a “fit in your briefcase” SSD & laptop combo successfully lets him be creative away from his desk -(even part of the time) and lose nothing when his editorial choices are transferred to the larger system – well, that’s all the really matters, right?
Work as you like, when you like, where you like. And lose no quality along the way.
Golden era stuff, right there.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Most of us are sufficiently grown up not to escalate those irritations into a long-running campaign to belittle the supplier’s entire product line.”
I’d greatly appreciate it if you’ please stop egregiously lying about my post history, Simon.
I challenge you to find a SINGLE post where I “belittle the suppliers entire product line.”
The ONLY thing I challenge is their subscription method. I don’t use their products so I try not to comment on them other than to ask for clarification and express my admittedly limited understanding of how they might work.
Of course nobody EVER does that in relation to the products I elect to use.
So again, please stop spreading mis-information about me.
It’s rude.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Michael explains PRECISELY the context and limitations of his use of the title in the opening of his presentation.
One person’s clickbait is another persons window into intelligent discourse.
How about you address the ISSUES he addresses, rather than merely the form he uses to package them? Perhaps then we can all benefit from your thinking?
Just a suggestion.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Just poking my head back in on the way to dinner, and curious as to why if Pancaking is such a big efficiency driver – and it appears to have been available for such a long in other NLEs (as this thread implies) – I never heard about anyone using it much until months and months after X was released?
Anyone want to speculate?
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.