[Bill Davis]

[Bob Zelin] “REPLY – yea, I notice that. I can’t believe I am saying this, as I am going to NAB this year in 2017, but I am starting to question the need for NAB. Apple is not there. I understand RED will not have a booth on the floor. Neither will Small Tree, ProMax, Symply. LumaForge is not there. Synology is not there. Netgear is not there. In addition to the recent Blackmagic press releases, on Resolve, Mini Ursa, ATEM TV Studio, Web Presenter, and mini Recorder – will there be another 30 new products ?
Do I need to go to see HDR monitors ? Do I need to go, to fight the crowd in the insane Adobe booth ? “

Back when Apple pulled out of NAB, I realized that the function of “Trade Shows” for was shifting in a major way.

If you have a brand that’s well known, I’d suspect it’s increasingly hard to justify the expense to do the big trade shows if the reason you’re doing so is to share information about your produces. Apple cracked this code years ago. They gained MUCH greater message reach just doing a Steve Jobs demo and putting it on the web. They cut costs, gained message control, AND reached FAR beyond the class of those with enough resources to travel to the Trade Show location. BlackMagic is doing precisely the same thing today. Expect more companies to follow – IF they have their market mindshare already established.

For a smaller concern without the name recognition, the trade show makes more sense. And for an individual attending, it can make HUGE sense, since it consolidates in one place, the PEOPLE who are experts in specific disciplines in the trade shows area of interest.

For my money, Trade shows aren’t about things anymore. They’re about People. Without my NAB attendance, I wouldn’t know half the people in the industry that I do. And that has real, practical value. As an example, just yesterday I was struggling with a workflow problem regarding clip export from my FCP X storylines for a particular project. Because of the virtual rolodex I’ve built via community involvement – a major part of which are contacts I’ve made at NABs over the years, I found myself linking up with the person who WROTE the software I was having trouble with – and he graciously spent time helping me understand a much better way to address my needs.

It’s not the THINGS you see that make a trade show valuable. It’s the people you get to drink with.

My 2 cents.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “If you click in a number field, an ugly, clunky blue rectangle appears, which remains even when you move the slider or scrub the number field for a different parameter. There is of course no logic to this and I would suggest there is no good reason for the rectangle highlighter at all. Just more random “design” seemingly hurled at the UI without thought or oversight.”

Uh… as to this specifically, the blue box, denotes that the field has becomes “active” and a mouse or trackpad scroll up or down increments or diminishes the value smoothly.

I use this ALL THE TIME in moving things and setting values.

Just sayin’

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] ”
“

Which gets us to…

How I usually see myself as an editor… (top image)
verses how others likely see me. (bottom image)

Self delusion – the friend I can always count on.

; )

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

[Bill Davis]

[Douglas K. Dempsey] “But then there is “Event” which is really just a bin or a folder”

Not at all, to my thinking.

It’s all semantics, of course. But I’ve seen so many X editors who use “events” in such interesting ways, that I LOVE the fact that it’s now becoming separated from the old GUI folder/bin visual conceptualization..

I say that partly because I still see TONS of “new to X editors” who come in thinking “folders” is how we organize things – and I think holding onto bins and folders thinking actually slows them down. It’s usually not until they start to think more in terms of “keywords”” as an overall organizing principal – and leave “folders” mentally behind that they start “getting it” about how X works. As everyone who uses X knows, a Folder is a location idea. And no “location” is expected to be a thing that inter-connects with OTHER locations – which is precisely what X’s keyword system is BRILLIANT at.

Basically, a FOLDER stores “items”. An Event on the other hand, aggregates things that enable Connections.

Folders (even smart ones” are way dumber than keywords IMO.

So it’s time to mentally move on, the terminology change helps that, IMO.

YMMV.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Chris Harlan] “Also, personally, I like “splitty thing.””

The Splitty McSplittyface Tool would be even better…

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

[Bill Davis]

[Noah Kadner] “Originally it was for an Apple promotional tie-in with the Wesley Snipes movie of the same name.”

Snort.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “The first thing you need to do in any FCP X-like NLE (and it’s of course not the only NLE that is guilty of this) is to swap the keyboard shortcuts for the Blade Tool and Blade. In the case of FCP X, you need to swap “B” with “Cmd-B”.”

In X, B fits with the other single tap mode stuff like A, P, T and R to let the editor toggle Into a mode of similar actions until they elect to stop.

That seems pilosophically consistent to me.

I just don’t see it as a burden to add the left thumb To B to cut something.

Not if you keyboard with both hands, anyway.

YMMV.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] “Isn’t XinTwo subscription-based?”

It definitely will be.

But my experiences with Adobes implementation of subscriptions is precisely why I’ve made sure that the subscription model we use is EVERY BIT as easy to stop for our customers as it is to start.

I’ll will be extremely grateful if somebody subscribes for even a single month. And if they then feel they’ve learned what they needed – if they wish to opt out of the service – that’s their right. At the same price everyone pays.

My partner is in charge of the entire back end including plumbing in the payment system while I’m focused on the content, but he knows how I feel about this.

Again, I’ve never said a bad thing about what I characterize as “non-fishook” subscription services like Lynda.com.

You sign up, pay until you feel you wish to stop. Then STOP. Fair.

Lynda has never made it difficult for me to stop a subscription. Not once.

On the other hand, I spent yet another hour on the phone with Adobe a few months back trying for the third time to get them to cancel at least ONE of my duplicate Photo subscriptions. It’s still hitting my credit card as of yesterday.

I know it’s my own damn fault. I should be more relentless in getting what I want. But who has time.

I know I’ve spent 15 minutes interacting with the forum on-line and I should probably have spent that time on the phone with Adobe billing instead – but I feel good when I spend time chatting with people here – and I feel TERRIBLE when I spend hours on hold trying to get my credit card billing untangled within the Adobe system.

It’s my fault, I guess.

And so it goes.

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

[Bill Davis]

Thanks for that, Oliver.

It helps me understand the similarities and differences more clearly.

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

[Bill Davis]

Bartek,

You need to balance 3 things here.

A) the light gathering capability of the camera you’re using.
B) the amount of even light you can generate on background across the area where the talent is seen.
and C) the amount and nature of light you can generate on the talent – SEPARATE from the light on the background.

Typically, it’s effective to set these types of scenes in 3 stages.

First, balance the camera sensitivity (Aperture and ISO sensitivity, typically) with the background using whatever lights it takes the get the background evenly exposed without noise or shadows.

Next bring in the talent and light them. Your goal is to expose them properly WITHOUT spilling too much extra light on the background and screwing up what you’ve already set up.

That’s a bit of a trick. If you don’t have ample space between the key light zone and the background zone – when you add key light to the talent, it’s spill can mess up the background light field-

Step 3 is to REFINE the balance of the 3 elements until it’s the best you can achieve.

3 things that have to work TOGETHER to make the shot a success.

Hope that helps.

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