Chris Kenny
Forum Replies Created
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[Marvin Holdman] “As they are saying Lion does not support Rosetta and FCP7 is a 32bit app, does anyone know how it’s going to run on Lion? I know they’ve said it will continue to work, just wondering how that’s going to happen.”
Rosetta is for running PPC apps on Intel Macs. Lion still runs 32-bit (Intel) apps just fine.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I don’t see how the “track model” is based on anything but how clips relate to one another; FCPX continues in this continuity.”
With the track model, clip relationships are only implied by where clips fall in time. Put a cutaway on V2. It’s probably timed in relationship to something that happens in a shot on V1, right? But a track-based NLE doesn’t know that. All it knows is that there are a bunch of shots on V1 that start and end at specific time indexes, and now there’s this shot on V2 that starts and ends at specific time indexes.
FCP X allows for the explicit representation of relationships between clips on different ‘tracks’ via clip connections, and the explicit representation of relationships between clips on the same track via storylines.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “When you write “timed to …” I suspect you are trying to describe something else – maybe “triggered in reference to” or a similar concept. This is a very useful idea and a welcome addition to tools in timelines. In agreement with other comments, I don’t see how this requires a “trackless model”. We may well see similar tools coming in other NLEs.
“If you keep tracks around, your sequences have two basic organizational principles interacting with each other in various ways that aren’t necessarily going to make sense. For instance, the connection-based model implies one thing about what to do in the case of clip collisions (overlap clips, which is displayed by showing them layered in vertical space), while the track-based model implies another behavior (overwrite, because the new clip is explicitly being placed into the same ‘slot’ occupied by the old one).
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Herb Sevush] “While I need the ability to re-establish sync, easily accomplished in FCP7 with the sync indicators in the timeline, the idea that the software is trying to establish connections between elements is horrifying. The only connections that I want are in my perception of the elements”
This is basically saying “I’ve built my routines around the the way the software has worked up until now, and the new software is incompatible with them”. That’s fine, but it’s not actually anything wrong with the new software. Routines built up around the new approach could very well be better, for all anyone knows.
[Herb Sevush] “My B-roll cutaway can extend past the underlying VO morphing into a new master shot using stolen sync I’ve cobbled together from an outtake. And once I’ve cut it this way I’m likely to want to unscramble it into a totally different pattern tomorrow. I couldn’t know I was going to do this before I did it, how could any software expect to organize that for me?”
And this sort of thing is presumably why FCP X offers the ‘Position’ tool. The name of that tool is pretty interesting, isn’t it? It hasn’t got some conceptual name, related to performing a specific edit task. It’s literally the “put this exactly where I want it, and don’t guess what I’m trying to do in the process” tool, and it’s born out of a recognition that while the software understands more now than it used to, the human editor is still smarter.
[Herb Sevush] “I had the same reaction to the whole notion of the software “intelligently” organizing shots into WS, 2 shots and CU’s. Who on earth would let software organize their footage. Organizing decisions are at the heart of the editing process, what third party is going to understand my specific working patterns without my input?”
The beauty of metadata-based organization is that, because any shot can have an arbitrarily large number of tags, and you can create an arbitrarily large number of organizational schemes around those tags, you’re not married to a single organizational scheme. If you could only organize your footage in one way (as is the case with bins unless you duplicate clips all over the place, which quickly becomes impractical), then it would be crazy to let the software pick that way for you; it’s not smart enough. But with metadata-based organization, the organization the software is doing is just another way to find clips. It doesn’t preclude your own organization. And, in fact, you can use the automatically attached tags as part of your own organizational schemes, via smart collections.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Michael Aranyshev] “Interview audio is rarely left unedited under a cutaway. Often interview audio is edited first to a rather final cut before cutaways are overwritten.”
Sure. I was simplifying to illustrate the point. Clip relationships still work — and are still meaningful — even if you’re cutting primary around audio.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Richard Cardonna] “I cannot believe that you replied to proven data with mere supposition. And actually believe that you answered. You can base your businessa on rumors I base it on facts.”
Huh? You offered some facts that you implied pointed to a specific conclusion. I pointed out alternative explanations of those facts, and then pointed to some additional facts that didn’t fit your conclusion at all.
The simple truth is that the “Apple is abandoning pros” narrative — no matter how many people seem to accept it without question — has next to no unambiguous evidence in its favor.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “it seems this software doesn’t really throw out a model – it just proposes that auto-management is a better way to do it (and the only way). and that is the question that it will be tested against – does it answer the needs that an editor has? does it offer the same flexibility and power as the old, self-managed model? does it offer more?”
The new model is clip relationships.
Let’s say you have some interview footage. The speaker mentions some subject, and you cut away to a shot of whatever he’s talking about. That cutaway is timed to… what? To an absolute time index within the sequence? No. It’s timed to the underlying shot of the interviewee.
In a conventional track-based timeline, the software understands only the former. Any relationships between shots are only implied (to the human editor) by the fact that the shots are positioned at particular absolute time indexes. The software knows nothing about such relationships.
In FCP X’s timeline, such shot relationships are explicit. The editor communicates them to the software in a way the software understands.
[Franz Bieberkopf] ”
it seems that it was developed to solve the problem of clip collision. i think this is generally a problem for people new to editing.”Avoiding clip collisions is not, by itself, the primary design consideration. It’s merely one instance where the software can act more intelligently because it now understands shot relationships. There are many others. Moving a clip, for instance. Connected clips come along. Or performing a slip edit; connected clips follow right along there as well.
But even beyond these behaviors, the clip relationship model simply makes sense conceptually. It brings the software’s understanding of the edit closer to the editor’s own mental model.
In many respects, FCP X is simply following what has been a consistent trend in software design over the last decade or more: the trend of adding more structure to data. Whether you’re talking about the ‘nav’ tag in HTML5, or Spotlight’s metadata importers, or IBM’s Watson QA system, creating structured data where only unstructured data previously existed is a major focus for computer science these days. Sometimes it’s done though automated data mining techniques. Sometime it’s done by having humans help computers out by adding a little structure themselves. Both of these approaches are used in various places in FCP X.
The more structure there is, the more the software understands, and the more the software understands, the more it can display and manipulate data in ways that make contextual sense.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Walter Soyka] “This is part of what people are upset about. Their workflow (which they may or may not have control over) has been disrupted.”
I get that completely. What bugs me is that people keep saying, basically, “There’s something wrong with this app” when what they really mean is “This app doesn’t fit the editing style I’ve developed over years of using apps that work differently”.
[Walter Soyka] “The broadcast market may be a tiny niche to you and to Apple — but not to the people making their living in it. “
My purpose in bringing up the size of the broadcast market has not been to tell people in that market that it doesn’t matter. That would be silly. It has been to explain why Apple might have elected to ship the initial release of FCP X without certain features required by that market, and how that doesn’t constitute Apple abandoning ‘pros’ or retargeting the app primarily at ‘consumers’.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[David Roth Weiss] “This is not character assassination Mr. Kenny, this is a factual assessment of the ongoing style of argumentation you’ve delivered on this forum since day #1. And, as one of the forum leaders, not a moderator, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the unfairness of your arguments and your constant badgering of those who disagree with you when they use the same tactics you regularly employ. “
You are not exactly making objective statements here. Some other posters appear to appreciate my posts, for instance.
Look, something about me rubs you the wrong way. Fine. But it’s kind of silly that you seem to have taken it upon yourself to go around commenting to third-parties about my posting style, instead of actually engaging with my arguments in some meaningful way.
But whatever. Meta-debating is always boring. I’m done with this particular exchange.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Christian Kinnard] “At two in the morning, I don’t want to cut a clip in that I know won’t work. Canvas/Viewer, side by side, obvious, moving on. Now you might say toggling is just as easy. To normal people like you and I maybe. But let’s be honest, most directors/producers aren’t normal people, and imagination in these terms escapes them.”
This feels like a fairly unusual circumstance.
And it’s worth noting that with Auditions, cutting in the other clip, and then reverting the edit when it was obvious it did’t work, would take several fewer steps than in FCP 7.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[David Roth Weiss] “Good of you to post this observation Gary. Mr. Kenny’s modus operandi is becoming apparent to more people on the Cow every day.
And, just to be perfectly clear, it’s not the content of his arguments or his POV that’s offensive, but rather his methods. Mr. Kenny constantly predicts the future when it suits him, but belittles others who do the same or who may disagree with his own interpretation of the tea leaves.”
Does it really seem appropriate to you for someone who represents himself as a moderator in this forum to step in at every mention of a particular poster’s name and provide a little light character assassination?
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.