[Clint Wardlow]

[Richard Herd] “A quick bone to pick but not too seriously…
All stories proceed linearly (traditional and avante garde). Non-linear diegesis is a metaphor for complexity in the narrative that forces the audience to use their intelligence and memory, but the playback of the narrative must proceed linearly. That is, even if the tape is cut (like the beatles did famously) and stitched back together randomly, during playback it proceeds linearly.”

That is because it is how we experience time. In a linear fashion…so really, unless you magically transport your film to another dimension…it is the only way we can experience anything.

However, when I speak of linear narrative, I speak of classical story structure. When you look at the films of say Stan Brakhage, they eschew this kind of storytelling, often using film scratches and bizarre emulution effects to achieve a mood or emotion. But just try to write a summary of what such a film is about and you’ll understand what I mean by linear narrative.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Jeremy Garchow] “if you’re curious, I can show you a few ideas.”

Actually that would be great. That is one reason I posed the question. Although I wonder if we should move this over to the FCPX techniques form once I have FCPX in hand?

[Clint Wardlow]

[Craig Seeman] “How so?
I hear about many people doing unscripted work in FCPX. Docs for example. News is another. Sports yet another. None of this is pre planned storyboard work.

Keep in mind that the Project Storyline isn’t the only place one can edit. One can edit segments as Compound Clips in the Event Browser for example

The magnetic timeline is conducive to moving chunks around in my opinion.”

Yet all of these things that you mention do tell a traditional linear story of sorts. They provide a storyline that progresses from A to B (pre-planned or not).

I am also not worried about moving chunks so much as repositioning single independent pieces (which I do a lot).

Compound clips do work for some image blending, but more for images of equal lengths and not one lone image that may be contained over the entire length of a video (and is also tied to a secondary piece of audio).

I am curious, how precise is it to edit in compound? Can you do precision editing based on an beats in an audio segment? These are the questions I have about FCPX?

The one thing that does excite me now I have decided to purchase it, is that I may discover elements within that could lead to those wonderful happy accidents. That while X may not be able to to replicate some of the stuff I can do in FC7, I may learn some new editing moves that are not possible anywhere else.

Now that I have wrapped my mind around it…maybe using FCPX in conjuction with a more traditional track-based NLE (probably PPRO CS6), I might be able to create things that are not possible using only one NLE.

So here’s to the great unknown.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Liam Hall] “[Craig Seeman] “When you say the timeline isn’t conducive for complex editing and Event and Projects is ill conceived that shows a lack of understanding.

Maybe you have a definition of “complex” you assume is common. You should define and substantiate your position.

There’s nothing at all ill conceived about Events and Projects. Whatever shortcoming you don’t mention, it’s easy to prove its greater flexibility as I have done.

I responded with explanations. You’ve made generalizations.”

Sorry Craig, I’ve only got time for sweeping generalisations. I’ll try and write something detailed when I can – maybe start a new thread with it.”

I think I can help here, because this is my worry also with FCPX. I think the term “simple” should be replaced with “standard” i.e. an edit based on a linear storyline. You know? Where intercutting and montage advance a storyline that progesses from point A to point B.

Non-Linear structure that is cut for interplay of image and sound which does not rely on a traditional 3-act structure seems a bit more difficult in FCPX to my mind. I could be wrong here. Still these kind of videos often develope organically as the edit progresses. You have a general idea of what the finished product should look and sound, but it often changes as during the process.

Now I may be wrong here, but FCPX seems more aimed towards a pre-planned (storyboarded if you will) editing style. You need to determine primary storyline at the get go. Now this works well (and is somewhat essential) for traditional linear narrative — which is what most for hire work will involve.

However, I am curious to hear from FCPX editors how they deal with a more freeform type of work. I am sure the capability must be there, I just don’t know how it would be done in a magnetic timeline with a primary storyline structure. Anybody out there cut anything like I mentioned above in FCPX? How did you do it?

[Clint Wardlow]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” think we should start talking concrete examples. What are you worried about exactly?”

A prime example would be a projection piece I edited for an art installation. It was designed to be projected through cheesecloth stretched in front of a piece of sculpture onto the white wall behind it. The cheese cloth presented an ethereal ghost image in front and the white wall captured the brighter image behind the sculpture.

It had a soundtrack comprised of various industrial noises. One of the sounds was a long persistent machine hum that would raise and lower through out the piece (not the main sound clip–but underlying). I had multiple compound images of the sculpture creating the piece, blended with various other shots I had taken of machinery in motion. However I had one lengthy image of construction workers that ran through out. This image would fade in and out to various levels of opacity based on the sound of the machine hum. It would never be completely gone, but often dominated the blended images then fade away. In FCP7 this was fairly easy to accomplish through key frame manipulation. But being as neither this image or the underlying sound was “primary,” I am not sure how I would get the same results with the same precision in FCPX.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Bill Davis] “But trust me, learning basic editing in X is actually extremely straightforward.”

It’s not the basic stuff that worries me. It is the complex layers of image and audio that I use so often, that worries me.

[Clint Wardlow]

well, I have to admit after reading all the posts in this and the original thread, I am more willing to give it a go. I will probably purchase a copy after the next update.

I’m still not convinced I can make the magnetic timeline work in my particular workflow, but I guess it will give it a shot (even though the thought of the time I will have to invest to get competent kind of depresses me).

Overall, I still think the general perception (outside of the COW forum) is still pretty negative concerning FCPX. Though Apple has made strides to fix many of the complaints about the original release, I don’t think the success some editors are having is getting out there into the collective conscious of the movie world. I think the general perception is still as if it were in the 10.0 version.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Andrew Richards] “How near? One way or the other we’ll have some kind of answer this summer. Apple can’t keep sleepwalking with the old (current) Mac Pro as Intel phases out the manufacture of its guts.”

So you think Apple will make an announcement for their future in high-end computing this summer? Or just give us a yay or nay on Mac Pro?

I am kind of curious to see if they follow Craig’s vision of a modular design or just beef up the all-in-one model.

[Clint Wardlow]

[Craig Seeman] “While I want the Power, I don’t want the Tower.”

The problem is that I don’t see any indication from Apple that we are going to see either in the near future. So what do we do in the interim?

I know it has never really been their way, I just wish Apple would give us some concrete map of their future plans. Thunderbolt has potential, but in its current state really doesn’t address GPU/CPU.

[Clint Wardlow]

Bang it out as fast and painless as possible seems to be the mantra for our day.

As long as it is good enough for army work (a saying from my military days) 100% quality isn’t the prime consideration. So a inexact computer chip seems made for our times. Or maybe that is just me being cynical.

The one thing that does intrigue me is that errors in video processing might yield interesting unintended results. Kind of like a cool photo taken by an old film camera with light leaks.