Clint Wardlow
Forum Replies Created
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[Joseph W. Bourke] “She most likely would have mastered the technology enough to know that you output to something like Quicktime or AVI, or XML, and your work lives on”
Not really. If you read about Vivian Maier’s life, she weasn’t really interested in promoting herself as a photographer. Most of the people in her life didn’t even know she was doing it. The discovery of her rather spectacular body of work came by accident.
And it are these Under-ther-radar artists whose works will be more difficult to dig up in the future. Or even something that seems valueless today, but is of great worth to future generations.
As I have said before, the new technology is great in many ways (more people can participate than ever before), but it is also somewhat ephemeral. All but that which is valued at the moment may disappear like smoke. Would Vincent Van Gogh, who never sold a painting in his life time, have been preserved for future appraisal if he had worked today with modern technology?
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If Vivian Maier had been using today’s technology her work might have been lost forever.
In the future, if someone buys the contents of a storage locker and it contains a bunch of thumb drives are they really going to be as accessible as the thousands of Maier’s negatives discovered in such a manner?
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I think an issue that is missed here is how this affects the smaller independent artist. Someone that doesn’t see a big return on what they create. In some ways it helps, in other ways it is a scary proposition. I know most on COW make their bread and butter off of video editing and or permutations of such. If you want to stick with Adobe, the subscription is just going to be the cost of doing business.
Whereas independent artists such as myself, this subscription mode is a bit daunting. Tying yourself to a $50.00 month subscription is scary. The buy in is cheaper. However, I have found that, while purchasing a license can be pricey, it is often very doable after a big paycheck for some project that went over well. And once you have that license, you are good to go until you want to upgrade.
If one falls on hard times and can no longer pony up the monthly fee, they lose access to all projects created using the cloud. It is true you can purchase, at a higher price, cloud services month by month as needed. But, who really wants to work this way? Having the software around to use at one’s leisure is a great way to really learn it.
I am sure the pros and businesses will continue with Adobe because the cost is a small part of doing their job. It is the smaller artists, the ones to whom a $50.00 month payment is a big bite, who may have to look for alternatives. I am pretty sure Adobe is willing to let such folks go, because the perception of these smaller guys is they are the ones going with bootlegs to save a few bucks and their loss won’t affect Adobe’s bottom line.
I am curious to see how this plays out.
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[Shane Ross] “To get it right…output to VHS and then recapture. I’ve done that, even wrinkled the tape in one spot to get that odd effect too.”
Nothing beats VHS tape to get that VHS look. I’ll even run the tape at 3/4 speed to get those bad tracking lines (you need a VHS editing deck to do this).
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Cloud computing is the way of the future. And it does offer a lot, not only in the world of video. But it does come with caveats. As one who works in IT, the biggest frustration is that you no longer have a piece of hardware to work with when things go wonky.
Time, that in the past was used to troubleshoot and run diagnostics, is now spent fighting your way through the many tiers of help-desk techs and opening trouble tickets. It is a feeling of helplessness. It is out of your hands. And you are not always sure you are getting straight answers. And when it will be fixed is anybody’s guess.
Ah, the cloud, with its many wonders. I use it and am glad it is there. Still, in a way, it is like religion. You have to give up a measure of control and have faith it will work in your favor.
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[Oliver Peters] “I don’t believe that’s not what Apple is saying at all. Rather, why should they re-build that function for the very few users who might need it. The solution already exists in the utilities included with the cards you will need anyway. Or with FCP7. It has always been their stated assumption, that users wouldn’t instantly abandon FCP7 to move to X. That’s one of the reasons that the reactions took them by surprise. And FWIW, you can capture HDV into X.”
It is not so much that I can capture the footage. I already have to jump through some hoops to digitize analog video or audio (including buying an an old VHS professional editing deck that allows me to capture audio tracks without internal mixing). And don’t even get me going on how expensive it is to get decent files from super8.
It is more of the idea that Apple seems to want me to update my technology (with the not inconsiderable cost entailed) every two years. But I guess I am just being curmudgeonly on this. Apple sure isn’t alone on this.
It is just my belief that we have been forced into a world of temporary art that dissipates as fast as it is produced. In the future will be locked away in some discarded file format that can’t be opened even if anybody wanted to.
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[Charlie Austin] “That’s sort of an example of how I see X’s shortcomings. I know that lack of tape based capabilities is a big deal for some folks. I guess I just look at it differently. The last 2 jobs I’ve started in X have had DV CAM sources. But my reaction isn’t disappointment that X doesn’t do this well, it’s more like “what the hell is wrong with this dept. of this studio?!” They’re kind of in the minority now. We get features from the same studio (and most others FWIW) as nice HD files on drives, but these guys still send tapes? Which have to be captured in real time, sometimes have TC breaks and, my favorite… get eaten by the deck (knock wood) etc etc. Oh well… they’ll change eventually and I’ll work around it ’til they do.
Sorry for that OT rant… i’m just digitizing crap when i could be cutting it so it’s on my little mind. :-)”
I guess this if the fundamental difference between how folks perceive things. Admittedly I am not an edit for hire guy, but Apple’s philosophy of only the newest and shiniest rubs me the wrong way. I love working with old and new technology in my attempt to create a certain look. That Apple seems to be saying: “Gee, you can only embrace tapeless if you want to work with us” feels a big limitation in an artistic sense. Hey if I have a reason for shooting on HDV, DV, Betacam, or VHS, who is Apple to say, no you can’t do that?
I recently acquired a large collection of stuff that was shot by many of my artist friends on VHS in the 80s and 90s. Far from bemoaning having to “digitizing crap,” going through this very experimental footage is revealing gems of creativity. And it has a look that is all its own.
Admittedly, I am very small potatoes in the scheme of things and my artistic concerns aren’t all that widespread. But still…
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “amn’t I the total thicko.
Just mucked about there – the interesting thing is that if you take in a sequence from a previous version of the project, the sequence clips in the imported sequence from the earlier version of the project will point to the master clips in the current project?”
I think we all have those dumbbell moments. When I first moved to Premiere Pro, I was appalled at the quality of the video imports. I bitched loud and hard about it until a buddy pointed out I was viewing every thing at 1/2 resolution. Oops.
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[Carsten Orlt] “A lot of great analysis Clint. I only wonder were you get your data from to back up your findings?
I hope not from just reading the posts of maybe 20 (I have not counted) people regularly posting here…”
Hell, if my posts were based only on this forum, I would say 80% of all editors were embracing FCPX with both hands and the only hold outs being Aindreas and Chris (who seems to be wavering a tad).
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[Steve Connor] “The experiment has shaken up the NLE market in a very large way and is very far from a failure”
I think the only ones shaken up were FCP Legacy users. AVID users still use AVID, Premiere Pro users still use PPRO (though I am curious how they feel about changes to their NLE in the wake of FCPX). Vegas users still use Vegas. It was really the FCP user that was left wondering which way to jump.
As to whether it is a failure, that is subjective.
From a money aspect, it is very successful. I also think in terms of pulling in folks that never seriously looked at video editing (whether for price or complexity) it is a success. As to being viable for large scale productions, that remains to be seen; although adoption in such circles seems lacking.
As to keeping thee hardcore FCP users of the past on board, there it is pretty much a failure. I mean there are those that have enthusiastically adopted X as their main NLE. Many are also grasping onto FCP Studio until the wheels fall off. However, many have jumped ship and even a lot who still use FCPX see it as only one tool that needs other NLEs to complete the package.
The long-term viability of FCPX is still up in the air as I see it. However, I don’t see it going away anytime soon.