[David Lawrence]

[Bill Davis] “It’s popular to think it’s aimed at the iMovie crowd, but if you’d have spent any serious time with it, you’d know how silly that sounds. “

So true! So silly! Where on earth could that idea have possibly come from?

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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

[Chris Harlan] “Also, I don’t understand why PH doesn’t think I don’t have equally “instant” access to photos and sfx through the OS X file system. I often build sfx bins dragging and dropping from outside FCP. I can easily preview gunshots in finder from gun folders and dropped them into a bin.”

Excellent point. I’ve been using OSX finder tools as part of my organizing strategy for years. One example – when I get a HD full of unfamiliar clips, the first thing I always do is view everything in the finder in coverflow view. I then use quicklook to skim anything of interest. Using this technique, even if there’s hundreds of GBs to go thru, I get a sense of the footage landscape very fast and can quickly set up my bins in a way that makes sense.

Another technique that works well – all sfx are organized in a special iTunes library. Keywords are built into the filenames and searching and playback are fast and easy. When I find the sounds I want, I reveal in finder and copy to my project.

I’m not suggesting these techniques are superior to FCPX’s new organization tools (which are very good), just that there are strategies you can use with legacy for significant leverage when organizing.

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[David Lawrence]

[Carsten Orlt] “The way FCPx with frame sizes and frame rates is brilliant! And I didn’t read a single argument that disputed this. I read a lot of arguments disputing other things but that seems to be the way it works..”

[Carsten Orlt] “I always did find it curious that many mediocre editors got the edge only because they were wiz (is that spelled correctly?) kids on the computer…”

While we may agree that FCPX’s handling of mixed formats is a welcome convenience, I find the notion that gives a new edge to novice users somewhat amusing. Here’s a recent example:

I got a call from a colleague recently to ask if I could help her with a short video she was having trouble with. She was not happy with the editor’s work and felt the director was keeping her out of the process and not incorporating her feedback. I asked her to send me what they had produced and I’d give my feedback. The piece she sent, which the production team considered near final, was by my standards at best a weak rough cut.

Since it was cut in FCP7, I told her it looked like a straightforward job to fix things. Just get me the FCP project file and a hard drive with all the media. She fires the editor and gives me the project and media. I get everything up on my system, look at the timeline and groan. It’s a total mess. A hodgepodge of mixed formats — HDV, H.264 AVCHD, progressive, interlaced, various sizes, frame rates, etc. Sigh. BTW, she blew her entire budget on the other team so she has no money and must pay out-of-pocket for any additional work. Since she’s a friend and colleague, I cut her a sweet deal.

It’s too bad FCPX can’t open that project. It would have made my life easier. But I doubt if the previous editor had used FCPX it would have been a better cut. The editorial decisions were very specific and intentional. And in my judgement, often amateurish. The fact that their FCP7 timeline was a mess was just another indicator of their general lack of expertise.

For me personally, deep technical understanding has never been an end goal. It’s simply a necessary byproduct of mastering an inherently technical medium. It’s part of the craft.

YMMV, but over the years, I’ve found that the most skilled editors were also the most technically sophisticated. I don’t think FCPX will change that. If anything, it’ll probably mean more work putting out editorial fires as more and more novice users confuse FCPX’s automation for experience and skill.

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[David Lawrence]

Bummer, it was interesting. The process was straightforward and XML based:

For dual-source audio sync, drop main clips in primary and connect secondary audio below (or above, it doesn’t matter). Then export XML. Import and process the XML in PluralEyes. PluralEyes creates a new project with the connected audio synced. Detach and delete primary audio, then create compound clip with connected audio. Done.

For multi-cam, put one cam in primary, connect additional cams in lanes above. Create secondaries for each cam. Add any dual source audio below. Export XML and process in PluralEyes. Again, PluralEyes creates a new project with all secondaries and audio in sync.

The reason for using secondaries is so that clips from each camera always stay together in the same lane. If you don’t use secondaries, then removing a clip from a lower camera may cause the clip from above to drop and it would become confusing very fast.

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[David Lawrence]

My congratulations as well, Awesome news!!!

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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence]

Sweet!

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I could insert a snide half joke here about how that’s exactly the location this bug was caught.”

Hah! Where I come from, bugs like this are considered alpha! 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Hancock] “I hope it’s a bug. If it’s hardwired into the code it may be incredibly difficult to fix. EDIT: By hardwired I mean, if that’s how it’s supposed to work. Seems like an incredible oversight. How was it not caught during beta testing”

Exactly.

Bill, I’m calling project bloat a bug because I want to be optimistic. If it’s a bug, it’s fixable. If it’s a deep engineering failure, it could easily kill the product.

The bloat problem seems deeper than an XML optimization bug. An XML export is simply a list that gets generated at export time reflecting the current state of the timeline. This bloat problem is clearly tied to the database architecture and the data model at the foundation of the program. This is why it’s a bit scary. It’s a lot more difficult and expensive to fix a bad foundation after a house is built than it is to get it right to begin with.

The database design for compound clips is broken. This is a simple fact. A “Your holding it wrong” argument doesn’t change or fix it. Hopefully Apple’s engineers can and will.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “My point is that FCP7 was used by Pros AND Prosumers, or pros in other areas of production that aren’t editors. FCP7 was not “Pro Only”, it was too cheap.”

We’re in agreement here. My point is that FCP legacy scaled in both directions — from hobbyists and prosumers cutting on a laptop, all the way to Fortune 500 companies like Disney and CNN.

[Walter Soyka] “FCP was enormously fluid, flexible, and tactile. Compared with Avid, FCP offered a multitude of ways to accomplish the same editorial operations, and never required the interruption of a mode change to continue work. I think FCP’s interface — which built on what came before, while also offering new ways of working — played an important role in its success.”

The importance of this cannot be overstated. Sure, FCP legacy was far from enterprise-ready when it launched, but it was cheap, flexible, open, and most important of all, designed around an industry standard UI paradigm. XML was an important part of this, but so was an industry standard timeline UI that for many people simply worked better. Being better and incrementally building on industry standards is very different than being clever and dumping industry standards in favor of your own.

[Jeremy Garchow] “FCPX isn’t there yet for XML, but once it is there, then all we are getting down to is UI.”

Isn’t that the core of what this debate we’ve been having for the past 6 months is all about? It’s all about the UI and who it’s designed for and whether it’s so baked into the data architecture that it’s beyond repair.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “the idea that one application can be simultaneously successful as a consumer/prosumer hand holding environment and a full featured, open, deep professional software environment is a lie. Sophistication and options engender necessary complexity. “

This statement is spot on. Apple is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand they want to simplify the UI to make it more approachable and attractive to hobbyists, prosumers, and iMovie users who want to step up to something more powerful. On the other hand, they’re trying to attract/retain professional users by adding a bunch of high-end features.

The problem, is that this strategy simply doesn’t work. UI flexibility/control directly and necessarily lead to complexity. You usually have to choose – simple/optimized or complex/flexible. They’re on different sides of the design spectrum. Moving in one direction pulls you away from the other. It’s very difficult and very rare to nail simple/flexible.

Some may argue that iOS does this but in fact it’s a great example of simple/optimized. The reason the iPad is a hit is because Steve Jobs/Apple was smart enough to realize that a tablet should not try to be a laptop. It’s successful because it’s a simple, highly optimized device. It can certainly replace a laptop for may basic uses, but laptops aren’t going away anytime soon.

It’s very clear that Apple wants to put a consumer-friendly face on a product that was formally targeted mainly to professionals. I think the fallout from this decision will prove to be a huge barrier moving forward. Adding pro features may not be enough to fix this. It all depends on how FCPX fits into high-end workflows and adapts to complex editorial needs.

Agree that the big 2012 update will tell us a lot. But I wouldn’t use broadcast monitoring as the main indicator of Apple’s seriousness. I’d also look at the project bloat bug. That kind of deep, architectural FUBAR should have some Pro App engineer’s hair on fire right now. If they can’t get that fixed ASAP, then I think it says a lot about how baked in the design problems are.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “And you don’t think FCP7 fit in to a prosumer category? or FCExpress?”

Come on Jeremy, FCP7/Studio was enterprise-class. Do you really think BBC/CNN/Disney and all the other Fortune 500 level users were running FCExpress?

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