David Lawrence
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
-
[Franz Bieberkopf] “As someone who still uses a notebook and index cards, I’m wondering how many still use “analog metadata” and how many have migrated from note taking to data (and what tools you use either in the NLE or otherwise).”
Great thread, Franz.
The project I’m currently working on uses notepads, velcro, cheap stopwatches, Post It notes, foam core, cell phone cameras and the FCPX to Premiere workflow I wrote about here.
It’s an awesome hybrid analogue/digital metadata workflow that gives us the best of both worlds. I’ll see about getting permission from my colleagues to post some photos and screen shots and write it up.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “My follow-up: what is unique about a temporal operation that you would consider it differently than a spatial one?”
Fantastic question. Let me think about that over lunch and I’ll get back to you.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “And here’s a great argument for why you considered the word “destructive” sacrosanct, or why I’d always want to see its scope explicitly stated. :)”
Bingo! 😉
[Walter Soyka] “My question: is an NLE that recalculates absolute clip timing for you (according to strict rules and based on user input) analogous to an image editor that recalculates absolute pixel values for you (according to strict rules and based on user input)?”
Interesting question. In my mind, these are very different types of editorial operations.
I would argue that the NLE is the superset, because it allows both the processing of absolute pixels on a frame (image) level, as well as a collection of frames on a temporal level.
I don’t think of these operations the same way so for me personally, they’re not really analogous.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “For me, this is one of the things that is most interesting about FCP X: the timeline reflows with every single editorial operation. As you manipulate the objects in the timeline, it is dynamically rearranged according to a few organizing principles (basically down and left until you hit something that blocks you).”
This is a great argument for why I consider the FCPX magnetic timeline highly destructive.
If your editing workflow requires placing media objects in an absolute, external frame-of-reference for time, having the NLE rearrange those objects with every operation feels like editing in quicksand.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “No, undo does not factor in, which was the source of my original confusion and the reason I objected to your stringent definition.”
Yes, with a bit more research, I see photographers consider destructive any operation that bakes a change into the pixels. I guess that makes sense since they’re primarily concerned with the contents of the frame buffer.
I should add, this difference in concerns is a good argument for why the terms’ meaning must be considered in context, and kept specific to each context. Blurring the meaning between DAWs/NLEs and photography is confusing.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “I’m really not trying to be precious about the word “destructive.” It’s just that the word is already in use in an adjacent discipline in a way you guys don’t like.”
It appears the only difference between how we’re using the term “destructive” in the context of DAWs and NLEs and how photographers use the term has to do with where the source data is stored.
In DAWs and NLEs, an operation is considered destructive if it overwrites original media stored on disk with no undo.
In photography, an operation is considered destructive if it overwrites original pixel information stored in memory with no undo.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Franz Bieberkopf] “If not “committed / non-committed” then “undoable” indicates a certain relationship with things you are doing in the software. “Destructive” indicates an action that affects media files which the software works with. “Recoverable” files indicate OS level or hardware level things you can do for protection. If I think about teaching, these words help someone to understand what is possible and the implications of their actions, and further, a meaningful model of the various levels at which they are interacting with an NLE and computer. The words lead to understanding, in a way that “destructive timeline” simply doesn’t.”
Well said, Franz.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “I didn’t intend that attempt to disprove your definition, but rather to point out that the entire Photoshop-using community has a different definition of destructive than you do, and I don’t think you’re getting your definition back.”
Actually, if you go thru the Photoshop UI, you’ll find that the term “commit changes” actually originates in Photoshop. I wasn’t aware that the Photoshop community even thinks of things in terms of “destructive” and “nondestructive”. In Photoshop, I think in terms of “commit changes” or not.
[Walter Soyka] “To actually argue against your point, I’d ask if having a backup copy of a file makes an otherwise non-undoable change non-destructive. Put differently, does Time Machine make almost everything non-destructive in your view?”
Nope, that’s called “having a backup”. 😉
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Franz Bieberkopf] “It may have, … but my first exposure to the term was via early audio editing (DAW) software; I’m not sure it would have inherited any nomenclature from neg cutting.”
This is correct.
The term destructive come from the DAW world because DAWs were invented before all digital NLEs were technically possible.
Side note – when I was at Lucasfilm, Digidesign gave us one of their prototype Sound Accelerator boards to use for audio on the NLE we were developing. It was a big deal at the time because it was the only hardware available that could digitize and playback audio at full CD quality – 16bit/44.1khz
The DAW software that developed around this and other similar hardware could permanently write changes directly to disk, overwriting the original media file with no possible undo. This is where the term “destructive” originated and its meaning still holds today.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Walter Soyka] “For example, an image manipulation is considered destructive if you are directly altering a raster; it’s considered non-destructive if you are altering it indirectly, such as via RAW metadata, an adjustment layer or smart filter.”
My point still stands.
Can you hit undo? If yes, by definition, it’s nondestructive.
Changing raster is a committed change, not a destructive one. There’s a difference.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums