Douglas K. dempsey
Forum Replies Created
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Avid posted an interview with Alan Bell on editing Hunger Games, and I believe he used a programmable game controller, a touch screen and a mouse … with keyboard mainly for text/data entry. Wild.
As for early NLE keyboard mapping to reflect flatbed editing, I was told the J-K-L layout was inspired by the KEM buttons even more than the Steenbeck controller? A friend who was a KEM editor told me that the buttons were so ergonomically ingrained in his muscle memory that he would sit at a dinner conversation, become bored with someone’s storytelling, and find that his left hand, resting on the table, was twitching, trying to punch the fast forward button!
Which brings me to Randy and the FCPX interface. Much as I enjoy using X, I DO wonder about the editors who were consulted, versus a design that reflects the pure, creative expression of a single software designer.
Doug D
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There are plenty of things we would like to see, at least those of us on this forum. But I assume the slow progress is just fine for the user base.
I have numerous talented high school students who still hobble along with iMovie. I tell them to save up, or ask their parents for the gift of FCPX — which they quickly learn in class is what they really want to use.
I assume the total user base of X owners who need XML out to ProTools and other refinements is so small that Apple just doesn’t think about it.
Doug D
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I’m being facetious, Bill. X obviously is going fine, and the lack of constant updates should NOT be a sign it will be abandoned. I probably means simply that they don’t see it as a pro-only app to be tweaked every few months; it’s working well for the user base. And the constant inflow of third party apps and plug-ins is in some ways the updates everyone is looking for.
Doug D
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Yes, because not enough consumers are buying X; iMovie seems good enough and the price is right. Meanwhile no big X breakthrough in pro circles.
So if no update at NAB, possible to think, however paranoid it may sound, that iMovie will get inherit some of the simpler X features, be renamed iMovie Pro and FCPX allowed to drop off the map.
Doug D
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Who cares! If anyone on this forum is cutting major studio release features or TV, you’re likely using Avid. Because everyone else is, mainly. If you’re cutting commercials, high-end, again it’s likely Avid. If you’re an indie fiction or doc person, a sole proprietor, an educator, or most of the rest of us who are not walking up to the podium to collect a gold statuette … we can cut on anything we want, and the result will not reveal our preference.
Meanwhile I have a friend who is a corporate pharma shooter, and he says the staffers use Avid. Why? I’ll give you a hint: the same reason we used to rent a Panaflex camera to shoot an industrial film 40 years ago. Because it made us feel like the “the big boys.” Like we were shooting a Hollywood feature!
The real “FCPX or Not: The Debate” remains, in my opinion, the missing features and odd behaviors that sometimes trip up some of us, usually during a very specific workflow. The kind of thing Oliver Peters, who is pretty familiar with most of the NLEs, will post — e.g. his audio is acting weird when he tries to export it out of X, and so on. If you need to do that specific workflow, and it’s acting quirky or falling short, use PPro. I don’t mind, really.
Most of the time, my moderate-to-low end docu work goes along nicely in X, so I like it. I only use Legacy when I dip into an older project, and don’t really need to convert to X.
If I get a job that stumps my abilities in X … it will probably be a complex enough project that I’m hiring a better editor anyway, and I’m the producer.
So he or she can cut on anything she pleases!
Doug D
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Tony: Oliver’s mention of “Smart Objects” in Photoshop is also important, IMO.
Many times I will have a very large TIFF file of a graphic, that I use as a Smart Object, applying all kinds of curves and filters and scaling the object down to a small file for use on a website … then returning to the high res object when needed. This is a very convenient feature.
I haven’t used Lightroom; perhaps the non-destructive “cloning” feature allows similar workflow?
Doug D
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Excellent, Tony! Let me know what you learn as I will be interested, too.
Doug D
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You don’t just use Photoshop for logo design. An example is making any kind of alpha-channel image that can be superimposed over video channels. In documentary we use Photoshop or sometimes it’s low-rent cousin Pixelmator for the layered still photo effect — sometimes referred to as “The Kid Stays in the Picture” effect, because that docu bio of Producer Robert Evans used the effect extensively.
We open high-res photo files in Photoshop, “extract” a particular foreground, middle-ground or background person or object, carefully finish the edges to look natural, and use tools like the “Clone Tool” to paint in the hole that is left by extracting an object.
All the separate layers are then imported directly into FCP from Photoshop, and result in alpha-channel objects that can be layered and panned or zoomed at varying speeds, giving the 3D layered effect.
You can also import those Photoshop layers into Motion, and use the 3D camera tools there to create more sophisticated versions of the effect — like key-framing various focus and lens effects to occur as your “camera” moves over and through the layers.
Doug D
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Right, my understanding has been Hitachi is currently best. Even so, I was using G-Tech drives, who were bought by Hitachi, and then the whole operation apparently was bought by Western Digital … and the G-Drives were using Hitachi hardware. And I STILL got reports, from people like Philip Hodgetts, that cautioned against G-Tech and recommended Cal Digit. Do you know what manufacturer Cal Digit uses? Maybe it is really just “drive roulette” regardless of spinning hardware.
Doug D
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Seagate was my first drive failure, years ago in an iMac. Have been Seagate-averse since … But they keep buying companies, like LaCie, making the question of all manufacturers: what’s in the box? Hitachi? Western? IBM?
Doug D