Franz Bieberkopf
Forum Replies Created
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[Andrew Richards] “The Dvorak analogy is perfectly apt …”
Andrew,
Wikipedia lists the DVORAK system as patented in 1936.
How long have you been using it?
How has it improved your composition results?
Franz.
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[Mark Bein] “Citizen Kane could have been cut on Imovie.”
Mark,
If my information is correct, Citizen Kane was edited in 1940, and thus it was not, nor could it have been edited with any NLE. (Though, as a matter of fact, it was edited in the non-linear process common for the time).
Also, when did iMovie add keykode suport?
Franz.
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[Ewan Lim][Erik Lindahl] “Once they fix things then I believe that FCPx will be a very cool editing tool.”
Keep in mind, all that Apple has committed to are a few vague statements and no timeline. It certainly appears as if broadcast monitoring may never come to FCPX.
But, really, if you’re going to talk about future, pretend versions of the software – you have to compare it to future, pretend versions of Adobe and Avid. And who hasn’t dreamed about the rich, paradigm shifting capabilities of the future, pretend Lightworks?
Franz.
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[Chris Kenny] “The dominant pattern in this industry over the last decade has been that new apps/techniques/approaches/whatever start with ‘outsiders’ (who don’t have unlimited budgets and aren’t wedded to current approaches), who prove them. They’re then picked up by more adventurous elites, which eventually makes them ‘safe’ for less adventurous elites, at which point they become accepted tools for high-end production.”
Chris,
That’s a pretty story. Is it true?
Also, and correct me if I’m wrong, I assume you’re casting Apple as an ‘outsider’, posed rebelliously against ‘elites’. Am I correct?
Franz.
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Gareth,
I’ve posted something similar in another post, but I think it bears repeating with added clarity:
In truth, editors have not chosen to “jump”, “abandon”, or “switch”. Apple announced that FCP is a dead software – meaning no further support or development.
Editors who are faced with the question of whether or not FCP7 will suffice for all their needs, forever, must likely choose and learn a new piece of software.
Leading contenders seem to be Adobe, Avid, and some are considering (amongst others) a new piece of software called FCPX. However, in feature comparison FCPX is very weak.
Rational (and sometimes irrational) decisions ensue …
Franz.
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David,
I thought I might suggest that you post a kind of summary of the discussion from your perspective (in terms of your original intentions) before venturing to post the next topic.
For example, though the discussion between [Walter] and [Chris] took on increasingly adversarial tone, it’s apparent to me that they agree that the tracked and “trackless” (so-called) paradigms have different strengths in terms of what they offer a user.
… also that audio paradigms (and to a certain extent compositing paradigms) seem to be more developed in this respect (or perhaps more entrenched). Editing timelines are the least developed. (Which seem all the more strange when audio paradigms can be copied completely for half the work).
Personally I haven’t been convinced that I’m seeing a “new paradigm” here but there are some interesting thoughts on approach coming out.
Franz.
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[Paul Dickin]“…its freed the ‘editing software’ so that it can, if appropriate, present something else to us.”
Well, I’m not sure editing software needed to be freed of editing … but I’ve an open mind here. I’m just not seeing much – does FCPX, indeed “present something else to us”? If so, what is it?
I followed up my initial post with questions and comments about the details. This discussion was to be about “The New Paradigm”. I haven’t seen much new to suggest a shift in paradigm. In terms of new things (and I’ll omit the negative for the moment and stick to discussion of the timeline), this is what I can gather so far:
– auto managed tracks (a mix of positive and negative)
– auto collision avoidance (related to above)
– better implemented nesting (?)
– “sticky” clips or persistent relationshipsNone of this suggests a new paradigm.
What others seem to be suggesting, without really outlining their meaning, is the the underlying changes (AV Foundation) offer the possibility of new paradigms or that the new paradigm exists in the way media and data is handled and might one day surface as something new in FCPX. (Is this really new, or just a better database?)
The possibility alluded to [Andrew Richards] that FCPX may allow different views of the same timeline seems interesting (and perhaps fundamentally new). That is something I’d like to know more about – is that the paradigm shift?
But I’m using the software for editing. I can only assess what is actual and usable right now. If we’re speculating on “what might be”, why stop at FCPX?
Franz.
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… some quick responses (for clarification and expansion).
[Chris Kenny] “The new model is clip relationships.”
I suspect what you intended to express here was not fully expressed.
“Clip relationships” (making allowances for vernacular) is pretty much the very definition of what editing is (and has been since there has been something called “editing”). This is not a new model. Eisenstein liked to use drawings to talk about this; one could speculate (as he did) on its roots in writing. So this goes back quite far.
I don’t see how the “track model” is based on anything but how clips relate to one another; FCPX continues in this continuity.
If there is a new model here (as I have understood it so far … and I may well have misunderstood it) it has more to do with cataloging.
[Chris Kenny] “Let’s say you have some interview footage. … and you cut away to a shot … That cutaway is timed to… what? To an absolute time index within the sequence? No. It’s timed to the underlying shot of the interviewee.”
When you write “timed to …” I suspect you are trying to describe something else – maybe “triggered in reference to” or a similar concept. This is a very useful idea and a welcome addition to tools in timelines. In agreement with other comments, I don’t see how this requires a “trackless model”. We may well see similar tools coming in other NLEs.
[Chris Kenny] “The editor communicates them to the software in a way the software understands.”
I’m not sure what you mean here. Broadly, transparency of interface seems to be an ideal to which software designers aspire. At the same time, all software does require us to learn certain codes and models. I’m not sure what you mean by “communicating” with the software or how this has not been done before, or why or how I might want to do it differently (or better) now.
Also I’m interested in what you mean by “structured data” – specifically how FCPX is differentiated from other editors (which presumably use less structured data?). Your example of “contextual sense” seems a bit soft: tracks, for instance, make a lot of “contextual sense” to me when I see them, but perhaps I am not understanding your meaning.
[Walter Soyka] “I agree with Chris that the primary goal of the magnetic timeline is to make the implicit relationships between clips on a timeline explicit.”
I find the idea that an editing software package needs to explain better what I’ve done in the timeline a bit amusing. As I implied in my post above, there are many things that I wish were clearer and easier to access in the editing software that I’ve used. Understanding the timeline has never been an issue in any of them.
There is a deeper issue hinted at here, though – and that is the assumptions that are made about the kinds of relationships that editors and filmmakers want to have between their clips. A good editing kit will allow many meaningful choices in the kinds of relationships that are possible. How many kinds of relationships has the “magnetic timeline” enabled that weren’t on offer before? I can’t think of any, though it has made some kinds of relationships slightly easier to maintain while working. Has it made others difficult to maintain?
Certainly the designers of FCPX seem to have misunderstood the fundamental importance of mixing and the models that have been developed for it. Mixing offers real control over clip relationships – it’s a well established, flexible and powerful paradigm. It seems to have been replaced by clunky controls in FCPX.
[Chris Kenny] “Moving a clip, for instance. Connected clips come along. Or performing a slip edit; connected clips follow right along there as well.”
These examples seem to imply that this is just a re-marketing of the idea of “nested” sequences in FCP (I forget what Avid calls them). Further, and again, I’m not sure what in the examples you’ve given requires a model “without tracks”. Can you provide better examples?
[Walter Soyka] “For example, not all supers could lie on the same video track if they were layered over other clips.”
[Michael Gissing] Etc …This example seems to me a bit simplistic. When you think of supers, generally you think of them layered over your piece as a whole (a layer of supers over a layer of ongoing visuals); this assumption is borne out by the common practice of versioning for language. On the other hand, when you think of greenscreen, for example, you think of individual clips layered together. In the same way, you have vocal comping in an individual audio segment within a track, as opposed to mastering compression on a master track, as one example. There’s room for a bit of complexity in the way this is applied and the audio world is a useful reference.
Relatedly … I’m fairly hesitant in my enthusiasm for imagining what a subtitled timeline is like to work with in FCPX.
[Paul Dickin] … on AV Foundation. “It seems to me that the section I’ve emphasised is an excellent description of a basic FCP X timeline.”
Yes, indeed. It is also an excellent description of any timeline in any editing software.
Franz.
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Summary:
Apple has announced that if you are a FCP user, your next piece of software will be something new you have to learn and build your edit room around.
Top contenders seem to be Avid, Adobe, and maybe Apple; there are others.
Stir and serve.
(Note, the above doesn’t apply if FCP will meet all your needs forever.)
Franz.
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David,
i was compelled by the recent controversy and your general approach to join the forums and contribute some thoughts. i think this is a fruitful level of discussion, and important to editing as craft and art.
first i think it is important to to point out that the idea of time as linear is, in itself, a certain mental model which recording media in general (and film in particular) have contributed to. in fact, it is such a pervasive way of conceiving of time that most will accept it as a given without a second thought.
but i think for the purposes of the discussion it’s not a bad starting point.
i think the real question that your post ignores, however, relates to the marketing of the new software, and specifically the idea of the “trackless timeline”.
and so we should ask first – is this timeline really working without tracks?
i haven’t worked with the software. i’ve seen some demos and screenshots and read a lot of discussion. so far as i can tell, the software does, in fact, organize media in tracks. there are tracks of video. there are tracks of audio. sometimes they are married. they have borrowed the idea of multi-channel tracks and applied it to clips (some clips are stereo; some are mono; i assume that an 8 track HDCamSR would yield an 8-track clip – if you could figure out a way to get it into the software), but when there are two or more clips playing at once, they look very familiar – two parallel tracks. … correct me if i am wrong with any of that.
what it does seem that they have tried to do – and this is the new part – is make the management of tracks automatic. so marketing has called it “trackless” but in fact it seems to the “auto-track manager”.
this seems to me to be the fundamental question that editors have with the software – how well does it manage this task?
one thing that struck me about your first post was that you claim that, in the project discussed, there was a realization that “a real-world metaphor … was unnecessary” in designing the editing software. while i admit that i didn’t thoroughly read the accompanying document (very interesting though), it does seem to fundamentally rely on a real-world metaphor – that of tracks. tracks are physical models – after film reels and mag sound, or channel strips in a mixer (both references apply to NLEs, i think).
tracks as a paradigm of editing have been around for a long time – so far as i can tell, NLE’s inherited the idea from the audio world (or perhaps dual system projection), but the idea was expanded upon. tracks offer a very simple and yet flexible and powerful way to organize and arrange media. in fact, you will find many editors use tracks in different ways to solve different problems and organize their ideas and approaches and solutions in different ways.
it seems this software doesn’t really throw out a model – it just proposes that auto-management is a better way to do it (and the only way). and that is the question that it will be tested against – does it answer the needs that an editor has? does it offer the same flexibility and power as the old, self-managed model? does it offer more?
it seems that it was developed to solve the problem of clip collision. i think this is generally a problem for people new to editing.
personally i can think of many tasks that i wish were more (or better) auto-managed in FCP; track management wasn’t one of them.
Franz.