[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Kimery] “Maybe the joke went over my head”

Or maybe it was a badly thought out metaphor. I go with the latter.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Alan] “you’re finding that compound clips in FCP X can provide everything that is needed in terms of this template that you hand off to your team of editors? Is your production team all in with FCP X? Or are you saying, “every NLE can create these and in FCP X its done with compounds?”

The latter. I don’t use FCPX, I’m aware of it’s features and would think that compound clips for each segment, joined together on a master timeline, would make restructuring super easy. I am saying that any NLE I’ve worked with can handle this sort of workflow. I don’t get the need for editing software that specializes in structure. It would be like designing spoons that specialize in soup – you can eat soup with any spoon, and if you can’t then your not using a spoon.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Alan] “But they would still need someone who knows the NLE to do this ‘restructuring’, right?”

Why would an editor need that software to do the restructuring. It’s easy enough to move sections around with any existing NLE. For instance I had just had a producer ask me to move a “quick tip” segment, including graphic bumper, lower third, music sting and multiple audio and video edits, from the break between 2 recipe segments to a spot in the middle of the first recipe. Took me about thirty seconds to do it in Ppro, would be the same in any NLE I’ve worked with (Bill Davis might say that X could do it in :05). So why would I need specialized software to do that? I was just guessing that the software was created to let non-editors mess around with structure, or else who is the market for it?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Alan] “Do you create these templates or do the producers/head writer (show runner) give it to you?”

Craig, I’m guessing your asking me this question. AS a suggestion, on this forum, especially with long threads, its advisable to refer to a name, or quote the original post so we know who you are referring to.

In any case if this is a response to my post then the answer is I create the templates as part of my job as post supervisor. The graphic packages are given to me by the producers, along with theme music and any other standard elements for the series. Choice of post workflow is mine, I incorporate those elements into a generic project and send that project file to the editors, along with a folder of elements.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “The way it handles standard editing operations – with the ability of the program to move timeline elements out of the way to eliminate a common way that a user might destroy their prior editing intent – is “less destructive” than the way other NLEs operate? That’s where this started, after all.”

Yes, this is where we started, and you call me obsessive. Where to stat – let’s try this phrase – “where a user might destroy” – yes the mighty use of the word “might.” You and I have already established that it is only a novice user who “might” destroy, that for many years you’ve ceased destroying anything at all. But now your back to characterizing something on the basis of what some unnamed and undefined operator “might” do – as opposed to describing what the timeline actually does.

Both timelines are destructive – you can delete clips in X, you can delete whole sections of the timeline. Both timelines give you tools to avoid clip collisions – X’s tools are simpler to use and more automated, but we both know that clip collisions are totally avoidable with any timeline. The only difference is the speed of the action – yet of all the differences between the magnetic timeline and traditional timelines – auditions, connected clips, roles, lack of fixed tracks – your choosing to distinguish the 2 timelines solely on the basis of how they differ when a novice user chooses to move clips. I wonder why.

And to Walter – this is precisely why David L. and I have bee arguing for a strict and narrow usage of the term “destructive.” In it’s narrow use it actually gives essential information to an editor – if you do this operation, a permanent change in your media will be one of the outcomes. This information allows the operator to make choices, like making a copy of the media in it’s present state, or choosing a different function that’s non-destructive to achieve a similar end. The operations in question have names that do not indicate the nature of the change – “flattening” or “noise reduction” need the explanatory “destructive operation” to warn the user. Overwrite or delete need no such designation. Calling an “overwrite” destructive is a waste of eleven letters.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “What I spent those 10years learning was how to work around the limitations of Legacy’s program’s design. And that’s precisely what YOU did to become an experienced editor in Legacy. And I presume what you’re going to do to become an experienced editor in Premier or Avid or whatever.”

Yes. And that’s what you’re doing with X today.

[Bill Davis] “You’re likely NOT going to do that with X, because you’re constantly conditioning and reinforcing yourself to see it as the thing that presents barriers to the way you expect editing to happen.”

Yes. I also choose to use spoons without holes because holes present barriers to the way I expect soup to be eaten.

[Bill Davis] “Clip collision avoidance might not mean anything to you. But it does to me. It means I no longer have to go on any more imaginary mental treks “down track” in order to assure that I don’t screw things up. CAN I do that? Sure. I did for 10 years. But now I can jettison that thinking and use the mental time and energy for other things.”

Sounds good to me.

[Bill Davis] “And since X will be VERY likely still be relevant to me in 2025 and Legacy will not – I can comfortably feel like I’m making progress.”

Given the working model of your favorite company, its a good bet that X will be dead as a door nail by 2025, they’ll be on to FCPZ by then, at which point your X skills will be as antiquated as your Legacy skills. But life is for learning, so enjoy.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “When I started learning Legacy back in 1999”

When I started driving when I was 17 I didn’t look carefully when I was backing up and hit my father’s car. Was the Chevy I was driving a destructive automobile, or was I an inexperienced driver misusing a powerful machine?

When a friend of mine first used a computer back in the 80’s to work on a script he was writing, he turned the machine off at the end of the day without saving his work, because he didn’t understand the concept of saving. I assure you he never did that again. Was Wordstar a destructive word processor, or was he an inexperienced user.

And my guess is that in the last 10 years of your using Legacy it was a rare day, if ever, that you mistakenly deleted your clips the way you did in your anecdote. Does that mean that FCP became less destructive, or simply that you learned how to use it properly.

[Bill Davis] “This is the context that I was employing when I used the term “destructive” That there was an extremely common functioning mode where the program was being used EXACTLY as indented by the designers where the proper operating of the program could OBLIDERATE – permanently and without recourse – editing decisions that I had not wished to lose.”

Of course there are functioning modes where FCP could allow you to overwrite clips – doing so intentionally is called editing. How better to replace old audio with new audio, or old video with new video, or both, than to overwrite one with the other. Both FCP and FCPX allow you to do overwrites when you want to, both allow you to avoid overwrites when you want to.

Does X make it faster and easier to avoid overwrites while moving clips on a timeline – yes, absolutely. Does Legacy make it possible to do any kind of clip movement you want without overwriting – yes absolutely.

So the difference is in speed, not in destructiveness. Call X the “easy to learn” timeline, call Legacy the Tetris timeline – no argument from me. But labeling something by how it behaves when the operator screws up – that’s ridiculous.

[Bill Davis] ” because a reasonable user – operating the software exactly as it’s designed – could expect in common circumstances for their prior editing decisions become completely and irretrievably permanent. “

I don’t know about you Bill, but I can’t remember the last time I did an unintentional overwrite. Seriously now, what experienced editor does that kind of thing?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Kevin Monahan] “If the goal is to work collaboratively with multicam sequences via XML, I’m not sure it is possible, but I can check on it.”

Kevin –

That is the goal. I have editors working with different, though recent, versions of Ppro and was hoping to use XML as a last resort to exchange files. Flattening is of no help in this case. Thanks for looking into it for me.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

Kevin –

I just exported an XML from Ppro 2014 and tried to re-import it – didn’t work, I got the same “generic error” message I had in the preceding version. I will say that the timeline I exported had multicam elements in it. I used XML for a simpler timeline a few weeks ago and it worked fine. On the other hand I’ve been importing and exporting multicam timeline XMLs for years in FCP. I will do a bug report to the Adobe site.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Walter Soyka] “Here, I am showing an editorial operation that irreversibly alters its source (the timeline, not the media files), cannot be reversed”

Hit undo, and it’s reversed. Most “destructive” operations don’t have an undo feature.

[Walter Soyka] “I think the concept of destruction applies to operations, not to timelines.”

We agree, and this was the essence of the other thread.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf