[Herb Sevush]

Sorry Tom but I don’t understand you.

“Timeline is a window. “

Do you mean that a “timeline” in FCP7 = a “window” in FCPX? I didn’t realize that there was such a thing as a “window.”

“Project is a sequence in the window.”

FCPX project = FCP sequence, Yes?

“Event is an event, more like scratch disk than folder.”

Does this mean that there is only one Event, like there is only one “SCratch Disk” in FCP7? If so is there anything in FCPX that relates to the folders in FCP7 Scratch Disk?

And most importantly, what is your take on why they chose these names – why call the place that holds all your media an “Event” – on the surface it sounds wrong. And if a Project is a Sequence – then why not call it a sequence?

I’m not being argumentative here – I’m sure the Apple design team gave a lot of thought into re-naming these functions and I’m trying to figure out what they were trying to get at by doing so.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“Not as easy as FCP7 though but no risk of rippling either”

That’s the whole FCPX philosophy – it’s not as fast, good, etc, but it stops the stupid editor from making a mistake. Of course if you’re not a novice it slows you down, oh well, let them go use Avid.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

There’s also a great post by Rob Tinworth and an interesting thread that goes with the video. It’s in the old FCP forum.

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1137965

Here’s a quote:

“So I should be all over FCP-X and a new editing revolution right? Nope. I edit with pictures, not keywords. Even if I could get over the issues with collaboration/one big project/one big library/no video output; even if they fixed all those in a bells and whistles FCP-XI, I simply don’t agree that an edit should be driven by words.

It’s the very ‘inefficiency’ of FCP7 that immerses me in a project. It’s endlessly scrubbing backwards and forwards through the rushes that means that when I’m recutting a scene, I know there’s that shot of that thing, which I never thought I’d use, which an assistant editor wouldn’t have flagged, which I wouldn’t even have looked at, but which turns out to be just the shot I need for this sequence.

At a certain point in any edit, I get the feeling that I have the film in my head, like there’s an index in my brain. I think that’s much more powerful than metadata. Editing is about pictures.”

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Your the one who has been posting this for days now as some kind of explanation for Apple’s behavior. Again I say, why should we care? True or not this is absolutely no excuse for the EOL’ing without notice of FCP7.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Here’s a real advance for FCPX over FCP7 –

— Can’t capture within application
— Unknown if you can batch recapture missing media files, so proxy / on-line style editing in doubt.
— Have to export movie before exporting to tape.

Yes I can see clearly how FCPX is a huge advance in editing.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

I have been hearing this sorry assed excuse for Apples behavior for a while now – they have licensing issues.

Well unless they are absolute dolts, they’ve known about these issues for years. Why no warning to the user base. Why not renegotiate the licenses. Oh, it might cost Apple more money.

So what the purveyors of this licensing clap-trap are saying is that Apple didn’t think it was worth informing their user base that FCS3 was about to vanish on them and it wasn’t worth paying the money to deal with it.

And from this information I’m supposed to what ???? Feel more understanding of Apple’s position???

I would prefer to think that they were merely arrogant A-holes.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Thanks Simon. I think this has become the most interesting thread on the forum, so thank you David Lawrence.

And I should also tell you that I have been quoting one of your posts repeatedly (with attribution) all over the place. It was the one about Apple not being on the same path as us and our vulnerability because of that – that was a great post.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

I don’t think your being a jerk, at least not here, I find this interesting.

Your approach to these things has inevitably been a consequence of an interplay between your brain and the tools you’ve used. This is simply how humans function in the world.

True to a point, but since I started out working with 16mm film, rewinds, a viewer and a splicing block I would suggest that I was essentially tool-less.

It was the media itself that taught me. All you have to do is look at a bunch of film and mag track hanging in a bin and you begin to understand the essential un-connectedness of the editors job. it was only when I moved to “single system” tape, with audio physically attached to picture, with CMX style editing in which you basically could only move forward and never correct what already had been committed to tape, that the illusion of connections had to be overcome.

That was the great pleasure of NLE, the freedom of film, along with the freedom of not being tied to a finite work print, but instead given an infinite work print that could be pulled apart and reshaped endlessly. If you’ve ever had to search for a 3 frame clip in a bin or been stuck in an “on-line” tape session, you’d know what I mean.

So I would say that my approach has been shaped equally by both the essential nature of the media itself and the various tools I have already worked with.

Would I approach things differently if I grew up with FCPX – possibly, but I hope not.

“In other NLEs all of the tools are like the ‘Position’ tool, in that they cause the software to perform some particular low-level mechanical manipulation on the timeline. FCP X tries to provide tools that use the explicit shot relationships the editor conveys to the app to perform higher-level functions …”

Yes, I get this exactly. It’s just that I find this a serious flaw, while you find it a major advance.

If FCPX ever comes out with a multi-cam I can use, I’ll give it an honest whirl, and I’ll let the experience prove me wrong.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“This is basically saying “I’ve built my routines around the the way the software has worked up until now, and the new software is incompatible with them”. That’s fine, but it’s not actually anything wrong with the new software. Routines built up around the new approach could very well be better, for all anyone knows.”

I wasn’t talking about routines built upon previous experience with specific tools, I was referring to my way of conceptually approaching media. This is true for my work whether on an upright moviola or in a digital NLE.

The first and hardest thing for me to teach a young editor is to unlearn the apparent connections that you think exist – this sync audio is NOT married to this image, the beginning of this shot does not have to go before the end of this shot – every element that you have is totally free from all connections except those you, the editor, impose on it. And most importantly never think of anything you have done as permanent and connected until it’s out of your hands, and for me even when I see it projected I generally wish I could refine the connections I made.

This does not seem to be compatible with the design philosophy you just detailed for FCPX. I’m not being judgmental about wrong or right, I’m just explaining my own problems with it conceptually.

“And this sort of thing is presumably why FCP X offers the ‘Position’ tool.”

I’m glad FCPX adds tools that go counter to the fundamentals of the design, but it seems odd that one would have to use a special tool to do that which was natural to an editing systems before. I guess what I’m saying is that other NLE’s have never needed a position tool, and there’s the difference.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Forrest –

As someone who “edit(s) at home in shorts and slippers, with a day or two of growth on our face” but still works on broadcast material I want to say that my problem isn’t that they didn’t target me for FCPX, it’s that first they EOL’d FCP7 without warning, and then they totally misrepresented what they were doing.

Just come out and say – “look, broadcast is a small part of our customer base, we are designing this for one man shops that deliver digitally, maybe you broadcast guys can figure out a way to work with this, if not, go to Adobe or Avid.” That hasn’t been their sales approach, they keep insisting this is a solution for the broadcast and film market. It isn’t.

That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a great and successful product, nor does it demean those who use it. It just means that I’m going to have to go elsewhere, and because of the EOLing of FCP7, it’s needs to be sooner rather than later.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions