[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “Just worth discussing. That’s all.”

I agree. I’ve always felt the most interesting part of this forum is the exposure to the multiplicity of workflows that are used by the editors who contribute here.

My biases, and I imagine this is true for most, are based on past history and the nature of the work I generally do. My earliest work was in 16mm film and most of the work I do today is multi-camera; the former almost totally double system, the latter discourages the notion of audio being connected to something since your almost always cutting your video against audio recorded on a different camera. Now this doesn’t mean all multi-camera guys cut like I do, I know for a fact that most don’t, but it has influenced the way I personally work and the way I teach assistant editors who have worked for me.

I’m not an absolutest about this, if I have a simple talking head with some B-roll I might leave the audio connected, but for anything more complex than that I want every element floating free. I have all sorts of philosophical arguments to justify my choices, but the truth is it’s just the way I like to work.

And as to audio dissolves, it is my common technique, once I’m at the fine cut stage to add a 3 frame audio dissolve to every dialogue and EFX edit. I do this with a global command. When I do my final passes I will adjust many and delete some of these dissolves, but in the end I would guess that 90% of my audio edits have some sort of cross dissolve in the final timeline. I find this finesses all sorts of cross breathing and subtle changes in room tone. This technique is probably a result of my working so often on cooking shows, where the ambient sound changes moment to moment, and the whole idea of room tone seems rather quaint.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “I’m not saying one or the other is better or worse, just asking which “default” makes more sense if you detach it from what we all learned in the beginning, when film didn’t have sound, so things HAD to be separate.
Interesting question, huh?”

This is an interesting question and here’s my take on it:

First, on a pragmatic level, the default should be separate because the number of times an editor wants to dissolve both audio and video at the same time is much, much less than the times they wish to do it separately. Quite simply every editorial decision is specific to it’s situation and tying 2 decisions together because of a given production acquisition technique is, more often than not, less productive.

Second, on a more abstract level, I believe that anything that fosters the illusion that any sound is tied to any visual limits the imagination. Everything about what we do is an illusion — there are no “movies” — just still images and elements of digitized sound. Every element we have to play with should be as freely manipulated as possible and tied to nothing but the editors purpose. It is often convenient to use and move and manipulate audio that was recorded at the same time as video, which is why the ability to tie the two together in a sync relationship is crucial – but it is limiting to think they are to be muxed together on your timeline because that was how you imported the file.

Which is why in my own workflow once I assemble an edit I always detach all my audio from my video using whatever tools a given NLE will have – I’ve never performed a J or L cut in my life. Instead I cut the audio where the audio wants to be cut, I cut the video where the video wants to be cut and I never have to worry that if I’m manipulating one piece of media, another “connected” piece of media somewhere else in the timeline is being affected.

YMMV

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Whereby my actual use keeps me from trying to sell anyone on the notion that “two-way” as a whole somehow hinges exclusively on the existence of a “Send to” command as opposed to being one of many possibilities for exchange.”

There are many other possibilities then “Send to”, all of them work well, none of them work as well for as many different types of applications. Rigging is much better than send for some things, useless for others. I’m not suggesting that you give up the unique features that X has created, merely that you add back a feature that was left behind.

Which is probably why you have stated, in this thread, that you would welcome the addition of a send feature.

[Robin S. Kurz] “I wasn’t offering up any appeasement alternatives to “Send to”, but rather pointing to why its absence isn’t even close to as dramatic as you would seemingly love to make it out to be.”

The “drama” is purely of your own making.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “Herb, this is 5 years in and you still seem to be working SO hard to poke holes in a system you’ll never adopt. Why?”

I’m not working hard at all. If you re-read my basic thoughts about the whole Motion thing it was a piece about assessing the balance between the idea of the “all-in-one” NLE vs the “studio of connected aps” approach.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/86944

At the end I simply stated that if I am going to use an extended ap I want the transfer to be as powerful and easy as possible.

Currently X is a step behind in that aspect. That is not an original though, almost every X editor here is willing to say that a “send to Motion” feature would be welcomed. Is it a “deal breaker” — obviously not.

I don’t see why the admission that X is missing a nice little feature is so upsetting. Ppro doesn’t have the lovely color coded time code sync indicators that FCP7 has. I’ve asked for them many times, I complain that it doesn’t have it. Why would this bother anybody – it’s a missing feature, hardly the only one, and I’m happy to both acknowledge it and still work with Ppro. I’ve never worked with a perfect NLE, I’ve complained and “poked holes” in ever NLE I’ve worked with and many that I have not. I want them all to be better and I don’t believe unconditional love is good for anything but sentient beings.

[Bill Davis] “Tony and Robin and me and quite a few others who have earned deep knowledge in X all used to enjoy “send to motion” in its traditional form – but notice how few of us who are actually fully X literate – find what I think Tim referred to as this particular “feature downgrade” to be more critical to our editing happiness than others outside the X system seem to feel it should be.”

Never once did I say or imply that this one feature is more important than the overall experience of working in X, that is purely your defensiveness. Quite a few of the X editors here list “send to motion” on their requested list, right next to color coded roles and a role based mixer. Obviously the lack of these features prevents no one from doing good work with X, however their addition might make your life even better.

As the saying goes, if you don’t ask, you won’t get.

[Bill Davis] “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Horrible day, good wishes to you though.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Charlie Austin] ” That biz has changed quite a bit since the analog days”

Indeed. All media has changed a lot since the analog days, overwhelmingly for the better despite the romanticism for vinyl and film.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Unless of course, this time, you’d care to quote the passage where I said that? Spoiler: of course not. You can’t.”

Well there was this —

[Robin S. Kurz] “Or simply hit ⌘⇧R with the timeline clip selected and make a Motion project from the clip from there. Done. Publish to FCP and switch back and forth at will with a simple right-click or ⌘Tab. So… I guess someone needs to explain that thing about “not two-way” again? But then actually using the products has been know to work wonders.”

Since I had already defined “send to motion” as a two-way, or bi-directional process, this implied that there is an equivalent to a “send feature.”

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Why should you even care? You don’t even USE either of them, let alone together”

I care because I’m curious about the tools of my trade. I care about Avid, Lightworks, Vegas, Edius, and Resolve, about PC workstations and Radeon graphics cards, about 7 to X and X to 7, about SAN networks and video over IP … and I don’t use any of them at the moment. I’m curious because my working environment might change and I like to stay informed.

So when many FCPX users lament the fact that their is no “send to motion” and you claim that there is an effective workaround, I’m curious about the contradiction.

However now that Michael Hancock has explained the situation I see that their is no contradiction.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Or simply hit ⌘⇧R with the timeline clip selected and make a Motion project from the clip from there.”

Does this preserve the in-out points and can this be done for multiple timeline clips being sent to one motion project, preserving their spatial relationship to each other? If so, then you are correct, you don’t need a “send” feature.

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

[Herb Sevush]

A very funny guy obviously has too much free time on his hands.

Thanks for posting.

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

[Herb Sevush]

[Tony West] “I would bring the WS shot and the CU into Motion to begin with and ad the rain on one and the snow on the other, then bring those into the X”

Yes, you could write the names of each clip down on a post it, then enter the in and out points on that same slip of paper. Then open Motion and manually set the project to the correct format and then go to properties and enter the correct duration, then find and import the 2 clips, set up their in and outpoints and place them on the correct layers and then create the effects. After that you can go to the export setup and make sure your exporting to the correct format and once exported go back to FCPX and import the clip.

Or you could hit “send to motion.”

Which would you prefer?

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