James Sullivan
Forum Replies Created
-
Send to AE! or a flavor of XML that adobe can deal with. Clip exporter is no longer updated and I have had weird gaps in simple sequences. Apparently the way that FCPx counts time creates rounding errors in other packages. I want my NLE to be just that. Just editing and editing well.
Fight,
James
-
Rain is necessary, no worries. I have to say I have enjoyed your sparring in this very forum.
I would argue that I am a Final Cut Generation editor. I am always trying to find the awesome. If I am going to spend time in front of a screen I want it to be worth it. FCPx is supposed to be the new paradigm of our future as editorial animals. Let’s make it better for everybody.
I am full of hate for a timeline that still makes no sense to me but I am still pulling for apple. (Roles need to trump any magnetism, and audio crossfades should not have to create extra layers of “tracks”) I am giving apple to 10.3 before I realize that I have been dumped.
To summarize the current NLE craziness from my reality:
1) Final cut Legacy is really really old. It uses one tenth of the computer hosting it and does not like new anything. It still works and I am fast and reliable. Everything I hate about it will never change.
2) Premiere is great except it needs a mezzanine codec and a better way to offline/online. (From tape while I am asking) Also multiple projects open at the same time (Then we can talk about final cut 8 existing)
3) Avid is still Avid which is still the problem. It is all more of a feeling then the fact that they are a rock solid dependable offline/online pipeline. They killed the DS which to me means that Final Cut did more harm then good. (Please sell it to the Foundry or somebody and bring it to MAC OS)
Apple however can still build an edit suite from the silicon up. We just have to hate hard enough for them to do it our way.
To me Final Cut Pro X is still a single seat, straight to youtube, audio mixing nightmare. But if they cut out the stupid stuff and add some tags that stick at the finder level then I will be your uncle. Also the new coffee grinder™ is showing some promise. Just remember that Siri can read lips or we will all be floating in space.
Make it rain,
James
-
We have not even mentioned the idea of having Mavericks tags follow media into the world that FCPx creates. Jeremy is onto something with using metadata to really organize everything.
Why can’t I tag media before I even import it? To have everything lock at the event level is to have everybody tag shots multiple times. Not on is that redundant but it does not really seem like a modern way to work collectively. With premiere there will be a lot of nested projects that will have to travel back and forth bloating project sizes and confusing versions of edits. I think that Final cut could do a lap on everybody if they really double down on tags/collections that are truly visible in real time to whomever is working within a particular library. I tag a clip or favorite a bite and everybody can see that.
Would that be useful or chaos?
mind blown,
James
-
I have used clip exporter but I think that Jeremy is correct in the most up to date support for Xto7 being a good thing. I used clip exporter to transfer a green screen edit to AE for finishing and ended up with a few bugs in the timeline. Specifically little 1 or 2 frame gaps at random places in the timeline. (Final cut PRo X 10.09)
I like the workflow that Clip exporter brings to final cut but I guess the new final cut XML is still a moving target. I hope that AE will add a direct import of Final Cut Xml like we had with Automatic duck. I do not want to have to round trip through Premiere to add another layer of troubleshooting conform issues or keep a full install of Final cut Legacy just to get to AE and back.
I do not use Motion nor intend to. AE is my jam and the more interoperable our software lives become the better. I have never used Final cut as a compositor/motion graphics box. I expect it to edit and edit well. I will use tools and plugins in other software that do what they do better. I want final cut to be a stable NLE that plays back video in real time the way god intended. It should handle the organization and culling of the massive amounts of video imported and that is it. Then it should be able to export this work for further polish in other software.
I am too young to be this much of a curmudgeon!
James
-
I do not miss the wheels too much. I agree that it would be nice to ratchet down the sensitivity for fine tuning. The quality and the real time playback are nice on bigger iron systems. There is too much mousing of course so for long form Resolve is the answer. For quick and dirty though you can do some damage.
I am still a FCPx hater from the editorial side of things but for color correction I think they did a nice job. I need to remap the default paste attributes command because copying grades across the “time line” is messing up my wrist. I use a wacom so all the mousing is dealt with but the default mapping for paste attributes sucks.
What might be nice is some kind of Gallery/Still store function that would let you drag grades into it and onto shots in the timeline. If you had three color boards stacked up they would all drag and drop as one grade into say Memory 1 and display a still. That way grading longer timelines and matching shots would become easier if you are trying to stay inside of FCPx. Also the ability to have grades ripple using metadata that you control would be badass. Tweak one interview grade and have it ripple down the line. Call that you master base grade and then as you adjust further down the line those additional tweaks only stick to the shots you touched. Exposures always change a bit so having both levels of control could be a powerful tool that puts all that metadata to good use while giving the user some speed to tackle longer programs.
Happy new year,
James
-
I figured out how to toggle all your color corrections the other day. There is a keyboard shortcut for it that you can map. Do a search for “toggle’ and the following shows up “Color board Toggle correction on/off”
Super useful. Hopefully in the .1 update they will address the rest of your list. I did my first multi-cam edit the other day and was surprised as well that I could not consolidate a multi cam sequence.
Merry christmas,
James
-
Amen brother.
James
-
Sorry I am still in the middle of FCP X growing pains. I used to be able to look at a timeline and know what my dad was going to be like.
A question for Craig: What is the most important thing you have learned from adapting to so many new NLEs? I am only on my 4th and want to tap out.
James
-
Great point! I actually am looking forward to the right project to start learning how to use FCP X the way it was designed. I can’t wait to tag footage and setup massive amounts of metadata about all of the assets that hit the timeline.
Roles are going to be good too. My concern s that not everybody will use the program the “right way”. Tracks were at least some common denominator that forced everybody into doing some things that made sense at the time.
I am curious. How many “tracks” do you normally get to in a standard edit? 3 deep on video and then however many audio tracks stack up?
James
-
I am with you. That is why I prefaced the whole comment by explaining my ignorance of FCP X.
The point I was trying to make was platform agnostic. I can open up an AVID, Premiere pro, FCP 7 timeline and know what to expect by looking at it. Even when I get to be comfortable with the new paradigm I still believe that the magnetic timeline, in it’s current state, has issues on a very fundamental level. Also, any new editor out of school will never have seen an avid. (Mostly true?) There will be no discipline and as a result FCP X timelines are going to suck to correct by somebody other then the original editor until more information is presented or able to be expanded to the person catching the project as it finishes.
I am not saying that I do not think FCP X is bad. I am just expressing my frustration knowing how it is going to make life difficult for a ton of people until they make it awesome. Was final cut pro 1.0 good? No it barely worked.
I should be able to sound design in an NLE. Is it a proffesional mix? Hell no. But until producers decide to stop changing things and let me promote a project to mix then I would jump out of any NLE as soon as possible. Will this ever happen in the current state of the grind?
Holler,
James