[Jeff Markgraf]

Hi Walter.

Couple of points…

1. Not sure I like the beard. 😉

2. Most of what I hear you saying flows from one of your last statements:

[Walter Soyka] “You cannot put a clip at an arbitrary point in time without FCPX creating a gap to hold it in place: that’s because the absolute time of clips are derived from the primary/secondary structure. “

All NLEs put these gaps into the timeline. X just explicitly renders it visually as a gap. See Avid, for example. The gaps between clips have no visual boundary lines (a box, if you will) that mark it as a clip. Yet you can select that gap and move it just as you can a clip. You can trim it. You can use it to overwrite part of another clip, or have another clip overwrite it. You can even add an effect to it, making it a kind of adjustment layer, with an in and out point.

[Walter Soyka] “the clip says “I come after the first clip in the sequence, wherever that ends, and I am 60 frames long.””

Only inasmuch as the default rippling behavior is not defeated with the P tool.

[Walter Soyka] “”I connect to the 45th frame of clip X, wherever it may be.””

True. But since clip X has an absolute time, so does the connected clip. In fact the connected clip has two ways to describe itself: in relation to the clip to which it is connected, and in relation to the absolute time as marked by the sequence time.

[Walter Soyka] “It’s a fundamentally different model for building a timeline: one based on relationships instead of temporal position. “

For the reasons stated above, I see the addition of connected clips and their dual-mode relationships as an addition to the conventional timeline, not a different kind of timeline.

As far as the rearranging behavior, I see it as a novel way to keep the benefits of rippling without the destructive behavior of overwriting.

[Jeff Markgraf]

I would add to this thought…

Getting things done faster does not necessarily mean jamming more stuff into a day.

For me, being able to execute what I’m trying to do more quickly means more “down time” to think and contemplate what I’ve done and what I want to do. So the purported “edit faster” still generates better work, but not necessarily more work.

On a related note…

While I dig the massive tagging/metadata party that is X, I’m not a big logging guy. Never have been.

Much to the occasional annoyance of some of the promo houses I’ve worked for, I don’t obsessively log and subclip source material. Partly because I can see the “bones” of the piece without having to write it all down. In terms of looking for b-roll and montage-y shots, I find that scrubbing the source on the way to one shot frequently yields several “happy accidents.” Like when you see something better on the way to what you thought you wanted. Or you see some random shots in a random order and suddenly inspiration strikes. Always getting immediately to where you’re going doesn’t really allow for that sort of thing.

Not that everyone should work that way. And not that X doesn’t have awesome metadata/tag/search capabilities. I love it. I just don’t get that warm feeling about it, compared to skimming & connected clips, and seriously faster and more capable compositing (even if it is just temp), and way better audio capability.

As Bill says, just my 2 cents.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Yes, maybe it is Clip Exporter. His demo and tutorials don’t specify the media type. I’ll ping in for more details. Even so, just being able to get media-managed clips and an AE timeline to graphics is a huge timesaver. These sales reel rough cuts have lots of layers of compositing in X that she has to translate and redo.

Love Evanston. Miss Chicago terribly. (LA sucks!) There’s a lakeshore condo with my name on it, someday.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Hi Jeremy

No, you’re right – it’s not FCP that’s the problem. I only posted here because I sorta know you guys and I know nothing about AE.

Turns out that after upgrading to CC2014, my graphics person was able to open the mxf files by changing the extension to .mov. AE apparently thinks now they’re in a QT wrapper and will open them. Go figure.

Now if I can just get AE to link to the renumbered files that Clip Exporter sends.

Completely OT: Where in Chicago? (Joliet native, NU college, one-time TeleMation editor)

[Jeff Markgraf]

This whole Focus business has really brought out the judgmental side on this forum. Haven’t seen this kind of heat in a year, at least.

The thing is, none of us knows the director in question, and none of us knows his skill level on Avid. He may be a relative Avid newbie, or maybe he just doesn’t feel comfortable on Avid. So for him, he may feel that he’s editing much faster on X. Absent any real evidence, why not take his word for it?

That being said, yes, the Apple marketing piece is just that – marketing. I personally find “2 to 3 times faster” a bit much, but whatever.

Still, I know I feel much more productive on many of my projects on X than on Avid, and I’ve used Avid since the 90s. I’d be willing to equate productive with fast in an overall sense. I’m pretty fast on Avid, but I’m kind of over it for most of what I do.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Michael & Charlie: concur.

[Jeff Markgraf]

David –

Well, I didn’t say the two types of media were inherently different. I was talking about the way we typically, and practically, work with them.

By default we mix, or add, audio to other audio. Process it, etc., but not so much hard cutting except for specific effect.

By default, we cut video serially, with some blending (hard or soft) for some specific effect. Yes, video tracks, or layers, often run in parallel, but unless we’re keying or some such thing, it’s usually cuts and dissolves.

Thant’s why I think the UI experience for each is naturally different, to accommodate the different needs in practical use.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Michael and David –

Yes, I understand that Fairlight is track-based. I was looking for comparison of the overlap/layering feature to the “trackless” concept. Turns out it’s not a very good comparison.

I think audio is fundamentally different from video in terms of how we have to work with it. It’s perfectly natural to hear and process multiple audio sources simultaneously, in parallel. One audio track does not by design “cover” or cut out another track. In video, except as a specific key or compositing effect, it does. So audio MUST have discrete tracks, even if they are ultimately collapsed into 2 or 5.1 tracks for presentation.

I think a better way of looking at audio in X to acknowledge its “always on” mix down to a stereo (or 5.1) output. If i wanted to, I could put SOT and nat sound and music and effects on random tracks in Avid and end up with the same stereo output. Not that I’d want to!

So I get the objection that X sort of places clips in a somewhat random order, more so as the timeline gets crowded. And the rules for what goes up and what goes down seem inconsistent (I don’t think they are, but the logic is complex.) It would be nice to have the ability to lock clips in vertical positions in certain cases, if only as an aid to organization.

But as has been said many times, roles and subroles take care of the organization for output (like AAF to ProTools). And the timeline index makes it easy to turn specific roles on and off to see what’s what and where. Customizable colors for roles would be nice.

Since it’s really only upon output to a mixer that the organization traditionally accomplished with tracks is necessary, and it’s taken care of with roles and X2Pro, I guess I don’t see the problem. While I’m editing, I really don’t care too much where a particular clip lives as far as vertical orientation. No matter how high or low a “whoosh” effect appears in the timeline’s vertical space, if it’s attached to the head of a clip to accompany a transition, it will stay with that clip if and when it gets moved. Someone (Charlie?) has suggested/toyed with the idea of creating specific vertical areas to corral certain kinds of clips, using dummy tracks as barriers. That might be a nice option for Apple to figure out. But hardly a deal-breaker.

I’ve got a 3 minute sales reel in front of me with lots of sound and lots of clips. I can pretty easily see my groups of VO, SOT, mx and sfx. Same with the movie I’m cutting in my off hours. In either case, when they go to sweetening, the mixer will have completely organized track groups via roles and X2Pro. And if he’s happy, I’m happy.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Hate to sound like a mutual admiration society, but yes, I also agree on all counts.

It will likely take as long for the crusty old Hollywood editors to embrace X s it did for them to embrace FCP Legacy, as it did for them to embrace Avid and Lightworks, as it did for them to embrace flatbed over vertical Moviola.

Same as it ever was.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Walter –

In short, I don’t agree with the reasoning.

From your previous thread:
In FCPX, the primary storyline itself is the clock that drives secondary storylines and clips. As Jeremy G said [link]: “The primary is time. Control the primary, you control time.”

Here’s where the fundamental disagreement begins.

X has a linear time clock, as does every other editor: the sequence time. Whether it starts at 00:00 or 1:00:00 or whatever, it goes forward. Period. Any clip on the primary by necessity starts at xx:xx and ends at xx:xx. Until you move it, whether by rippling the edit or positioning the clip with the P tool. Same as Avid or anyone else.

A connected clip also exists at an absolute time. The fact that it is “connected” means nothing in terms of where the clip lives on the linear timeline. Until you move it.

Many people edit by placing their “A-roll” on video layer 1, and put “B-roll” on video layer 2 or 3 or different clips on different layers, all above the A-roll on track 1. Some leave the clips in that arrangement. (Others (especially those of us who come from linear online) consider that sloppy and bring the clips into track 1 at some point to finalize the edit.)

If I decide to move a block of clips (call it a scene) to a new location, I manually select the clips on video 1, as well as any b-roll clips on video 2,3,4, etc., and move them as a unit to the new location. For the purpose of moving the block, the b-roll clips on 2,3,4, etc. have a time relationship that is tied to the A-roll on video 1. They are “connected” to the a-roll by design, inasmuch as I have selected all of them. Once the block is in its new location, all clips have new absolute relationships to the absolute time of the sequence.

Same thing in X. It’s just that the b-roll clips are connected clips, linked by default to the a-roll (primary). I simply don’t have to select all clips to move the block – just the primary. The connection is only relevant for the purposes of moving the block. Once in its new location, all clips once again have that absolute time relative to the sequence timeline.

At no time am I required to connect a clip. I can happily cut only in the primary, as long as I separate my audio from the primary. But that process seems unnecessarily restrictive.

a clip’s position in time is a function of its relationship to its parent clips.

Again, only for the purpose of moving the block of clips described by being connected to the primary.

One can like or dislike this default behavior. One can like or dislike the default behavior of clips moving vertically to overlap rather than overwriting or blocking. But except during the process of moving a block of clips, the clips have an absolute relationship to the timeline, whether connected or primary. Just like any other NLE.

That’s my thinking on this.