[Mike Warmels]

Hmm.. You’ve got media management and the organisation of your footage IN FCPX app confused, if you ask me.

I think the management of the ACTUAL media one of the weakest points of FCPX. And I’m talking about the location of the mediafiles.

You basically have two choices:
1. Import all media into the Libray, making it a HUUUUGE file. Which makes it hard for exchange with other editors.
2. Storing it yourself where you have to do the media management yourself, which makes it very vulnerable when working with others on a series or big project.

It’s nice to organise it with folders an keywords, I agree. But the rest of the media management, or should I say the REAL media management is not so great. Try relinking a big project: it takes ages!

[Mike Warmels]

Yeah, well highlighting is the issue, isn’t it. Since they are among the many actual dialogue clip, I have to individually select the music tracks in the tetris jumble.

I do apply roles beforehand, because if done later, you might always forget one. I certainly would I think, most of my projects are rather complex. And I would;t want to cause problems with the audio mixers later on. It’s the roles they depend on without having tracks. Otherwise sorting the audio in the audio studio becomes very laborious and expensive. (which is often does anyway with FCPX).

For me the point of roles is to get overview of the audio. And to save time I’d rather select all my music and assign the roles than to assign roles to each clip I add to the timeline. FCPX can be very time consuming as it is in checking an assigning audio settings beforehand. When I’m cutting, I want to be cutting… not adjusting settings. But that’s just me.

So to me, I’d prefer roles to change in the timeline as well, although I know a lot of FCPX editors don’t. But… I still don’t get why I can’t get the Music-1 subrole to show up as a Music role… or to change it into a separate role. Because it does have one, but the timeline considers it “Dialogue’. Weird.

[Mike Warmels]

It would certainly help directors who forget to shoot coverage! 😉

[Mike Warmels]

Here we go again… did I step on anyone toes again?

Of course you’re a professional. But just you being a professional doesn’t do away with the fact that FCPX still has issues. And honestly, after 35 years you to must have seen that stuff goes away for new ideas and then after while it comes back again. Some ‘old stuff’ wasn’t so bad after all. The whole Audio Lanes thing kinda proves that ‘this pesky tracks’ did have some benefits.

Don’t take this all so personal! Every time I address issues on FCPX, I get responses like this: “O, so I am not a professional…”. I just don’t get why people get so overexcited for stuff we have so dearly needed for many years. The feeling I have is: “finally!”

And yeah, I wouldn’t mind not working with FCPX. But, my major client works on it, so I have to. I can make beautiful stuff on it, some features of FCPX are quite great, I don’t mind the UI or the editing features. I do mind the more technical elements, like the lack of AAF export from FCPX, the way the audio is mapped (the automatic assignment of mono-stereo-surround etc – which we can now FINALLY turn off!), how excruciatingly long it takes to relink projects, the sluggishness in larger projects… And no, these are not personal experiences. Every editor I know on FCPX experiences these issues, though I know many of you have perfect performance on every level. So to me FCPX still has quite a long way to go. 10.3 is a very good step in the right direction, although I do find it late. But better late than never.

[Mike Warmels]

Well, this a guy who’s been in the business for a long time. He was also the guy who brought FCP into main stream movie editing, mind you. He was big in making FCP a serious NLE contender. Because he saw (at the time of FCP 3, mind you!!) the potential.

But honestly, for movie editing, I am not so sure FCPX is that great. I know it’s being used for it, but the amount of audio sources you’d need to access and synch on a real movie is quite a bit of work. You need overview (Murch showed it once, what he had to deal with on average) and FCPX always looks like a jumble of audio sources, where you had rather limited control in creating some kind of visual overview without putting everything into groups or compound (which you then needed to access separately of you wanted to change anything).

I read that little booklet of the editors doing FOCUS. But man, I got tired from just reading that. You sure need a lot of assistant editors to keep track of the workflows going back and forth, through XML’s, X2Pro relinking and what have ya.

And his choices don’t dictate anything, he’s just an experienced editor who does know what he’s talking about. If you disagree fine. If you prefer to edit in Movie Maker or iMovie, just do it. But I still care about the opinion of other editors. Also of avid FCPX editors, because the knowledge base is great.

No NLE is perfect… but in my experience of three years on FCPX, I think the problems… no, I should say, the PITFALLS of working with FCPX are so numerous, that even though it’s basic method of the magnetic timeline has benefits, it’s the infrastructure and the exchange with others (like finalising in a different editing suite, audio mixing, exports for broadcast, creating AAF’s) that still makes it rather clumsy in many respects.

But… here’s hoping FCPX 10.3 takes a lot of the clumsiness away. Again: very happy with the audio lanes!

[Mike Warmels]

Yes, that does make sense.

Well I dunno. I find AVID a lot more approachable than Apple.

[Mike Warmels]

Hehehe…

[Mike Warmels]

Well, Walter Murch said an editing system was, to him, basically three things:

1. A video graphics programme
2. A clock
3. A database

I think he was kinda lost on the database element of FCPX. At the time. It’s gotten a lot better, gotten more like the ‘traditional’ NLE’s. To me, I still think it could be better. A lot of the structuring is more cosmetic than actual folders. I don’t know how it is on FCP 10.3, but I would like to be able to import into Folders in one go. Not into the Event first and then move the Keyword Collections (which you have to create first) into the folder. It’s a double action, that I find rather bothersome.

[Mike Warmels]

No, the point is this: they come up with this ‘new paradigm’ discarding a whole lot of stuff from ‘traditional’ NLE’s. And slowly but slowly they start putting things back these ‘traditional’ NLE’s had. Somewhat altered, something that kinda fits with the ‘new paradigm’ but in the end they’re putting stuff back in people have been asking for for ages. Stuff they knew from the ‘traditional NLE’s’. Or as it has been put on this forum: they’re ticking a lot of boxes. Boxes with content we had once and has been absent for a few years due to the ‘new paradigm’,

All in all, it’s rather ironic. One day FCPX might actually turn out to be a proper, professional NLE. Next on the wish list: AAF exports from FCPX, not through some 3rd party software.

[Mike Warmels]

IBC??? Where are they then? I didn’t find any booth…