Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Steve Connor] “So if you could actually USE FCPX in your workflow, would we get less of these cool effects?”
🙂
I guess it must seem pretty crazy to be making stuff that I have no way of actually using myself!
I’ve got no excuse really, apart from that fact that it’s fun!
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
I’ve just posted a new free effect I’ve been meaning to make for a while that addresses this issue. It’s not quite the magic bullet that will fix anything (when it’s really gone, it’s really gone!) but hopefully you will be surprised at how much detail you can recover with it.
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/8067
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Mark Morache] “And lastly…. my goodness! How did movies ever get made working on a moviola? Don’t you just have one viewer window on that? Or a single-screen flatbed?”
It was sometimes called “cutting in the hand” – you help up both shots and you looked at them side by side and of course they were the same size and you could see them at the same time.
But I will admit that the frame size was pretty small, especially for 16mm!!!
See this short article about David Lean:
https://bufvc.ac.uk/newsonscreen/davidlean/gaumontsoundnews
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
I think the problem with this set up is most acute for editors of things like drama or to be honest anything where you need to match action between one shot and another.
If you are trying to do a cut on action (or any of of a number of similar editing strategies where matching is critical), you need to be able to see both images at the same time at the same size.
Both parts of that are equally important. Yes in FCPX you can have or or the other, but the crucial missing thing is that you can’t have both.
A much more mundane requirement that comes up for me all the time is that I need to replace one set of shots with identical footage from a different source, and because the timecode is different (or even sometimes the speed), the only way to do this is by eye-matching.
Eye-matching is virtually impossible unless you can see both images side by side at the same size at the same time. Sometimes it’s fantastically hard to see the detail that is the only clue to the match.
Also absolutely essential for eye-matching, and indeed the more refined art of match-action cutting described above, is the ability to gang the source and the destination, which is a very serious missing part of FCPX for a few of us.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Mark Morache] “Apply the default time, then use the timeline index to find your transitions (type diss in the search bar), select the ones you want to change, hover the cursor over the timeline to activate the selected transitions, hit cmd-d to set a new duration.”
Cool idea.
But favourites would still be a preferable route, wouldn’t they?
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Hi Andreas
Really interesting and informative post.
I think quite a few of us speculate in ignorance (OK, at least I speculate in ignorance!!!) about all this, so it’s really great to hear from someone really well informed who has been wrestling with it from the inside and trying to come up with the solutions that we are all looking for.
From what you are saying it definitely does look like a bumpy road ahead, but hopefully talented people like you and Greg and Phil can find ways of taming the beast!
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Mark Morache] “I actually don’t like secondary storylines as much because I can’t use the keyboard to skim and set in/out points on secondary timelines. I hope that Apple can find a way to implement this. Seems like if I have a secondary storyline selected that hitting I/O and D would affect the secondary and not the primary.”
Totally agree – secondaries could be so much more useful if you could edit into them properly as you can with the primary. Also I would really, really like them to be able to behave more like compound clips so that you could add global transforms, effects, CC etc. This surely can’t be that hard to implement and would be a huge step forward.
[Mark Morache] “And it’s easier to edit with 100 separate clips in a bin?”
My point wasn’t about organizing but rather about the physical act of scrubbing around to find edit points – somehow it just doesn’t feel as comfortable with the filmstrip model as with as conventional one where you could see the clip as one long unbroken line from beginning to end. The space constraints of the browser mean that when you shrink the view down to see the whole of a clip, the length of the clip is represented very small. Often I will know that the bit I want (that I haven’t already logged for whatever reason) is pretty much exactly at the
[Mark Morache] “I’d love to see a few small things implemented that would make this even more robust:
>Give me the ability to hide used footage in the browser.
>Give me keyboard shortcuts for different zoom views in the browser. I want to be able to snap to 10 sec and 5 sec views with a mouse click.
>Remember my bin views. I’m happy with a single icon for still files. 5s and 10s for my tape footage. 2s for file tape clips. 30s for music clips. Etc.
>I also want to see a way to skim through a browser clip without zig zagging back and forth over long clips.”For some reason my eyes missed this part of your post, and actually yes all of these things are what I am looking for to make this aspect from usable – and faster. All really good ideas. I’ve always hated zooming in and out of stuff unnecessarily and the “broken filmstrip” mode really does aggravate this.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Mark Morache] “I actually don’t like secondary storylines as much because I can’t use the keyboard to skim and set in/out points on secondary timelines. I hope that Apple can find a way to implement this. Seems like if I have a secondary storyline selected that hitting I/O and D would affect the secondary and not the primary.”
Totally agree – secondaries could be so much more useful if you could edit into them properly as you can with the primary. Also I would really, really like them to be able to behave more like compound clips so that you could add global transforms, effects, CC etc. This surely can’t be that hard to implement and would be a huge step forward.
[Mark Morache] “And it’s easier to edit with 100 separate clips in a bin?”
My point wasn’t about organizing but rather about the physical act of scrubbing around to find edit points – somehow it just doesn’t feel as comfortable with the filmstrip model as with as conventional one where you could see the clip as one long unbroken line from beginning to end.
The space constraints of the browser mean that when you shrink the view down to see the whole of a clip, the length of the clip is represented very small.
Often I will know that the bit I want (that I haven’t already logged for whatever reason) is pretty much exactly at the 80 minute mark ina 90 mminute clip. That’s a lot easier to find in a conventional NLE – at least for me.
Maybe it’s something that will come to feel natural in time but whereas the rest of it is starting to feel really good this particular part isn’t doing it for me just yet.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Steve Connor] “I see you’re back on form Aindreas, sometimes it’s a joy to read your posts! I imagine you’re hoping that PPro will gain more traction in your area than Avid?
I still think you’ll eventually “get” FCPX, a lightbulb will flicker on to illuminate the darkness”
I think you’re right – he’s going to have his Damascene moment very shortly, and then heaven help us!!!!
Aindreas the convert is going to infinitely more passionate than Aindreas the unbeliever – and I’m not sure the interweb will be able to handle it.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Steve Connor] “You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head, a lot of FCP editors, like me, are “tactile” editors. I like to touch and sculpt the edit, that’s why I don’t get on with Avid I somehow feel slightly disconnected from the edit when using it. I understand the power of it in the right hands though.”
I’d completely agree with this. Media Composer definitely has a clinical, clunky, disconnected feel when compared to FCP because everything is fundamentally predicated on the old source/record VT model of editing, whereas FCP was always much more like editing on a computer with intuitive things like cut and paste readily available.
OK, so you can actually now drag and drop in MC, and the Smart Tool does emulate the responsiveness of FCP quite a bit, but this is still going against the grain of how MC works, and a lot of AVID editors don’t like the Smart Tool at all (though I have to say I found it a very welcome addition).
As you say, which one you prefer editing with is going to be more than a matter of taste – it’s down to how much you think the traditional 3-point editing model is the be-all-and-end-all of the job and how much you prefer a smooth intuitive tactile interface that actually lets you set yourself free from the model if that’s what you want.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com