Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Jeremy Garchow] “As far as editing between timelines, I am (kind of) glad it’s not there.”
That sounds to me like a pretty extreme position!!! Although I understand where you’re coming from.
I know by now that there’s no chance of convincing you over the internet of the many virtues of string-outs and pancakes and so on, but I suspect if we spent half an hour in a room together that might change just a little.
However, just on a really basic, practical level, you surely must run into situations where your client asks for a version that’s a little bit of one other version, a slice of another and a chunk or two of a couple of additional versions.
And I’d be surprised if even without the client’s input you didn’t think in a similar way: “I came up with a really nice section in this version that would go really well in my latest version, etc., etc.”
I find it hard to believe that any editor only ever works with clips directly from the browser. If they do, you’ll have to excuse me because I’m going to have to pass on watching their work. I know beforehand (without wanting to sound unkind) that it will be rubbish.
For all that FCP X lets you access individual clips (or subclips or whatever we are choosing to call them today) very easily, and probably more easily than other NLEs, it really doesn’t make it easy to work from sequenced clips. Both Media Composer and Premiere are better at this, albeit in different ways – and they’re both still far from great at it!
[Jeremy Garchow] “Because of the hierarchy of bins, and because of subsequent clip duplication, it can get confusing and can also lead to “lost” takes or sections if the selects reel doesn’t include all of the material, and at that point, you are hunting through bins anyway with no real connection back to the selects reel.”
I don’t recognise that scenario, to be honest. Any editing method requires a certain degree of discipline in order to keep on top of the material. The idea that selects reels (when executed properly) lead to “lost material” just doesn’t ring true for me. In fact, over the years I have discovered the opposite to be true – it’s much easier for material to get overlooked when it only ever lives in the browser …
But overall I think we are agreed that we like a lot of things about FCP X but both feel that it could go a lot further and adopt a much bolder approach to many aspects of the process.
Cone on, Apple. Astonish us. You know you can do it!
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Steve Connor] “Yep, that’s a great justification for giving it all away to Google, imagining a conspiracy with Apple and what they do with your data.”
There are undiscovered tribes in deepest, darkest Borneo who are aware that the only tech companies that look clean are the ones that haven’t been found out yet.
But I admire your Panglossian take on this!
[Steve Connor] “If Apple wanted to catch up quickly they could easily leverage their relationship with IBM and sprint right to the front of the pack.”
So Apple have decided that they don’t really have to compete in the AI sphere just yet and they can catch up whenever or if ever they need to?!
By your account they are even more clueless than I could possibly imagine them being. Goodness gracious me!
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
This is a long term gig and position is in New York City only! Remote editing is not an option on this project —-
Over here in Europe, remote editing has been the hot thing for quite a while now.
The Scandinavian clients we work for swear by it and have written their own hugely impressive software solutions to make it easier than ever before.
I guess it will start happening for you folks over there eventually. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Steve Connor] “But I do agree it should be Apple doing this and I can only imagine there’s no real business case for them to spend the money on it if they’re not going to market the data that’s gathered from it”
I think there’s a good case to be made that if you’re not right at the front with the race leaders in the AI contest, then you are absolutely nowhere on anything that is going to matter in the years ahead.
Not only are Apple not up there with the race leaders, they don’t even appear to have laced up their shoes.
(PS. Yes, I don’t trust any tech company with anything, but it’s way too late to change any of that now. If anybody thinks that Apple are innocent custodians of their personal data, there’s this bridge that I’d like to interest them in.)
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I would argue that FCPX does something to move the ideas forward.”
You’re quite right, I think, both in this and the rest of your comment.
My beef with FCP X is different from most people’s. I’m not complaining that they innovated too much, but rather that they innovated too little!
There’s no doubt that FCP X has given us some very useful concepts that have helped to move the dial, but I’d love to see something that’s a lot more bold and that was a lot more in tune with the way that editors need to work.
In the case of editing between timelines, of course, FCP X is a major step backwards – it’s a lot more cumbersome than any of the competition. I just don’t think there was any thinking about this that went into the concept and personally I feel that’s a really big failing. That’s not to say that the competition performs significantly less poorly, of course, but for want of anything better I’ll take the pancakes that Premiere and Resolve are offering as sustenance enough for now.
Where we stand right now, FCP X is getting long in the tooth – what was once bright and shiny and new is now the “new old”.
It would be great to think that Apple were currently working on the next generation NLE, but I think the evidence suggests that the talent that gave us FCP X is no longer in the building.
Maybe someone else will take up the challenge – because it is still a challenge and there are some clear areas where clever thinking can offer something truly transformative.
But I take your point about the difficulty of bringing something really radical to the market – in many ways Apple have forever queered the pitch on that one!
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Steve Connor] “So what would improve this? Do you feel somehow constrained by the current NLE models?”
Yes, see above.
The best kluge that current NLE models offer is the pancake method and it’s a crappy kluge.
There’s obviously a better way of doing it …
Can think of it yet but give me till teatime and I’ll come up with something.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Steve Connor] “Is that an actual notion? Clips are just containers, they’re NOT the building blocks. The shots IN the clips are the building blocks surely?”
The nomenclature has become ever more hazy since the introduction of non-linear editing (was that last year or the year before? I can’t remember) but you are introducing an unnecessary level of confusion here.
Anything sitting alone in the Browser is a “clip” – lifeless and inert until it is actually joined by another “clip”.
That’s the point I am trying to emphasise.
Skimming across clips doesn’t render them any less lifeless and inert, for the simple reason that no conjunctions exist.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Oliver Peters] “While not necessarily optimized, Resolve 15 has formalized the “pancake” timeline structure.”
Good point. But I don’t think even the most enthusiastic adherent of the pancake method would think of it as anything better than a kluge dictated by the current limitations of NLE design.
To continue with the theory behind this …
Editing, and indeed all film-making, is about the journey between shots. Every cut is not just a cosmetic change of perspective, it moves the viewer further forward into the story.*
Every film is itself a journey from the first shot to the last, and within that overarching journey there are many sub-journeys.
And as editors we need to be building those sub-journeys with every bit as much care as we build the master journey. The sub-journeys are the true bulidng blocks of our edit.
An individual clip is essentially lifeless and inert – it’s only when it is brought into conjunction with another clip that it acquires the dynamic energy that makes it a meaningful part of the story (or acquires the potential to become a meaningful part of the story).
The notion that clips themselves are the fundamental building blocks of story-telling is a very unhelpful one and it masks this important insight.**
An editing model that sees editing as merely the transfer of clips to the finished timeline (without recognising the essential importance of sub-journeys) is a profoundly misleading one.
But this is the dominant NLE model and it’s one that many editors buy into unthinkingly.
What I am looking for is an NLE that maximises the ease of creating and manipulating the sub-journeys that are the lifeblood of the edit.
(* Obviously even a single shot film is a journey between “shots” (or visual states perhaps?), with the simple difference that it is conceived in camera.)
(** There are many editors who miss this aspect of the job and whose work is essentially just a process of wallpapering over the timeline until it’s time to stop. It’s as dull as ditchwater to watch the results.)
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
“Tosh” is a fine word and good on you for wheeling it out, but in this case “yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man” (TM Jeff Lebowski).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c
The only thing can that called be called “tosh” without fear of contradiction is the notion that Apple have any sort of vision for the future, and the only thing that can be called “utter tosh” is the notion that they have a credible vision.
This was brought home just recently by the Google presentation:
Representatives of Google sauntered across the stage at the company’s I/O developers conference this week and revealed wonder after wonder. Google Assistant, its Siri competitor, now looks so advanced that we’ll probably be comfortable dropping the “science fiction” categorization from the movie Her in a few years. Cameras on Android phones will soon be able to select and copy text on printed books as easily as I selected and copied the text in this document on my Mac.
And all the while, one thought raced through my mind: It should be Apple.
We have seen the future and it doesn’t have Apple’s name on it any more.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
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It is truly one of the miracles of modern commerce that a corporation as clueless, as visionless and with as few actual products to offer and with even fewer ever likely to see the light of day, is still the most profitable ever.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki