Tony West
Forum Replies Created
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[Gary Huff] “Which has absolutely zero to do with FCPX, MC, or Premiere. None of those is going to get you a single half-step closer to achieving that feeling.”
Back when I did that video it was in a room that cost almost a million bucks to build.
Full of expensive equipment that most folks couldn’t afford. That limited access.
When it got down to a laptop and a couple of hundred bucks, who can’t get in.
But back to the OT
I remember when you did a green screen shoot and you had to make sure you lit it even.
You wanted all the wriggles out.With X, it will cut dang near any green out wriggles and all. It’s an excellent keyer. That task doesn’t take as much skill as it used to now with that program.
X will try to fix your audio for you if you want it to.
I don’t think it does a good enough job for me (yet) and I would rather use something like Izotope.
But……..thats the first step. It try’s
Then next year maybe it gets better at it. Then next better. Until you just click and fix audio that took more skill to fix in the past.
Back when I was in that control room there was no…………Can I fix that for you?
It was all me.
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[Gary Huff] “FX Factory is not a template, nor is After Effects. “
I didn’t say they were.
I said they are programs that make it easier for you to do your work. You don’t like it because you want to look down your nose at people using programs that you may not approve of.
[Gary Huff] “Remind me again on which direction ratings are going for local news programs?
“Local news? who said anything abut local news. I was talking about NETWORK news. I have never done local news.
Who sends out a 2 man crew to cover local news? You should have known better than that, dude.
And Air force one means the President of the United States. Get the sound right.
But it would be easier if you don’t cut corners on sound.
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[Gary Huff] “I am not. But I would be interested to know the specifics of what is “high end” about it,”
Quality for one.
But who decides that?
I say his peers. That’s why I asked you if you knew of his work.
Editing is like art in a sense that it’s subjective to a point.
The other aspect is technical, which is less subjective. Is the sound mixed well and such.
Another aspect is impact on the audience.
I was working for the St. Louis Cardinals years ago and I cut a video for the video screen.
We were playing the Dodgers, and Vin Scully was calling the game. He saw my video on the screen and walked down to the control room and asked for it for their broadcast.He said he was so moved by it that he wanted everyone to see it.
I’m sure he had seen a million baseball videos. This one stuck out to him.
To have a Hall of Fame’r in your peer group give you that kind of nod, and your co-workers come up to you and say “dude, that was f ing awesome”
That’s kind of what it means to me.
Peers
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[Gary Huff] “Doesn’t quite follow,”
Sure it does.
AE, MB Looks, Fx Factory it’s all software with the same end game. To make it easier for the editor to get the look they are trying to create.
Somebody can use AE but not Fx Factory? What difference does it really make?
It’s just semantics brother.
[Gary Huff] “If you’re trying to produce cheap content just to have content, and no one watches it, then is it even worth the cheap rates they’re already paying?
“What do you mean if no one watches it?
When I broke into network news 20 years ago you had a top notch experienced Shooter and sound tech bringing it home.
Now, I saw some footage on AF one that was so bad that they had to put up subtitles on the screen for the viewer.
That was unheard of before. Your audio is so bad we got to put up titles? Come on now!
Yet there it was on air on the evening news.
People didn’t turn off the news because of that. They accept it. Somebody one day said “nobody will turn off our show if we cut the sound guy”
I’m not promoting it. I’m just dealing with it.
Just one of the reasons I drifted more into sports. Either you have the ball going over the wall or you don’t.
If you don’t, you won’t be back.
At least, not at the World Series level.
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[Gary Huff] “Yes, you and hundreds of others, so congratulations,”
Congratulations to you also, unless you designed AE yourself, you’re working off somebody else’s
work.
[Gary Huff] “I don’t see how that applies that a certain situation could allow for polished results when someone isn’t competent. Can you “accidently” stumble upon polish?”
They don’t have to stumble on it, they could just buy software that helps their work look more polished.
[Gary Huff] ” if you don’t know shooting or editing, everything else that you can’t template in now sticks out. “
Nope. They hire somebody like me to shoot it, and hand over good looking video that has good sound that they don’t have to fix.
Plus, you are assuming the corp hiring for the job even gives a rip that it “now sticks out”
That’s been the trend with a lot of corporations. Spend money on a crew to shoot it and then take in-house and cut it themselves.
[Gary Huff] “I would agree with that, but is it an excuse? “Well, I don’t need to learn motion graphics, or even how to significantly tweak these templates because the work I do is good enough.”
I hope so. That gives me less competition.”
Don’t get it twisted, I’m not saying anybody is going out of work anytime time soon. It’s going great for me and I’m sure you also.
But unless you live on another planet, big corps LOVE to save money on this one.
If they can get someone to get closer (they don’t have to beat you) to your work for CHEAPER,
That’s your competition.They don’t have to be better or as good as you. Somebody just has to want to save money.
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[Gary Huff] “What kind of work does Tsui Hark do that is explicitly “high end”?”
You’re not familiar with his work?
You don’t respect it?
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[Andrew Kimery] “I think the ability to put something out is certainly easier, but if you don’t know what you are doing it will most likely fall short of professional.”
Maybe. Each situation is different.
In the past if you didn’t know how to do motion graphics you had to learn or you didn’t have them.
Now you can just drop somebody else’s pre-made motion graphics in your timeline.
Does it look more professional? Most likely.
Here you go, just use one of these many pre made templates. Does it look more polished?
What we deem as”professional” really doesn’t matter if whoever is paying the bill at the end of the day accepts it as such.
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The kind of work that Tsui Hark does would be an example.
I’m sure others have their own, but he would be mine.
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Bill,
If I were to think of X in terms of being revolutionary, I would say it would be it’s ability to close the learning curve on high end editing.
It’s simplicity.
It has power, but yet I can see Children on youtube putting up tutorials on it. (children, not even teenagers)
It’s competitors are great, but they have the same learning curve as they have had for some time.
That’s not a knock, just different.I jumped on X early because for one, I predicted that young folks would take to it and I didn’t want them knowing something I didn’t know. But then I liked it : )
When I was cutting on CMX in the 80’s, little kids where not using the same tools as me.
The fact that they are now, is…let’s face it, a huge change in the industry.
In the past, if you didn’t know what you were doing, you would be hard pressed to put something out that looked professional.
Now, I think that’s changed.
I wonder if you would agree : )
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[Christopher Grosso] “Do you bring the MP4/H.264 into FCPX to edit?
“I brought it in to X as H.264
It was one of those little camera’s mounted to a mini copter. That was my first time dealing with that type of file. (MTS)