[Winston A. cely]

Thanks for the tips! Could you post a link to the process of making a bootable thumb drive? A quick Google search came back with quite a few links, but there were a number of “it didn’t work” comments at the bottom of them.

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

This is slightly off-topic, but a number of you have mentioned making initial concepts or comps for clients. That was one of the most frustrating things for me because I almost always had issues with the client being unsatisfied with the comp. This, of course, was after they already agreed to the idea of having comps used as a way to preview the direction they/we wanted to go. Conversations would usually go something like:

Client: It doesn’t have x, y, z. It doesn’t look finished.

Us: This is the “pre-vis” of the direction we discussed going with this animation. It’s only a place holder for now as we create the finished design.

Client: Right, but it doesn’t look good.

Us: Of course. This is just a low-resolution mock-up of the direction we’re going. It’s not the finished animation.

Client: Oh yea, I know, but it doesn’t look good. Where’s x, y, and z?

Us: This is only the first draft. We’re still working on getting to the finished animation. It will take a few rounds before we get to higher resolution animation that contains x, y, and z. This was on the schedule and we discussed this in our pre-production meetings.

Client: Right! Right. I just wish it looked more…finished.

Us:

Anyone else had that?

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

I’m starting to wonder what “industry standard” even means anymore…

It just seems that chunks of the entertainment/broadcast/film world (and whatever niche work is listed under those broader categories) are set in their ways, but that those ways are all varied from each other, and varied even more within their own category. I mean, at what point do we put “industry standard” to bed and recognize that it doesn’t mean much anymore? I may be wrong, but it seems like this phrase used to mean the difference between something looking and feeling professional versus something that was obviously finished by “non-professionals,” but even that doesn’t mean what it used to. See: what constitutes pro-work on YouTube nowadays…

The only thing left is workflow. If this forum has taught me anything, it’s that there is no “industry standard” in a workflow, at least in terms of a single system that covers TV, Film, Web, etc. Some groups may be larger than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less or more professional than the next one, and therefore the workflow that one uses compared to the next doesn’t mean anything. Or at least the differences mean much less now than they ever have in the past.

When I started in post back in 2006 (yes, I am a very young pup compared to some of you, and there’s no offense meant in that!!!) there were systems in place that we followed. Often times these systems were used out of habit, not a necessity. It was the industry standard to do it that way, but as we went on, we would constantly ask ourselves is there not a more efficient way to do things? “Yeah, but is that the way everyone does it? No, but it’ll save us time and money and we’ll get the same end product. OK, do it!”

I’ve had this conversation many times with administrators at my school, my professional advisors still working in post-full time, and even other professionals not in our business. We’ve certainly not come to any single idea of what “industry standard” means other than an antiquated catch-all for implying that a workflow component has little to no value compared to another because “no one I know uses it.”

Thoughts?

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

I also have been using Motion since it was released, prior to FCPX, and was happy to make the transition from LiveType to Motion! I’ve never looked back, even when pressured by my boss and other producers.

I try opening AE every now and then, and then quickly close it. Even before I made my transition from Photoshop to Pixelmator Pro, I was never comfortable in the AE environment. I was fortunate that when I was working in post-production (before I became a teacher) our workflow was almost entirely in-house; from writing, all the way to sending the master to the dub-house. With that in mind, we could use whatever we were comfortable with. And even when we did have to use outside contractors, especially for graphics, it was usually just exchanging image sequences, or low-res until we had final sign-off.

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

I think this may be a moment in time where “it’s the industry standard” may not have as tight a grip as it used to. If we’re going to have to continue to social distance from each other, maybe the individual post-guru will be more open to using something they had not in the past. Simon has demonstrated how powerful Motion can be (multiple times in tutorials and even head on as well); plus, without the use of machines that post-/graphics- houses have, we users may be more open to trying something that isn’t “industry standard.”

Not to mention, Apple Silicon may be about to blow our socks off with Motion 6… Hehehe

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

I use Motion and teach it to my high school students because it’s way easier to grasp basic concepts and create an easy animation than trying to use Motion. And as I’ve said before, most of the students that I have that want to continue their education in this field, will get AE in college and tech school, so I enjoy using an app that allows my students to create nice motion graphics quickly.

That being said, now that Apple is moving towards Apple Silicon, I’m wondering if we’re about to get Motion 6, finally!

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

As a high school instructor that uses 24 seats of FCPX, it is hugely frustrating that there aren’t better local sharing capabilities in FCPX. We have a Jellyfish server, which has been awesome this year, but my students have to go through a number of ridiculous steps to import their footage to edit:

Create a capture library on the server, make sure the Library is set to import footage to a designated external location, then each group member copies the Library to their own computer so that they can edit.* We use proxy files when editing which makes it impossible to use an XML process; i.e. export out an XML from the capture Library that all the students can then import to their project.

You have to remember, I’m dealing with high school students that occasionally ask, “how do I save this to the mouse,” cause the only tech they use are their smartphones. So, this process (very simplified to keep the reader from being bored) is almost always problematic for my kids. One misstep in the process and it very easily can ruin the entire capture process, setting up the students for editing failure.

*It’s part of my responsibility to make sure all my students can edit, hence making all of them edit their own version of their group’s short films.

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

Thanks for the plugin tip Craig!

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

FYI, the workaround for this is to export out a master file of the clips (any text objects above the transition turned off) with the working Flow transition, then re-import those clips.

“Why not simply make a new compound clip,” you ask? I tried that, and it gave me the same problem.

Bit of a hassle to have to export out and reimport.

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick

[Winston A. cely]

In other words, there’s no middle ground? You either get a cheaper system that can be upgraded externally via crazy fast Thunderbolt, or crazy expensive system that lets you upgrade internally. You can’t get a sorta cheap/expensive product that lets you upgrade internally.

I don’t know. It sounds as if it is more of a question of ideas or specific notions of how things should be rather than Apple failing to provide tools for every level of professional use.

Granted, as a teacher, I can’t afford a regular iMac let alone an iMac Pro. Fortunately, teaching at a CTE school, we’re able to get our students and our instructors the tools they need, which in a couple of years will be iMac Pros for the students and a Mac Pro for me.

Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3

\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick