[Winston A. cely]

I can’t believe I forgot the Coen Brothers, who edit all their own movies. My hero’s on writing, directing, and editing.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

OK, I’m going to read all the replies eventually, but I’ve got a class of high school seniors working on their major senior project (shooting, editing, etc) in about 15 minutes, so forgive me if I state something that’s already been said.

When it comes to editing, the only thing that matters is the story and the emotion you’re trying to get. If you’re a filmmaker, and you don’t know your story well enough, or don’t have a clear idea of what you are trying to express to your audience, those tools will at least get you something competent looking. It will, most likely, be forgotten with everything else that it looks like, but at least it won’t look like a Youtube video. However, I love the idea of these tools being available to a filmmaker who know’s what they want, shoots for it, but has the option later to discover something they didn’t know they had on the day of the shoot. That’s amazing!

I think back to a remembrance of Stanley Kubrick (I think by Spielberg) of when Kubrick was so excited that he could, through the use of technology, cut bits and pieces of dialogue together and get a performance that either better matches what he had intended, or through the wonder of experimentation, could get him something better. This is awesome!

Of course, you’re going to have people out there who, for any number of reasons, are not clear on what they want. They’ll use these multicam shoots and massive edits just tonsure that the story is told, let alone why it’s told in that manner. But isn’t that how it is with technology in general? AS new tech comes out, there is always of flood of people who get their hands on it, industry professionals cry that it’s the end of their job or how their job is done, then – because that flood of people, make a flood of crap – things normalize and the true professionals and visionaries use the tools in a way that is truly magical.

Having said all of this, I have been wondering lately… Who are the new auteurs? We have a few old ones left, Scorsese, Spielberg, Allen, Coppola, and even those guys aren’t necessarily producing at the level we may imagine their older works are at. But Who’s the next Kubrick? Kuroaswa? Bergman? Fellini? I don’t know. It’s certainly hard to tell when it’s hard to make a movie and get it into theaters that isn’t about a superhero…

As an high school instructor, trying to get my students the tools to work in our field, I try to hammer it home: story, story, story.
Me – “Whatever you want to do, does it make sense in the context of your story?”
Them – “I don’t know…”
Me – “Don’t you think you should?
Them – “Um, OK.”
Me – “You have to know your story and your emotion for every frame of your movie before you shoot. I don’t care where you put the camera, I don’t care where you edit as long as you did it for a specific reason. That’s what counts. You made the image, the edit, the complete production a certain way because of specific intent that helps communicate your story to the audience; not just because it was easy.”

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

Golf. I like to watch golf when I need to catch up on sleep. Soccer… not so much. 😉

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the forums here. I switched main careers to a high school art teacher (this is my first year), so I’ve been swamped with getting my masters, and all the paperwork that goes with being a first year teacher. I still do some small editing projects and hope to continue as an editor during summer vacation, but I digress….

My main reason to comment is that I had to learn FCPX to teach a small class back when it was first released. I could see right off the bat the power that was lurking in it’s depths, despite all the missing functionality it had at the time. I’ve never looked back. Granted, I’ve not had the opportunity to cut broadcast shows on it (yet), but at this point you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to old fashioned NLEs. It’s great to see others here are finding it as fast AND effective as I do.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

“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 help! I had finally figured it out.

It’s funny, but I used to be able to really use Photoshop pretty well. However, since I started doing almost all of my graphics work from within Apple Motion, I’m so used to how it works that I find it difficult to create anything anywhere else. What takes me a couple of steps in Motion, seems to almost always take more in Photoshop.

Thanks again!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

“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 Simon!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

That’s strange. I did a search in this forum for posts about “gradient.” Sorry for the re-hash thread!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

“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 links!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

Great points on all counts! My turn! My turn!

1. True, but we’re not sure how much the incremental upgrades will be (I get the impression Apple’s planning some incremental upgrades sans charging for them). Not to mention, a little money here, and a little money there, is a lot easier for smaller companies and individual editors to handle than a couple grand all at once. Plus, from my limited experience (only 7 years in the broadcast field) buying additional plugins and software is pretty standard, at last it seems that way. Of course, you can also say that at this point in FCPX’s infancy, being required to spend a little extra to get what most people consider standard tools to be double dipping, and I agree.

2. Maybe someday, but at this point there’s nothing I’ve needed to do in the last two years that I couldn’t do with Motion. With previous versions there were huge deficits in Motion’s abilities, and it hampered the creative process somewhat, and in some of those instances required hiring an outside party. However, once it got to version 4 it covered my bases, and has prolonged any immediate need to learn other software. Of course, this is in my case only and the limited breadth of work I do. (90% infomercials and 10% other).

3. I misspoke. As I mentioned in my post as well, FCPX is nothing like FCP7. What I should have said is, I’m interested in Apple’s take on the evolution of NLE software.

4. I don’t see it that way, but I completely understand why so many do.

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

17″ MacBook Pro | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
4 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | FCPX | Motion 5 | Compressor 4

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

[Winston A. cely]

Hmm. I wonder if I’m having some issues with the software, because I’m having to open and close my Inspector tab just to get the selected generator’s properties to show up….

EDIT: That was frustrating. Crashed on me twice, but I was finally able to get the color board to show up, and adjusted it that way. Thanks for the tip!

Winston A. Cely
Editor/Owner | Della St. Media, LLC

Mac Pro 3GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
8 GB RAM | Final Cut Studio 3 | Aja Kona LHe

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