Re: New blog post from Philip Hodgetts. Worth the read.

[Herb Sevush] "Video has always been just another form of data, and "searching for it, organizing it and manipulating it in time" is the definition of "editing it." That's what editors have done since rewinds were invented, what else is there?
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It's true.

My clients don't pay me for my project organization directly (although my organization keeps the project moving so its indirect), they pay me for the end product. The organization, and how it's done, is for me and anyone else that has to work in fcp on the project. When you start sharing projects, organization, logical organization, becomes paramount.

I might add that fcpx's approach to managing and parsing this data (inside the app) is right powerful.

If FCPX doesn't make it past grade school, my hope will be that other NLE manufacturers take big notice as to how FCPX works in this regard. In my opinion, it's an excellent approach to managing and presenting your organization right back to you, and can change just as fast as your project requirements can change, losslessly without having to completely restructure your bins. Since clips can be in multiple locations at once, it also allows multiple forms of organization for multiple people without having to restructure bins. I'm sure some will say differently, but to me as our projects are now constantly moving around to different peoples machines, this is a big difference between what fcpx offers in organization and other NLEs. Sharing, although not quite apparent, seems to be one of the underlying thoughts behind fcpx, but that's pure speculation.

If you're a one man org, or you are the only person that touches your projects, the maybe you don't care about this, but think about it from the perspective of a 3 to 300 person organization. The way that fcpx handles the data allows multiple ways of thinking without rearranging the other person's way of thinking. To me, and the way that we work, this is a pretty cool idea.

As far as metadata manipulation, it isn't quite in FCPX. Yet. It is easy to see where it might go. Look at software like PrEdit. You can see how you'd be able to feed it a paper edit, and it assembles an edit for you. That alone will knocks DAYS off an edit. Now combine that with something like Soundbite which is analyzing phonemes, things start to get crazy, real fast.

Taking these sort of organizational duties allows editors to simultaneously watch the footage. If my computer can take a paper edit and assemble a super rough first cut, timecode it and send it to my client with minimal interaction from me? Seems pretty cool (careful what I wish for, as well). It does allow me time to review the rest of the footage while that's happening, it does appease my clients to begin crafting their story ASAP, it does allow me to work on more creative aspects of the project while the paint is drying and I am no longer sitting around to watch it.

This, in essence, is what Philip is getting at (and please let me know if I'm wrong, Philip).

This isn't pie on the sky stuff, this capability is almost here.

Yes, editors will still be needed, yes, our input is still crucial to the craft, yes, we will never go back to having more time.

Jeremy