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

All well and good, Jeremy -- but there are too many assumptions in there for us to reasonably argue. Avid and Premiere Pro also already have tools for script-based editorial. That's not my line of work, so I can't really comment on how useful or not they are.

I agree with Philip that "faster" and "more automated" are good design goals. Who wants to work slower and harder?

I agree with Philip on the main point of his article: there's a lot of real merit in the FCPX approach. I disagree with Philip on one point, too: I think it's too early to call FCPX an inevitable winner right now. (I also think it's too early to call it an inevitable loser. I'm currently more intrigued by Oliver Peter's observation that different market segments are adopting different NLEs.)

I have a lot of respect for Philip and his work, and I'm trying to offer some thoughtful critical commentary on the ideas he's sharing. I agree with him (and with you) that using metadata will speed up editorial. I also agree that as more editors adopt metadata-driven workflows that confer speed advantages, other editors must follow suit to remain competitive.

I'm trying to point out that actually creating that metadata is still largely a manual process, and that even if it's informal for most editors today, it currently accounts for a lot of editorial time. If someone else creates the metadata instead of the editor, you are saving editorial time, but not total project time. The more an editor relies on metadata for editorial, the more important the quality of that metadata is. Prep still needs to go on the schedule somewhere.

I think that's a reasonable objection to make. If Philip can meet it (which he certainly may be able to do), I think he'll have a much stronger and more persuasive argument for others who think his claim might be a bit strong.

I'm further arguing that making the editorial process faster does not solve the time crunch problem. Will enhanced metadata tools let editors work faster? Yes! Will enhanced metadata tools give them extra time to focus on aspects of their jobs they must neglect now, due to time constraints? No! They'll just be expected to deliver comparable results in less time than they have today. The ability to edit faster will just make post clients expect work sooner.

Where I lose Philip entirely is when he postulates that people are completing their projects four times faster -- today -- with FCPX. He's saying that the industry is pre-destined to adopt FCPX because it's -- worst-case -- twice as fast. Today.

He's not qualifying it at all. He's not saying who these people are or what sort of work these people are doing. He's not suggesting there is any other path to this sort of dramatic improvement. He's implying that anyone not using FCPX (unless they can't use FCPX because they need "support for layered Photoshop files" or "selective copy and paste of attributes") is wasting 50% to 75% of their time and their clients' post budgets.

I'm challenging that. Shane is challenging that. I'm asking who is now taking a day and a half with FCPX to finish a week's worth of work, because that idea is a little hard to believe. I'm asking if the scope of work under consideration is the same, or if some of that improvement comes by moving work that is still necessary outside of the area of consideration.

If it's true, and if FCPX lets today's editor do the same work four times faster, then great! Proving it would change a lot of people's minds about the product.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
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