Re: Editing scenario

[Chris Harlan] "It just seems to me that the magnetic timeline is giving up an undue amount of control for a modicum of speed in certain circumstances. And, I would further argue, that in my particular circumstances--which requires a high amount of interweaving in a short amount of time--that it doesn't offer any speed value at all."

Are you giving up control -- or are you changing how you control it? The magnetic timeline has its physics, and if you need to change them, can't you just move the clip in question in or out of the primary as required? Wouldn't that be more or less the same as making a complicated track-based selection?

As for speed, I would think that there could be some gains if you spend a lot of time moving sections around in time; you still have to make the trims after an edit as you would in FCP7, but you don't have to make the initial selections every time.

Then again, I only know what I need -- I have no idea how it would impact your specific workflow.

I would have thought, though, that clip connections, especially with SFX, were practically made for you. For example:

[Chris Harlan] "The sfx of the hand grenade pin being pulled still has to be cut and placed back where it was taken from to rest under the transition that precedes the clip you just pulled."

Connect the pin pull to the right frame of the visual once, and you never need to think about that SFX's placement again.

This goes back a bit to Oliver's original question: is there a structure that you can use in your project that will minimize the amount of timeline acrobatics you have to do?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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