Re: The Magnetic Timeline – What’s The Paradigm?

I don't think your being a jerk, at least not here, I find this interesting.

Your approach to these things has inevitably been a consequence of an interplay between your brain and the tools you've used. This is simply how humans function in the world.

True to a point, but since I started out working with 16mm film, rewinds, a viewer and a splicing block I would suggest that I was essentially tool-less.

It was the media itself that taught me. All you have to do is look at a bunch of film and mag track hanging in a bin and you begin to understand the essential un-connectedness of the editors job. it was only when I moved to "single system" tape, with audio physically attached to picture, with CMX style editing in which you basically could only move forward and never correct what already had been committed to tape, that the illusion of connections had to be overcome.

That was the great pleasure of NLE, the freedom of film, along with the freedom of not being tied to a finite work print, but instead given an infinite work print that could be pulled apart and reshaped endlessly. If you've ever had to search for a 3 frame clip in a bin or been stuck in an "on-line" tape session, you'd know what I mean.

So I would say that my approach has been shaped equally by both the essential nature of the media itself and the various tools I have already worked with.

Would I approach things differently if I grew up with FCPX - possibly, but I hope not.

"In other NLEs all of the tools are like the 'Position' tool, in that they cause the software to perform some particular low-level mechanical manipulation on the timeline. FCP X tries to provide tools that use the explicit shot relationships the editor conveys to the app to perform higher-level functions ..."

Yes, I get this exactly. It's just that I find this a serious flaw, while you find it a major advance.

If FCPX ever comes out with a multi-cam I can use, I'll give it an honest whirl, and I'll let the experience prove me wrong.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions