New blog post from Philip Hodgetts. Worth the read.

[Jeremy Garchow] "X greatly streamlines the organization and prep phases, even getting to the first cut. Ironically, finishing is a slower process as the control isn't quite there yet, and learning the new interface will cause some slow downs as we learn more and more efficiencies. I do find the first "80%" does go much faster, though.
"

Since when was the act of editing a slice and dice best answered by a tool that does the three quarters tomato chopping and dicing?

how great a tool is that?

what in gods name? is the last 20%? useless? or the last 10%? or the last 5%?

remember here - that is defending utilitarian editing - on some level so does bill. although bill just appears to hate good editors more.

neither really care that this is brain damaged editing brought on to the main stage by cupertino - a crowd who couldn't care if editing, design, craft or our entire community died by fire.

cupertino are the people being defended - not the software - cupertino - a group of people who would collectively sell your mother, her dog, and the dogs kennel down the river to make a single dollar.

that is apple. they only exist to make money. they have no other prerogative.

this - for once and for all - is not a professional piece of kit, its not meant to be, and amazingly it bears no relation to professional software. the metaphors are moronic, it is completely beholden to imovie, its not particularly well made, nobody in the horrible professional sphere can touch it - this software does not exist. The events are from iphoto, the magnetic timeline is from imovie, I'm really asking -

what. are. we. doing. here?

This software is not realistically discussed or employed professionally. Not on any scale anywhere. Its not. FCP is dead and we are left having a weird , truly heartfelt conversation courtesy of a black sociopathic fruit company that would see us all burn without a single blink.

everything else aside, apple are not good people.

Apple are not a good company. they are more than able to act in the psychological manner of every other modern corporation.

they lack empathy.

Apple are, in no way unusually, collectively, and as america's biggest company, in the fashion of our times - sociopaths/psycopaths.

Apple became sociopaths a while ago.

It's why we're all so confused, we remember a lesser apple, it had smaller blood - but as corporations are/are not people - scale breeds psycopaths.

apples regard to duty of care for editing is near psychopathic in its complete disdain.

they have no emotional core. If they had a dog, it could be burnt in front of them and editing software is, relatively, a piece of toilet paper.

Apple are near flat out sociopaths at least. As an individual in operation, we are dealing with a sociopath. no empathy, no memory.

Apple are bad people.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Bill Davis] " I was reminded of once when I did precisely the same thing, carelessly describing a young persons behavior as "psychotic" only to be pulled aside by a very upset 14-year old schoolmate of my sons who was upset because his father had, in fact, just been diagnosed as precisely that — and it was tearing their family to shreds.)"

Fortunately there are not too many 14 year olds on this forum, at least not chronologically. Just how PC do we have to be here? Can we no longer say something is "sick" because someone might have a family member with an illness, I can't call something "idiotic" because someone's dead Dad was an idiot and it brings up bad feelings - wait I can't mention dead Dads then either, can I?

Bill, your post is crazier than Andreas's and at least he had the advantage of being drunk when he wrote it. As for your situation with your son's friend - the problem wasn't that you used the word "psychotic," the problem is that the kid's dad was ill. Nothing you said caused it, nothing you don't say will make him feel better. Sometimes the world just sucks.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Andreas Kiel] ""Bill, your post is crazier than Andreas's"

What was crazy on my last post????????"

Apologies, I mean to say Aindreas.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Bill Davis] "But it's equally true that some people still value dated concepts like "manners""

Bad manners would be talking about a subject after someone asks you not to. Self censoring yourself without a specific cause seems a bit daffy to me.

[Bill Davis] "That was my "lesson" when I screwed up with that kid. I wasn't trying to - but I made him feel crappy (or better by being able to vent on me, who knows!)"

I've thought a lot about that story and about what I should have added but didn't, so now here goes.

Let's look at the situation: Your son had a 14 year old friend who's family was in trouble. Until you provoked him, with your wicked tongue, you were unaware of the situation. Being unaware you were unable to help in any way whatsoever. The kid was very brave and talked to you about his feelings (unfortunately most kids would not have the courage.) You had the normal reaction, the one that I would have had, you felt guilty. But what purpose does the guilt do - it serves to move the focus away from the kid and his problems and onto you and your feelings. As so often, guilt is a destructive bitch. But anyhow, what is the end result of your lack of so called "manners" - the kid got to tell you about his troubles, venting his feelings, and putting you in a situation where you could now reach out and help, even if only to be more aware of him whenever you saw him. A total victory for crudeness in speech.

to quote Procul Harum (something I do perhaps more frequently than I should) -

Write it down,
It might be read.
Nothing's better left unsaid.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

ignore me - that spew was a back from the pub rant at apple after having ranted with editors in the pub about apple.

I was pushing the 'corporations if psychologically analysed, are found to be sociopaths' line.. quite hard reading back on it there.


http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher] "what. are. we. doing. here?
"

Editing, on our end.

Right, the perfect NLE for a sick world.
That's why I don't need FCPX: At this point on life the only pressure I allows comes from my self.
I'm not hired because I can do it faster, but because I can do it better.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Jeremy Garchow] " What if people hire you because you can do it better, but then pressure you to get it done faster? Do you simply say no?"

Yes. If they want better...if they hired me for better...they need to know that it takes time to make "better." Want to save money? Hire an assistant editor to bring in the footage and organize it. They are cheaper.

Quality comes with a price. If they want it, they need to give us what we need.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Shane Ross] "THEY need to change...not us."

Good luck with that. How about standing on the beach and asking the tide not to come in?

[Jeremy Garchow] "THEY need to change...not us."

I wish it were that easy. For some reason, I just don't see things going back to the way they once were."

Then they will get crap from us. If they don't give us time, they get crap. They want better, they need to give us time. If they want to throw 80 hours of every format under the sun at us and expect a polished rough cut (meaning full audio pass) in a week, there is something wrong with them. And if they keep pushing, I won't work for them. I work for people who are realistic, and won't push me, the editor, to working 12 hour days and weekends. Sorry, I like my family.

And really...this "budgets getting smaller" thing is getting out of hand. They aren't getting THAT much smaller. Companies just have a lot of overhead...the producers don't want to take pay cuts even though they are hiring editors for less and less. And more often they are pouring most of the budget into production (Shoot RED! Shoot ALEXA! Get a huge grip truck!) leaving post with peanuts...so we are asked to do the same value in less time.

And if they do that...those many formats...I'll use Premiere Pro. Because it handles them, and still works like a professional editing app. The basics of making an edit are there.

And just because FCX is faster, doesn't mean that it is the right tool. It still cannot do a lot of what I need done. Yeah yeah...wait until the next major version. Whatever. The editing paradigm in employs doesn't work for me. They broke something that worked.

If they keep pushing for faster, they are going to just keep getting "good enough" or crap. And I am not going there.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Franz Bieberkopf] "Have you really never negotiated on points of schedule?"

Sometimes you can't. Of course we try and make it the best of all worlds, but it's hardly ever an ideal world.

Who the hell is telling stories? I suppose some are editing documentaries, or dramas, but for the rest of us it's probably corporate communication, commercials, event video, etc. and while I think it's all art, telling stories or storyteller always seemed kinda like a ridiculous term. The director would probably be more of the storyteller in many of the instances that actually qualify anyway.

Sorry. Semantics I guess. I don't see commercials, corporate communication, or sitcoms for that matter as "stories." That doesn't mean I don't think it's intrinsically artistic at all or that any type of editing is more artistic that the other. Often I feel that the "make something out of nothing" corporate crap is the most challenging. Obviously something well thought out and planned before it ever hits my desk is the easiest and garners the most praise, yet the storytelling essentially writes itself. I guess I see a lot of what I do as an editor as communicating. And the art is in the clear presentation of the message. But hey, if thats a story, so be it. I just think as of late "editing" has been replaced with "storytelling" a bit too often like it's the catchy new buzzword.

[Christian Schumacher] "Where were you in the last six months? When Apple's new paradigm was introduced, even a cat sleeping on a couch has become a "storyline" and it is considered an "event". Want to add a dream sequence over it?
That's on a "secondary storyline"...And so on...Forget any titles though, better add them on youtube."

I guess you're not quite over the "let me be clever and wrap some ill-thought dismissal in poor argument" era.

Can I join you and be equally dismissive of the conventions that, in Avid (or Vegas, or Legacy) everything is reduced to being a "track?" (A thing that shows something has passed by learning nothing save an impression in the dust - and certainly nothing of value — behind?)

Or are you suggesting that interface designers must re-tag their interface with precision descriptors like "insert dream sequence" so that the user can comfortably do precisely that?

; )

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor

[Christian Schumacher] "You can complain as much as you want, but I don't think that my simple poor argument on a forum could be in anyway, more dismissive -and important- than to what Apple have managed to accomplish to have done to date, specially by attempting to re-invent those very known conventions. You're looking up to the mothership way too much."

Good or bad, Apple are in the business of re-inventing conventions, someone has to at least try and shake things up a bit.

"My Name is Steve and I'm an FCPX user"

[Steve Connor] "Good or bad, Apple are in the business of re-inventing conventions, someone has to at least try and shake things up a bit."

This whole "shake things up a bit" argument has always sounded a little silly to me. If you want to shake things up I would suggest a good wood roller coaster - the Cyclone in Coney Island would do nicely for that.

Successful companies seek to make useful products, and if they've made a useful product they try to make it better. I don't think Apple was trying to shake things up - they already knew what they had, they had tested the UI on Imovie. They were simply trying to redefine their market - out with the upper 5%, in with the theoretical hordes of new users for their simplified workflow.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Bill Davis] "It's popular to think it's aimed at the iMovie crowd, but if you'd have spent any serious time with it, you'd know how silly that sounds. "

Odd...seeing the two very recent posts saying how useful FCX was in furthering projects started in iMovie. It is for the crowd that wants just a little bit more than iMovie allows.

*snicker*

Seriously...to have it "import from iMovie," and be so close to how iMovie looks and feels...I hardly see how that statement is "silly." It was made by the guy who made the most recent version of iMovie. So it was made by the guy who makes stuff for the iMovie crowd...and it even acts like iMovie.

[Bill Davis] "iMovie folks do not need a complex database in their NLE. They don't need 32 bit floating point math accuracy. They don't need or want clip collections, I/O paths to Motion or XML interchange."

Some do. A lot do. I have seen many many people move to FCP from iMovie because they want more than iMovie can provide...and then are lost because FCP doesn't act like iMovie. Well, now it does! WIN!

*snicker*

Yes, I am trolling now. I'll be honest.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

Bill -

The last line of my original post to Steve was "And even Bill Davis agrees with me on this", so I guess it was better that I cut it out.

[Bill Davis] "First, I think you nearly totally misunderstand the target market for FCP-X. It's popular to think it's aimed at the iMovie crowd, but if you'd have spent any serious time with it, you'd know how silly that sounds."

I never said it was meant for the Imovie crowd, I merely said that they had already tested the UI in Imovie and knew what they were trying to do.

Over and over you have stated that X is not meant for the top "whatever" percent of workfolows but for all the other professionals that make up the majority of video editors. You don't want it to handle too many cameras in multicam, you don't care if it can't handle markers without bloating file size, the list goes on and on about all the things you don't want Apple engineers to bother with because it will take time way from the features that suit you, and by extension, the vast majority of professional video editors. I was merely agreeing with you here by saying Apple's marketing is aimed at editors like you and away from editors like me. Are you now in a position where you will disagree with yourself in order to disagree with me?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Bill Davis] "world of tomorrow"

[Bill Davis] " If some future rev of X can help"

[Bill Davis] "I still think there are massive shifts taking place out there"

Can you feel it, Bill?

[Walter Soyka] "And wait a minute -- are you suggesting that FCPX might be better suited than other NLEs for our brave new world, and that this might confer some advantages onto its users? Weren't you just trying to school me last week about how irrelevant the tool is when you have talent?"

Yeah, I actually think that right now, it is. It was the first of the "majors" to strip down the code to what's needed for the largest common group of editing functions. Unlike the folks here who keep asking "how will it let me work with the sound department, it acknowledges that the vast majority of editors don't HAVE a sound department. Or a dedicated color correction professional. Or a compression team. They just want quality tools to get their day to day projects done to a solid, professional standard - which in most cases means a quality picture, clear sound, and engaging graphics - the tools for the creation of which are solidly built into X right now.

As to "schooling you" that's never my intent, Walter. You clearly don't need "schooling" from anyone. All I can do here is raise my small ruckus (they make wonderful pets) and tweak those who are hide-bound in their belief that the highway is the sole existing alternative to "their way."

And the tool is "irrelevant" only so far as you have access to a choice of tools. I've never argued that something ancillary to function - like form factor and portability - can't be a significant advantages to deployment and use. If that wasn't true, we would have seen generations of harmonica players lugging pipe organs to concerts. The point is that X as it stands is a very sweet combo of tight code (making the app store deployment reasonable), solid capability, and laptop-friendly performance. There are other similar tools, but I'm comfortable with it's place in the editing choice firmament - and am enjoying it's use. Simple as that.

[Walter Soyka] "Further, how does a change from push to pull consumption actually change the production process? Isn't there still value in a production process that collects raw assets, curates them, and presents them meaningfully for consumption?"

Yes, but that's one of the places my thinking is evolving. I'm considering that "an edit" might not be the same as I've considered it throughout my career. It's always been a thing with a "finished state" like a painting on the wall. But we're all seeing the "screenification" of the physical world. Where bars, galleries, offices and yes, connected people toting smart phones and iPads are increasing in numbers. Right now, most of the content they consume is "fixed" at the point they purchase and consume it. I'm just dreaming of some possible "drift" towards a world where, like an RSS feed, a news channel loop, or the constantly updating screen at the information desk where it might be beneficial if you could "curate" conent over time more easily than finishing, publishing a file, and then serving that as a packetized fixed resource for update. I see some potential for that in X, outside the traditional video screen drivers like Watchout or it's brethren. That intrigues me. And I do think that X has some tools - represented by the Project Library and it's dynamic connection to whatever changes are made in the Primary Storyline that might cause it to become useful for tasks like that over time. They're not fully formed right now. But I think the pipes are in place. That simple ability to "scrub" through projects in the Project Library is a fine example. It's a new kind of "quick display link" right into the timeline. A single button "refresh to Vimeo" macro with email notification is about all it would take to turn that into something that updates a cadre of clients with one click. Tha'ts probably not transformative. But it is interesting in a product with such a modest entry point.


[Walter Soyka] "Since you're seeing big benefits from FCPX for your business, I'm curious about your opinion on that 4x claim: has FCPX let you complete your work 200% to 400% faster? Can you get what used to be a two-week job done in between a half-week and a single week?"

Maybe. I'm not totally comfortable quantifying it in that way - tho I certainly understand why Phillip noted that. In my experience, the change from Legacy to X has mostly enabled me to dive more fully into the editorial process quickly. Where before I was always waiting for composited assets to render (the big weakness in Legacy) X stripped that away. I think I noted the visceral annoyance I felt after I used X for a couple of projects than went back to Legacy. It was truly annoying. And I didn't expect that. Since then, i think I've maybe launched Legacy twice to look at older projects. I've found NO reason to go back to it for a project so far. But I know that's just me. Other people with other project profiles will surely find plenty of reasons to do that. Folks already working in Premier or other "background rendering capable" apps might not notice such a big change. But for me, it was palpable. Also, I have to say that because it turned out to be so "laptop capable" it changed my work habits literally overnight. I seldom did rough cuts or worked out ideas in the field even tho I had Legacy on my laptop for years. Capture scratch management was a part of that, as doing "reconnect media" and "proxy" work wasn't particularly satisfying to me on the road.

The X process with disk images seems to me much more slick and psychologically penalty-free since it feels like I'm working with full-rez files on the road and the work I'm doing there is "finalizable" in a way that my workflow wan't in Legacy.

But that might just be a reflection of the fact that I developed my workflows starting in 1999 with FCP-Version 1 back when it could barely handle DV and drive storage and firewire 400 were seriously limiting factors in a laptop world. So i'm not any kind of test case for a FCP "power user." It's never represented more than perhaps a fifth of my work since as primarily as a producer with full project responsibility for so many years, editing came to be ONE thing I did - not the main thing.

All I know is that the convergence of my i7 MacBook Pro - Installation of X - and having put in the better part of two years trasnitioning from shooting big Sony Shoulder Form cameras to shooting a 5d - was a pretty powerful convergence all at one time - and one that still seems to be paying off for me in increased image quality and low equipment overhead - while providing me the ability to produce finished project results that my clients seem to appreciate.

I know that many folks here are exclusively "editors" but, I've been doing my "end to end" production for close to 20 years now. From writing scripts to delivering finished programs. And FCP-X is part of my current tool package for precisely the same reason I relied on Sony Cameras for the first 15 years of my work. They just work well every day with few hassles. I consider FCP-X to be in the same class. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I was trying to edit TV shows on deadline. But I'm not. And I think my type of work is likely more typical of the 2 million FCP legacy seats than the guys upset because they can't interchange properly with an outside color correction team.

Simple as that.

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor

"[Bill Davis] "...towards a new world where video is just another form of data. And organizing it, searching for it, and manipulating it, may actually become as important as "editing it""
[Herb Sevush]
"... what else is there?"
Hi
GPS data, date/time data, copyright data, sticky production metadata. etc etc
YouTube type online video libraries would be far more effective resources with that type of 'something else' inherent in the data - to facilitate the edit, and using 'combined/linked clips' timeline methods to identify groups of clips and assets to keep track of any particular batch of the uncut assets.
It would certainly help Ridley Scott with his 80,000 clip/4,500hr projects, with another ongoing... ;-)

In the past film/video libraries required droves of librarians trained in bespoke databases (and superhuman memory feats) to service the old school 'editing' fraternity.

FCPX isn't there yet, but its likely streets ahead of MC and PP in this respect.

[Jeremy Garchow] "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."

I agree that metadata is incredibly useful. I've probably made the axe-sharpening analogy here a dozen times. Properly tagging footage with metadata is the editorial equivalent of sharpening the axe. It requires a long period of time upfront before you get any results, but once it's done, the tree falls quickly and the process as a whole should be shorter.

That said, in my mind, actually assembling the footage from tagged footage and a paper edit isn't the hard, time-consuming, or valuable part. Tagging the footage and actually creating the paper edit is.

PrEdit and First Cuts require someone to associate correct and meaningful metadata with the clips before they can return useable results. You can't just hand them a pile of footage and hit the "Make Magic" button. (At least not in the current versions... IBM hasn't brought Watson to Hollywood yet.)

This may save days in the edit bay, but it doesn't save days in the context of the entire production. It kicks the can for organization and shot selection away from the editor and back toward a producer or writer; it doesn't eliminate the need for someone actually watching and evaluating the footage.

There may be nothing wrong with that. It may save people a lot of money by letting them do things themselves they used to have to hire an editor to do.

On the other hand, you may be asking the editor to step out of the creative cut. You may not be allocating tasks to the ones best equipped to handle them. You may not be getting the best results possible in a given budget and timeframe.

I think that metadata is very valuable in post-production, but I don't think that the metadata-driven workflow you're describing fundamentally alters the process; it just shifts responsibilities around.

Am I missing something?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka] "I think that metadata is very valuable in post-production, but I don't think that the metadata-driven workflow you're describing fundamentally alters the process; it just shifts responsibilities around.

Am I missing something?"

No - you are entirely correct

"My Name is Steve and I'm an FCPX user"

Jeremy -

When you get your paper edits from your clients, is it labeled in metadata or in time code?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow] ""When you get your paper edits from your clients, is it labeled in metadata or in time code?"

Trick question. It's one in the same."

I wasn't trying to be tricky, I'm just asking if your clients are part of your metadata tagging, or are they relying on time code (a specific type of metadata) to communicate their intent to you.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow] "Show me someone who says that FCPX isn't faster, and I'll show you someone who's spent about 15 minutes with it, or is trying to make it work like other software. FCPX is incredibly fast at organizing huge swaths of data, extremely easily. You can save those sorts for later, or not. I can't tell you how much faster it is, I have never timed it, but from experience, it is simply faster."

I agree! I wasn't comparing the FCPX workflow to the FCP7 workflow; I was just saying that preparation takes time upfront, but makes the process better and faster overall. Editing without reviewing (and logging) the footage is like chopping a tree down with a dull axe. You'll see earlier signs of progress, but it'll take a longer time and more effort to get the tree down.

I'm pro-metadata. It's my third favorite feature in FCPX (after the imaging engine and the skimmer). It's not that useful for me, because I'm not doing creative editorial very often anymore -- I'm finishing and adding effects -- but I would have loved to have had it when I was doing creative editorial every day. I had to rely on tons of subclips and ridiculous naming conventions to get a poor approximation of the sort of metadata that's available today in FCPX. These features would have made my life a lot easier.

Whether we tag clips with great discipline or just try to commit them to memory, the part about actually associating metadata (either formally or informally) is vital to the process and still requires someone to actually watch and log the footage.


[Jeremy Garchow] "FOr instance, a current project I am working on consists of about 30 hours of interviews on two camera (so double that in real time). We have to go through the 30 hours of footage when we receive a paper edit from the client. I would much rather feed it in to a system than have me go through and sort all 30 hours of material."

What are you calling a paper edit? Are we talking about different things?

I used to get paper edits with reels and timecode of selects. I didn't have to sort 30 hours of material to assemble the paper edit; I just opened up the reels, set the in and out point, and added it to the program.


[Jeremy Garchow] "I think you might be misunderstanding, This isn't shot selection. That is my argument. The shot selection comes later, which I still have to watch and organize while creating 1.5 hour paper edit assemblies from 30(60) hours of interviews. FCPX will not help you find the right shot. That is the job of the editor, but as you watch the footage and tag it, it will help you "refind" the right shot later. This time saving is then compounded across the project (which is why it makes it hard to run a stop watch and find out just how much faster it is). And THIS here is another reason why metadata is important (and makes things easier/faster)."

Again, I don't think we're using the term paper edit the same way. The whole point of the paper edits I used to get was to produce a stringout of selects and reduce editorial time by shifting it to production management time.

I agree that metadata pays dividends in re-finding the right shot later in the edit. It's letting computers manage data, which is what they're good at -- it's faster, but it's not new or fundamentally different from the old-fashioned way of writing down timecodes. The difference between searching FCPX and searching a good XLS log or DAM is minimal; the difference between searching anything and not having formal metadata to search in the first place is huge.

There's a lot of metadata that never makes it out of the logger's head and into the notes (whether paper or electronic). Metadata is not a substitute for actually watching and knowing the footage. Knowing the footage isn't a responsibility I'd want to give up as a creative editor.

When I'm finishing someone else's creative edit, I generally don't care -- I rarely even have access to anything but the edit and maybe some handles.


[Jeremy Garchow] "Also, as the project gets older, and more time passes (and perhaps more projects are worked in the meantime) a data search and sort becomes more and more valuable and allows me to reacquaint myself with the footage much more quickly than sorting through a ton of bins/sequences."

Again, agreed -- but managing metadata is not new. The ability to do that directly within the NLE is. I do think this helps us be faster, but I don't think it quarters the amount of time needed to do a project.


[Jeremy Garchow] "Look at it this way. Does tapeless acquisition save you time, or does it simply time shift the acquisition and subsequent archive of the footage? Would you rather go back to tape? Where is saving time important?"

An ironic example. I used to use capture time to get familiar with the footage.


[Jeremy Garchow] "If that also includes giving me more time to be more creative as I'm doing less monkey work, then call it what you want."

The time crunch trend that Philip was referring to goes somewhat along these lines: as soon as you deliver "good enough" in less time than you needed before, you set a new, harder expectation for delivery times. Cutting out monkey work will not free up time for you to do better work for long; it'll shorten the amount of time you're allowed before final delivery is expected.

It's a vicious cycle, and you can't break it from within. The only solution is to step outside the cycle, manage the process, and guide expectations better.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

Just to be clear. Again. This is not about shot selection or "knowing" the footage. This is about the computers making certain parts of your job easier/faster.


[Walter Soyka] "Whether we tag clips with great discipline or just try to commit them to memory, the part about actually associating metadata (either formally or informally) is vital to the process and still requires someone to actually watch and log the footage."

Does it rally take that much time for a cursory organization? Yes, you have to watch the footage, and tag it, but if I know these 17 clips are "Interview 01" to get me started, what else do I need on day1?

[Walter Soyka] "What are you calling a paper edit? Are we talking about different things?"

Using my example, the paper edit was a list of selects in "content buckets" in a bit of an order. It's a rough cut, on paper with timecodes.

[Walter Soyka] "The difference between searching FCPX and searching a good XLS log or DAM is minimal;"

I disagree. It's in fcpx, immediately accessible for edit, instead of sifting through another application only to send over part of what you want, not exactly what you want. Assts Managers are great, but for quick hit editorial, not really.

[Walter Soyka] "Again, I don't think we're using the term paper edit the same way. The whole point of the paper edits I used to get was to produce a stringout of selects and reduce editorial time by shifting it to production management time."

Ok. But when you receive that paper edit, it's edit time.

[Walter Soyka] "The time crunch trend that Philip was referring to goes somewhat along these lines: as soon as you deliver "good enough" in less time than you needed before, you set a new, harder expectation for delivery times. Cutting out monkey work will not free up time for you to do better work for long; it'll shorten the amount of time you're allowed before final delivery is expected."

From my perspective, I don't agree. I do agree that the time it takes to watch footage is real time, but in all cases do you have to watch it all immediately?

And what about metadata in production? Panasonic has a wifi camera that lets you log while shooting, basically giving a rudimentary preorganized shoot to editors. That cuts prep time down even more.

The monkey work that the computer does is more time for me to address the real time duties. Like Herb said, you can't shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?

[Jeremy Garchow] "Like Herb said, you can't shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?"

Oooppppss! My apologies Jeremy, I thought you wee referring to an earlier post about doing sketches for Saturday Nite Live. I realize now your referring to my little post about a fictional Pro and Ed. Disregard everything I just said, my bad.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow] "Just to be clear. Again. This is not about shot selection or "knowing" the footage. This is about the computers making certain parts of your job easier/faster."

And that's the part I agree with.


[Jeremy Garchow] "Does it rally take that much time for a cursory organization? Yes, you have to watch the footage, and tag it, but if I know these 17 clips are "Interview 01" to get me started, what else do I need on day1?"

No, it doesn't take much time for cursory organization.

You don't get much value out of cursory organization, either.


[Walter Soyka] "The difference between searching FCPX and searching a good XLS log or DAM is minimal;"

[Jeremy Garchow] "I disagree. It's in fcpx, immediately accessible for edit, instead of sifting through another application only to send over part of what you want, not exactly what you want. Assts Managers are great, but for quick hit editorial, not really."

Fair, but again, I was trying to compare working with metadata across apps to not having metadata at all. Of course it's faster to not have to change contexts. I'm not arguing against that!

FCPX adding metadata is a big deal, and it's significant. I'm not trying to downplay that.

And what are we really talking about here? Aren't we talking about automating editorial to save time?

Whether it's a computer making a rule-based edit based on encoded metadata or a person making an intuitive edit based on their memory, or anything in between, the foundation is the same: what's in the footage? That's where metadata helps.

I'm saying that it takes time -- significant time -- to create valuable and meaningful metadata, which can then actually save time later when you're actually cutting. I'd consider both of these tasks to be part of editorial today. Do you disagree?


[Jeremy Garchow] "And what about metadata in production? Panasonic has a wifi camera that lets you log while shooting, basically giving a rudimentary preorganized shoot to editors. That cuts prep time down even more. The monkey work that the computer does is more time for me to address the real time duties. Like Herb said, you can't shoot and edit a film sketch in a day, but could you a tapeless sketch?"

My argument here against a technological solution to the time crunch is that it's not permanent. You won't get to keep the time you've saved. The production will take it back.

If enhanced metadata can cut a day of editorial off a week-long project, you don't get to keep that day to make your project better. As soon as you only need until Thursday to deliver what you used to deliver on Friday, Thursday becomes your new deadline.

I am really not arguing against metadata. It's a good thing. We need more of it, and we need more tools like FCPX that can use it.

I'm arguing that metadata is not a sustainable solution to the "not enough time" problem. I'm arguing that there is no technological solution to that problem, because (Soyka's Law) "expectations rise at the same rate as capabilities."

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow] "Without an editor watching one single frame, the show is extremely and roughly put together as written. It obviously won't stay that way, as things start to get fleshed out it might all change, but days and days of organization/prep was saved right there. It's not that crazy. Editors will still have a very important role, no question, but asking for more time won't be in our vocabulary for much longer."

Interesting argument. If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like you're proposing metadata as a way to potentially automate the manual work an assistant editor would do. Following Walter's argument, the assistant's task would shift to entering the metadata. Is this the basic idea?

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Jeremy Garchow] "Looking on the bright side of this, if your deadline is Friday, and you're done shooting the Friday before, instead of having three prep days and four edit days, you might have six edit days."

Maybe, it depends how much task overlap you'll be able to squeeze. I'm with Walter in that those three prep days still need to happen at some point. It's a question of when and who does it.

Also,

[Jeremy Garchow] "You feed fcpx or an application a final script with scenes, fcpx then lays out the entire script by scene (which of course the order could be user defined), and each scene now has an audition clip of all the takes per scene sorted by rating."

AVID ScriptSync has been doing something like this for years now so the concept isn't new or unique to FCPX.

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] "Maybe, it depends how much task overlap you'll be able to squeeze. I'm with Walter in that those three prep days still need to happen at some point. It's a question of when and who does it."

[Jeremy Garchow] "I disagree."

Jeremy, where do you see the time savings happening?

I understand that FCPX lets you manage metadata more easily than other NLEs -- but if you're depending on that metadata for your edit, isn't any time saved from entering metadata offset by the increased volume and granularity of metadata you'd need to enter?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow] "Even entering rudimentary data is much more simple and fast in FCPX. It's also flexible and most importantly easy to retrieve. FCP X moves faster than FCP7. It reminds me of using P2 Flow which was a metadata tee up to 7. I could definitely organize a shoot in minutes which would have taken hours in FCP7 including import time. (Name, angle, job#, Location, Scene, take, and other things)."

I believe that.


[Jeremy Garchow] "As far as granularity, sure, that might slow the whole thing down as it would with anything, but since FCPX is so dynamic in it's data presentation, it works more quickly, and that's my opinion. It's extremely hard to quantify, and it's really hard to defend, especially when someone says "prove it". All the bin searching and double clicks add up when compared to a scrubbing of a refined search. My answer to prove it is, "it just does". I can't answer for Philip, though."

You're claiming it's faster, and saying you can't quantify how much. That's fair.

If you had made a specific and quantified claim, like getting comparable work done in a quarter of the time, why would it be hard to prove or at least describe in greater detail? You'd know that you did a job last week on FCP7 that took 20 hours, and you'd know that doing a similar job this week on FCPX only took you 5 hours. I'm curious about the nature of the work and where the phenomenal speed increase came from. Aren't you?

I'm not trying to be a jerk (which is probably how I'm coming across). I know that this isn't even Philip's own claim -- he's reporting what he's heard from others -- but if it's quantifiable, it's provable, and if it's true, it's an incredibly important contribution to the conversation here.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Jeremy Garchow] "Here, I'll give you one. Being able to work natively with h264/AVCHD footage is way more than four times as fast, it's probably 20-30 times faster, but that shouldn't count. Naming and organizing clips before/during/after import is another. It's the efficiencies of skimming, not moving tracks around, no clip collisions, basically everything that some people hate about the magnetic timeline that serves efficiency, is really hard to time and therefore prove, but it does make things go faster. As the blog post said 80% of the edit, 80% of the time."

I get that it's hard to time any individual step, especially since there is not a 1:1 correspondence between tasks in FCP7 and FCPX.

However, it's very doable to time a project from start to finish, which is presumably what's behind this line: "As near as I can tell these people are doing the same sort of work on Final Cut Pro X as they were on Final Cut Pro 7 and finding that they get to a result from twice as fast to four times as fast. Twice as fast to four times as fast!"

If a new tool make you four times as productive, presumably you'd have some insight into the nature of the gains. Again, I am not making this up, "four times as fast" is a quote; PH assumes "twice as fast" later in the post for the sake of argument, but he did make four references to 4x or 400% in the article.

It's not that I believe this is utterly impossible -- it's that I want to understand it better, because that kind of productivity gain is simply stunning.

If you can only get the same results 2x to 4x as fast in certain situations, let's talk about what those situations are. If you can get the same results 2x to 4x as fast in virtually any situation, let's talk about that too, and then even the most hateful of haters would switch.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[David Lawrence] " "Maybe, it depends how much task overlap you'll be able to squeeze. I'm with Walter in that those three prep days still need to happen at some point. It's a question of when and who does it.""

[Jeremy Garchow] "I disagree."

[Jeremy Garchow] "FOr instance, a current project I am working on consists of about 30 hours of interviews on two camera (so double that in real time). We have to go through the 30 hours of footage when we receive a paper edit from the client. I would much rather feed it in to a system than have me go through and sort all 30 hours of material. "

OK, so how does metadata tagging help transcribe that 30 hours of interviews? Somebody has to listen it to it, log it and select from it. For the types of shows I typically work on, that's always a critical and time consuming part of the process. How do FCPX's organizational tools change this?

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[Jeremy Garchow] "Sorry, I'm beginning to lose you. It's my fault.

We have a transcription service.

The method I am proposing is theoretical. You are also mixing the two different projects I talked about today, one interview based, and one scene/take based."

Not your fault, I was combining ideas from a couple examples as a shortcut to get at what I see as the core issue that this thread has raised. Apologies for the confusion.

I think it boils down to the question of how much of the editorial process can be automated vs how much will always require human judgement. I agree that flexible metadata in an NLE is a good thing. What I'm highly skeptical about is the notion that it cuts the post-production timeframe in half or more, as claimed in the Hodgetts article. I'm with Walter in wanting to see the proof.

I'm also skeptical of metadata driven auto assembly. Sure, maybe as a first pass instead of an assistant's manual assembly. But to do anything good beyond that, there's never a substitute for knowing the material. Knowing the material takes time. Less time, less likelihood that the very best material will always be known and used. I don't see this dynamic changing anytime soon.

[Jeremy Garchow] "Anything else we should over analyze today?"

LOL, this thread is awfully long, isn't it?

_______________________
David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] " Less time, less likelihood that the very best material will always be known and used. I don't see this dynamic changing anytime soon."

"DEREK MCCANTS: Yeh, and because of that in reality there’s less ownership for the editor. It used to be that an editor would do an episode. Now there’s three or four editors – maybe five – are working on the same episode to get it done."

[Jeremy Garchow] "Now, let's just say that we used a camera that was able to wirelessly metalog on set. Scene, take, reel, and some other general information. "

Can FCPX access the scene and take metadata that you can create using a KiPro? Legacy can't and it's somewhat frustrating to know the info is there and it can't be used. Right now Legacy can only access reel#, timecode and clip name, which can be composed of the scene and take metadata, but you can't sort or search independent of clip name.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
---------------------------
nothin' attached to nothin'
"Deciding the spine is the process of editing" F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush] "Can FCPX access the scene and take metadata that you can create using a KiPro? "

By the way, the Scene take info in the KiPro does not get saved to Quicktime as Quicktime doesn't have that field.

If the KiPro generated an XML you could import to legacy, the information would get transferred.

[Herb Sevush] "How about Apple doing something useful and actually improving Quicktime itself."

I think they did my moving to AV Foundation. ;)

[Herb Sevush] "But how does that help acquisition."

By making all the acquisition folks decide to incorporate DNxHD and MXF ;-)

- Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Herb Sevush] "You can't shoot in AV Foundation, your often still creating Quicktime elements, and with that all the limitations that go with it, or am I missing something?"

Not at all.

If the KiPro wrote an XML, you'd be fine. The Arri Alexa (and other cameras) write separate files that describe the shots within which then get mapped to FCP fields.

Right now FCPX even ignores Reel fields which are, in fact, in the Quicktime movie.

[Walter Soyka] "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"

What is a week worth of work when it comes to post? Isn't that the challenge in this whole scenario?

Is it a weeks worth of work, or do you have a week to do it?

[Walter Soyka] "He's saying by using FCPX instead of FCP7, you can get the same results in only a quarter of the time!"

I thought he said, he had hard twice to four times as fast, then said, let's call it twice as fast.

I never said it was 2x-4x fast for me, but maybe that's just me.

Even twice as fast is bold, but we would have to start from beginning to end on a project. I have not done that so it's hard to quantify for me. For me, it just is faster at a lot of tasks, Being able to use imported footage for one, organization/finding/viewing footage for two, previewing effects for three, text for four. I have no idea if that adds up to 2x as fast, but it's all much faster.

[Walter Soyka] "Incidentally, this prediction on FCPX uptake cannot fail unless Apple pulls FCPX from the market. FCPX's market share started at zero. Nowhere to go but up!"

How very astute!

[Jeremy Garchow] "Ok, let's break this down to a tv show."

I think in this whole break down you are making some incorrect assumptions about workflow.

1. A film is never cut according to "best" takes decided on set. When I deliver a "first assembly" it is almost never made up completely of the "circle" takes. I have made my own judgement calls about what I think is best and that's not always what was picked on set or location. Sometimes I'll use pieces of all takes to build a scene, because an actor might have been better at the beginning of a "bad" take than in the supposed "best" take.

2. If an assistant has to load info anyway, then from the editor's POV, both systems are equal. It may be faster for the assistant, but it's irrelevant for the editor. Unfortunately there's no way to know, because collaborative editing - as is possible in Media Composer, Lightworks or FCP 7 - is all but impossible in FCP X.

3. Not all scene/take data is always entered. If you are going from the written script supervisor's notes, then that is already sorted out for you. Simply pick your favorites or subclip then - either way, one NLE is about as fast as the other.

4. If you are working on a film show, a lot of the scene/take info was already organized by the colorist. If you get an ALE or an XML, then no need to re-enter it. Many digital shows still go through a telecine process so the workflow is the same.

5. If the editor wants to use Avid's ScriptSync, then FCP 7 or FCP X are completely inadequate. Although ScriptSync requires some assistant prep work before editing can begin, it has one distinct advantage over all other NLEs. You can click on a line of dialogue in a bin (script text is displayed) and all coverage can be reviewed for that line of dialogue, even though it occurs within the body of each media clip.

The reason to view all the footage is not to generate a bunch of metadata, it's to make creative editorial decisions based on camera work and acting performances. One NLE isn't going to make this any faster than another. It's just whether you like one mode of organization or another.

- Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow] "With Audition clips, you could have everything sorted, or sorted by rating"

Then every clip in the timeline for an edited scene would have to be an audition clip.

[Jeremy Garchow] "Load info? Meaning footage? Metadata? All of the above?"

All of the above.

[Jeremy Garchow] "What if in order to meet this deadline, it had to be? If people want to move faster, they better use the tools to do so."

Then that means imposing a rather inflexible and closed method of organization that not everyone agrees is better nor that they want.

[Jeremy Garchow] "OK, so does it come in edited by scene with all the clips stacked in a timeline? Or do you have to still go through and organize those clips?"

When an XML or ALE file is used, that gives you clip name, scene/take, synced audio, TC, reel number, etc. You can certainly organize as you want, but there's no speed lost to manual data entry. The trouble with relying on this based on electronic data entry on location, is that invariably it's wrong. I frequently get P2 clips where the clip long name is incorrect, because the operator never set it right on the shoot. Or it was never updated after Day 1 of a shoot. The less you expect the crew to do the better off you are as an editor. They have their hands full and cameras like RED have made that exponentially worse.

[Jeremy Garchow] "Similar to soundbite, sorta kinda, but without the in app text and direct interaction. yes, ScriptSync is proprietary, so if you want to use it, you have to use Avid."

Not really similar to SoundBite at all. SB is like PhraseFind. It's a search tool. SB, PF and SS are all based on Nexidia's dialogue search engine. The script-based editing part of Avid has been in Media Composer for years and doesn't require Nexidia's proprietary engine. The paid option part of it, makes the dialogue analysis and sync-to-text automatic, but it can be done manually by the editor or assistant. But yes, script-based editing is only available on Avids because it's IP they own based on acquiring IP from Cinedco. The lined-script editing concept dates back to EdiFlex (Cinedco) in the late-80s/early-90s.

- Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow] "That was what I proposed, maybe you missed it."

No, I didn't miss it. I just don't see it as practical. Think of how much of a RAM hog this becomes. Not to mention the human interaction required to set this up.

[Jeremy Garchow] "I have talked about how loading footage and adding metadata is really easy in FCPX"

I know you are arguing that it's faster. It is when you stick to the limitations imposed by FCP X. Take for example custom notes. You can copy & paste these as groups in FCP 7 but not FCP X. Even the act of typing in custom info is slower in FCP X because every time you click on a clip the filmstrip has to be updated. That type of manual entry cannot be handled through metadata and is slower in FCP X.

[Jeremy Garchow] "Throw us editors a bone. At least give me scene/take. I don't see how attaching scene/take to clips is a closed form of organization"

Too bad FCP X can't actually read it. For example XML files from Alexa or Pomfort.

[Jeremy Garchow] "For now. Or do you think they are done developing it?"

Linking clips to an on-screen script is IP that belongs to Avid. As far as further development of SB... Who knows? No point in discussing unknowns, but I highly doubt much more effort will be put into it. The economics are faulty. I question whether enough FCP 7 - much less FCP X - users will buy SB. Most don't have a clue what it can do and think it's too expensive because they view it in the context of plug-in pricing. The nice thing is that it isn't dependent on FCP, which is good. Banking any product or workflow on Apple is a bit of a gamble. Most of the developers who survived from the FCP "legacy" ecosystem were sent scrambling when FCP X came out, as most of their sales tanked.

- Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Oliver Peters] "[Jeremy Garchow] "Throw us editors a bone. At least give me scene/take. I don't see how attaching scene/take to clips is a closed form of organization"

Too bad FCP X can't actually read it. For example XML files from Alexa or Pomfort."

I should add (again), that P2 scene/take and other metadata material does come in, as FCP X reads the P2 XML. So the capability seems to be in the application, it just doesn't seem to be available to the world yet.

Jeremy

[Walter Soyka] "(Soyka's Law) "expectations rise at the same rate as capabilities."

Well said! "Soyka's Law" is a keeper.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Mont Sherar] "VERY well said!"

Mont,

Unless you use the "q" button to quote the person you're talking about, as I did above, no one on the forum will have any idea what the heck you're referring to.

Here are the Cow instructions: To include any portion of the post in your response, highlight the desired text and hit the "Q" key.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
http://www.drwfilms.com

Don't miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing "The Whale" to the Big Screen:
http://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfit...

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

[Christian Schumacher] "our conventions that agreeably have endured over a hundred years. "

Uh....

I'm confused as to which "conventions" your talking about?" TV was only developed in the late 40s' early 50s. Are you talking movies? Are you saying that somehow "cut on the action" or "dissolve implies passage of time" traditions that might have vaguely sorta been around since the magic lantern era can't be done with FCP-X?

Heck, I'll spot you 70 of those 100 years. If you can name an edit function that's been around for even that long that FCP-X can't do quite handily, I'll bow to your wisdom. But I don't believe you can. So your original post was simply more hyperbole, IMO.

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor

[Shane Ross] "That shows how little you know about our world. The editor needs to be a skilled storyteller too. It is a collaboration. The director isn't in the bay just telling us what to do. We edit the footage without them there, and then they come in and give us notes."

But Shane,

That's just your experience.

Personally, I've seen so many possible permutations of what a client considers "an editor" or "a director" or "a producer" that I gave up on a single, easy to categorize definition decades ago.

It's anything from a deeply experienced pro who understands the possibilities and limitations that makes them effective in whichever hat they're wearing at the moment - to the idiot nephew of the financing party - who's given the "title" to keep them out of the way.

I've seen "editors" who are truly just button pushers who look to the director for approval every 5 seconds, and editors where it's obvious after 2 minutes in their suite that by far the best "direction" you can give them is to leave for a 4 hour coffee break to get out of their brains and let them do what they do really well.

The real issue, is that while good ones (most likely like you) are a joy - the reality is that with the economic downturn and gutting of the ranks of developing talent (everyone who was filtered-up out of the newbies and given raises to keep them around were also the first ones the "cost cutters" booted to cut costs) has caused a BIG gap in talent in the entire industry.

Want to find the experienced 45 years olds in this market who WERE the soul of creative industries like ours? Order a pizza. The chance is it will be delivered by a guy in that age group who can't find work in whatever they've been getting good at for the past 20 years.

That, IMO, is the hidden crisis in our industry. That original vision of a cadre of "pro editors" in shops all around the planet ready to help the newbies and provide the wisdom to run the new tools? D-E-C-I-M-A-T-E-D.

I'd actually be interested in hearing from the facility guys here. Ignore the "boss" and the managers and just look at the guys in the seats that comprise your editing crew - now estimate their median age. I'd be curious as to whether it's greater than or less than the average age of pizza delivery guys today.

Weird world we live in.

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor

With respect, I have a little problem with Bill's put-down. Narrow credentialism is a plague of our age, just IMHO of course.

"So Monsieur Fermat, what would you know about mathematics? Where's your Ph.D? Exactly. You're just an ****ing lawyer."

How far up the greasy corporate pole might Steve Jobs, sans MBA, have got? Indeed, how far even he had had one?

I modestly suggest that Aindreas has made a contribution worthy of consideration.

My interest is in how Apple has junked some conventional rules of marketing and strategy. HIgh-end products exist largely to motivate the aspirational segment. The girl who buys a Hermes scarf is very likely to aware of the Kelly bag, and to hope that someone some day will give her one. It has been said that the only reason BMW produces the 3-series is to make buyers want a 5-series. Do Canon and Nikon make their money from their top-of-the-line cameras? No, but buyers of compacts know that these are the brands on the big boys' cameras. And consider mavens, usually thought important. Where are the mavens going to come from for FCPX?

In terms of strategy, it is conventionally thought important to have a place at the top table of an industry, or at least not throw it away. I don't know of course, but it would surprise me if Steve had not worked the phones, and called in more than a few favors when Avid attempted to cease Mac development. Do you think Apple is in as good a position to do that now, if Avid and Adobe pull the plug on Macs? Who expects howls of protest from Hollywood producers next time?

A problem Apple faces is its size. It is hard to make decent returns on huge capital. But do you think there is a sustainable competitive advantage in, ah, gadgets? Samsung seems to have an idea on how to deal with it:

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2011/12/16/samsung-uses-the-court-procedures-vs...

[Herb Sevush] "[John Joyce] "Where are the mavens going to come from for FCPX?"

Doesn't Bill Davis qualify?"

:-)
FWIW

[Bill Davis] "The only thing I bring to the party is an almost pathological intolerance for one-sidedness."

Absolutely hilarious!!!

Are you trying to be funny Bill, or is this just accidental?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
http://www.drwfilms.com

Don't miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing "The Whale" to the Big Screen:
http://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfit...

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

I definitely have to cut fast. No question. I work in an extremely deadline driven business. What I don't get from reading Hodgetts' article is how FCP X will make my work go faster. The only thing I really get from reading his article is that he might not fully understand how to optimize FCP 7 for speed.

[Chris Harlan] "I definitely have to cut fast. No question. I work in an extremely deadline driven business. What I don't get from reading Hodgetts' article is how FCP X will make my work go faster. The only thing I really get from reading his article is that he might not fully understand how to optimize FCP 7 for speed.
"

How much have you played with FCPX at this point? How about PPro or any other NLE?

There's only so much you can do to "speed up" or optimize fcp7 and let's be realistic, fcp7 is not a very fast NLE, except in XML transfers.

Sure, if you have a few supported .movs to import, that's one thing.

But tens of hours of tapeless formats that must be transcoded is another.

There are certain areas in which FCPX falls flat on its face (which all stem mostly around interchnage), but as a self contained editor where you don't need much interaction with the outside world, it is much much faster than legacy feature for feature.

Just curious Chris, but do you ever start from zero on any projects? Meaning, you are given a hard drive of 500GBs of raw footage and audio that you need to prep and organize?

[Chris Harlan] "FCP X? Only a little at this point, and just out of curiosity. I just can't justify the time until someone makes a good argument about how it will fit successfully into my work flow."

Completely understandable.

[Chris Harlan] "Not PPro. But I've been a paid editor on almost all other NLEs. Some still exist. Some do not."

But have you taken a look around recently or has it been all FCP7 all the time? Just wondering, not judging. I work with FCP7 most of the time, too. FCPX is still in testing for us at this point, but I do try and kick the tires every day if I can. I just added PPro to the list as well, alas there's only so much time in the day!

[Chris Harlan] "One thing I should say is that I do use long developed editorial practices and procedures--for instance, turning bugs or certain filters off while editing, or leaving items I'm not working on un-rendered--but from what I'm reading in the the Techniques forum, background rendering and gfx creep seem to be adding their own bug-a-boos to FCP X."

Yes, but it's much much better than FCP7. FCP7 without effects/text is fine, once you start adding even the little effects, things get much slower. FCPX offers much more real time support, and I might get some flak for this, but sometimes it feels like sketching. Also, green screen work is pretty damn sweet in FCPX, even if it's just for an offline. Doing this in FCP7 is a chore. Straight editing in FCP7 with ProRes files is fine, though.

[Chris Harlan] "If I'm working on a trailer with a heavy deadline, I can cut from locked picture off of an Avid dump on DVCproHD, and than easily replace it with final picture using almost every other existing NLE, except FCP X. "

As I said, it falls flat on it's face for interchange. That's not what I mean when I say feature for feature. FCPX as of right now, is a bit of an island. So, feature for feature (and removing the huge duty of interchange) I am talking about import, organize, edit, fx, text, audio and color, all finishing right in the application. I understand that conform to another master file like we have talked about with your workflow doesn't work with FCPX at this time. I am talking about starting from scratch with camera raw and building a story, using those files to finish. This is something I can get closer to doing in X than I can with FCP7.

[Chris Harlan] "The very fact that it lacks tracks, bins to organize, no way to have multiple sequences open make it much, much slower for many people. "

Well, it certainly works differently. It does take some getting used to, no question. There are ways to do everything you mentioned here, but there are no bins or tabbed sequences, yet there are functions to mimic those very things. I am not saying it's perfect or works the same, but you can't expect FCPX to work like FCP7 because it doesn't. I can understand if people don't want to get used to that fact. It's a big point of contention, and some people like the new UI, some don't.

In my younger days, people used to say that M100 works "the way I think" when compared to FCP the younger (version 2 and 3). Well, in certain ways, FCPX does this for me, especially in the organizational phase. Of course, it won't work for everyone that way, and Philip Hodgetts says that X is not for everyone either.

[Chris Harlan] "Not as often as I like, because I seem to have become niched and highly specialized, which has its rewards but also its distinct drawbacks. I've got a documentary I'm working on right now--right now being a relative term, in that it is a long process--about NC, Andrew, and Jaimie Wyeth. I also start occasional film promos from dailies or dumps of dailies.

Of course scratch can mean something else, as well:

My current promo project takes up a little under 3 TB in source, not including access to my SFX library (made up of four other full libraries). I expect this to get a bit larger, though not by much--maybe another TB at most. There are only about 400-500 source files in the project--not including SFX--so the number is small, but 40-50 of those files are 42+ Min long, and need to be prepped by removing unnecessary audio channels and then converted into multiple selects timelines that act as bins. So, what I lose in sheer number, I make up for in time and attention.

So, the answer is yes in both respects.

Again, Jeremy, I do not doubt that FCP X has its advantages. I don't doubt that there are many people for whom it is the best choice. I only take exception because PH seemed to be arguing that FCP X was a better solution for the world I work in, and--to me--that is clearly not the case."

Absolutely. Thanks for that. I think Ph is offering X has certain strengths to help speed up certain workflows, even though it's not quite there yet.

[Chris Harlan] " No disrespect to PH; I just think he's gotten himself caught up in a whirlwind as an evangelist/apologist, and it is perhaps difficult for him to get perspective."

Philip can certainly defend himself, but in my discussions with him, Philip is a great believer in the power of metadata, as his Assisted Editing products attest. I think that's where he sees the speed - Smart Collections, Keywords, etc. IOW the automatic tagging versus manual entry of data. If you don't use those functions in any NLE, then I think a lot of the speed advantage is negated. FCP X is faster ONLY if you do things that are inherently slower in FCP 7 or MC.

- Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Chris Harlan] "Frankly, Jeremy, I generally find your tempered assessment of FCP X's virtues far more insightful and useful than PH's. No disrespect to PH; I just think he's gotten himself caught up in a whirlwind as an evangelist/apologist, and it is perhaps difficult for him to get perspective.""

[Jeremy Garchow] "Ha! I'm just a rather blogless dude who edits outside of Hollywood. Don't listen to me!!! ;-D Thank you, though."

I'll second Chris's statement.

I doubt I'd still be following this forum if it weren't for you and your contributions, Jeremy -- so thanks again for sharing your perspective. It is very valuable.


[Jeremy Garchow] "I do see where Philip is coming from, and he took it directly from real working editors talking about their jobs and the newer pressures within. This idea of having less time to do more is not from Philip, but from "the industry". I think he's rather balanced saying that it's not for everyone, but does seem to explain at least some of the FCPX approach."

Unfortunately, I don't think the time pressure the editors at Editors' Lounge discuss in the Vimeo links can be solved only with technology. I'd encourage everyone to actually watch (or listen to) to the video series that PH linked to. I don't think that his pro-FCPX response actually addresses the challenges that the editors raised.

Shooting ratios are up. Schedules are down. This is a terrible combination. Editors are expected to make good stories, but they have less time to review more footage. They are forced into making snap decisions about what shots to use and how to use them.

Sure, being able to skip transcode is good. Being able to tag footage so you could find it later would be good -- if there were time for that in the first place, which there isn't.

As much as I love the skimmer and metadata, even a perfectly implemented NLE will not watch your footage for you in the first place, and that's where the time crunch is hitting.

Another issue that PH seems to think that FCPX solves is that no one knows how to watch a rough cut anyone, so editors have to waste time unnecessarily polishing a work-in-progress. Whatever temp "finishing" (again, I'd call this veneering) work is done in the rough cut will be thrown out when the cut gets to the audio department or the colorist. Every minute that a creative editor spends doing temporary and fake finishing work for the sake of the rough cut is a minute taken away from their actual job, which is building the story. Whether you're on a compressed schedule or not, not letting the creative editor do their job is a real tragedy that reduces the quality of the final product.

I'll spare Bill from having to remind us about how many videos will never see dedicated audio or finishing post. While I don't disagree, I think the same problem exists here, too: if you're on a compressed schedule and you're doing finishing work before the piece is finished, you risk wasting time finishing pieces that will end up on the cutting room floor, and that time might have been better spent actually editing.

Back to this "FCPX is 200% to 400% faster" idea, supported by the notion that you can finish within the context of the edit, even Autodesk only claims that Smoke is 35% faster. They also actually back up the claim with some data [link].

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
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