Retraining...

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Don't get me wrong. I'm trying to poo all over the software. I'm very curious about it; it's very affordable, and it's also basically the only Mac option left since Adobe went all subscription-y on us. I just don't know what the big deal with metadata is for the kind of project I describe above of the short films I make. Documentaries or something, sure, but not all of us work on things like that.

Once you start using the metadata, even on simple projects, you'll find ways to use it productively. A lecture with slide inserts and an extra camera is relatively simple on it's own but if you have a day's worth of it from different lectures, the metadata can be utilized in several different ways to help you keep track of media efficiently.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

I keep hearing about this magical metadata functionality. Is this really that important/big of a deal if youre NOT doing long form projects where you need to find random bits of footage? Much of my work is corporate presentations where people lecture for an hour+ at a time, and i will edit in powerpoint slides, sometimes cut between two cams, cut out the garbage (5 minute coughing fit, lectern catches on fire has to be put out, raccoons run off with the projector, etc.), tweak audio to even out levels, minor color correction if needed. Do you think fcpx can speed up THOSE types of projects compared to 7?

It's not just that big a deal. It's MORE than that big a deal.

Welding a truly functional database onto range selection and persistent tagging where the USER gets to create the keywords and buckets at will is nothing less than transformational as an organizational tool for editing if you can teach yourself how to use it well.

It not only lets you select things. it lets you rate them, sort them, call them up instantly with keyword search and generally lets you created "ordered stores" of assets that you can call up instantly to build the projects you want to build.

And no, it's NOT just if you have complex projects. I use X exclusively now to edit my radio and TV Voiceovers. It's not that they're complex at all. I might have 5 paragraphs per spot - and I might have done just 5 takes of spot when laying down the reads. With X, I can simply go back through those 25 takes and use X's database to rate them by quality - and only when each has been judged against all the others and a series of all the paragraph takes has been refined down to the absolute best - I can then assemble a nearly finished "perfect spot" from my highest rated takes with a SINGLE keystroke. That's just a tiny, tiny example of how the database can work for a simple process.

Learning to use X is (in part) a process of learning to understand that you can save a thousand judgement ideas done prior to ever going to the timeline - and codify those judgements into persistent tags into the Event Browser. And once you do that you're so much freer to test and swap and alternate and perfect your edit, because so very much of the editing penalties of old style versioning are just gone.

A well constructed Event Browser arrangement with proper tags that fit YOUR editing style, is kinda like having a magic genie that sits on your shoulder bringing any and every clip you decide you might wish to use instantly to your hand when you're editing.

It's flat out wonderful. IMO.

Well, it's wonderful UNLESS someone tries to use it like their old NLE and just starts hacking away in the timeline like we've been editing for decades. If you do that, then you'll learn that you can make X nearly as dull as the other NLEs out there. I know, because I see people doing that all the time. It's annoying. It's like watching someone take a power screwdriver - only to lock the bit and twist it just like a manual one. It so misses the point of the tool.

FWIW.

[Josh Bass]

Hmm. The way you describe it makes it sound like how Walter Murch (famous editor guy) talks about his editing process in his book, where he watches literally all the footage from a movie he's working on making notes on where the strong parts etc. are in each take.

Sounds like you're basically talking about doing a lot of your "editing" while logging/reviewing footage, rather swapping stuff in and out of the timeline.

I could see how that would be useful, but on the other hand one could assume, with a degree of likelihood, using your example, that the 5th/last take of each of those 5 spots was the best one (hence why you stopped after 5), and try to use as much as you could of each of those 5th takes, only going to another to look for a word/line here or there where there are imperfections on take 5.

I say this because what time you save not screwing around in the timeline, you might use up anyway logging 25 takes with that level of detail.

[Bill Davis]

The whole point of X is that it gives you the OPTION of using the database to mark anything you range select in anyway you like.

Imagine you're reviewing the two hours of footage for Scene 213 of your movie. On shooting day seven, during the afternoon, you were doing 2-shots of the boy and girl having an argument. While you were checking focus, the craft service team announced they had fresh, warm doughnuts available. So you have a fabulous shot of her looking puzzled, then struggling with the decision whether or not to risk the extra calories - then deeply sad that she has to say no to the doughnuts. The shot is wonderful by accident. In X? BINGO. You tag it "Jane" (the character) "Sad" (the emotional tone) and Slap FIVE exclaimation points on it as your secret TAG that you have a killer shot here.

From the moment you do this - you OWN that shot. No matter where it was, you can instantly bring it to your edit. So that's one little way the database in X can help you.

Now lets look at a totally different use.

You set up to record a political speech. You roll camera. And the first 10 full minutes of the gig, the politician spends doing the obligatory "I'd like to acknowledge Councilman Flurburgen, First selectwoman Cheezeducken, and the fundraising help I've received from the United Pillow Fluffers of America.... on and on... You KNOW that you're NEVER going to want to use this crap, it's a waste of your time. You came to shoot the speech content, not the introductions. So you REJECT the intro crap with the dashboard Tag in X. Filter to Hide Rejected - and from that moment on (unless you go back to willfully remove the Hide Rejected filter) you NEVER have to even think about that useless intro material again - it's like you never shot it.

Those are just two tiny, tiny examples of how having a robust range tagging database built into your editing system can make your work easier. The "cost" is that you have to use the system enough to know what's possible. But, honestly it's like learning any industrial language. The learning necessarily presceeds using the language for helping you get your work done. But without the language, getting work done is harder. You can take five minutes to describe the shape, location and characteristics of a light - or you can build a working system where you know the language and start thinking "I'll need at least two Kino's on this shoot"

One is much, MUCH more efficient than the other.

X is built to let you develop your own organizational structure, your own "language" if you will - around your digital assets. That's one reason why it's so damn fast to edit with once you truly learn it. The tools are just frankly amazing if you've never had something like it before.

That it's also so cheap to own, runs on modern lightweight hardware like laptops so well, and Apple is so obviously committed to building it into a modern editing monster - all that's the icing on the cake, IMO.

[Steven Davis]

So far, one of my biggest gripes is the audio editing. Coming from Vegas which has a very strong audio GUI, FCPX is cumbersome, having to split this, go back and forth do add envelopes. That's why it still feels like something for Youtubers than something someone would use for complex technical audio/video editing.

Just my opinion. I hope Apple gives it some steroids, because it's good for some of my projects, I'd like to make the transition one day, but they'll have to streamline somethings.

[Josh Bass]

That all does sound neat, but again, the time tradeoff sounds like a six of one situation to me. Where you spend time "the new way" I would probably spend as much or a similar amount the old way (finding the boring speech footage, marking it rejected, messing with filters, vs dropping the whole clip in the timeline, finding where the "real" speech begins, razor everything before it, delete).

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

That all does sound neat, but again, the time tradeoff sounds like a six of one situation to me. Where you spend time "the new way" I would probably spend as much or a similar amount the old way (finding the boring speech footage, marking it rejected, messing with filters, vs dropping the whole clip in the timeline, finding where the "real" speech begins, razor everything before it, delete).

That's not how it works in FCPX unless you insist on doing it this way.