 |
|
 |
| FORUMS | TUTORIALS | MAGAZINE | STOCKYARD | VIDEOS | PODCASTS | EVENTS | SERVICES | NEWSLETTER | NEWS | BLOGS |
|
FCPX: Didn't We Ask for This?
Here it is. I like FCPX. I'll be honest; I have been looking for something similar but not equal to FCPX for a very long time...Something that's fast, accessible, deep, modern and most of all usable. Something that allows me to search for my footage by text, by sight and sound, or by physical location within the software, and perhaps some combination of all of those methods. A tool that keeps better track of my footage, that allows my footage to be everywhere and nowhere, or both. Where a shot can mean this and that, not just this or that, or perhaps this and that and those. Where I don't have to make a physical duplicate and move it to another location when I want to express my description of that shot. I have a huge pool of data, why would I want to walk down the hall to get a snippet of it when I can jump right in the pool and grab the exact piece that I want? I guess, I was searching for the existentialist NLE. FCPX is not quite there, and we as users don't know if it ever will be quite there. Nonetheless, I like a lot of what I see today. When talking about FCPX, the greater topics of philosophy, ethics, religion, personal well-being, the time space continuum, the consequence of true and real change, the past, the present, the future and, of course, our collective video careers, are often touched upon. I invite you to read the FCPX forums here at the COW to gain a greater sense of how people might feel about it if you have not frequented them lately. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, and there are many holes to fill, but I want FCPX to succeed. I really do. It is with this in mind, I want to spend some time focusing on what I like about FCPX, today. I'm sure you have heard it before. The speed of FCPX is remarkable, particularly in comparison to FCP Legacy, and for that matter other NLEs. Here are a couple of ways that FCPX has some serious speed and it's not all about rendering:
 Please click above for larger image
 Please click above for larger image  Please click above for larger image This, of course, was very preliminary "bucket" style organizing where I was relegating all shots to certain "bins" or as FCPX calls them, keyword collections. You can select a bunch of clips, add a keyword (command-k) and type that keyword which then becomes its own keyboard shortcut. When you come across another clip that fits that collection, you simply type in this new keyword. It's ultra fast.   Digging a little deeper, you can then start to organize favorite parts of your clips, and then hit a key command (the "f" key) to mark a favorite.  Please click above for larger image You can also show all clips, show the favorites, hide rejected ones, and show unrated/key-worded clips.  On an initial organization, I really like the "show unrated clips." If you click the event in the browser which essentially shows you all of your imported clips, and start with "show unrated" by hitting control-x, then you will eventually run out of clips.  It is at this point you know that all of your clips are then organized in bins, or keyword collections. I know there has been a lot of blow back about the loss of the legacy bins, and some blow back about metadata in general. I have a few thoughts on that.  I completely understand that everyone works differently. I understand that everyone might have their own methods, but to me, while this method is different, it produces the utmost in flexibility. I find keyword collections to be a much faster and smart way of organizing than a traditional bin system. If you think bins are the "only" way to organize your footage, then keyword collections can essentially be a bin. There is a limitation in that you can't have a bin within a bin. But you can make a folder, and then put multiple keyword collections in the folder, which will then be similar to a bin within a bin.As an editor, and an organized editor at that, I find it hard to believe that more people aren't embracing the organizational capabilities within FCPX. It allows you to be ultra organized, or ultra disorganized but the footage is still very easily accessible. I am going to go out on a limb and say I find FCP Legacy's browser to be somewhat of a nuisance. Yes, you heard that correctly. With FCP Legacy, I was meticulous about naming clips. This way, I could open a bin at a glance in list view, and make choices about what to choose before watching any footage just by the name of the clip. If you weren't organized and were handed a project that was poorly organized (or had 1000s of clips with default names such as MVI_0894.mov or 0039EX.mov), you had to watch everything by double clicking in to the viewer, then go back to the browser to adjust names, then back to the viewer, mark ins/outs or marker ranges, then back to the browser to name those or make subclips from them. You could also use the icon view, but for me and my style of thinking, it really isn't much help. It could point you in the right direction, but it's nowhere near as useful, truly useful, as FCPX's skimming feature. With FCPX, I can open a keyword collection, or even an entire event for that matter, and start skimming. I am less concerned about clip names, more concerned with images. If I know exactly what I need I can also type in a keyword or any number of searchable metadata fields and have these clips show up instantly. As I mentioned, I have been waiting for something like this for a long while; finding clips by sight/sound, text or location. This feature, and the framework around it, is really very helpful to me. Not only is it helpful, this process is fast and fluid, allowing me to focus on the edit and not fight the interface as I would often do in the FCP Legacy browser. Focusing on the edit brings me to the magnetic timeline, and its speed or lack thereof. Is the magnetic timeline fast? I have to say, sometimes, and the more I use it the faster I get. Trimming is really, really fast, even when you have to expand the audio and video with control-s. The keyboard shortcuts that basically drive the application make FCPX very fast as well. They are fully and totally customizable to suit your needs (command-option-k).  Please click above for larger image A good thing to keep in mind with the magnetic timeline, is that it does change the way you might think about the relationships formed between clips in a timeline. In FCP Legacy and other NLEs, the tracks are what physically kept things related. While SFX might go in a certain audio track, titles might go in another video track. This horizontal relationship is completely different and redefined in FCPX. What is more prominent and permanent in FCPX is the vertical relationships. This means that B-roll clips, or certain audio effects, graphics, text, or audio clips are tied to a main clip (which in and of itself could be video, audio or an empty clip known as a gap). At first, this concept seemed a bit foreign. After working, really working, with edits and clips, it actually starts to make sense. More often than not, sections or scenes have vertical relationships, rather than horizontal relationships. When I want to move a scene or reorder clips and all that come attached with it, I can grab the relevant clips in the primary storyline of FCPX and move it. Everything comes along for the ride and when I arrive at the new position, the rest of the clips make room and adjust for their new neighbors. Horizontal relationships are now user defined instead of track defined. If you need clips to have a horizontal relationship (dissolve to one another outside of the primary storyline for example) you can create a secondary storyline that will create a horizontal relationship, or join them with a compound clip which can combine both horizontal and vertical relationships. These are quick keystrokes that once learned, come in very handy to define what it is you need the clip relationship to be. The magnetic timeline helps to keep other scenes in sync, and allows me to keep working and focus on the part of the timeline I am editing, not the parts that I am not. Yes, it is different. Yes, it does take some getting used to. And yes, it needs fine tuning, but I do think after practice that this is a pretty cool feature. Beyond the speed in FCPX, here are a few of the other features that I find extremely useful. The timeline index is really, really cool.  It is a list of all of the clips in the timeline in a vertical, top down organization. The top is the beginning of the timeline, the bottom is the end. As you play through the timeline, the index follows along. You can also use the index to select multiple clips in the timeline (by shift or command clicking) and then double clicking an effect from the Effects Browser and add an effect to all of those selected clips. I would love to see more capability come to the index, such as the ability to list all effects and remove them all if you'd like, or remove only a certain effect. I could also see this becoming a place to assign organizational metadata for exporting to multiple audio channel Quicktime movies. Perhaps someday this index might be printable or exportable to a PDF to have a shot list + thumbnails for producers/clients that might require one. The audio effects in FCPX are truly a joy to work with. It is the best of Soundtrack Pro, right in the timeline. This made me very happy when I starting using these real time GUI filters.  After all of these truly useful features, FCPX is still not my dream come true. There is a lot of work to be done, and like it or not, that work resides with Apple. It is up to the Apple developers to shore up the foundation, fix any bugs, while also providing for more features that editors need to use everyday. Right now, these features mostly have to do with connectivity with other applications, processes and hardware. But all is not lost. Just recently, an Applescript was released by foolcolor.net called foolcut (http://www.foolcolor.net/foolcut). It takes your FCPX timeline and transfers it over to Adobe After Effects. It was originally designed to work with R3D QT proxy movies generated by RedCineX or other programs and conform them back to the raw R3D in After Effects, but it will work with any media that is available in FCPX. This is done with scripting and no API. I hope this bodes well for the future when third party developers can get their hands on a true programming interface. Even though I am excited about this news, it brings me to my biggest complaint with FCPX. My biggest gripe with FCPX is the lack of native digital media format support. It is time to realize that the world is not a Quicktime world, and hasn't been for some time, and that's OK! There are new and high quality digital interchange formats that are designed for the exact purpose of exchanging video and audio data. FCPX needs to embrace the non-Quicktime wrapped formats (MXF, R3D, MTS, etc) and allow for direct access to these audio and video essences, instead of wrapping them in yet another proprietary format. I also think that FCPX should allow for more digital output formats. If FCPX is signifying the rush of tapeless and digital evolution, then I say let's really go for it. We can handle this responsibility. In buying this software, I have taken my part of the responsibility head on, which is to say, I am learning this program. In the meantime, I wait very patiently for signs of updates. I hope that Apple will fulfill their side of the deal that they have publicly mentioned in their FAQ and truly make this worthy of the name Final Cut Pro, as I do see some very positive and welcome change in this program. Thanks for reading. Jeremy Garchow Residing in Chicago, IL, Jeremy Garchow (JeremyG to the herd) has been in and around the production industry his whole life. Many of Jeremy's family members work in corporate event planning and production and Jeremy was fortunate enough to tag along to some of these events as a young child. He believes that during these trips, his interest and inspiration for getting into production first began to sprout. He's been working very hard on his production career for the past decade starting out in college as a part time edit's assist, a lucky position at a reasonably young age. After asking all the questions he could possibly ask and sitting behind an editor for the better part of three years, Jeremy was promoted to Editor after completing a BA from DePaul University. Upon moving on to his current digs at Maday Productions, Inc, Jeremy has been working on high end corporate communication pieces, commercials and promotional material for clients like Harley - Davidson and also local spots for Chicago based businesses. Jeremy also completed a documentary headed up by a budding Chicago producer for PBS in late 2006. Recent productions include videos for GE (corporate), Harley-Davidson (corporate/commercial/promotional), Kellogg's (corporate), Home Depot Supply (corporate), Wilson Golf (corporate/commercial/promotional) and the National Runaway Switchboard (Promotional).
Comments •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reply
Like
FORUMS • TUTORIALS • MAGAZINE • STOCKYARD • VIDEOS • PODCASTS • EVENTS • SERVICES • NEWSLETTER • NEWS • BLOGS
[Top]
