tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-301483272024-03-13T23:16:28.215-07:00Disproportionate PicturesThe random mutterings of Marcus R. MooreHoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-52243532419498329822017-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:002017-04-21T12:48:34.672-07:00ROLES REDUX: PART DEUX!!!!<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Way back in 2014, I wrote a couple of speculative articles on Roles in Final Cut Pro X.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the first article entitled ROLES, I detailed the challenge of organization in the current FCP 10.1 timeline, and how I thought Roles could provide a solution to the lack of traditional Tracks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the second article ROLES REDUX I went more in depth with Roles as an organizational tool- how they function and what improvements could be made to make assigning Roles faster and easier.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">SMASH CUT! to two years later. In October of 2016 Apple released Final Cut Pro 10.3- which along with a host of features and improvements, also added this feature—</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Needless to say I was surprised and delighted. As the old saying goes, “Great minds think alike”; or in this case it would probably be more apt to say, “Lesser minds like mine occasionally stumble onto ideas that greater minds have already thought of”. I’ll take what I can get!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Using 10.3 since it's release, I’m struck at how solid and well thought out Apple’s implementation is. Apple has really fulfilled the promise in the power of Roles on a lot of fronts.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Assigning Roles is easier across the board. Roles can now be assigned at the Import stage, and Apple have even added the ability to directly access iXML metadata from Audio Recorders , a feature only available previously via 3rd party apps like <b>Sync-N-Link X</b>. If you don’t have the benefit of on-set Role metadata, you can now assign Roles to individual or multiple selected clips in the Inspector. You also have access to assigning Subroles to individual Audio Components, which wasn’t possible without jumping thru some serious hoops in earlier versions of the application, or via round-tripping via the aforementioned Sync-N-Link X or <b>Role-O-Matic </b>by Charile Austin. Finally, Roles can be reassigned directly in the Project window, though there are some necessary restrictions on Audio Component reassignment for <i>Sync</i>, <i>Compound</i>, and <i>Multicam Clips</i>. But overall this is a MASSIVE improvement in workflow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And as for <b>Magnetic Timeline 2</b>? What can I say? All the power of the Final Cut Pro’s Magnetic Timeline, now with customizable organization structure. For a long time I fought with people who could not imagine the concept of audio organization without traditional Tracks. But once again we see that Final Cut Pro’s deeply embedded metadata foundations are the solution for long held analogue concepts. As I theorized back in 2014- if <i>Smart Collections</i> were the smarter, better answer to traditional bins; then Roles provides us with an infinitely superior and more fluid way to organize audio in the timeline, while at the same time retaining all the flexibility and "Picture First" ideology of the trackless timeline. Let’s take a look at how an edit from the show CANADA CREW (first edited in 10.2) looks when updated to 10.3.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Organization is not just possible now, but automatic and fluid. Properly tagged audio instantly arranges itself by Role/Subrole in the Project timeline. The new <i>Audio Lanes</i> can be arranged at will via the Timeline Index, allowing you to seamlessly re-arrange your audio landscape. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Additionally, <i>Role Focusing</i> allows you to quickly minimize all but the selected Role, so you can concentrate on the audio elements that are important, while not loosing track of the bigger picture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Next, Apple has created a new Roles HUD, which allows you to create, delete, name, rename, and combine Roles. And the great thing is, changes made here propagate Library wide- clip instances in both the Event Browser AND those already in edited Projects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, Roles now have customizable colours, making the elements of your audio soundscape clearly definable and easy to navigate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And all these improvements come with a very welcome UI overhaul, which flattens and simplifies the interface, putting the emphasis on the content, and bringing Final Cut Pro in line with Apple’s current design aesthetic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Whew! Well, now that that’s done, I guess we can all sit back and be happy forever, right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ok, who am I kidding…?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">When I wrote that first article, there were two aspect of Final Cut Pro that I thought Roles would be key to solving. First: organization. Second: improved audio mixing. Enter:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">ROLE COMPONENTS</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">One of the bigger changes to Final Cut Pro 10.3 was a fundamental restructuring of how Container Clips handle audio. Container clips include <b>Compound Clips</b>, <b>Sync Clips</b> and <b>Multicam Clips</b>- basically any kind of clip which is made up of other audio and video clips. If you Compound Clip a Project, instead of a simple stereo or surround mix-down, you now have access to Mixdowns of all the Roles in Compound Clip- Apple calls these "Role Components". Further, an option in the Inspector allows you to drill down even further to view individual Subroles. This gives you the ability to add audioFX and level adjustments to elements at the Subrole, Role, AND Master Mix level. This is really powerful and reveals just how much work has gone on behind the scenes from an audio standpoint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Role Components now visible when Project is nested in a Compound Clip.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">Apple's own WhitePaper on this, </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">Understanding Audio Roles in Final Cut Pro X</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">, goes much more in depth on this subject and I encourage people to read it (perhaps several times like I have).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From a practical standpoint, these enhancements make mixing in FCP X more flexible and powerful than ever before.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">THE CHALLENGE</span> (and why I don’t think this is the end of the road for Roles)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though the 10.3 improvements make mixing if Final Cut Pro X far more possible than before- I’ve been thinking about what enhancements could be made to take Roles even further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The key question is whether Mixing should be considered an <i>online</i> process, one that is only done after picture is locked, as it is when you export your sound to an audio engineer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The current solution of Compound Clipping to access Role and Subrole Components provides a lot of power and depth- with the new audio chain expanding the functionality Roles as buses, and Compound clips as mixes and sub-mixes. However, a series of consecutively nested Compound Clips can abstract the Project you’re mixing in from the one you’re editing in, making any potential editorial changes difficult.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While changes to a Project immediately filter down to it's Compound Clips, any key-framed effects or audio levels/pan adjustments added to the Compound Clips become disconnected from the timing of the edit, so if 1 second is added half way thru your Project; any keyframes in the Compound Clipped Project after that timing adjustment are now out of alignment by 1 second.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In-Line Project Role Components</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But what if mixing could be an organic part of the editorial process, allowing you to build a mix as the edit is evolving without fear of extra work if (when) the edit changes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With the addition of the <i>Audio Lanes</i> view of the <b>Magnetic Timeline 2</b>, Apple has shown a willingness to allow for alternate or advanced display modes for the Project view. So perhaps an additional function for "Display Role Components" can integrate the advanced mixing functionality currently available via Compound Clips directly into a single, combined Project view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In this proposed UI scenario, the display of Role Components (I've called these "Mixes" in the diagrams below) is integrated into the existing Project view, rather than requiring the Project to be nested within a Compound Clip. This would posit that a Project is inherently a Container Clip, and that there is simply no current way to view Role Components within the current user interface.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the purposes of demonstration, I’ve created an simplified Project view which allows us see the concepts I’m suggesting more easily. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Below is a sample Project containing <i>Video, Dialogue, Effects, and Music</i>. The Dialogue Role contains two Subroles [<i>Dialogue-1</i> and <i>Dialogue-2</i>].</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jKIfS6VnUls/WPpOiBp3UhI/AAAAAAAAAP0/8YIMEZTEPrUKV9tSCdy5y8RQquIhQagdQCK4B/s1600/RRPD-Sample_Existing3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jKIfS6VnUls/WPpOiBp3UhI/AAAAAAAAAP0/8YIMEZTEPrUKV9tSCdy5y8RQquIhQagdQCK4B/s400/RRPD-Sample_Existing3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Much like the new FCP 10.3 <i>Audio Lanes</i> view, a proposed <i>Role Component View</i> could be accessible via a new button added to the bottom of the Roles pane in the Timeline Index, which would allow you to toggle Role Components view ON/OFF.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Project Role Components Show/Hide toggle</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">When selected, a Role Component (or Mix) for each Role appears, and the original audio clips for each Role are minimized. I think it’s important to to see audio elements for context, so you never loose sight of what’s going on editorially. Additionally, a grey <i>Mixed Role Component</i> is added beneath the Primary Storyline, representing the sum "Master Mix" of all Roles in the Project.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BGFuc9MMuTs/WPpN6G4VgZI/AAAAAAAAAPo/HZ-FBcyocJouSH6mY3kR-_dgoUtFaWLmwCK4B/s1600/RRPD-Sample_RoleComponents3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BGFuc9MMuTs/WPpN6G4VgZI/AAAAAAAAAPo/HZ-FBcyocJouSH6mY3kR-_dgoUtFaWLmwCK4B/s400/RRPD-Sample_RoleComponents3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 10px;">Role Component view with collapsed clips beneath for context, and “Master Mix”.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">However, if you still need access to the full height audio clips for editing, you can expand the original clips by toggling the “Focus” button for a given Role in the Timeline Index.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f3Wh4f2K3eA/WPpPVakopAI/AAAAAAAAAQA/nDI6DeGkIpsIqD5SYDdt72S4D_2tWHxxwCK4B/s1600/RRPD-Sample_ClipsExpanded-Highlighted2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f3Wh4f2K3eA/WPpPVakopAI/AAAAAAAAAQA/nDI6DeGkIpsIqD5SYDdt72S4D_2tWHxxwCK4B/s400/RRPD-Sample_ClipsExpanded-Highlighted2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10px;">Role Component view audio for Effects-1 Subrole expanded.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">If you need to apply an effect to an entire Subrole, say the “Robot Voice Effect” to Dialogue-2 for example, you could activate Subrole Components in addition to Role Components, just as the current check-box option in the Inspector for Compound Clips. To maintain audio clip context, the individual clips could appear as faded elements in the Role Component container. You could still access and edit these clips, but if you drag an effect to the Subrole Container it will apply the effect to all the clips within the Subrole Mix.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 10px;">Subrole Components enabled for Dialogue-2.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Activating individual Subrole Components could done via a new button beside it's listing in the Roles Index, which also shows that Role Components are active across the Project. Here I've pillaged the existing "Mixdown" icon that appeared with </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrjt4j1ONb8/WPba_ZcVrQI/AAAAAAAAAPE/PseUratL99EGJPlt6-XzUOziywzUWZ-bgCK4B/s1600/RRPD-IndexRoleComponents1-Crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zrjt4j1ONb8/WPba_ZcVrQI/AAAAAAAAAPE/PseUratL99EGJPlt6-XzUOziywzUWZ-bgCK4B/s400/RRPD-IndexRoleComponents1-Crop.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: 9px;">I</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ndividual Subrole Component View [Dialogue-2 active]</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">During editing, you may want a mixed view- here's another visual of our Project with original clips for Music and Dialogue-1 expanded, collapsed for Effects-1, and Dialogue-2 in a Subrole Component.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tn8rtZx5dCk/WPpRa2LbAqI/AAAAAAAAAQs/MUXN38ynAoMrb7BGI6fd5LC7agt_pNH6QCK4B/s1600/RRPD-Sample_MixedView3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tn8rtZx5dCk/WPpRa2LbAqI/AAAAAAAAAQs/MUXN38ynAoMrb7BGI6fd5LC7agt_pNH6QCK4B/s400/RRPD-Sample_MixedView3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Mixed Role Component View with original Subrole clips for Dialogue-1 and Music-1</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>expanded,</i></span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">and Subrole Component for Dialogue-2 activated.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Regardless of whether Role/Subrole Components or their original clips are minimized, expanded, or hidden- Project audio would always play the result of the Master Mix. The exception being if you play a Clip, Role, Subrole, or individual Role Component via </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Clip Skimming</i><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">SUB-MIXES</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In scenarios where you might want to add volume adjustments or effects to a subset of components across multiple Roles, a <b>Mixed Role Component</b> is used to represent these "Sub-Mixes". A sub-mix could be an effect applied across an entire Project, or trimmed like a Compound Clip to be only a section of a Project; a scene or sequence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the following example, our two characters go into a cave. DIALOGUE and EFFECTS Roles need to be placed into a Mixed Role Component (or sub-mix) with an Echo effect added, while the non-diagetic music is unaffected. Keyframes added to the Mixed Role Component would indicate the amount of influence the audio effects of the sub-mix have on the assigned Role Components- fading the Echo effect up and down as the characters enter and leave the cave.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Selecting this sub-mix in the Project viewer shows which Roles or Subroles it is influencing, in much the same way that selecting a video clip highlights all it's attached audio components.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: 10px;">Mixed Role Component sub-mix adding Echo effect to Dialogue and Effects Roles.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Right-clicking on the sub-mix in the Project window allows you to add or remove additional Roles to that sub-mix. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Selecting a Role will assume you want the Sub-Mix to affect all Subroles, or you could select/deselect Subroles individually.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Modal Dialogue to assign Roles to Sub-Mix.</i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once a Sub-Mix is created, it is added to the list of Roles in the Timeline Index, where it could be named for easy identification, and you can see the list of Roles/Subroles that it's effecting. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mkq5dgSft6Q/WPbR8bLvIYI/AAAAAAAAAOc/1k7xi6JqbmI7-ddGvKQAEggOGob9m4zqwCK4B/s1600/RRPD-IndexRoles-Submix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mkq5dgSft6Q/WPbR8bLvIYI/AAAAAAAAAOc/1k7xi6JqbmI7-ddGvKQAEggOGob9m4zqwCK4B/s320/RRPD-IndexRoles-Submix.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Role Index showing Sub-Mix Mixed Role Component,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Expanded to show effected Roles.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">KEYFRAMES</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In a more integrated single-window mixing scenario, better audio keyframe selection and adjustment across multiple Role Components would be beneficial.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">In the current Compound Clip scenario, you can only select and move audio keyframes a single Role Component at a time.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">If the timing of an edit changes in a way which affects the timing of audio keyframes across an entire Project (for example, the extension of a clip by 1 second half way thru an edit), then the ability to range select keyframes across multiple Role Components would allow you to globally shift those keyframes to correct for any timing adjustments to the edit after Role Components have been created. Either using the mouse, or by entering a numeric adjustment value.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Alternatively, if Final Cut Pro was aware of the downstream relationship between a Project and it's Role Components, then it's possible that the program could make automatic timing adjustments to any Role Component audio keyframes after a given editorial adjustment.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">In the example below, 2 seconds is added to a clip at 15 seconds in the Primary Storyline. As a result, all Role Component keyframes after 15 seconds are shifted +2 seconds automatically. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>2 seconds added to Primary Storyline clip results in any keyframes for</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Dialogue and Music Role Components after the edit point being</i></span></div>
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<b style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: large;">WRAP UP</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If all this seems like more complication in the Project window... well it kinda is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Added functionality will naturally breed added complexity. But like with Audio Lanes in Final Cut Pro 10.3, that complexity is hidden from users who don't require it. Advanced </span>view-modes allows the Project view to scale with the user, from beginners with simple audio needs and a small number of elements, all the way up to complex mixes for final delivery.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This proposed integration of Role Components directly into the Project UI potentially allows for a single-window interface that makes mixing more integrated and fluid, while maintaining the benefit of Final Cut Pro X's trackless "video first" timeline.</span></div>
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In creating the visuals for this blog post, and thinking thru some of the concepts, I ended up making a short video that may give the text a bit more context. <br />
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Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-18186036547828035662016-04-29T13:10:00.004-07:002016-04-30T15:47:37.206-07:00Apple Motion: 3D for 2D<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Late in 2015 I had the opportunity to produce 2 spots for <i>Children’s Wish Foundation</i> in Canada. The process behind the visuals was a bit unique, so I thought I’d detail it here for those interested. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Motion is always a lot more verbose an application than people give it credit for. I'd wager it can do most of what a lot of editors are using After Effects for. Honestly I think the biggest thing holding it back is some key 3rd party support by the same plug-in makers that bring a lot of the muscle to the table in Ae. I’m looking at you, Trapcode and VideoCopilot!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The concepts behind the spots had been scripted and storyboarded during the Summer of 2015, with an eye to a handcrafted aesthetic. The mandate was for simple colours and textures, and we planned to animate the characters using pretty standard Forward Kinematic puppet techniques. Early on, we’d considered building backgrounds out of actual construction paper, but we realized we didn't have time for real-world construction. We also considered backgrounds built out of texture elements in Photoshop, but I was looking to add some extra pizazz to the design beyond a simple texture collage. Whatever route we took, at the time we were given the go ahead- we only had 3 weeks to produce both 30 seconds spots from character design to final delivery; so we had to be very schedule conscious.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9zLypiZyR9g/VyEPJ-pp6bI/AAAAAAAAAJY/qaOmYl8Q2bA7sE1Pu5iY6X2DFdKE4UFFwCK4B/s1600/SPOT2_CHARACTER_SAMPLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9zLypiZyR9g/VyEPJ-pp6bI/AAAAAAAAAJY/qaOmYl8Q2bA7sE1Pu5iY6X2DFdKE4UFFwCK4B/s400/SPOT2_CHARACTER_SAMPLE.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Character Designs by Ben Mazzotta</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: justify;">With Approved character designs as our touchstone, I started investigated adding 3D geometry and shading over flat textures. As a Apple Motion user, the answer was obvious: <i><a href="https://www.motionvfx.com/mplugs-33.html" target="_blank">mObject</a>,</i> the 3D text & object </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: justify;">tool from one of the best 3rd party developer’s for Final Cut Pro X and Motion- <b>MotionVFX</b>.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: justify;"></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>mObject interface</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Since it’s release in 2014, mObject has been updated several times with new features, UI enhancements, and overall performance improvements. And while the 3D Text feature added to <b>Final Cut Pro X 10.2</b> and <b>Motion 5.2</b> last April has potentially "sherlocked" one aspect of mObject’s feature set- it’s ability to import and work with full, textured 3D models in either FCP X or Motion continues to make it a compelling purchase.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">mObject can import .obj files with high polygon detail and high resolution texture maps. But for my purposes I wouldn't be needing either of those things! My plan was to build sets out of 3D objects, and then overlay the shadow information onto simple textures; bringing something extra to the backgrounds that at the same time wouldn't conflict with the approved character design.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">One of the most important additions to mObject since it’s release has been the addition of Ambient Occlusion [AO]. This feature simulates the bounce lighting that occurs in the real world, and I remember distinctly when this became a “thing” in 3D animation working with Lightwave3D in the early 2000’s. It was an immense render pig that created some very beautiful results even with simple models. And now here we are with simulated Ambient Occlusion in Motion via mObject. What a world!</span><br />
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I thought Ambient Occlusion would bring a nice feeling of real-world "miniature sets" to the backgrounds.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ambient Occlusion off (L) and on (R)</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">For the purposes of this tutorial I’ll break down the first shot in the second of the two spots. There’s a lot going on so it makes for a good case-study.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sample storyboard.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Based on my storyboards, I constructed the basics of the room out of Primitives that come built into mObject. This gave me a quick and simple way to roughly block out the room for the camera, without getting bogged down in a lot of the details. Because the timeline was so short, it was important for me to be able to supply the animator with blocking so he could get drawing asap. In the end, I actually ended up using much of this basic architecture in the final scene, as these primitives are light-weight... and really, a wall is a wall!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Basic Geometry of hospital room created with Primitives in mObject</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Next came finding scene specific furniture and decorations. <a href="http://www.turbosquid.com/" target="_blank">TurboSquid</a> was my go-to source for all the models in the spot. It’s not a free service, but if you’re getting paid for something like this, then a couple of bucks isn’t much to pay for good models considering the time you're saving. I think the most I paid for any individual model was $30, with a total expenditure across the 2 spots of about $150.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Again, my goal here was finding high quality but <u>simple</u> models. It almost would have been easier if I was wanting to do something MORE detailed as far as objects were concerned, since that’s what’s assumed most people are looking for. “Simple” models can often mean low-polygon, and that can be seen in the final renders. But in the end, TurboSquid’s selection was broad enough that I was able to find <i>something</i> for everything I needed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One thing to note for anyone who’s planning on using downloadable models in mObject. Even if the models are in the correct .obj format- it can be a real voodoo whether textures import properly; depending on what program the model was created in, and how it was converted. Knowing the basics about a good 3D modelling program like the open-source <a href="https://www.blender.org/" target="_blank">Blender</a> can be a real help here. I didn’t need the textures, but it can be essential for cleaning up models and deleting elements you don’t need, since there’s no ability to alter model geometry within mObject itself. After import into mObject, all the models were resurfaced with a plain white texture, with no reflectivity or specularity, since all I was really looking for is form, and how it casts and receives shadows.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Here’s the scene with all of the final models in place in mObject.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Room with final models.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">And here they are in the final shot.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Basic scene setup from Motion camera view.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At this point I provided final reference images to the animator, who could then move ahead while I worked on finalizing the scene. The characters were created in Photoshop, and animated in After Effects, since that's the program he was most comfortable with. Some </span>animation for both spots <i>was</i> done in Motion- and technically there's no reason why it all couldn't have been. Just timing.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Lighting mObject scenes can be done with standard lighting setups created within mObject, or using Motion’s own lights. Important to note here that for these lights to work, they must be within the same Group as the mObject generator. In this particular scene, I was simulating a time-lapse shot, so I needed to animate some key lights and overall ambience as the shot cycles from day to night and back.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g_QrFa43WSk/VyOmIKARXfI/AAAAAAAAAK0/u-fga5o_aqkR2lHR1xllLy8kKf9T98VEwCK4B/s1600/CW-ShadowPass.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g_QrFa43WSk/VyOmIKARXfI/AAAAAAAAAK0/u-fga5o_aqkR2lHR1xllLy8kKf9T98VEwCK4B/s400/CW-ShadowPass.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Lighting setup with Ambient Occlusion turned on.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This leads us to the most complicated part of this project- the 2D texturing. I’d built up a library of paper, wood, fabric, and subtle metal textures, and mocked up the final texture layout using my temp stills in Photoshop. This way we could be sure that the background textures and colour pallet wouldn't clash with the character designs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Originally, I had hoped to apply the textures in mObject using a front projection map which, as the name implies, projects the textures from behind the camera onto the objects, so that the textures DON’T wrap around the models the way you'd normall want. Unfortunately, projection maps aren’t amongst mObjects various surface wrap modes. Drat!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This meant I had to create individual hold-out mattes for each of the object and textures in the scene. Basically, this meant turning on and off the different objects, or specific surfaces on a given object, and using that as the Image Mask for the raw texture layers. In a perfect world I could have actually used multiple mObject generators for the Image Mask (and this does work), but having duplicate mObject generators in your Project can cause real slowdowns… and crashing. Oh, <i>so much crashing</i>….</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, once I was happy with the setup of the scene and any camera moves, I rendered still pngs or ProRes444s movies for each texture element. This took a while for complex scenes with lots of textures… but hey! Art!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">If there was Camera movement in the shot, it was important to match the Z position of the texture planes to match the objects properly in 3D space, so that textures wouldn’t “slide” relative to the holdouts. Below is a sample of the textures with the Image Masks applied. You'll note I ended adding perspective to the floor texture; it's perspective made it look too weird when the texture was completely flat. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m8aRLYIgWNo/VyOnQQwOgNI/AAAAAAAAALA/uvTyZkYDL-wOkOh8aekHAt60Cefkf037ACK4B/s1600/Texture%2BHoldouts.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m8aRLYIgWNo/VyOnQQwOgNI/AAAAAAAAALA/uvTyZkYDL-wOkOh8aekHAt60Cefkf037ACK4B/s400/Texture%2BHoldouts.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Flat textures with Image Mask holdouts from mObject.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">After the Image Mask renders, the final pass from mObject was the lighting pass with camera movement and all models turned on, so that you can get all the interactive shadows and Ambient Occlusion interactions in the scene.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">This image or movie would then be reimported and overlaid over the texture layers using the Multiply transfer mode, thereby applying the 3 Dimensional shading to all the flat 3D textures. This was the toughest shot in the second spot, so in the interest of time the push in was achieved with a simple scale shift in Final Cut. If we'd had time, an actual 3D camera move like you see in other shots would have been my preference.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DFLAuUsLzv4/VyOnyvo5KpI/AAAAAAAAALI/QUA23q21H58_FTMMRzuWlRPXnECumwTHQCK4B/s1600/Texture%2BOverlay.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DFLAuUsLzv4/VyOnyvo5KpI/AAAAAAAAALI/QUA23q21H58_FTMMRzuWlRPXnECumwTHQCK4B/s400/Texture%2BOverlay.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shadow pass overlaid onto flat texture layers.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Characters were then added in, and if necessary some of the texture hold outs were used as Image Masks to put characters “between” layers of the background, for example in this scene behind the bed or out in the hallway.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AdtZxZY9FD0/VyOwDtgtskI/AAAAAAAAALc/7kAtENTNGQQv3MvTZcMLNxKN4SazP9K0QCK4B/s1600/Final.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AdtZxZY9FD0/VyOwDtgtskI/AAAAAAAAALc/7kAtENTNGQQv3MvTZcMLNxKN4SazP9K0QCK4B/s400/Final.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Final Composite with Characters.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="font-size: small;">In this first shot, simulating a </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: small;">time-lapse, there's actually no "animation" per se, but lots and lots of still drawings cycled at a regular interval. A high speed cloud or stars layer was added outside the window, and elements like the blinds, bed cover, and TV were animated to add some more movement to the room. The fast moving shadows on the floor and wall help to sell the effect too. Finally, bit of grading with Color Finale to show the shift to night and there you have it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">We had fooled around with different effects to try and enhance the time-lapse effect, but the characters just ended up looking smeary and out of line with the overall aesthetic. In the end, turning on Frame Blend in Final Cut Pro X's retime window with a very minor speed change gave us just a hint of a fade as the characters appeared, disappeared and moved around in the shot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Each spot ending up being about 10 days of total production. Here's the second one, <b><i>Izaak Gets a Gaming System</i></b>, in it's entirety.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: small;">I use mObject a lot for corporate work, putting clients websites on 3D models of Phones, tablets and computers. For that alone it's made it's money back for me. This was a fun </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: small;">exercise in blending 3D and 2D in an interesting way, and I honestly had no idea what the results would look like when I started. Surprises are great... as long as the client likes them too!</span></span></div>
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Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-57470866167458622792014-10-14T10:29:00.000-07:002014-10-14T10:44:36.323-07:00ROLES REDUX: PART1<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">My most popular article was the one I wrote last year on <a href="http://disproportionatepictures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/roles.html" target="_blank">ROLES</a>. I’ve received lots of great feedback on it and a lot of great questions as well.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So I decided to take that feedback and roll it into two followup pieces looking at the two places I think Roles needs to expand to meet their full potential- and prove once and for all that a “trackless” timeline needn't give up functionality for the fluidity it provides.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In this first article, I’ll look at what Roles are, how they’re applied, and different ways the process could be improved for efficiency.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the purposes of illustration, I’ll be using screen grabs from <b>NOW YOU KNOW</b>, a 39x7min Kids TV series that I edited on X this year. Thanks to Little Engine Productions for permission.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ROLES AS IS</span></span></h3>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Roles are accessed via the <b>Modify>Assign Roles</b> menu. By default, there are 2 video Roles [<i>Video</i> and <i>Titles</i>], and three Audio Roles [<i>Dialogue, Music,</i> and <i>Effects</i>].</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Right away FCP X does something clever- it <i>automatically</i> assigns Roles to all imported media, and it’s actually right a surprising amount of the time. Any audio that comes in attached to video is assumed to be Dialogue, which for most shoots it often would be. Pure audio tracks are tagged as either Dialogue, Music or Effects. In my own experience over the past 3 years using X, it’s usually correct about 3/4 of the time. I’m not sure how Final Cut is making this call. Channel Orientation? Length? Some hidden metadata that I’m unaware of? Regardless, it’s great that we’re not just given a blank slate and have to tag everything from scratch. And in many short form projects, these three Audio Roles may be all you need to get the job done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you want to see what Roles Final Cut has assigned for an individual clip, you can find it in the Inspector window Info tab</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b_hECWuAWTc/VDyhRzOpiPI/AAAAAAAAAFs/7028UvTayjs/s1600/RR1_RolesInfo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b_hECWuAWTc/VDyhRzOpiPI/AAAAAAAAAFs/7028UvTayjs/s1600/RR1_RolesInfo.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You can also see Roles for all clips in an existing Project by changing the Timeline appearance settings to “Show Roles”.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l4T3hPZyiA4/VDyiEzGlgBI/AAAAAAAAAF8/1elKM79UZZU/s1600/RR1_ProjectAppearance2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l4T3hPZyiA4/VDyiEzGlgBI/AAAAAAAAAF8/1elKM79UZZU/s1600/RR1_ProjectAppearance2.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And you can see all the Roles currently used in a Project via the Timeline Index. Here you can highlight specific Roles.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ugj1nkL7wo/VDyi9-LQlrI/AAAAAAAAAGI/OdQxqvz8ytU/s1600/RR1_TimelineIndex.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ugj1nkL7wo/VDyi9-LQlrI/AAAAAAAAAGI/OdQxqvz8ytU/s1600/RR1_TimelineIndex.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the default Roles are just the beginning. <b>Modify>Edit Roles</b> allows you to Create not only new Video and Audio Roles, but Sub-Roles for existing categories. As I mentioned, <i>Dialogue, Music and Effects</i> can probably get you by in a simple project; but in longer or more complex timelines more granularity will be needed. So besides other obvious categories like <i>Ambience</i> and <i>Voice Over</i>; Sub-Roles for Dialogue by character or different categories of Sound Effects can help to create more clean separation of elements that will have your Audio Engineer professing his love for you (or maybe just swearing at you less for once). </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are the list of Role I created for the first Season of NOW YOU KNOW.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nty45Yn1hkM/VDyjlzW-jhI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/cio93D_3cdc/s1600/RR1_CustomRoles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nty45Yn1hkM/VDyjlzW-jhI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/cio93D_3cdc/s1600/RR1_CustomRoles.png" height="202" width="400" /></a></div>
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<h3>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">APPLYING ROLES</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">Currently, applying Roles to a clip can be done in a couple of ways.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First is via the Event Browser. You can change the Role assignment of a clip either from the Modify Menu, the Info tab of the Inspector, or via Command keys- <b>CTRL+OPT+ M</b> [<i>Music</i>], <b>E</b> [<i>Effects</i>], or <b>D</b> [<i>Dialogue</i>]. If you have multiple clips selected in the Event Browser, you can apply a Role change to all the selected clips at once, like you can with most attribute changes. It’s always better to be able to do this before you start editing- assigning a Role in the Event Browser once means you don’t have to apply it to each individual instance of the clip <i>after</i> you’ve edited it into your Timeline. The problem is that currently you can only apply ONE ROLE to a clip in the Event Browser. Meaning if your camera has multichannel audio or you've created Sync Clips from second-source sound, and you want to assign multiple Roles or Sub-Roles to individual Audio Components, there’s no way to do it in the Event Browser. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You CAN get around this limitation, by taking each clip and using the <i>“Open in Timeline”</i> function, which opens all parts of a clip into it’s own mini-Timeline. From here you can expand your Audio Components just like in a Project, and assign audio Roles to each channel [<i>thanks to Ben Balser for this tip</i>], but doing this operation for each clip in even a medium-sized project, let alone a large documentary or feature film with 1000’s of clips would be insane.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8FXKzB88omI/VDynlvuijhI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Fm2K9i30RT8/s1600/RR1_OpeninTimeline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8FXKzB88omI/VDynlvuijhI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Fm2K9i30RT8/s1600/RR1_OpeninTimeline.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Open in Timeline" of a clip, with a single Audio Component selected.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But if you have lots of Audio Components and sub-Roles in your Project, you may be better off to just edit untagged clips into your Timeline and assign them later. I say this because once you have your Project laid out with all the Audio Components expanded, you can multi-select lots of Audio Components across lots of clips that share the same Role or sub-Role and tag them en mass. But unless you know the layout of the Audio Components by heart, or have taken the time to name your Audio Components before editing (which I do suggest), this can take a bit of diligent work.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hb8nbleGcug/VDypGOxbpSI/AAAAAAAAAGo/koSBop-QxYY/s1600/RR1_TimelineComponentsSelected.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hb8nbleGcug/VDypGOxbpSI/AAAAAAAAAGo/koSBop-QxYY/s1600/RR1_TimelineComponentsSelected.png" height="279" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Timeline with multiple components selected to add common Role: "Baboo"</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The goal of Roles is to be able to attach and pass on Audio metadata in a way that isn’t slave to the static nature of Tracks. But in it’s current incarnation, assigning Roles has several stumbling blocks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, the inability to effectively apply Roles to individual Audio Components either in the Ingest or Event Browser stages.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, Command keys cannot be assigned to custom Roles or Sub-Roles- meaning you have to apply them each time using the mouse via the <b>Menu>Modify>Assign Roles</b> or Info tab Roles drop down menu.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Third, like all metadata, changes made to the Role of a clip in the Event Browser do not “filter down” to clips already edited into a Project. Neither is there an option for changes you make to a clip in a Project to filter to any other instances of that clip in the Project, or back up to it’s Master Clip in the Library.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, a visual representation of a Project that organizes Roles for easy identification. This last one is so important that it will be the subject of the second part of this article.</span></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ROLES DONE RIGHT</span></span></h3>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let’s take a step back from all the holes in the current process to look at a ray of sunshine in just how great this can all work. It should come as no surprise that if something good is going on with Metadata, it probably has something to do with Philip and Greg at <i>Intelligent Assistance</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People know <b><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/sync-n-link-x/id517599985?mt=12" target="_blank">Sync-N-Link X</a></b> is an amazing tool for syncing dailies and automatically creating either FCP X Sync Clips or Multicam Clips from on-set timecode. But the extra awesome part you may not know is that if your Audio Recordist has used equipment that utilizes <b>iXML</b>- then the names the Recordist gives those channels on set will be ported over to Final Cut and assigned as BOTH your <i>Audio Component</i> names AND <i>Role assignments</i>. At present, FCPx does not itself support iXML, so this feature is exclusive to Intelligent Assistance’s software.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PgZerzDkEz4/VDyqWtx8tJI/AAAAAAAAAG0/chKiPMOPeTU/s1600/RR1_SyncNLink.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PgZerzDkEz4/VDyqWtx8tJI/AAAAAAAAAG0/chKiPMOPeTU/s1600/RR1_SyncNLink.png" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sync-N-Link X Roles Interface</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This means that without a lick of work, the editor has Role tagging for all Dialogue from a shoot done before they even start work. Between this and Final Cut’s automatic tagging for Music and Effects elements, the Editor has much of his Audio prep already done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s just awesome and something I’m very much hoping to take advantage of on <b>NOW YOU KNOW</b>’s Second Season.</span></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">STREAMLINING ROLES</span></span></h3>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But for those of us not lucky enough to get on-set Roles assignments, there needs to be a more efficient way to assign Roles to large volume of clips BEFORE you edit them into your sequence. Let’s look at a couple of ways this could be done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, we need the ability to assign more complex Roles to multiple clips at once at the logging stage. Initially I wondered if this could be done at the Import Window, but I think much like Keywording, Batch Renaming, Syncing, and most other pre-editorial tasks; this would be better accomplished in the Event Browser. The key improvement need to be-</span></span></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The ability to apply Roles to individual Audio Components</b></span></span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>The ability to apply multiple Roles to several clips with the same Audio Component configuration.</b></span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Ability to apply custom Roles faster and more efficiently.</b></span></span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are a couple of ways this could be instituted. None of these are brand new ideas, but leverage how we already apply other kids of metadata within FCP X.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you know that clips have the same Audio Component configuration, you can change the name of individual Audio Components for multiple selected clips in the Audio tab of the inspector. It would be great if we could assign audio Roles in the same way.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mt0B9DkLUbc/VD1CEjZ5qmI/AAAAAAAAAHE/gAthSlGVGmg/s1600/RR1_InspectorAssignment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mt0B9DkLUbc/VD1CEjZ5qmI/AAAAAAAAAHE/gAthSlGVGmg/s1600/RR1_InspectorAssignment.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mockup of selecting and assigning Role to a single Audio Component</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Aiding in this </span></span>would<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> be a “Keyword”-style Roles HUD. Allowing you to assign Roles and Sub-Roles to command-keys for quick assignment to selected items, either in </span></span>the<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Event Browser or Project Timeline.</span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-22yH-qJ0PfQ/VD1b_rD3sCI/AAAAAAAAAHk/g-mw4YAXmnQ/s1600/RR1_RolesShortcuts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-22yH-qJ0PfQ/VD1b_rD3sCI/AAAAAAAAAHk/g-mw4YAXmnQ/s1600/RR1_RolesShortcuts.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HUD for Assigning Custom Role Shortcuts</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Another way to do this would be to assign Roles to a single clip, and then have the ability to copy/paste those Role assignments to other clips. Right now Paste Attributes is a function exclusive to clips in a Project, so that would be new functionality in the Event Browser.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2yuLSBeKlDQ/VD1NB4X5sqI/AAAAAAAAAHU/jWDDGzJxAVM/s1600/RR1_PasteAttributes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2yuLSBeKlDQ/VD1NB4X5sqI/AAAAAAAAAHU/jWDDGzJxAVM/s1600/RR1_PasteAttributes.jpg" height="255" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mockup of Paste Attributes including Roles in Event Browser.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">With 10.1, Final Cut Pro went from a dual Event/Project structure to the new combined Library model. We’ve already seen this combined database pay off in new features like Used/Unused Event media indicators, and Roles would definitely benefit from increased communication between Project and Events.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This would mean that changes made to Roles in a master clip in the Event Browser could automatically filter down to all instances of that clip in edits already in Progress. Or conversely, being able to make changes to clips in an Project, and upstream those property changes back to the media in the Event Browser, so that any further material from that clip that used will be properly tagged.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I could also see a big advantage to having a unified Roles interface, which could allow an editor to change already assigned Role names globally in a Library, say if a character name is incorrect and you need to change DIALOGUE JIM to DIALOGUE FRED, or if part way thru an edit Audio Post requests a specific naming structure. Little things like this will make working with Roles easier for everyone.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Assigning Roles may seem like a lot of work, but like with many things in FCP X, up-front work pays off in spades over the course of the edit- especially if it goes on for months as in TV episodic, documentary or feature work.</span></span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">NEXT</span></h3>
</div>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the second article on Roles, I’ll revisit the Roles-based Project organization. Looking at how a complicated edit, with all different kinds of audio, would be improved by better visual separation.</span></span><br />
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Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-92145308381912571292014-09-29T09:57:00.000-07:002014-11-25T06:21:06.838-08:00Final Cut Pro X: What’s Next [10.1.4]<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">EDIT- CHART UPDATED NOVEMBER 25th </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In <a href="http://disproportionatepictures.blogspot.ca/2014/08/final-cut-pro-x-whats-next-1013.html">my last post</a> I laid out the past maintenance release dates to get a sense of when FCP X 10.1.3 might be released. Dates ranged from 28-70 days after a feature release, with an average of 50 days. Apple was actually pretty accommodating with that one- releasing on August 19th, 53 days after 10.1.2. That's remarkably close to the average interval time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So why don't we do it again, shall we?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First off we have to make the assumption that the next release WILL be a feature release. That's may not necessarily be the case, since FCP X has released multiple maintenance releases in a row: 10.0.4 to 10.0.5, and three maintenance releases in a row with 10.0.7, 10.0.8, and 10.0.9.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But let's be optimistic, shall we?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By all accounts Yosemite is due to come out in October, and if there are any technologies that FCP X can lean on then we could see those in an update this year. iCloud Drive could be leveraged to improve Collaborative Workflows, and Extensions could be an interesting alternative to traditional plug-ins, but that's all supposition at this point. However, <a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/29/retina-imacs-with-os-x-yosemite-in-late-testing-within-apple-could-launch-soon/">there have been reports from 9to5mac about fall updates</a>,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>"Sources also say that Apple is preparing updates to iMovie and Final Cut Pro with improved tools for editing high-resolution, 4K footage."</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the FCP X side, at least, I find this report interesting, since it's been Retina ready since the 10.0.5 update with the first Retina MacBookPro, and it already a very capable 4K editing platform. So, I'm honestly stumped at what additional 4K improvements could be made outside of just pure performance, or perhaps h.265 support.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, as we all know Yosemite is giving OSX a bit of a visual overhaul, flattening the interface and bringing it more in line with the changes made in iOS7 last year. Whether, and on what schedule these UI changes could make their way over to Apple's ProApps remains to be seen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Personally, I'm still hoping upcoming updates see <a href="http://disproportionatepictures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/roles.html">a focus on the use of Roles in both Project organization and enhancing FCP X's audio toolset</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyways, on to the numbers!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apple has released 5 feature updates since Final Cut Pro X was released in June 2011. Here they are with the day intervals since the previous launch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10.0.0-10.0.1 <b>91 DAYS</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10.0.2-10.0.3 <b>76 DAYS</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10.0.5-10.0.6 <b>134 DAYS</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10.0.9-10.1.0 <b>148 DAYS</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">10.1.1-10.1.2 <b>162 DAYS</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Feature updates have generally been getting further apart since the heady, early days of Final Cut Pro X development. Perhaps that means the "urgency" around getting updates out the door has died down, since many of the early Final Cut Pro X functional stumbling blocks have now been addressed. Or it could mean that the upcoming functional improvements are bigger than those released in early days. Especially if the FCP X development team are having to go through the process of rethinking how "feature-x" works in the new paradigm. Either way, there's a fairly broad range of dates to look at here. If we average these intervals out, the mean is 122 days, or about 4 months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once again, I've mapped each of the update intervals on the graphic, showing how they land on the calendar if we take the release of 10.1.3 as the starting point.</span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: black;">*updated November 25th</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So as you can see, the most optimistic update schedule for 10.1.4 would be after the release of Yosemite [marked on the chart for late October] in early November, but the truth is we haven't had an update that quick a while. The average is more likely, and more interesting, since it would put it almost on the same date at 10.1 was released last year, December 19. I'm not seeing that as a prediction– that's just where the average falls.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If we're being pessimistic [or is that realistic?], then we might not see another feature update all this year– if 10.1.4 takes as long as 10.1.2, then it will be almost February 2015 before it comes along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or as I said, 10.1.4 could be a second maintenance for this year, and reset the clock again for what would most probably be an early 2015 10.1.5 future update.</span><br />
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Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-92018134730081741142014-08-07T18:06:00.000-07:002014-08-18T07:00:40.128-07:00Final Cut Pro X: What’s Next [10.1.3]<div style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: justify;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We’re about a month out from the release of FCP X 10.1.2, so I thought I’d just throw out some quick thoughts on the what and when of the release of the next update 10.1.3.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Based on any reasonable expectations, and 3 years worth of update stats, 10.1.3 will be a fairly minor, but much needed maintenance update. As with any feature release, FCP X 10.1.2 brought new bugs that need to be sorted out, and a relatively quick turnaround maintenance release has been standard practice after every feature update since Final Cut Pro X launched in June 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Those looking for another big feature release should keep their expectations in check until later this year, after the release of OSX Yosemite sometime around late October. At some point after that, we could see an other feature update that could include a visual overhaul to bring Final Cut in line with the flattened look of OSX 10.10, or new features that Yosemite enables like Extensions or iCloud Drive support, or just general improvements we're all waiting for that aren't OSX </span>related<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> at all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill here.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">4 for 4, FCP X has had a maintenance update following a feature releases. The timing for these is as follows</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.1-10.0.2 <b>57 DAYS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.3-10.0.4 <b>70 DAYS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.6-10.0.7 <b>44 DAYS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.1.0-10.1.1 <b>28 DAYS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">That gives us a nice range data to work with, which led me to throw together this quick chart <i>[updated August 18th to add average info & update "TODAY" date]</i>-</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JVdzNialDjg/U_IEZYZa_CI/AAAAAAAAAE4/xQ8P3HheLX0/s1600/MaintenanceSched2.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JVdzNialDjg/U_IEZYZa_CI/AAAAAAAAAE4/xQ8P3HheLX0/s1600/MaintenanceSched2.tiff" height="160" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So basically, applying the intervals for the 4 post-feature maintenance updates so far, we have a range of 28-70 days after a feature release for the next maintenance update.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Meaning that with the June 27th release of 10.1.2, we could expect 10.1.3 to come anywhere between <b>July 25th</b> [28 days] and <b>September 5th</b> [70 days]. We’re already 41 days past 10.1.2 <i>[now 52 days as of editing August 18th]</i>, so hopefully we’ll be seeing this update within a month of this writing.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Up to relatively recently FCP X updates were pretty consistently launched on Tuesdays, but that seems to have been falling by the wayside recently- with updates scattered across the whole week. It was nice while it lasted, but the “Rule of Tuesdays” seems to be a thing of the past.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">-MRM</span></div>
Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-68772845631980520902014-05-14T19:38:00.002-07:002014-05-14T19:56:31.362-07:00CLIP LINKS<div style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: justify;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In Final Cut Pro X, any audio, video, or graphic element not in the Primary Storyline must be connected to <b>Primary Storyline</b> as a <b>Connected Clip</b>. This is great for moving around shots with attached titles, b-roll, sound effects, or green-screen backgrounds- no lassoing of elements like in Legacy FCP days. Just pick the clip you want, and anything you’ve chosen to associate with that clip will follow along.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would like to see the FCP X push the association between Primary Storyline clips and their Connected Clip siblings even further with a proposed feature I'll dub <b>Clip Linking</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">While a Primary Storyline’s position in the Project timeline affects Connected clips, any trimming you do to the Primary Storyline clip affects only itself. In our example below, we’ll look at a Primary Storyline Clip with 2 connected clips: a Title clip ending at the </span>same time as the Primary Storyline clip<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">, and an audio clip that overhangs into the next shot. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pj7TZVIRuXU/U3QiVFces6I/AAAAAAAAAEA/eFWeSHrEMvo/s1600/ClipLink_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pj7TZVIRuXU/U3QiVFces6I/AAAAAAAAAEA/eFWeSHrEMvo/s1600/ClipLink_1.jpg" height="160" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Now, if you shorten your Primary Storyline clip by -1:00, the Connected Clips duration won’t change, leaving your title and audio clip hanging over the following shot. The next step would be to manually shorten each of your connected elements to match the </span>timing<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> change to the Primary Storyline clip.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--YAnJz_CuxI/U3QiuS3kJJI/AAAAAAAAAEI/aD2ulQg00SU/s1600/ClipLink_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--YAnJz_CuxI/U3QiuS3kJJI/AAAAAAAAAEI/aD2ulQg00SU/s1600/ClipLink_2.jpg" height="161" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span>This is not what we're looking for. So. what are our options?</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Unlike in some other NLE’s, in FCP X you cannot currently select and trim multiple clips at the same time. And even if you could, you'd have to manually select them all. What a pain!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In FCP X there is a function to select multiple clips and use CTRL+D to alter their length. This can be either as an absolute value [2:00], or as a differential [-24]. This works well, but requires that you manual select all the clips you want to alter, AND that you know exactly how much you want to trim. Still problematic.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Clip Linking would suppose that you set up associations between Primary Storyline clips and their Connected counterparts once, and then [like many tasks in FCP X] reap the benefits on repeated changes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">To do this, you would select the connected clips you want to add the </span>behaviour<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> to. </span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--eGdXGHgys0/U3Qk1PqfSNI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/BBsqS2Wcnr8/s1600/ClipLink_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--eGdXGHgys0/U3Qk1PqfSNI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/BBsqS2Wcnr8/s1600/ClipLink_3.jpg" height="160" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A contextual menu would pop up asking </span>you how you'd like the clips linked. While we'll just look at Link Out, there could be options for Link In and Link All, depending on how you want the Connected Clips to behave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Now let's look at our -1:00 trim edit again.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eYS0_L0J-TY/U3QlhGAbEmI/AAAAAAAAAEY/tNuJHYyxWKc/s1600/ClipLink_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eYS0_L0J-TY/U3QlhGAbEmI/AAAAAAAAAEY/tNuJHYyxWKc/s1600/ClipLink_4.jpg" height="160" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">While only selecting and trimming the Primary Storyline clip, FCP X now assumes our Connect clip's edit Out point will mirror any trim, roll, or extend/shorten of the Primary Storyline clip.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">To make isolated changes to the connected elements; say if you wanted to extend the bleed of the audio clip over the next shot- trimming that one clip doesn't filter back to the Primary, or any other connected clips.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Again, while setting up these Links takes a second for each link, I think it would save tones of clicking over the course of an edit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">What do you think?</span></div>
Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-73658736576588400992014-05-13T19:52:00.000-07:002014-05-13T20:02:00.759-07:00ROLES<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">When Final Cut Pro X was first released in June of 2011, one of the biggest changes in philosophy was the abandonment of traditional Tracks. Today we’re going to take a closer look at that decision; why it was made, what benefits it poses, and how further development of FCP X may quell some of that criticism.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>TRACKS ARE A MEANS TO AN END, AND NOT AN END UNTO THEMSELVES</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Track are, at their very core, an organizational tool. A tool for organizing audio and video information visually in a way that makes locating it easier in complex projects. In the case of audio, tracks are also used to group audio elements for the purpose of mixing and effects.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Track is really just a folder of audio or video, laid out across a sequence of time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But a Track is also a “dumb” organizational element. Dialogue is on Tracks 1 and 2 simply because that’s where you the editor choose to put it. But you might only need 1 Dialogue Track for a simple video, or you might need 10 Dialogue Tracks for a large scene involving lots of mics and many characters. It’s completely arbitrary. 10 different editors are going to organize their audio/video Tracks 10 different ways.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Organization in Tracks is especially important in a collaborative workflow; where audio is passed off from editorial to post audio. The editor always needs to supply support documentation, outlining what kind of audio is on what tracks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tracks in and of themselves aren’t important, they are simply a means to an end. The ability to organize information both in the timeline, the ability to group elements for common effects, and for the purpose of passing that work on cleanly to other departments- THAT’S the goal. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>TRACKS WON’T WORK IN X</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The two big changes in the core philosophy of editing in FCP X were <b><i>Connected Clips</i></b>, and the <b><i>Magnetic Timeline</i></b>. The key idea here was to set up a relationship-based methodology to content. Elements in the <b><i>Primary Storyline</i></b> are considered the backbone of the cut, and any additional audio or video that is added is understood to be subservient to that “Primary” content. In the last year of working with FCP X, I find this works remarkably well, especially for audio. If you connect the SFX of a gunshot to a video clip in the Primary Storyline; once that relationship is established, it’s fixed. Regardless of whether you trim, roll, slip, or even change the order of shots in the timeline. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where things start to get tricky, is when in the process of editing the Primary Storyline, connected clips come into conflict. In legacy Final Cut Pro, if you trimmed a clip, and then closed the gap, you would either get a warning that the edit wasn't allowed due to a clip conflict, or overlapping elements would just be overwritten. This is obviously not what you want, and it meant that the editor could be forever jostling audio elements from one track to another as the edit was refined, in order to resolve audio or video clip conflicts and make sure that elements overlapped as intended, all while trying to maintain the organizational structure of the tracks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Final Cut Pro X, clip conflict is resolved by one audio/video element “bumping” the other up or down; the integrity of both elements is maintained regardless of what goes on in the Primary Storyline. The compromise, obviously, is that the vertical hierarchy of Tracks becomes impossible to maintain. If TRACK 1&2 are DIALOGUE, and TRACK 3&4 are MUSIC- if 3 Dialogue elements overlap then a new “Track” [FCP X refers to them as “Lanes”] is added, and any structure based on tracks becomes moot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The biggest detriments to the visual organization of audio in the FCP X timeline, is that all audio only comes in two colors- blue for audio components, and green for everything else. Secondly, all audio elements naturally gravitate towards the Primary Storyline. In a simple projects with some interview audio, a music track, and perhaps a few sound effects, this isn’t so bad. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">But as you get into more complicated projects with dozens of lanes of audio with no obvious separation or way to distinguish your elements visually; the audio in the timeline becomes a sea of anonymous green clips.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1nFyk39LAxg/U3LcRgxS2yI/AAAAAAAAADw/JhtjnLNWvPI/s1600/ProjectExisting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1nFyk39LAxg/U3LcRgxS2yI/AAAAAAAAADw/JhtjnLNWvPI/s1600/ProjectExisting.jpg" height="122" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Simple FCP X Project with audio elements uniform colour and intermixed. What's what here?<br />CLICK TO ENLARGE</span></span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">ENTER: THE ROLE</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In September of 2011, Apple released their first update to Final Cut Pro X: 10.0.1. The update brought with it a host of improvements including a brand new feature called Roles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roles was a new form of metadata added to media in an Event, explicitly tagging clips with an audio or video “media type”. Pre-defined Video Roles included <i>b-roll</i> and <i>titles</i>, while Audio Roles included <i>dialogue</i>, <i>music</i>, and <i>effects</i>. But Roles are completely customizable, with the ability to create new Roles (Ambience, Voice Over) or Sub Roles (Dialogue- Nick, Dialogue- Sally).</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roles imprints information onto media that in other NLEs must simply be assumed because of the track it sits on. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well, the addition of a Role tab in the Timeline Index pane, allowed you to selectively turn on and off Roles, or highlight all media of a certain Role, in the project timeline. Roles also allowed the user to export stems of Roles in multi-channel audio exports. Finally, via the 3rd party program X2Pro, Roles could be exported via AAF for use in ProTools. The added benefit being that Roles name information was automatically transferred to the DAW, eliminating the need for track reference sheets.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As intriguing and seemingly powerful Roles are, it still didn’t solve a key problem in FCP X, a visual organization to material in the timeline.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>BUT WAIT! APPLE ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When FCP X was first released, I remember reading a particularly maddening “review” of the software from a site I shan’t name. The author went on about how he spent nearly an hour trying to figure out how to make Bins in FCP X, little realizing (and of course, not doing the research before writing his stupid article) that a new methodology had been implemented for organizing media: Keywords.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keywords imprinted metadata onto media in an Event, allowing for an active organization of elements based on tagging media with single or multiple Keywords. It’s a very fluid and extremely powerful way to organize media, especially with the addition of Smart Collections, which allow you to set up a “Smart Bin” which is made of any media (or selections of media) which satisfy a user-defined set of not only Keywords, but any combination of metadata criteria.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is opposed to other NLEs, where you create a static Bin [really just a folder] which you drop clips into. Lets say you create a bin called “canoes”. The material that’s in it is about canoes only because you put it in that Bin, and not because the media explicitly demands it. Bins are dumb. Keyword Collections are smart. Smart Collections are REALLY smart.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if we take what I proposed earlier about a Track being essentially “Bin across time”, then we start to see a really interesting correlation:</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bins are to Keywords, as Tracks are to Roles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if we take this concept to it’s literal conclusion, then what the Project Timeline in FCP X is really missing are “Role Collections”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>ROLE COLLECTIONS</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Roles, organizational information has already been attached to the media, that information just needs to be used to sort the media in the Project Timeline. By grouping Role elements together, and giving them a colour coding system, gives the timeline focus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if we imagine an empty timeline, and we add a new clip... lets say Voice Over- automatically a Voice Over Role Collection is created. As you add more media, more Role Collections are added [Music, Dialogue, Sound Effect, Ambience]. And if you add media for which there already is a Collection, it’s automatically added to the appropriate place.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Same Project from above with Roles now separated vertically, and colour coding to allow easy identification<br />of video [Titles,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Graphics, Video] and audio [Voice Over, Music, and Sound Effects] elements.<br />CLICK TO ENLARGE</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much cleaner, yes?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">A couple of notes about this proposed organizational model.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some have tried to use Compound Clips in FCP X as a way to faux Tracks. The problem is that a Compound Clip breaks individual clips connections to the Primary Storyline- this is obviously not what you want if the cut is still evolving. With Role Collections, these links would be maintained.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tracks are always one audio layer deep. While Role Collections could have as many stacked Lanes as required based on the number of overlapping media clips. So, for example, a “Dialogue” Role Collection could be 1, 2, or 10 Lanes high; depending on the number of overlapping clips. However, if you need more organizational granularity, you can (via SubRoles) create as many sub Roles for Dialogue as you see fit, and in the end each one has it's own Lane.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Another nice addition here would be expanded Role controls in the Timeline Index, allowing the user to alter the order of Roles [much like how you can re-order your camera angles in a </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">Multi-cam</span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> clip]. Additional controls could be for selectable Role colour, and icons.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With complex Timelines, vertical space is always at a premium. The ability to collapse and expand Roll Collections into single-Lanes [much like LogicPro X’s Stack Tracks] would also be a big help. Another idea would be to “solo” a Roll [like you can solo layers in Motion], this would allow the editor to focus on one specific Role element easily, with the option to hear it on its own, OR in the context of the entire mix.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>ADDITIONAL BENEFITS</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Role Collections, we now have an organizing container which can now be assigned for more complex Mixing [should Apple decide to bring Bus-based mixing to Final Cut Pro X]. At the very least, it would allow for audio effects to be added to a whole group of clips via their Role Collection, and global volume adjustments to be made.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Seeing what a boon metadata-based organization has been in </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">the Event Browser makes me hopeful that a more extensive implementation of Roles will result in a similar advances in </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">timeline workflow.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Fingers crossed!</span></span></div>
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<br />Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-10544444353200230752013-01-24T20:08:00.003-08:002013-01-24T20:08:53.926-08:00Final Cut Pro X 2013, PART 2<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">LAST TIME we discussed the progress FCPX made in 2012.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">5 updates in 12 months, Pro feature focused, and on an aggressive development schedule.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In this article, we’ll look forward and try to suss out what Apple’s Final Cut Pro X development plan may be for 2013.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’d like to be crystal clear in my projections. I have no insider info, and am basing everything you’ll read below on the analysis of past action and what I think is some logical supposition. Apple can be a mercurial company, but it isn’t immune patterns if you look closely. Looking at FCPX’s update schedule up to now does give us a general guide as to what we might expect this year, should things continue on their present course. But as the release of FCPX itself proves, anything can happen!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Confused? Great- lets go!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>WHAT’S A 10.1?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The conversation about Final Cut this year is very likely to centre around whether FPCX will move from 10.0.X updates to to 10.1. But what exactly does that mean for the software and the user?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the 10 years of legacy Final Cut, development centered around major updates on a roughly bi-annual cycle. In the years between these banner releases, updates from Apple added little in terms of new features, and instead were focused on stability, bug fixes, performance enhancements, and support for new hardware and footage formats.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With the release of Final Cut Pro X, Apple made a point of saying that releasing FCPX via the Mac appStore would allow for more frequent updates and rapid development than in the past. The fact that we’ve seen 3 major feature updates, plus 4 minor updates in the last 2 years seems to bear this out. And yet here we still are at 10.0.7 as of January 24th.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So how will apple define the next major release of Final Cut Pro X? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Thankfully, we don’t have to look very far for an answer...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple seems to REALLY likes the letter “X”. Perhaps the only letter used more prominently by the company marketing is the now omnipresent “i” prefix.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On the Mac, Apple has been slowly working it’s way thru point updates to OSX for over a decade. Each major successive operating system release uses a new big-cat name and an incremental decimal place to describe it: from 10.1 “Puma” to 10.8 “Mountain Lion”. They seem to be pretty happy with how that worked out for them, ‘cause it looks like that’s what Apple is doing with Final Cut Pro X as well. Where we used to measure Final Cut releases with whole numbers (5 to 6 to 7), all indications are we can now expect to see the same iterative decimal update numerology for Final Cut Pro. And if the rumors are true, Apple’s Pro audio tool Logic, and Photo editing tool Aperture will also be moving to the “X” name/number with their next major releases. It’s sort of curious, as it seems pretty inevitable that we’re coming to the end of “OSX” this year as Apple releases OSX 10.9.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, the next major version of Final Cut won’t be FInal Cut Pro 11, or Final Cut Pro XI. Instead, Final Cut Pro is likely to be “X” for some time to come, with major updates to the software being identified as 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and so on... This would certainly seem to mesh with Apple’s PR at launch in 2011 that FCPX has a, “10 year development plan” for the software.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The other thing to consider is that because there are only 9 10.0.X places for updates, it might hint that a rapid, perhaps even annual major update cycle could be the eventual goal. That is, unless Apple alters their update naming system to include another decimal place, making 10.0.7.1 possible, OR if they allow themselves to go to numbers like 10.0.11. Either of these is possible- <i>7toX</i> from Intelligent Assistance is currently at version 1.0.17. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>SO... WHAT MERITS 10.1?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Looking back at <a href="http://disproportionatepictures.blogspot.ca/2012/12/final-cut-pro-x-2013-part-1.html">PART 1</a>, it’s clear that the FCPX development team’s goal for the past 2 years has been the reinstatement (and improvement) of Pro Features that were either omitted or incomplete at FCPX’s launch in June of 2011. While I think there are still several holes in functionality left to fill, the list is MUCH shorter now than it was even 6 months ago. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Last year I found it hard to grasp that we might be ready for a 10.1 software update; today I find it hard to imagine that the FCPX dev team would be able to find another year’s worth of updates WITHOUT moving to a new major version number. There simply aren’t that many areas of Legacy functionality left to be reintegrated.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That leaves us with NEW territory. New features and functionality that would have been new to Final Cut even if FCPX was FCP8.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Features like advanced <i>bus-based mixing</i>, <i>auto-transcription</i> of dialogue on import, <i>person identification</i> like in iPhoto, or advanced <i>collaborative editing</i> functionality (which was sold separately as Final Cut Server but was never part of the Studio itself).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As we come to the end of this first chapter of Final Cut Pro X, with many (but not all) of the software’s initial deficiencies addressed, Apple will need to to present a compelling set upgrades to drive existing users of FCPX to update to 10.1, and perhaps those legacy users still on FCP7 to finally give the software a shot.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Which brings us to...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>FREE, PAID, OR UPGRADE?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For both of the major feature updates in 2012 [10.0.3 and 10.0.6], there was some speculation that each one would be a paid upgrade. Personally, I never put much stock in those opinions. Since the features that had been pre-announced were reintegrating legacy functionality, I found it hard to believe that Apple would ask the small and beleaguered group of individuals who’d actually taken a chance on the software to pay again for features that the software should arguably have had in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But if a major 10.1 release is indeed on the way, has the situation changed? Let’s look at the three possibilities:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OPTION 1, Apple could release 10.1 as another FREE update. Popular opinion is still heavily against FCPX in most professional circles. And while many legacy users downloaded FCPX, it’s likely that a majority of those download aren’t being actively used. Offering this first major update to Final Cut Pro X for nothing could do nothing but garner good will with not only those already using it, but those who’ve already got it on their systems and have been waiting for it to develop to give it a chance, especially if the new 10.1 features are particularly compelling. Apple could certainly use a snowball of good press to counter the current sentiment in the industry against the software.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But on the flip side, Apple is a business. Early adopters had ample opportunity to get a refund in the Summer of 2011. And Since 10.0.1, Apple has offered a 30 day free trial for those wishing to test-drive FCPX. So from their perspective, those who decided to hold onto the software either decided to use it, or decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to seek a refund. In either case, Apple may not feel motivated to give away a substantial update to 2 year old software. I’m sure any “not free” option is going to ruffle some people’s feathers, but what can Apple do?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OPTION 2 is that Apple could release the software at another full $299. Considering how cheap the software was to begin with, Apple may feel that $300 for professional software every 2 years is a perfectly reasonable price to pay if you’re using it to make a living. I’d like to think that anyone being paid for editing would make the price of the software back in AT MOST a day of work, much less if you’re skilled and in demand. When Final Cut Studio cost $1,299, the cost to upgrade was usually about $300-$400. But at $299, the initial cost is so low that upgrade pricing seem almost pointless. And as it turns out, impossible at the present time. Which brings us to-</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OPTION 3, an upgrade price. The real problem with the idea of a... say, $100 upgrade fee for 10.1 is that... there’s no facility for paid upgrades in the current appStore model. Developers must either give the updates away for free, or put them up on the store as entirely new apps, with no way to set different price points for new vs existing users. Developers have been asking for this for years, but Apple has as of yet made no motions to make it happen. There are many theories as to why they haven’t done this, but the bottom line is that it’s not there.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While there’s nothing to say they could not add this in the future, the most likely time for them to announce that would be at WWDC in June as part of the annual iOS/OSX developer preview. Even then, it probably wouldn’t actually be up and running until OSX 10.9 was released sometime in the fall. So IF Apple decides to add this option to the Mac appStore AND a 10.1 update doesn’t come until the fall, then perhaps this could be a possibility. But for now it’s a non-starter.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Which leads us to the most enticing question...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>WHAT’S NEXT? 10.0.8? 10.1? FCP8?</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 8... hahahaha... No. And if that’s really what you’re hanging on FCP7 waiting for I encourage you to seek out one of the other NLE options on the market.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Beyond that, what might 2013 hold for Final Cut Pro X?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If we look at it purely from a past FCPX update perspective, using the update cycle data I’ve listed above, then we’d be due for 10.0.8 to drop somewhere around February 19th, and a 10.0.9 in April somewhere around NAB.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">With only one exception, Apple have been following a FEATURE-MAINTENANCE-FEATURE-MAINTENANCE schedule. So it should follow that 10.0.8 would be a feature release, Right? However, we’ve already seen one change in Apple’s behavior that might hurt this assumption- no upcoming features have been pre-announced for the next update. They did this for both 10.0.3 and 10.0.6, as well as giving a vague window for release. Why this change? Perhaps Apple don’t feel they need to pre-announce features anymore- that all the MAJOR holes have been filled, and that the skepticism around whether FCPX is interested in integrating pro features is past. Another possibility is that we’re getting 2 maintenance releases in a row [like 10.0.4 and 10.0.5] and in that case maybe we’ll see a preview of new features when 10.0.8 is released, pointing to a substantial 10.0.9 </span><span style="font-size: 12px;">release</span><span style="font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">. Finally, it might be because the features in the next release go beyond legacy functionality- and so Apple isn’t going to reveal them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The only other solid data point we can look at is the history of legacy Final Cut Pro. While I don’t think we can take anything that happened with legacy Final Cut as proof positive of what will happen going forward, until they break with a pattern conclusively, it holds some relevance.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 1 • NAB 1999</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 2 • MAR 2001</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 3 • DEC 2001</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 4 • NAB 2003</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 4.5 • NAB 2004</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 5 • NAB 2005</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 6 • NAB 2007</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro 7 • JUL 2009</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Final Cut Pro X • NAB 2011</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">*source Wikipedia</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Out of the 8 releases of legacy FCP between 1999 and 2009, 5 of those were previewed at NAB in their respective years. The ones that weren’t were FCP2, FCP3, and FCP7. While Final Cut Studio 3 was considered by many to be a fairly minor update to the suite; FCP 2 and 3 were big improvements in the early days of the software, so I’m not sure why they gave NAB a pass. But I think it’s safe to say that the majority of the time, Apple has demoed new versions of Final Cut Pro at NAB, including Final Cut Pro X in 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The other pattern here is that Final Cut Pro has typically seen major updates on a roughly 2 year cycle. Final Cut Pro 2 & 3 were released in the same year, and Final Cut Pro 4.5 [or Final Cut Pro HD] was a iterate step up in the software before all of Apple’s video production tools were wrapped together into FInal Cut Studio.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And that’s really all the data we have to work with- anything else is pure speculation. Which brings us finally to...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>SPECULATION</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’m personally beginning to feel we’ve reached a pivot point in the development of Final Cut Pro X.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While there are some great lists like Richard Taylor’s <a href="http://fcpx.tv/top.html">“Top 90 Requests for Final Cut Pro X”</a> that describe areas for improvement in workflow and finessing UI, the BIG requests from 10.0 are mostly gone, unless you count tracks and a non-magnetic timeline [in which case I think you’re out of luck].</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple could easily spend a year implementing most of the requests on a list like that, and while I think almost everything on that list is worth doing, I don’t see the FCPX dev team sitting back and and just massaging the existing feature-set.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple needs to keep pushing forward- they still have to convince people that the rethinking of editing that’s at the core of FCPX is was worthwhile, and even more, that the time that has to go into learning FCPX is a worthwhile investment for companies still clinging to their copies of Final Cut Pro 7.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Like last year, I think we’ll see at least two major revisions to the Final Cut Pro X this year. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the immediate term, I see another substantial feature upgrade with either 10.0.8 or [more likely] 10.0.9, between now and April. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Whether it’s a 10.0.X or 10.1 preview, I really hope we see Randy Ubillos back at NAB this year. While I think the harsh view of FCPX has softened to some extent, I think the FCPX dev team needs to show they’re not deterred by the negativity of the past 2 years, and come out swinging again. Everything added back to FCPX since 10.0 has been a substantive improvement over it’s legacy predecessor. They just need to keep going.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The back half of the year is much foggier. As I stated earlier, while I could definitely see a 10.1 upgrade this year, there are issues around the MacAppStore that have me wondering if it’s really in the cards. There’s the aforementioned potential issue with upgrade pricing. There’s also the fact that at some point FCPX is going to need to be sandboxed like all other appsStore apps. In it’s current incarnation it’s immune to those rules, but my understanding is that any new version will have to abide by those sandboxing policies. It could be problematic for the Project/Event structure, OR for potential round-tripping with other apps like Motion or Logic. So if 10.1 does happen this year, I think it would have to be in the fall to make any sense. But that does leave me confounded as to what Apple will do with the update naming structure after 10.0.9, which would presumably drop by the Summer. That still leaves half a year of development with no where to go numerically unless Apple goes to 10.0.10 and beyond.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As for what zones of development we’ll see this year- the two large ones that I see at the forefront are AUDIO and COLLABORATIVE WORKFLOWS. If you held a gun to my head, I’d say that AUDIO will get attention first.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In terms of audio, ROLES is a half-implemented solution at this point- and finishing the job will have positive implications for <i>audio mixing</i>, <i>project timeline layout</i>, and <i>AAF/OMF export</i>. FCPX’s trackless timeline is still seen as a deficiency that this stage- and making that concept acceptable to people is the biggest hurdle they need to overcome right now. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">COLLABORATIVE WORKFLOWS is a very specialized problem. Apple had years of Final Cut Server experience to get a read on what people really wanted out of that product- so I have high hopes that when that functionality returns it will be both more powerful and accessible.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Other areas I’d like to see tackled are PROJECT VERSIONING that goes beyond project duplication, a more substantive and bullet-proof BACKUP VAULT. KEYFRAMING also needs to be overhauled, and of course better ROUND-TRIPPING WITH MOTION [which will hopefully also see a substantive update this year as well].</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The final area that needs attention this year is FCPXs image. And while continuous feature improvements will help the software’s reputation- the bigger issue I see is a purely PR one. Some people have gone cold on Apple. There are numerous reasons for this, some valid, some silly. But they’re there, make no mistake.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">FCPX might have been the most mismanaged launch in Apple’s history. Positioned and presented properly- FCPX could have been an enticing future platform that Final Cut editors could be excited about and engaged with. As it was, a terrible example is alienating your user base.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But what’s done is done and it’s time to move forward. And to do that Apple need to make presenting to people and demoing the software a priority, anywhere they can, as often as they can. There are so many misconceptions about what FCPX can and can’t do at this stage, and unless Apple gets out in front of this problem, these perceptions are going to linger LONG after they’ve solved them in the software itself. Apple needs to engage those who are using it- they’re ambassadors for your product. And finally Apple needs to address the MacPro issue- high end users need to know where Apple stands in this space. Thanks to Tim Cook, we already know something is coming in 2013. Don’t blow it!</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>NEXT: We’ll take an in-depth look at how I hope to see Roles evolve in 2013.</i></b></span></div>
Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-5869849912687513662012-12-31T08:50:00.000-08:002013-01-25T07:01:10.084-08:00Final Cut Pro X 2013, PART 1<br />
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<b style="letter-spacing: 0px;">FCPX in 2012 [10.0.3-10.0.7]</b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Over the next several weeks we’ll be taking a look at where Apple’s Final Cut Pro X might be headed over the 2013 calendar year. But first I thought it might be worth taking a look back at the past year and see just how far we’ve come before getting to where we might be going...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This will not be a feature by feature review. If you’re looking for detailed notes on each release, I encourage you to seek out Apple’s own release notes. Here I’m more interested in what these updates mean generally for the software’s future development.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When 2012 started there was still tons of doubt about FCPXs focus. We had seen one major [10.0.1] and one minor [10.0.2] update in 2011, and although some important stability and usability issues were addressed in those updates, it had done little to diminish the long list of professional features that were indeed still missing from the application. So was FCPX really meant for “hobbyists” or “Prosumers”? Or was Apple’s ultimate goal indeed to eventually fill the same market-space as FCP7?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>A NEW, OPEN APPLE</b> [by Apple standards anyway...]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Released on November 16th 2011, FCPX 10.0.2 was in itself a minor maintenance release. The bigger story was a list of pre-announced features appearing on the “What’s New” page of Apple’s Final Cut Pro X website. Beyond the importance of the features themselves [Multicam & Broadcast Monitoring], Apple preemptively discussing any unreleased future product was a break from their <i>modus operandi</i>. Shortly after FPX’s original release in June, in the firestorm of disappointment and burning hatred, Apple had done a Q&A in the addressing specific questions about whether Apple intended certain Pro features to return.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">http://www.macstories.net/news/apple-responds-to-final-cut-pro-x-criticism-with-another-qa/</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The 10.0.2 pre-announcements definitely seemed to indicate an intention to continue a more open dialogue with users- attempting to telegraph [as clearly as Apple ever would] that Pro features would would indeed return to FCPX, and in the near term. Then on April 10th, just before NAB2012, Apple released FCPX 10.0.4 and this time invited members of the press to discuss upcoming features bound for the software “In 2012”. The highlighted features again focused entirely on Pro-oriented requests, including RED and MXF support, Multichannel Audio Editing, and Dual Viewers.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This peak into FCPXs future development was a great start, I can’t help but think Apple needs do more to sooth the choppy waters FCPXs introduction caused. Even if the platform matures as those of us who use it think that it will, the wariness about Apple’s commitment to the Pro user will likely continue to dog the software long after it has technically left those barriers behind. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But Apple’s new PR push wasn’t without it’s stumbles... In July, the LACPUG announced that Apple would be doing a presentation around the 1 year anniversary of the software’s release. The wording of Apple’s PR blurb was vague, and the rumor mill went into overdrive- from attendees thinking they would see a preview of new features, to some even speculating that 10.1 might be released shortly thereafter. As it turns out, it was a dog and pony show of all the features that had been re-implemented into the software since 10.0. Reports on twitter were that the presentation did not go over well with many in attendance. It was a miscommunication of messaging, but it’s exactly the type of confusion Apple needs to avoid. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Going forward into 2013, I doubt we’ll see these feature pre-announcements continue for much longer. As long as FCPX is re-integrating legacy functionality- they’re certainly not letting the cat out of the bag on anything by teasing us with the immediate roadmap, but once those holes have been filled, I’d bet very heavily against seeing Apple giving us lists of “next generation” features that could technically give it a competitive advantage. That’s just good sense.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>RAPID DEVELOPMENT</b> [by anyone’s standard], <b>FOCUSED ON PRO FEATURES</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The features pre-announced with 10.0.2 were earmarked for “Early 2012”. The general consensus was that this would mean 1st quarter of 2012... or more likely around NAB in April. But to the surprise of just about everyone 10.0.3 was indeed released VERY early in 2012, on January 31st. This in my mind is one of the big FCPX stories for 2012; the rapid and regular update cycle that Apple has been able to maintain throughout the year. FCPX is still lagging behind from a feature perspective, but if they keep this pace up, it won’t be for long.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">FCPX received 2 major feature updates and 3 maintenance updates in 2012. If anything, it’s likely the FCPX development team is BEHIND on it’s own goals for the year. On June 11th at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company released it’s first Retina Mac, the 15” MacBookPro with Retina Display. Along with it came Retina updates to several applications, including Aperture and Final Cut ProX [10.0.5]. It’s generally understood that Apple’s development teams work in tight silos, with one group knowing little to nothing about what another is doing until absolutely necessary. So it’s quite probable that the FCPX team received little notice about the impending hardware update, and when they were informed that they’d need to have a Retina update ready for WWDC, had to push back the schedule for it’s next major release until they could get 10.0.5 out the door. If they hadn’t had Retina support sprung on them, it seems possible we could have seen the 10.0.6 features in 10.0.5, around the 1 year anniversary of FCPX.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If you look at the release schedule thus far [see chart below], 10.0.6‘s 134 days is certainly the anomaly, with the average update cycle to that point being about 10 weeks [70 days].</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">FCPX RELEASE SCHEDULE [days between updates]</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Keeping that in mind, the FCPX development team was STILL able to get 10.0.6 out on October 23rd, well clear of the “2012” deadline they announced at NAB. AND they were also able to release an end-of-year maintenance update on December 6th [10.0.7].</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In our next article we’ll examine more closely whether this release pattern will continue into 2013, or if we’re nearing a pivot point in the development of the software.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">F<b>ORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT PRODUCT FOCUS</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It used to be that Apple kept a very tight reign on product focus. If Apple had a product to launch, they would put all their marketing effort behind that one product. Longtime Apple users will remember that even Final Cut Pro releases would get feature placement on Apple’s website not so long ago. Of course, this was when Apple’s stable of products was much smaller. 2 laptops and 2 desktops, iPods, iLife and iWork suites, and their Pro software: FCP and Logic.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All thru this fall, as speculators attempted to estimate the release date for 10.0.6 [myself included], people would always black out ranges around Apple events, especially consumer focused ones. The thinking being that Apple would want to keep it’s marketing message focused on whatever devices it was announcing that day. But the day 10.0.6 was released in October, was the day of an event that introduced the iPad mini, and 4th generation iPad, the newly designed iMac, and a 13” variant of the Retina MacBook Pro. Clearly, Apple isn’t worried about FCPX being released and muddying the PR waters for their other products. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is a positive in that it means that FCPX is free to follow along on it’s own development path unaffected by how Apple schedules it’s Mac and iOS products. That’s not to say that they can’t pursue synergy where it makes sense. This is why we saw the Retina MacBookPro and a Retina update to FCPX on the same day. But FCPX development won’t be slave to unrelated products. That’s good news.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>RE-THINK, NOT JUST REPLICATE</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One thing that has been obvious from the start of FCPX is that Apple’s intention wasn’t just to update, but to rethink every aspect of the software- even if some might not want them to. Every feature that has been brought back to FCPX in 2012 has been fundamentally rethought to make it more intuitive, more useful, and more powerful. Multicam in 10.0.3 combined with the new Multichannel Audio Editing tools in 10.0.6 deliver an amazing step up from it’s legacy counterpart. RED support has improved drastically, bringing it in-line with the best offerings from competitors. Paste Attributes does the same job with more granularity and control.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And while it remains at present an incomplete solution, I think Roles holds great promise for the future; as a foundation for project organization, audio mixing, and project versioning [more to come on that later in this series].</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>A LONG ROAD BOTH AHEAD AND BEHIND</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">While the application has come a long way since 2012 began, as we close out the year, there remains a lot of skepticism about FCPX. While it seems to be finding a lot of friends in one-man and small shops, it’s penetration into more established markets remains a novelty at best. Let’s make no mistake- FCPX’s deficiencies are very real for many workflows. But each update comes with new stories of those decided to take the plunge and find advantages in FCPX’s new philosophies and concepts.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Full Disclosure: though I was playing with the software almost every day since it was released, I didn’t move the majority of my work to FCPX until the 10.0.4 release in April, when Broadcast Monitoring came out of Beta. At this point I probably only open FCP7 once a week, to do a quick tweak to a legacy project, or for a client that needs FCP7 backup files. But happily those are the exception these days.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>NEXT TIME:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In Part 2 of this series will look ahead to 2013 and discuss what form this years updates might take; and if, how, and when a 10.1 update is in the cards.</span></div>
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Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-82839189691522329192012-03-11T20:07:00.000-07:002012-03-11T20:07:49.472-07:00DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH WAITING TV APPS [hint, you'll die]The iPad is naturally generating a lot of buzz around the internet in the last week. Most of it's been pretty positive, with the standard regiment of malcontents deciding it was "disappointing" or "underwhelming" for whatever reason. And that's the point... I don't think I've heard anyone adequately explain what it was they were expecting that they didn't get. There was just no outlandish surprises. Oh, well...<br />
<br />
Announced alongside the iPad was a refreshed TV, bringing 1080p support and a new UI- it was nothing groundbreaking, but anyone that was expecting something more during an iPad event was deluding themselves. Many argued that Apple wouldn't announce another product during the event, but the more I thought about the way Apple has been positioning AirPlay connectivity since iOS5 came out, it really made sense with the iPad's 2x resolution to both start delivering iTunes movies and TV shows at 1080p resolution, as well as release an TV which could push AirPlay from your iPad at the best possible resolution.<br />
<br />
Here again we had lots of complaints, on one hand you have people surprised/disappointed that Apple's 1080p isn't BluRay quality.<br />
<br />
Well... DUH!<br />
<br />
But the other complaint is one we've hit twice in a row now- TV appStore. I have to admit that when this rumour cropped up before the announcement of the TV2, I was onboard. Heck, I was even planning with a friend of mine to start a weekly TV podcast. But it was not to be then, and there was absolutely no mention of it last week.<br />
<br />
I've thought about it a bit this week and I've come to a conclusion- it ain't gonna happen. Sorry. Nope.<br />
<br />
Thinking about it in retrospect, it was clear when Apple launched the TV2 at Macworld in 2008, and the refresh at last week's iPad event sealed the deal.<br />
<br />
Why am I so sure?<br />
<br />
It comes down to two things- First, storage. <br />
<br />
When Apple launched the TV2, they removed the bulk of the internal storage from the original version. Gone were the 40 or 160GB internal drives that had to be synched with a computer on your local home network. In their place in the tiny shell of the TV2 was 8GB of flash memory. Enough storage to buffer streaming of a movie or two, and that's it. We haven't heard how much internal flash memory lives in the new TV, but I guarantee you it's not much more than 8GB.<br />
<br />
If Apple were to launch an appStore for the TV, where does the user store all these apps? A couple of good sized games or applications, and your going to be running out of space. Especially if you consider the TV MUST keep a certain amount of that flash memory available for media streaming. There's just no room to be downloading any reasonable amount of apps in the TVs current form factor.<br />
<br />
And the second nail in the coffin? The processor. <br />
<br />
Apple updated the TV with an A5 processor. But it wasn't the dual-core A5X with quad-core GPU that Apple put into the new iPad. Heck, it wasn't even the dual-core A5 they put into last fall's iPhone4S. It was an all new single-core A5, beefed up specifically to give the TV enough horsepower to decode h.264 using the High or Main profile [thanks, <a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/03/new-itunes-1080p-looks-good-through-better-h264-compression.ars">ars technica</a>] at up to 25Mbps. So what does this tell us? If Apple had any intention to giving the TV access to an appStore, saddling it with this single-core A5 chip makes no sense at all. It would make it already less powerful than the iPhone4, perhaps even less powerful than the 2009 iPhone3GS at some tasks. No, this device has been specially tuned to do one thing and one thing well- media streaming.<br />
<br />
And really, what's Apple's motivation for putting an appStore on a device that costs $99, and potentially poaching sales of vastly more profitable iPhones, iPodTouches, and iPads. There is none.<br />
<br />
So what's the deal? Well, it all comes back to AirPlay. Apple sees the TV as the widget to get your stuff from all your Apple gear onto your big screen. That's it. It's that simple. If you want apps on your TV, then you can do that... by pushing them from your iOS device, and later this year with your Mac running Mountain Lion. By doing this, Apple eliminates all the interface problems that would have come from a straight up appStore for TV. No new multi-touch remote, no alternate versions of apps for TVs interface. Just all the apps on your Mac or iOS device... on your TV.<br />
<br />
So where does this leave us? Well, I do think we'll see customized functionality for TV. Apple is already showing us what this will look like with the new interface. But it won't be apps we're downloading, but CHANNELS, much like the VIMEO or MLB or NETFLIX apps that come preinstalled on the new TV now. Apps like this are very small, basically shells for displaying content streamed from the net. So the storage constraints won't be an issue. And it leaves the TV processor to do what it does best, stream media.<br />
<br />
So if you have no interest in sports, you can delete all those apps from the interface, and hopefully [should networks finally come to their senses] be able to download HBOGO, or HULU, or CBS, or NICKELODEON or whatever. Essentially creating your own cable box with only the channels you're interested in subscribing to.<br />
<br />
<br />
So, sorry, no TV appStore.Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-80177644530475019872012-03-10T10:34:00.000-08:002012-03-10T10:34:25.121-08:00GOING FORWARD - FCPX 10.0.4<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It seems like FCPX 10.0.3 just came out, bringing with it a host of new or renewed features including multicam, media relinking, layered photoshop file support, batch file renaming, and broadcast monitoring [Beta]. As well, it brought improvements to XML, colour correction, choma keying, and overall performance and stability.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4589">Final Cut Pro X: Version 10.0.3 release notes</a></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But the biggest change, I think, might be the attitude towards the software. I’ve seen lots of articles from people openly hostile towards the original release who’ve been converted, or at the very least their stance has softened. Scott Simmons, who I’ve had several back and forths with on Twitter, wrote a great piece for Studio Daily about the current state of FCPX</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><a href="http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/02/review-final-cut-pro-x-10-0-3-4/">Review: Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3</a></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The key point here in Scott’s article,</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"...part of the argument against FCPX was its lack of certain core functions that editors have always relied on. Now that many of them are back the questions to ask about moving to FCPX is less about editing features and more about editing philosophy."</span></blockquote><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Quoth the internet, "THIS". The reason I've been so frustrated to understand much of the reaction to FCPX, is that it seems most people's attitude was that ANY change to the way things are currently done means that it was no longer "Pro".</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Well, to quote the ever-readable Philip Hodgetts of <a href="http://www.intelligentassistance.com/">Intelligent Assistance</a>,</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">"The first problem with making major improvements is that it will involve change and we know that no one likes change: they want things to get better but never change!"</span></span></blockquote><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><br />
<div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I'm not going to go down this path too far, but to conclude this point, I've hear many people complain since the launch of FCPX that Apple is trying to "tell them now to edit". Well, sure... they're proposing ideas that differ from the way things are currently done. But as someone who's been editing since the first NLEs surfaced, I have to say, I don't remember being asked how I wanted to edit back then either!</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the end, there are two ways to look at Apple as a company investing into FCPX:</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first is that Apple is a company where editing software contributes basically nothing to their bottom line; their livelihood doesn’t depend on it’s success, so why should we expect them to take it seriously.</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The second, is that Apple is a company where editing software contributes basically nothing to their bottom line; their livelihood doesn’t depend on it’s success, so they have the freedom to take chances that other companies that live or die on their software’s success cannot.</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">AVID isn’t going to do anything to rock the boat with their core user base. Those users have their rut and dammit don’t screw with my interface or command keys! This gives AVID very little room to maneuver in terms of innovating. All they can do is make “the faster horse”.</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apple is willing to throw away core ideas and start over- and that’s where real innovation begins.</span></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Wait... wasn’t this article about 10.0.4?</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span> <div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ok. Thanks for letting me vent...</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Let’s take a look at Apple’s FCPX release schedule since the product first launched, with days between each update listed after-</span></div><div style="font: 13.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.0 - Jun 21, 2011</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.1 - Sep 20, 2011 [91 DAYS]</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.2 - Nov 16, 2011 [57 DAYS]</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">10.0.3 - Jan 31, 2012 [76 DAYS]</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The smartest way to predict what Apple is going to do is look for patterns in their process. We don’t have a lot of data to work with yet, but so far the update release cycle has been 10.0.1 [Feature Update], 10.0.2 [Bug Fix], 10.0.3 [Feature Update]. If we take that as gospel, we should expect to see FCPX 10.0.4 approximately 2 months after the release of 10.0.3. The other thing to keep in mind is that with all but 1 of these updates, Apple releases on a Tuesday.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With that in mind, the earliest prospective date for 10.0.4 will be <b>Tuesday, March 27th</b>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now, this takes for granted that 10.0.4 will follow pattern and be all about bug fixes. Should that be the case, expect to see no new “feature” functionality. That said, I think we could still see further enhancements to FCPX’s XML [further expanding the hooks 3rd parties can use for cross-software compatibility] and added work on the CoreMediaIO Broadcast monitoring support.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">However, we’re still in early days here, and it’s clear the FCPX development team has set itself aggressive goals for the software’s development. So we might see another large scale release with 10.0.4. Should that be the case, we could expect it no later than 3 months after the release of 10.0.3, or by <b>Tuesday, May 1st</b>.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Should 10.0.4 be a bigger update, I think the areas we might see some big changes are :</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><ul><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Audio mixing and improvement of the implementation of Roles</span></li>
<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Improved multi-user and SAN support</span></li>
</ul><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Richard Taylor <a href="http://fcpx.tv/top.html">has posted an extensive list of improvements he’d like to see on his site FCPX.TV</a>. He’s already had to ace 9 items with the release of 10.0.3. I imagine a lot more will be gone before the end of the year.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">As with anything theorizing about Apple's plans, it's always a crap shoot. They act like this, until they do that! Though I didn't publish my predictions anywhere, I was within 2 week of my outside prediction of the 10.0.3 release date. Let's see how I fare this time...</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>NEXT:</b> my own take on ROLES. The core idea is great, but I think they need to work on presentation.</span></div>Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-22434439883454392932011-06-22T07:06:00.000-07:002011-06-22T09:11:32.126-07:00ON REACTION TO FCPX...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the ramp up to the release of FCPX, we've seen no end of speculation, posturing, deification, ranting, ultimatums, and general nuttyness. At times I have to admit I've found it a bit disheartening. I'd like to think of Pro users as a bit more pragmatic and thoughtful. But proportionately, there's been just as much plain rumor-mongering around the release of FCPX as there was over the last iPhone. I suppose though, I can't really blame people. Editors are artists, and they take their art seriously. They also spend a great deal of time in front of that screen, so it becomes a very personal experience. And how well they know that software determines their livelyhood. When things change, people get nervous.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So yesterday FCPX was released and a lot of people went a little crazy.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think the critical mistake that people are making in is that they're seeing this as an either/or scenario, when what we're dealing with is if/then. Despite the name, this is a transition to a new platform, and like any of the transitions that editors who've been in this business for any amount of time can attest, it didn't happen all at once. FILM-->TAPE-->NLE was a slow and frustrating process, with a lot of uncertainty and competing technologies that left many high and dry.<br />
<br />
The last 5-7 years have been relatively stable, all things considered. The same big players. The same UI conventions. Things have gotten faster, better, but not a lot has changed.<br />
<br />
From my perspective, if Apple had simply taken their existing platform and moved it to 64bit, it would be the expected, incremental move forward. And some people would have loved that. The fact that they have taken the effort to stretch out and explore new paradigms new ways of working, says more to me about Apple's commitment to the Pro market than the omission of features, as important to a segment of the Pro market as they may be.<br />
<br />
Hold on, what did I say? <i>A segment of the Pro market?</i><br />
<br />
And I think that's the really important fallacy to burn to the ground here. These ARE NOT critical features for every Pro. To say that you're either outputting to a Da Vinci for grading or ProTools for audio; or your a kid cutting his skateboard videos in is parents basement is disingenuous and frankly insulting to a majority of the market. I work with large companies, and for 6 years [having been in the business for 22] have run my own business and made not an inconsequential amount of money. And there's only one feature that's missing here that I technically care about for my day to day business, and that's external monitoring. Am I not Pro? Professionals are anyone who make a majority of their living off of a given trade, and anything else is an artificial barrier set up by those who'd like to set themselves apart for reasons of ego. Great that you cut film or television. That's not my business, so to say I'm not Pro is the hight of delusion from those that do work in those fields. That's how AVID lost it's majority market share in NLEs in the past 10 years. Keep catering to the top 5%, and keep setting up barriers for entry to the mid-to low end.<br />
<br />
I firmly believe based on what Larry Jordan and Philip Hodgetts have said that it was simply a matter of time and resources that led to the exclusion of the features like EDL, XML, OMF and Multi-cam. So let me propose two ideas and tell me which of the two makes more sense:<br />
<br />
1. Apple holds release of FCPX for another 6-12 months until all of these features can be addressed. Apple does not talk about unreleased software so the not inconsiderable discontent continues to grow. Apple finally releases the software this time next year, and large post houses would STILL have to take the time to evaluate, test, learn the new UI [while still being productive] and hold out for a couple of bug revisions before slowing moving over to FCPX.<br />
<br />
2. Apple releases FCPX yesterday, and a large swath of the middle market and jump right in start working with it. Finding the issues. Providing feedback to Apple. Large post houses can download the software at minimal cost and play with it in non-work scenarios. Editors can get their heads around the shift in media management and editorial UI. Then, in 6-8 months, when the bugs get worked out and these features have been implemented, the high end can start transitioning over as their schedules allow. OR for that matter companies can evaluate that Apple's new platform does not meet their needs and start to plan their transition to AVID or PremierPro [yeah, right...].<br />
<br />
To say that FCPX is not for Pros is flat out wrong. To say that it's not ready for ALL-Pros is absolutely correct. The first one would suppose that Pros are not the target market, which is clearly not the case. The other is born of purely technical concerns, which can and will be sorted out in due course.<br />
<br />
The surest sign of how Apple views this is that you CAN run both FCP7 and FCPX on the same system. They aren't putting a gun to your head and telling you this is how it's going to go! They see this as a transition from one platform to another, as has been mentioned elsewhere, like the transition from OS9 to OSX.</span>Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-17041519554040091132011-03-16T08:02:00.000-07:002011-03-16T08:04:35.502-07:00GREAT ARTICLE ON THE NEW FINAL CUT PROThere's been so much stupid chatter about the rumoured Final Cut Studio update that's coming, supposedly in the very near future, that I'd been hemming and hawing about writing about a piece on it for a couple weeks.<br />
<br />
People want FCP to get better, but not to change. Well, you can't have it both ways. As I already outlined in my first article, <a href="http://disproportionatepictures.blogspot.com/2011/02/dont-fear-our-buttonless-future-part-1.html">DON'T FEAR OUR BUTTONLESS FUTURE</a>, I think there's a lot of room for the UI of pro-edit software to grow and improve. And although I don't see Apple ready to surprise us all with a touchscreen edit interface for Final Cut Pro 8, the rumours are very strong that we'll see some interesting changes in how the program works.<br />
<br />
So instead of killing half a day writing an article, he's a list of links to the best speculative discussion on the mysterious FCPx that should be coming our way soon.<br />
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WARNING: This is not light reading. Though I imagine that any search that brought you here seeking info will mean this is all right up your alley!<br />
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Philip Hodgetts Blog has been a great source of speculative info on FCP for several years. He was entirely skeptical of the possibility of a near-term 64 bit release of FCP this year, until it occurred to him that the new Final Cut could be based on A/VFoundation.<br />
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<a href="http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/02/a-new-64-bit-final-cut-pro/">A new 64 bit Final Cut Pro?</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/02/what-is-apple-doing-with-quicktime/">What is doing with Quicktime?</a><br />
<br />
Philip and Terrence Curren<a href="http://www.theterenceandphilipshow.com/2011/03/episode-21-talking-about-the-new-final-cut-pro/"> expand on Philips theories in this great podcast.</a><br />
<br />
and most recently, Scott Simmons <a href="http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/ssimmons/story/more_random_mindless_speculation_about_the_new_final_cut_pro/P0/">waxes about what interface changes might mean to Final Cut.</a><br />
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A lot of people out there, and most especially those critical of FCP to begin with, or those who have already jumped ship to Premier, are decrying the limited info to mean the "iMovieification" of Final Cut.<br />
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To those people I say, do you also have lottery numbers you can send me from the future times?<br />
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Happy reading, and expect the second part of DON'T FEAR OUR BUTTONLESS FUTURE in the next week.<br />
<br />
MRMHoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-66163006083309444642011-02-04T13:18:00.000-08:002011-02-04T13:18:49.286-08:00DON'T FEAR OUR BUTTONLESS FUTURE! Part 1!Go to hell, keyboards!<br />
<br />
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, ACER introduced a concept for a new laptop called the ICONIA. The predominant feature was that it had no keyboard.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zGQ-BNUEqBA/TUxb0s4DRlI/AAAAAAAAABM/wBbC1KO5t4Q/s1600/Acer_ICONIA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zGQ-BNUEqBA/TUxb0s4DRlI/AAAAAAAAABM/wBbC1KO5t4Q/s400/Acer_ICONIA.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ACER's ICONIA notebook, with twin touchscreens.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
While it's an idea that has been floating around for a while, this is the first production model I'm aware of. On it's own, it's only sort of interesting. The demoed U.I. for the "keyboard" half is not particularly well designed or implemented. No. The <i>really</i> interesting aspect of this was the reaction to the product. Tech site articles and their comments were rife with with snarky commentary. The basic gist of which was that a "real" computer has to have a hardware keyboard.<br />
<br />
Wait.... what?!<br />
<br />
Here we are, in the year 2011, and regardless of a computer's function, or the work that the user is doing on it- the primary method of input is still a holdover from the 1870's, when the first mass-production typewriters went into service. A devices who's letter arrangement was set up to stop the hardware keys from jamming against one another. Really?<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zGQ-BNUEqBA/TUxfrjVv95I/AAAAAAAAABQ/zIzEjyLvMrc/s1600/typewriter.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="273" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zGQ-BNUEqBA/TUxfrjVv95I/AAAAAAAAABQ/zIzEjyLvMrc/s400/typewriter.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our proud past... and glorious future?!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>How not far have we come?<br />
<br />
The carryover of the interface from from the typewriter to the computer is certainly an understandable one. I'm not so young as to forget the days with my VIC 20. Command line input was the mainstay through most of the 80's and for that you definitely needed a keyboard; until the mapped interface and computer mouse was developed by Xerox PARC, introduced on the Macintosh, and popularized by Microsoft with it's release of Windows in the early 90's.<br />
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And after 20+ years of development, these early tools have evolved into today's modern... mouse and keyboard.<br />
<br />
Huh?<br />
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Now, let me be frank. I know a lot of writers who make their living banging away at the keys every day, and my intention isn't to demean or deride what they do. And typing is certainly part of just about everyone's day. But with how far we've come in just about every other aspect of computing how does this make any sense:<br />
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COMPUTER INPUT BY PROFESSION:<br />
<br />
WRITER - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
ACCOUNTANT - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
ENGINEER - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
PAINTER - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
MUSICIAN - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
VIDEO EDITING - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
ARCHITECT - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
ANIMATOR - Keyboard & Mouse<br />
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Do we see a pattern here? Even in the cases where add-on inputs are available, such as midi keyboards for musicians, or tablets for artists, they are still subservient to the mouse as a pointer device... and a keyboard. The keyboard which was designed for ONE task, and has been forced into servitude for ALL possible ends, through a never-ending series of keyboard shortcuts.<br />
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As someone who's had to learn several different video editing platforms in my career, it's what creative people fear the most- change. It's why editors are so faithful to the programs they use. Because if they switch, it means having to spend months learning how to do what you already know how to do but can't do anymore cause all the goddamn buttons have changed!<br />
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The keyboard creates a bizarre layer of abstraction between the user and any non-text input tasks that's entirely unnecessary. Could there be a new paradigm where the keyboard is only an optional facet to an interface that's optimized for any and every task-- easier and more intuitively?<br />
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In PART 2, I'll look at what alternative inputs exist today, and technologically soothsay about how they might impact the future of everyday computing.<br />
<br />
Except for writers, they'll hate it.Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-91108752238776932012011-01-04T11:08:00.000-08:002011-01-04T11:14:10.299-08:00THE STATE OF THINGS - 2011<div style="text-align: justify;">So here we are. 2011.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">No flying cars or jet-packs, sadly, but I do have an iPhone- a hilariously powerful computer that fits in my pocket- so powerful in fact, that it's the diminutive size that constrains it's uses, rather than it's computing power. I also have the magical ability to perform by job as a freelance editor from my home- to work interactively with clients a hundred kilometres away for all intents and purposes with the same interactivity as if they were here in the room with me. And the truth is, they might as well be a couple thousand kilometres away.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why aren't I living in Barbados again?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As of this year, I'll have been a professional editor for 15 years, and Disproportionate Pictures is 5 years young this month. I count myself as fortunate that I entered the post business when I did. Non-Linear Editing had taken hold by the time I took my first post-graduate job in 1996. I say fortunate for two reasons-</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, because I did get a taste of the pre-digital world. When I entered Ryerson Polytechnic University in 1992, the film program was still just that- a FILM program. Shoot on film. Edit on film. Sound on mag stock. The way it had been done for a century. We dabbled in A/B tape editing as well, via the Rogers Radio and Television Arts centre. At that point, access to AVID Non-Linear Editing systems were only just becoming available outside of the very high end, and it would be several years before Ryerson would get them. My first look at one was through a co-operative that rented out suites to students and low budget filmmakers on an hourly basis. And they were busy!! Though there were a fair share of die hard film purists, it was clear by the 4th year of our program that this is where the future was going.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, I feel fortunate that I never had to use any of these antiquated techniques again once I left the academic world. I'm a great lover of film history, and to a great extent I am a film purist. I don't believe in colorization, or retrofitting decades old films with new effects. But where technology can help to make the process of filmmaking better for the storyteller. I'm all for it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This year hopefully marks the beginning of a transition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the next few weeks I'll begin editing on my second feature, a wonderfully bizarre film by writer/director Alex Boothby called <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mr-Viral/171471206204517">MR. VIRAL</a>. The film was shot on the RED ONE digital cinema camera with the new MysteriumX sensor. This is the same camera David Fincher used to shoot THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Looking back on my film years again, it's really remarkable; I remember many night shoots when you would be fighting for any kind of exposure, and now cameras like the RED can see just as well as the human eye. You no longer need to light for exposure- only for look.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Work continues on my great passion, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hoverboy/26341650753">HOVERBOY</a>- the 73rd most popular hero of the 20th Century. There will be a string of wonderful updates of various shapes and sizes. New contributors are lending a hand to the restoration of a lot of materials in the Hoverboy Archives. It's early days, but my fondest wish is that the 1950's HOVERBOY DESTROYS CHRISTMAS!! special could be on the air by this Christmas. Broader plans for a continuing Hoverboy TV series, featuring clips from many of Hoverboy's TV and Film incarnations is also in the works. This would truly be a dream come true for me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are also thoughts rolling around in my head for not one but two feature films which could under the right conditions take off this year. MR. VIRAL and Ben Mazzotta's <a href="http://www.thelimitsmovie.com/">THE LIMITS</a> [2007] have shown me that though there are many obstacles in the way, the biggest challenge to making a feature film is the determination to do it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the course of this year, I'll be chronically my efforts on these various ventures, and providing some thoughts on the future of the business in which I work. Specifically, the road to the new Final Cut Studio 4 rumoured to be coming in the coming months; my thoughts on the vision [or lack thereof] in the evolution of editing interfaces and hardware.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't profess to be a great expert on some of the things I'll be discussing, just a user who has a perspective. So hopefully people with broader knowledge than mine can comment or otherwise illuminate on the topics here. A forum for discussion if you will.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It should be fun.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">-MRM</div>Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30148327.post-1151064154001972392006-06-23T05:00:00.000-07:002006-06-23T05:02:34.003-07:00Welcome to the official (and only) blog for Disproportionate Pictures. Makers of fine fare for the eyes. In the coming weeks, I'll be updating on several projects I'm currently involved with in feature documentary, animation, and comics. Talk to you again soon.Hoverboyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18419661620729206653noreply@blogger.com0