So it’s been a month of Avid. And while I have gotten better at finding things I have become much faster and more proficient as a result.

The biggest timesaver was discovering that I was able to switch of select filler in the timeline when grabbing stuff. Result!

So how are things really after a month you ask?

Well glad you did.

You can see FCPX Roles influence in the track colors for dialogue, FX & music

I still do not like Avid.

Titles are a pain in the ass, it crashes 4 out of 5 times I change a title and this episode I am cutting has tons of vfx, lots of driving plates and establishers that need replacing, so has titles as descriptions for the various other viewers to understand what’s happening in each shot. Fucking Crash City.

If you need to edit a title, it’s multiple clicks, not a simple thing because it opens up a whole new window and then the title has to be saved. Grrrr. and then of course it crashes so you have to re-open and start again. And then of course it crashes again, because the last crash corrupted the title you were working on and so have to re-open and start again.

Anyway, the upshot is that I have got so much better at moving around the interface. I do have some problems moving back and forth between Avid and FCPX, mostly shortcuts, because Avid can’t replace Command Menu functions from what I can see, so Command Plus or Minus in X is Command [ and ] so after a day in each I screw that up constantly. Funnily enough I am more mad about that when I screw it up in X because the Command [ ] keys are for moving between timelines.

I certainly got better at trimming during the fine cut. But This is where I really miss my magnetic timeline, especially when shifting scenes around. Or adding frames to the end of a video and the audio goes out of sync. That bugged me but finally got my head back into dealing with tracks and switching my brain back into 1990’s mode.

The re-linking of footage while working with proxies is still problematic for me. I don’t get why the proxy file is there on the drive but nothing I do will make Avid see it. I couldn’t even import them as new clips but see my previous post for that work around.

Overall, I don’t dread opening Avid now I am better at it, I do definitely prefer X with its skimming and scrubbing, and magnetic timeline and footage accessibility etc but at least now I have a better understanding of how to operate the damn thing. I’m certainly no expert but I can cut a 45 minute episode of an international TV show from scratch in just under 3 weeks so i hope I can at least say it’s a good start.

Hoping to crack more eps soon.

Peace love and vomit

J

PS Real-time final Export. And complete Avid lockout while it’s doing that.

Oh my fucking hell no!

Oh and Command S for saving every 2 minutes. Even with auto save on.

Aaaaggh!