Jane, stop this crazy thing!
Dec. 15th, 2004 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI should explain about my Final Cut Express whinage. See, it's not that it's just a really hard and complex program that people sniff at me about panicking that I can't learn. It's that... you know how in the '50s and '60s, they always envisioned this future with jet cars and transporters and people wearing radio collars and stuff like that? The Jetsons? This is like waking up in that world with no transition in between -- kinda like the guy in Futurama.
What a lot of people who are kindly trying to pat my hand and tell me it's easy don't get is that I started out with bearskins and stone knives. And unlike many of my caveperson cohorts, I was still using the skins and knives until just a year and a half ago. (Insert pause for all the online computer vidders to make sneering noises about us old skoolers. Okay, and we're back.) And I had used the skins and knives for more than six years, and it was how I learned to edit and process vid story and information and pacing and all of that. I knew about tape rollback and zero counters for insert edits and how you rewired to make the machines talk to each other and still give you picture on your TV screen and how to get decent waste video instead of something on PAX TV like Highway to Heaven. But then two Christmases ago, I got a hi-def TV and I was making my last VCR vid, My Beautiful Reward, and when I saw how things looked on the hi-def and how hard it was to see my source, I knew I wasn't going to be able to use the stone knives anymore and the bearskins were moldy. Shoot forward six months, when I finally was able to buy the iMac and make vids on the computer.
Now, take someone who has been sitting in their cave, pounding on flints to make fire (cuz we had fire, at least, back in those days), walking around with mastodon slippers, and sit them in front of a... well, let's say a buggy. A carriage. Suddenly you have this new technology -- wheels! harnesses that you can put four-legged beasts to and make it go fast! -- and you have to learn how to hook the horse up and make the buggy go and all that. But you poke around because your buggy (iMovie) is made pretty simply. It's not really made for what you want to do with it, it's more for mom and dad who've never driven [edited] anything before and don't really know the ins and outs of buggy-riding [creating this kind of video], but you keep at it and eventually, with some frustration and poking around and an okay user manual (cuz you can read, too), you master your little horse and carriage. You have graduated from bearskins and knives and no longer need parrots to record your TV shows and potatoes to print your zines, and you are speeding along at a zippy pace in your buggy as long as the wheels don't fall off (because you are still a Neanderthal and don't know how to change the wheels) or the horse throws a shoe.
Of course, your friends who weren't around in the cave days have only ever ridden in buggies and they never had mastodon slippers. Some of your friends who were in the cave days are really smart and they figured out all the stuff with the buggies really easy and took to it like a teradactyl to water. Or something. But you're not one of them; you're a true cave person born and bred and you are also on your own because everyone else you know uses a different kind of buggy and horses. But those friends who've known only buggies, they have created something even better -- the horseless carriage. They are zipping along at speeds of two, four, even six horses; they pass you by on the way and wave smugly at you! You like your buggy, even though you don't understand it, because you are cavewoman, but when you see those horseless carriages, well, wow. You really want one. You want to wave smugly and drive fast, too!
But you know it's beyond you -- you can barely even figure out how to harness the horse let alone how to turn an ignition switch or flip that flipper arm or put the carriage in reverse. Most of that stuff on the horseless carriage you don't even know the name of, because just a year ago you were still pounding flints in your cave to make fire. You've never really had the chance to see any of this stuff till you got the buggy, and then suddenly there were horseless carriages everywhere. You are completely lost in the world of the Jetsons and there is no Jane to stop that crazy thing. You're all freaked out because there is no place for the cave person to go, and everyone expects you to understand the internal combustion engine and how to run a horseless carriage. "Oh, it's simple," the people who grew up with only buggies around say. And you want to take your stone knife and pound it on the new carriage because you kind of at least understand pounding. So whenever the horseless carriage crowd tells you how easy it is, you grunt and make cave noises because up till a year ago, you only knew how to grunt and pound on things and you're still having trouble with the whole buggy concept.
This is how it is for me. I was in a cave till a year and a half ago, and I'm still not fully into buggy mode, let alone horseless carriage mode. Zipping down the highway and waving to anyone is not yet on my calendar. I haven't fully integrated the whole buggy concept yet, but I'm in Jetsons land and I don't understand a word of it. There's no automatic language translator, either! I have been gypped! So while it's easy for people who grew up with buggies and horseless carriages, it's not quite there for Cave Woman. I'm still working out where to put my stone knife so it's handy in case I need to pound.
What a lot of people who are kindly trying to pat my hand and tell me it's easy don't get is that I started out with bearskins and stone knives. And unlike many of my caveperson cohorts, I was still using the skins and knives until just a year and a half ago. (Insert pause for all the online computer vidders to make sneering noises about us old skoolers. Okay, and we're back.) And I had used the skins and knives for more than six years, and it was how I learned to edit and process vid story and information and pacing and all of that. I knew about tape rollback and zero counters for insert edits and how you rewired to make the machines talk to each other and still give you picture on your TV screen and how to get decent waste video instead of something on PAX TV like Highway to Heaven. But then two Christmases ago, I got a hi-def TV and I was making my last VCR vid, My Beautiful Reward, and when I saw how things looked on the hi-def and how hard it was to see my source, I knew I wasn't going to be able to use the stone knives anymore and the bearskins were moldy. Shoot forward six months, when I finally was able to buy the iMac and make vids on the computer.
Now, take someone who has been sitting in their cave, pounding on flints to make fire (cuz we had fire, at least, back in those days), walking around with mastodon slippers, and sit them in front of a... well, let's say a buggy. A carriage. Suddenly you have this new technology -- wheels! harnesses that you can put four-legged beasts to and make it go fast! -- and you have to learn how to hook the horse up and make the buggy go and all that. But you poke around because your buggy (iMovie) is made pretty simply. It's not really made for what you want to do with it, it's more for mom and dad who've never driven [edited] anything before and don't really know the ins and outs of buggy-riding [creating this kind of video], but you keep at it and eventually, with some frustration and poking around and an okay user manual (cuz you can read, too), you master your little horse and carriage. You have graduated from bearskins and knives and no longer need parrots to record your TV shows and potatoes to print your zines, and you are speeding along at a zippy pace in your buggy as long as the wheels don't fall off (because you are still a Neanderthal and don't know how to change the wheels) or the horse throws a shoe.
Of course, your friends who weren't around in the cave days have only ever ridden in buggies and they never had mastodon slippers. Some of your friends who were in the cave days are really smart and they figured out all the stuff with the buggies really easy and took to it like a teradactyl to water. Or something. But you're not one of them; you're a true cave person born and bred and you are also on your own because everyone else you know uses a different kind of buggy and horses. But those friends who've known only buggies, they have created something even better -- the horseless carriage. They are zipping along at speeds of two, four, even six horses; they pass you by on the way and wave smugly at you! You like your buggy, even though you don't understand it, because you are cavewoman, but when you see those horseless carriages, well, wow. You really want one. You want to wave smugly and drive fast, too!
But you know it's beyond you -- you can barely even figure out how to harness the horse let alone how to turn an ignition switch or flip that flipper arm or put the carriage in reverse. Most of that stuff on the horseless carriage you don't even know the name of, because just a year ago you were still pounding flints in your cave to make fire. You've never really had the chance to see any of this stuff till you got the buggy, and then suddenly there were horseless carriages everywhere. You are completely lost in the world of the Jetsons and there is no Jane to stop that crazy thing. You're all freaked out because there is no place for the cave person to go, and everyone expects you to understand the internal combustion engine and how to run a horseless carriage. "Oh, it's simple," the people who grew up with only buggies around say. And you want to take your stone knife and pound it on the new carriage because you kind of at least understand pounding. So whenever the horseless carriage crowd tells you how easy it is, you grunt and make cave noises because up till a year ago, you only knew how to grunt and pound on things and you're still having trouble with the whole buggy concept.
This is how it is for me. I was in a cave till a year and a half ago, and I'm still not fully into buggy mode, let alone horseless carriage mode. Zipping down the highway and waving to anyone is not yet on my calendar. I haven't fully integrated the whole buggy concept yet, but I'm in Jetsons land and I don't understand a word of it. There's no automatic language translator, either! I have been gypped! So while it's easy for people who grew up with buggies and horseless carriages, it's not quite there for Cave Woman. I'm still working out where to put my stone knife so it's handy in case I need to pound.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 11:53 am (UTC)*hugs* for the horseless carriage stuff.
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Date: 2004-12-15 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 12:04 pm (UTC)I got my permit at 16. My mother always took car time as the time when I couldn't jsut leave the room or turn up the television if I didn't like what she was saying. This does nt work when you are scared you might kill someone. There were quite a few moments wehn I was overcome with frustration and got out of the car in the middle of a busy intersection and just walked home.
At one point, I accidently put the car into reverse and drove through the next door neighbor's garage, very nearly scuffing his '63 Mustang. I couldn't go a week without hearing about that for at least 5 years.
As a result, I put off getting my license until I was 28 years old.
If I had a chance to go back and relive those intervening 12 years with a driver's license, my life would have been totally different.
Learning new things is never easy. I've been reading your posts regarding this and reading the responses to them. I don't think I've seen one person say it would be easy. They are just saying that it is worth learning and worth figuring out and worth working through the frustration and that they like your vids well enough that they are willing to help you figure it out.
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Date: 2004-12-15 01:14 pm (UTC)And yes, I have had many people tell me that it's easy. You may not have seen them here, but they are around, believe me. I've had to endure the lectures.
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Date: 2004-12-15 02:36 pm (UTC)I just wanted to pull out the metaphor a little bit. I picked up the basics of Adobe Premiere relatively quickly but, learning to drive? That was a trauma.
I must have missed all of the crazy people saying that figuring out software is easy. I only just friended you a few months ago.
The thing that I've found interesting about your posts on figuring out the tech was that all of these people who have created the most amazing feats of techy effecty brilliance are actually asking ME of all people how to explain obscure features of the software to them.
Nobody knows this stuff cold.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 05:21 am (UTC)I have since figured out driving and have been accident free for 7 years. Two of my brothers and my mom have had their licenses revoked. The privilege of carting them around everywhere they have to go gives me ample opportunity to gloat. Luckily for them, I am too decent and moral to take advantage of those opportunities.
Very often.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 09:47 am (UTC)I spent four hours wasting time trying to get a feel for the program last night and this was the most discouraging depressing thing I've ever encountered. I can't even imagine how much extra crap that will add to the file size. It's just... awful and I don't know how to fix it or why it's doing it. It says it can import clips from iMovie, but obviously something's wrong with how it handles audioless video files.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-30 12:38 am (UTC)http://www.mnfcpug.org/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=236
I saw this and thought of you.
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Date: 2004-12-15 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 04:40 pm (UTC)I have 10 days of break time coming up at the end of this month. My goal was to teach myself the basics of how to run around in iMovie and FCE.
{{{{{{You are scaring me.}}}}}}}
In the meantime, oh cavewoman, you know you're getting emailed if I can't figure out how to run the DVD player through the switch box (that just happens to break macro) and into the video capture/TV Tuner widget, right?
Finally, if it will help you, email me (kadymae at operamail.com) and I'll lend you my copy of Final Cut Express for Dummies and you can just give it back to me at Escapade. You can even annotate it if you wish.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 06:55 pm (UTC)Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can s-video the DVD into the computer. If there's a macro issue I'll see if I can run it in through the TV in line.
I'd do it tonight, but I'm going to be "taping" Lost to my hard drive tonight.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 08:43 pm (UTC)Imovie though I can definitely walk you through. I'm not like an expert, but I have at least learned to make vids in it. And indeed I do know about the passthrough device.
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Date: 2004-12-15 10:10 pm (UTC)Ran my s-video cable from DVD straight into capture widget. Put in DVD I *know* is macro'd.
IT CAPTURED!
Woot! Didn't even need the pass-through.
(Will now go out and stock up on el-cheapo DVD players that are too cheap to have macro chip in them.)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-15 04:47 pm (UTC)Still, I empathize, I really do. Learning editing software is daunting. The only reason I was able to make the transition was because I worked with other people, and no matter how frustrated we got when things didn't work, or how stupid we felt because the software was so completely non-intuitive, one of us would somehow always manage to drag the other two back from the brink of despair.
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Date: 2004-12-15 08:45 pm (UTC)Thought I did discover something I knew: the jog shuttle. It looks different, but boy oh boy, a jog shuttle! whee, something I recognize by name!
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Date: 2004-12-15 11:00 pm (UTC)Hey, that's cool. Premiere doesn't have that!
I think if I got FCE or FCP, I'd want to take a class like the one someone else mentioned. I can't read a manual and figure things out. I'm not that kind of learner. I need to be shown. And manuals suck, anyway, because they always seem to assume you already know how to use the program! Argh.
Good luck! I won't be at Escapade, but I'd love to see whatever you do!
no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-16 11:15 pm (UTC)