-
After a year has perception of FCPX changed?
-
A huge question also, why would anyone invest in a post infrastructure that ties them to Apple computers with no clue on whether or not powerful macs will exist in the near future? Both Avid and Adobe are hardware agnostic. This is enough reason to not go with X all on its own regardless of its features.
-
[Craig Seeman] “Of course one might argue FCPX is a variant of that given that there’s no upgrade pricing in the App Store. $300 for life and on a few of your systems as well.”
There might be no upgrade pricing in the App store but I never assumed that to mean they’ll never be a new version of FCPX which will cost another $299. -
[Andrew Kimery] “There might be no upgrade pricing in the App store but I never assumed that to mean they’ll never be a new version of FCPX which will cost another $299.”
As I stated, we don’t know. They may not either. Market conditions may help them make a determination. I know other developers have done that but I haven’t seen Apple do that. The first hint might be in how they handle Logic Pro X, given Logic Pro 9 is in the App Store. Like so many other things Apple, this is going to be a year of guessing while we see what comes.
There are some downsides or, at least, caveats, to Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
This made some interesting points
https://notesonvideo.blogspot.com/2012/05/are-software-subscriptions-good-idea.htmlDo I need ongoing Internet access to use my Creative Suite applications?
Because your Creative Suite applications are installed directly on your computer, you will not need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis. However, you will need to be online when you install and license your software, and at least once every 30 days thereafter. The software will alert you when you need to connect to the Internet for a license status check.It also means that subscribers are locked into paying for the software continually. They can’t choose to skip an upgrade (or two or three) if they’re fine with the current capabilities of the software.
If I decide to stop my membership, will I still be able to use my Creative Suite software and the other components of Creative Cloud?
When you cancel a month-to-month or annual membership purchased directly from Adobe or let a 3- or 12-month prepaid membership purchased from a retailer expire, you will no longer have access to the CS applications, other desktop software, and services that are components of Creative Cloud.Ultimately, you have no control over costs beyond a year out. If Adobe increases the subscription cost 15% each year, you can’t just choose to take a break, as you’ll loose all access to the software:
Will the cost of my membership ever increase?
When you purchase directly from Adobe, the cost of an annual membership will not go up during the 12 months for which you are subscribed. It is possible that the cost of the month-to-month membership will increase, but if it does, you will be notified and given the opportunity to cancel. -
[Andrew Kimery] “I’ve edited a number of projects where the project & assets were shuttled around on portable HDDs so even though we all working remotely the collaboration need to be the same as if we were all working under one roof.”
Yeah, but if what you’re delivering is a opening title, at what point does that become the equivalent of hiring a photoshop artist to design a logo?
The only reason to demand that the artist do it in Photoshop is because you want the ability to open and mess around with the pieces. That can be a good thing. Or it can be a VERY bad thing depending on who’s doing the opening and who’s doing the messing.
On one hand, if you need to change a simple element it’s a godsend to be working in consistent software. But increasingly, a tool like Pixelmator can open a layered Photoshop file and make the same changes, every bit as easily.
And none of that addresses what happens If some idiot who’s never read the brand book decides that it will look better if they darken the blue in the type – not understanding that that color is a brand element that the client demands to be as consistent as possible.
To me, Apple got this pretty right in Motion 5. They’ve provided some control at the level of FCP-X over universals like re-typing title text easily – but essentially “walled off” some of the more complex aspects of the design process via the “publish parameter” functions.
My concern is that the higher up the food chain you go in the realm of design and editing, the less you want to make the entire process accessible to the whole team. One way to do that is to build complex workflows with specialists in-house – and wall off people via access restrictions. The other method is to let the designers “reach in” and apply their expertise directly into the project creation stream.
And if you opt for the latter, then each contributor using their own tools and methods is perfectly reasonably – rather than making them come into a fixed “seat” and work on only the tools the company provides.
I guess I just see more work available in the distributed creation model these days rather than the “under one roof facility” – but I know many others work inside that more traditional model.
I also think affordably powerful tools are a reason I think traditional Ad Agencies are in so much stress. It’s pretty inefficient to maintain huge facilities and teams of professionals that sink or swim on the high dollar projects that come and go – rather than building agile teams of highly skilled practitioners and letting them work wherever and whenever they like.
That’s the main trend I’ve been working within for the past 3 years or so. I haven’t a clue which shop or state my next gig is going to come from. My wife and I have worked as part of virtual teams responsible for digital creative content delivery for clients in St.Louis, San Diego, Nashville, and Provo over the past six months.
None of them have a clue what my shop looks like, nor what software I’m working with.
They want the final work delivered.
Actually, now that I think about it, this whole discussion, and FCP-X itself might be fundamentally about control.
Not so long ago, the shop that owned the iron and the talent used to have all the control. Now, that’s shifting. The control is whoever has the skills to do the best work.
To the extent that a shop does care, they’re looking for more control. Which is fine if they’re paying the bills.
But the big functional change is that it’s not REQUIRED that there be a big shop to support big talent or big ideas. Big talent can work in their spare bedroom if they so choose.
That’s a big change, IMO.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
[Michael Gissing] “I know you love the freedom to roam and edit paradigm Bill but for many this is still a question of how to get the feisty colt into the barn and harnessed to a team.
“No question.
But I think you mistake my thinking.
You see, while I initially saw X as a tools to “replace Legacy” – that didn’t last very long for me.
The more I used it, the more it became clear that it’s a new kind of tool. And the dumbest thing I could continue to do was try to use the new tool the same way I used the old one.
So I had to stop and re-think a lot of what I used to think about when I edited. Not all. A cut is still a cut. But now my thinking process has expanded. (yes, that may be because my thinking process was immature or not as sophisticated as others here) but that aside, it was my process developed over 10 years plus of cutting stuff month after month.
While part of what changed my editing process was the introduction of X, looking back, I’m not sure it was the software that changed things so much as changes in technology as a whole changing the modern world – and the software team at Apple being smart enough to see the writing on the wall ahead of most other companies.
I don’t scout locations the same way I did 10 years ago, I don’t shoot the same way I did 10 years ago. I don’t capture my audio the same way I did 10 years ago. I don’t plan or think or write the same way I did 10 years ago.
So why should I still EDIT the same way I did 10 years ago?
If you’re answer is “because it works for me.” Great. You’ve never read a single line from me here saying that the way anyone else edits isn’t perfectly legitimate.
But I still content that most of the people who “hate” X, seem to me to be largely driven by frustrations based around how it’s “forcing” them consider changing away from a work style and habits they’ve been comfortable with for a decade. I get that. But I guess as old as I am, I”m just not particularly resistant to change. It seems to me to be progressive change that’s brining new thinking and new capabilities. Not change that’s still trying to cling to the ways I used to work, in a world where everything else IS changing.
I don’t actually see X as something to “replace” Legacy, but I’m convinced that many here can’t see it, nor judge it, as anything else.
To me it’s as silly as an argument about which are more fun, skis or snowboards.
Just go out and have fun. There’s plenty of room on the slopes for everyone.
Simple as that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
[Chris Harlan] “And, I’v been roaming with FCS for the last five years. I’ve taken my work on all manner of vacation, and on afternoon getaways. Its not like X is somehow mobile and other NLEs are not. That’a a fallacy.
“At the risk of brushing agains the “beating a dead horse” thing…
Chris, nobody every said that you can’t edit on the road with Legacy. People do it all the time.
But if you don’t understand the qualitative difference between X and Legacy as a mobile editing platform, then you’re NEVER going to get this point.
Legacy on a laptop, cut off from the “home base” assets of network and storage was an exercise in diminished capacity. X on a laptop is EXACTLY the same as X on a desktop. It’s a seamless experience.
If you haven’t used X enough to experience that, then please don’t keep coming back to the “mobile editing was “possible” in Legacy.”
It’s also possible to drag race with a Volkswagen. But few do that seriously. It’s a very, poor tool for that purpose, while X is an absolutely superb tool for mobile editing – perhaps the finest out there from what I’ve both experienced and heard.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
[Bill Davis] “But I still content that most of the people who “hate” X, seem to me to be largely driven by frustrations based around how it’s “forcing” them consider changing away from a work style and habits they’ve been comfortable with for a decade. I get that. But I guess as old as I am, I”m just not particularly resistant to change. It seems to me to be progressive change that’s brining new thinking and new capabilities. Not change that’s still trying to cling to the ways I used to work, in a world where everything else IS changing.”
A constant in your thinking Bill and whilst commendable at one level it missed my point entirely. There is a very large network of people at all levels of post who day in day out have to work as a team. EOL of 7 and island X has made that harder.
When change breaks workflows, then it is sensible to question whether the change is in fact an improvement or just different and alienating. Whilst you have been able to embrace the change and see advantage to you it doesn’t alter the fact that many are seriously questioning whether there is an overall advantage to trying to shoehorn X into established workflows, which they must do.
It has nothing to do with an ability to see future trends or be innovative. So when I say it is necessary to get X integrated into existing workflows, it is far from being trapped into old thinking or not wanting to embrace change. The fundamental issue here is where is the advantage for many to embrace a change that is yet to show an innate superiority. Is it a better way to edit for many or just a few? Lots of editors have indicated to me that they remain unconvinced but certainly not close minded.
Please don’t confuse their combined reticence as a failure to embrace change. It just isn’t in spite of your constant harping that it must be the reason.
-
[Andy Neil] ” I was speaking specifically for post facilities who buy hundreds of seats and do the bulk of TV and film editing. FCP7 has a pretty significant presence in post here in LA. Shops like Bunim-Murray have already moved away from it and in all the other FCP shops that I’ve been to and talked with, they have been vacillating on where they might go, but most aren’t even considering FCPX as a possibility.”
I saw the Bunim-Murray story here too. But I’m not sure it’s fair to say “shops like” B/M. Do you know for a fact that other similar major producers have made the same switch?
Perhaps they’re out there and I’m ignorant of them. But I haven’t seen a flood of stories about how all the hollywood post is massively moving to Premier or Avid or anything else.
Also, from what I read, B/M was pretty much a specific type of post house dealing primarily with modern reality television production and were expanding incredibly fast with the wave of reality (not sure what noun to use here since I like some of the reality genre and loath other aspects of it!) programming.
I haven’t seen a whole lot of stories where there’s a massive shift in any particular direction in the wider Post industry.
We know that Leverage is pioneering with X. B/M reality work has left Legacy behind. But I’d be interested in what’s happening with modern “bread and butter” narrative programming.
What’s ABC’s “Castle” doing? How about the USA shows like Royal Pains and Covert Affairs?
I suspect it’s still largely an AVID world in these places, based on the fact that the biggest shops that have been around a long time likely have mature AVID infrastructures in place.
When and/or if these start shifting, it will be important.
Right now, not so much, I’d suppose.
The truth is, that while Cold Mountain on FCP was a jolt to the industry, at that point, I’d already had five solid years of FCP-Legacy editing behind me.
Nobody knows where X will be at that point. Nor do we know where AVID or Premier will be.
That’s just the way it is.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
-
[Bill Davis] “The only reason to demand that the artist do it in Photoshop is because you want the ability to open and mess around with the pieces. That can be a good thing. Or it can be a VERY bad thing depending on who’s doing the opening and who’s doing the messing… My concern is that the higher up the food chain you go in the realm of design and editing, the less you want to make the entire process accessible to the whole team. One way to do that is to build complex workflows with specialists in-house – and wall off people via access restrictions. The other method is to let the designers “reach in” and apply their expertise directly into the project creation stream.”
And the best solution is proper production management.
Incompatibility is not a feature. When contributors use esoteric tools, it should be for their unique functionality, not to make it harder for non-experts to change their work.
[Bill Davis] “But increasingly, a tool like Pixelmator can open a layered Photoshop file and make the same changes, every bit as easily.”
Because the PSD format is open and documented [link].
[Bill Davis] “To me, Apple got this pretty right in Motion 5. They’ve provided some control at the level of FCP-X over universals like re-typing title text easily – but essentially “walled off” some of the more complex aspects of the design process via the “publish parameter” functions.”
Agreed that this is very cool, at least in theory. None of my clients are using FCPX at the moment, so I haven’t had a real opportunity to rig graphics packages in Motion for them.
[Bill Davis] “That’s the main trend I’ve been working within for the past 3 years or so. I haven’t a clue which shop or state my next gig is going to come from. My wife and I have worked as part of virtual teams responsible for digital creative content delivery for clients in St.Louis, San Diego, Nashville, and Provo over the past six months. None of them have a clue what my shop looks like, nor what software I’m working with. They want the final work delivered.”
You are a production company. You are expected to deliver a final product. If you’re writing, shooting, and editing yourself, you’ve got the whole workflow totally self-contained.
As you add independent collaborators, though, the workflow increases in complexity. Production management is doing their job if they care about the how as well as the what.
[Bill Davis] “Not so long ago, the shop that owned the iron and the talent used to have all the control. Now, that’s shifting. The control is whoever has the skills to do the best work. To the extent that a shop does care, they’re looking for more control. Which is fine if they’re paying the bills. But the big functional change is that it’s not REQUIRED that there be a big shop to support big talent or big ideas. Big talent can work in their spare bedroom if they so choose. That’s a big change, IMO.”
That’s been shifting for years, though. We could debate when exactly the desktop editorial revolution began, but I think I’d peg the beginning of the shift with the release of the UVW-1800.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[David Powell] “A huge question also, why would anyone invest in a post infrastructure that ties them to Apple computers with no clue on whether or not powerful macs will exist in the near future?”
I would say because it defies reason that Apple would develop this whole new FCPX paradigm and not sell hardware that runs it optimally. The hardware may look and interface differently than past Mac heavy iron, but they will definitely bring new, faster Macs to market featuring Thunderbolt.
This may not match ideally with many existing visions/facilities, but it’s not a dead end. It is a new and different path.
Apple.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up