Alex4D: Future Final Cut Pro X hidden in iMovie 10.0.3

[Andrew Kimery]

I know Alex has peered into the code on multiple occasions but is anyone keep track of how many times his discoveries have eventually blossomed into new features?

[Marcus Moore]

I don’t think anyone has looked at his 4 blog posts and come up with a consolidated list of what made it into 10.1.

I know he’s found a lot more stuff than has actually been implemented. Alex’s earliest discoveries around “Collaborative Workflow” guards still haven’t made it into the released software yet.

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Andy, good point. This Fall I will change my comment to be, “Well, if you’ve been using iMovie, then you’ve kinda been working in FCPX-Lite already … so the transition will be easy!” It really helps the less technically-minded students to hear that it will be pretty easy to get going in the software … while understanding it is a real Pro app that will handle anything they can throw at it.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Marcus, I agree I don’t want to see any of the stuff we love about X watered down or pushed back toward conventional track-based apps.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Scott, point taken. The iMovie Pro relationship, as Andy notes, is better revised to iMovie as a kind of FCPX Lite. When I say “turns out to be true” I just mean that Alex’s observations show there is more than a surface UI relationship between the apps. I love X and never use “iMovie Pro” as a disparaging comment … which is why I will now drop it altogether in favor of Andy’s variation!

Doug D

[Craig Alan]

Perhaps. But MC’s interface feels old and dated, subscription software (CC) ‘may not’ be the best business model, and that leaves what NLE to fill the ‘next’ professional industry standard niche?

Start/stop detection in the legacy FCP came from legacy iMovie. The legacy FCP in its last few versions came as a suite that provided a great deal of its power. It was not a single app. The only thing clearly lacking in FCPX is stability and certain annoying interface quirks. When I watch a tutorial by Larry Jordan and he tries twice to remove a selected portion of a clip, that is change the selection to cover the entire clip, gives up, and then manually drags both sides out, I know it’s not just me. But these are growing pains not a lack of professional features. It also needs to have no concerns with tons of compounded clips and secondary story lines and a more mature use of roles. But these are growing pains. I keep thinking that if secondary story lines had all the same power and rules as the primary, then you would essentially have the option of tracks, when needed. Expanding and collapsing audio and video and compounds etc are also an interesting track alternative. The fact that there is a connection point is a positive feature over other NLEs. FCP X also needs to round trip and network perfectly with any other industry app that one might need. These are growing pains. There has been no NLE at this age in its development that was this powerful. The same team that works on iMovie works on FCP X. The leader of this team, Randy Ubillos, was creator of Premiere, KeyGrip (later renamed Final Cut Pro) FCP legacy. Many pros shoot with cameras that belong to a family of consumer level or prosumer level product lines.

I think there are two different workflows that are required by two different sets of pros. One is the self contained project – that is stays local to a given computer and one or two people edit the project locally. This is becoming a very common professional workflow. There is so much power to produce a project that looks and feels professional and gets the job done in a timely fashion. The other is the ‘Hollywood’ workflow that requires an army of experts working on the same project. FCP X is not there yet.

I think the jury is still out because the crime has not yet been committed. FCP legacy is not dead. FCP X has not failed. CC is selling. MC still dominates big budget movies. Resolve has not proven to be a contender yet as a NLE.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Alan] “But MC’s interface feels old and dated, subscription software (CC) ‘may not’ be the best business model, and that leaves what NLE to fill the ‘next’ professional industry standard niche?”

You presume there will be an industry standard.

Does there have to be?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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[David Mathis]

Putting my money on Resolve for the moment. Would be interesting if it became the industry standard.