An Overview for a Beginner

[Craig Seeman]

For a good free intro I’d recommend Izzy Video It’s 2.5 hours so it’s not a Ripple Training or Larry Jordan replacement but it’s a quick free way for someone to get off the ground.

[Noah Kadner]

Tell them to forget everything they know.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP Exchange – FCPX Workshops
XinTwo – FCPX Training

[Bret Williams]

Agreed! Izzy was all I needed 5+ years ago to get the differences between the two apps. If you know another NLE it’s not brain surgery and Izzy does a great job of giving you the basic workflow without digging in too deep too soon.

_______________________________________________________________________
https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists

[Chad Greene]

Thank you guys. This is helpful.

Chad Greene : Mahoney Media : Minneapolis, Minnesota : 2×2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon, 12GB Ram, OS 10.11 FCPX, Kona-LHi

[Bret Williams]

After one is up to speed a little, go watch all bazillion 5 minute free tutorials from Ripple Training. And if you’re going to buy training, that’s where it’s at as well.

_______________________________________________________________________
https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists

[Mark Suszko]

And hang up their skateboards in the hallway cupboard, we don’t want any accidents in here.

[Joe Marler]

[Noah Kadner] “Tell them to forget everything they know.”

There is truth to this. While the higher artistic layers of editing don’t change, how to optimally implement this using FCPX is very different from a track-based editor. I hate to be negative but IMO there is a significant deficiency in the available tutorial content. Some of it is high quality and slickly produced but it focuses on the lower-level aspects — what buttons to push, not the new paradigm itself. There’s lots of info about the trees but not much about the forest.

It would be nice if there was a dedicated tutorial which focused on conceptual-level paradigm issues and the workflow implications uniquely raised by FCPX. It could include the common pitfalls for an editor transitioning from a track-based product and explain how to do each one the “FCPX way”. It should also include the underlying philosophy and explanation for current FCPX behavior. IOW rather than say “do it THIS way not THAT way”, explain the design rationale and why FCPX behaves as it does in each specific case.

I don’t know why Apple has not even provided a white paper on this. When they popularized the GUI they were not shy about formally articulating the philosophical underpinnings of this and why it was advantageous. There is nothing like that for FCPX. There is almost a subtle mentality that if you’re one of the “cool kids” you don’t need this explained — that people will quietly discover it by themselves. Yet the lack of formally stating these guiding principles may explain why six years after the release people are trying to patch tracks and wonder why they can’t have several timelines open to organize their content. There is no focused comprehensive treatment of the conceptual-layer issues that transitioning editors commonly struggle with.

[Craig Seeman]

Final Cut Pro X for Final Cut Pro 7 Editors most recent version dated Oct 2016 so this is recently revised. All White Papery err White PDFy. My guess is it may help those coming from other track based, tradition bin based NLEs as well.

[Robert Withers]

Thanks, Craig, this is an interesting resource. I moved to Premiere because I didn’t like the X model but I’m a little disappointed with Premiere and the Adobe software model, for practical reasons.
Thinking again of FCPX and also of switching to Windows for a cheaper, more solid Premiere.
Here’s a notion I picked up from somebody about X and track-based programs:
I started with track-based NLEs (and track-based celluloid) as analogic to music scores written on staves with a separate staff for each line (hand in piano) or instrument, linked to a common timeline.
FCP X might be more like a post-John Cageian score written as floating in a large manuscript page with no controlling timeline, musical moments or events linked to each other spatially.
I guess plus database links, which Cage didn’t use.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Robert

Robert Withers

Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City

[Bill Davis]

[Joe Marler] “There is truth to this. While the higher artistic layers of editing don’t change, how to optimally implement this using FCPX is very different from a track-based editor. I hate to be negative but IMO there is a significant deficiency in the available tutorial content. Some of it is high quality and slickly produced but it focuses on the lower-level aspects — what buttons to push, not the new paradigm itself. There’s lots of info about the trees but not much about the forest.”

Hey Joe.

Would you mind dropping me a contact touchpoint off-line?

You can reach me at my name in reverse order (the davis before the bill) at Apples iCloud service with a dot com finish.

Would love to get your thoughts on a something if you have time.

????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.