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Are Schools that Don’t Support FCP X Part of the Problem?
Folks, I’ve been talking to various friends I went to school with (LMU) about FCP X and although many favor it and just as many if not more still want nothing to do with it (often without ever having used it thoroughly), we end up discussing how schools are not supporting it. Some schools are; high schools at least.
I was just curious about what you all hear and see in your neck of the woods. I recently had to speak/present at LMU about the work I do (industry issues, challenges, landscape, tools, etc.) and found that LMU edit bays only support AVID and Premiere Pro. The same goes for a school in Atlanta (and I am sure many others) where one of my good friends teaches. Though I’ve noticed high schools may be more open to it; perhaps for budgetary reasons.
Do you think that higher education institutions not offering FCP X as a part of their academic tool set is a disservice and affects market penetration of FCP X? I know I should throw DaVinci Resolve in this discussion too, but that’s not what this forum is for. Do do you think it has a lot to do with the admin folks who’s typical age(s) reflect the legacy and current AVID world and familiarity of Premiere Pro workflows (like FCP 7) which dictates what tools are supported. I know there’s the argument that there’s only” high end”jobs for AVID and Premiere Pro abundantly. However there’s also plenty of work using FCP X as the primary NLE; independently and at the Hollywood Studio level.
Just something I am thinking about as I dip my toe in the teaching world here and there and of course attempt to advocate for FCP X.
What say you?
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17 Replies
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[Tangier Clarke] “Do you think that higher education institutions not offering FCP X as a part of their academic tool set is a disservice and affects market penetration of FCP X? “
Might be a disservice to the students. But if the school finds that 80% of the jobs their students are being hired into are Avid or Premiere they are better serving their students by teaching them that, so students are more marketable.
It’s not the schools jobs to affect the market penetration of FCPX. That’s Apple’s job.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
There are several schools I know in Europe (and some really big ones) that do the opposite: they ONLY teach FCP X. This is one of them:
The Coordinator of the Postgraduate Diploma in Postproduction of that school (who is a seasoned Avid feature editor BTW) explains why he made this choice.
– Ronny
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“It’s not the schools jobs to affect the market penetration of FCPX. That’s Apple’s job.”
Michael very good point and I agree. It makes sense to provide students with what will make them more marketable and/or get a job.
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[Tangier Clarke] “It makes sense to provide students with what will make them more marketable and/or get a job.”
Definitely. And as you can see from Ronny’s post, each market will be different. FCPX seems to enjoy much deeper penetration in Europe than it does in the US. I’m not sure why.
Personal example – I work for a production company that uses FCPX for 99% of our projects, but we’re the only ones in town that I know of who do. Everyone else is on Premiere, and we’re proficient on Premiere if clients request it. If I was teaching at one of the local universities or high schools and wanted to prepare my students for this market – I would teach Premiere.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Tangier Clarke] “I know I should throw DaVinci Resolve in this discussion too, but that’s not what this forum is for.”
Not true. This forum is very much about all NLEs no matter how hard some try to keep it on X only.
Recently I was asked by a college to run a half day session on Resolve. The school had been originally exclusively FCP7 then changed to Adobe. X was tried but the decision was made to favour an NLE that was representative of the local market place and X has little market penetration here.
After the presentation the school decided to add Resolve to Premiere. Long term they will likely ditch Premiere but not until the local market reflects that same transition. I discussed the choices they had made over the years with their senior teacher and she said that although they are on Apple hardware in case X was a valid choice they really didn’t want to have students learning a system that was unlikely to be found in the wild. Also in the local market a lot of editors have their own system so they were free to choose. However what they wanted from my day with Resolve was to talk about workflow and collaboration.
Most editors who feed their docos to me for grade, online & sound post, regardless of whether they use X or Pr or Avid, are adding Resolve. That way they can handle the porting of the edit to Resolve before coming to me or sometimes they are learning to grade & sound post themselves. So it makes perfect sense for schools to teach the tools that their students will need if they wish to pursue their careers. You can argue that all systems need to be taught but when the school has to justify hardware and software choices, they must consider the reality of what their students will likely face in the wild.
And disclaimer – I don’t work for Blackmagic but as a local experienced user, I do these sessions annually at this school.
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One other aspect of the issue: When schools are involved, beancounters are always nearby.
Macs tend to be more expensive than PC-based suites; I’m generalizing a bit, but, looking at things the way purchasing and procurement people would; on the one hand you have a single-source for the hardware in Apple with FCPX, no flexibility in pricing, getting them serviced and etc. has only a few options…
… and on the other, Adobe’s NLE runs on mac or PC, So Does Blackmagic’s Resolve, and purchasing people have way more options for sourcing the hardware on the PC side, maybe making commodity buys at a discount. They can find hundreds of contractors and vendors on the PC support side, heck their own in-house IT people would probably be tasked, truth be told. There are plenty of PC-oriented places out there where macs are looked on as exotic curiosities.
Apple’s not helping in terms of making it easy for institutional purchasers to order and get bids.
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[Mark Suszko] “Macs tend to be more expensive than PC-based suites”
But remember that there are very enticing educational deals that schools get from Apple.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Ronny Courtens] “There are several schools I know in Europe (and some really big ones) that do the opposite: they ONLY teach FCP X”
I think a lot of this depends on whether the school is focusing on creative concepts and wants software that is easy for beginners to pick up and gets out of the way of the process. Or whether the design of the curriculum is job-oriented training. If I want to teach students that are geared towards fields like advertising and general media, they don’t need “hands on” skills with specific programs or gear. But if I want to teach students who intend to move to Hollywood (realistic or not) and work in the film/TV industry, then I teach with what they will actually be exposed to. Not just NLEs, but also Pro Tools versus Logic Pro X, and cameras like Alexa or RED.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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I dont think schools are playing a huge role in the bigger picture when its comes to X’s adoption.
At least here in Hollywood – X is still a bad word – most people heard it was a debacle in 2011 and simply never looked again. Not one editor I talk to uses it besides myself and the people that I see post here. Ive worked at networks, agencies, trailer houses, and commercial houses. Not one person Ive brought it up to cares. I try to bring it up to every new person I meet as an editor. “oh -have you messed with X at all?” “Nope!” “Never!” Why?!” Are the responses I get.
That said – If I was a teacher – Id teach Avid because if you are working for someone else – in my experience – Avid gigs are higher paid than Premiere ones. Id also be pushing my students to want the top end gigs and lets face it – those are still Avid around these parts. I certainly wouldnt teach them X and push them out into a world where Jobs simply dont exist.
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I think at this point if it were me I would teach AVID or PrP, because there are arguably 3 top NLE’s and if you learn a track-based one you give them a handle on 2 out of the three, vs X (that is pretty different) would give you 1 of three.
X right now thrives in the “Independent” Market. People who are calling their own shots. If you are a recent grad you are likely not ready to do that, so you will be working for someone else where tracks thrive.
The other note is, young folks just want to watch Youtube all the time. They don’t watch that many films or even sports on TV.
Just Youtube, and many of those YT stars are 1. Independent and 2. Using XI wonder how many of them see themselves doing that. Having a ton of viewers and 5 or 6 iMac Pros that studios I work for don’t even have.
Not sure what the future of TV and Film will look like in 20 years.
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