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Back to FCPX From PP (Rant)
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[Oliver Peters] “I don’t know the answer. Part of the high shooting ratio might simply boil down to Fincher’s aim for perfection. “
OK, understood. I thought I read somewhere Fincher did not use the high shooting ratio like Kubrick — IOW do 100 takes to get a perfect one — but rather to provide multiple versions of each scene so the final “script” would essentially be written in post. I cannot remember or find where that was.
[Oliver Peters] “Seems like you only get 25% useful footage out of that second camera angle and take up a lot more time, storage and effort in post. Not to mention, additional time in production staging and blocking for the other angles.”
Yes I agree, esp. on high multicam shots. It is nice to have but we end up impeding production because of getting in each other’s shot, limiting shooting angles, waiting for all cameras to get ready, restricting floor space, etc. It can cause more problems than it solves.
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[Steve Connor] “Maybe a little on one of the early versions when autosave wasn’t reliable and FCPX wasn’t very stable 🙂
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That’s fair.
Back then I was still largely still working with corporate and industrial clients who were OK with 25Mbps DV and never had much instability – likely cuz I didn’t have to push early X very hard. That echo’d my experiences 10 years ago with Legacy – It was 3 or 4 years into the software before people started trying to cut movies and TV with it – rather than just general business stuff.
What I do recall was the trouble I had losing the “Command S twitch” I’d developed over a decade on Legacy. Definitely took me some time to get over that!
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “What I do recall was the trouble I had losing the “Command S twitch” I’d developed over a decade on Legacy. Definitely took me some time to get over that!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxfe5O7JE8Y&app=desktop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxfe5O7JE8Y&app=desktop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxfe5O7JE8Y&app=desktop
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[Andy Field] “We get it …you LOVE FCP X and will defend it to the death. Good for you you. Enjoy it…..just because someone offers a critique or theory doesn’t mean it’s a personal Bill Davis attack.”
Doesn’t work any more Andy.
I disagree with something you or anyone else says – I do my best to give chapter and verse WHY I disagree with the thinking.
And you are absolutely free to take on those points chapter and verse in return.
But I’m kinda immune to the “It’s YOU, Bill, that are super sensitive to criticism and should lighten up.”
If you disagree with my IDEAS – post your own. If your only argument is that *I* am lame – fine. But everyone here knows that a person can be totally lame – and still correct in the facts and opinions they post.
And that’s the problem, here. You’re trying to make it about ME. But it’s not. Its about my arguments. If you can refute them – do. If you ACTUALLY think X was lame and ineffective and “broken” on day one – post your experiences with it – on day one – and WHY it was lame in your actual experience. I’ve done exactly that on why it NEVER was lame. From day one.
But if all you got for an argument in this is that *I* am a fanboy so ipso facto X is lame – I suspect you’ve lost the argument at the starting gate – coz I’m just not that central to anything.
Just food for thought.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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I also think it’s fair to note that Phil Loews original push back at the X design would be appropriately viewed by him through a news cutters eye. And story telling chops aside, it’s a different beast from fictional storytelling. News is a massively time sensitive area where because it IS news, is at least supposed to value neutrality over point of view. At least in theory. When I was a young radio reporter the POV expected was one of accurate information delivery – not JUST tell a good fictional story and if you need to fudge facts or play around with reality, oh well. (No wonder I left news for advertising early on, huh?) the power (in my era at least) was exclusively in the news directors hands – seldom in a reporters and even less often an editors – even if they were the same person. Unless that’s changed in recent years.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Like any other software I think FCP X now has its pros and cons but it’s a great program for my needs.
On day one I was pretty pissed off about a couple of pretty basic things.
One was the EOL of FCP legacy. It was just too central to the work flow of too many film makers to just end its life without a good deal of continued support and a much more developed replacement.
If Apple were a small company that was hanging on to a non-profitable product and issued a statement to the effect that it just wasn’t financially sound to continue to update it then its just how the digital age rolls.
But that was not the case.
FCP X at day one had a lot of problems. It’s hard to remember all of them but the one that I just couldn’t believe was having very little control over how and where media was housed.
One library for all your projects?
And only on the root level of any drive.
By default your system drive.
Seriously?
Yes there was a workaround: sparse bundles.
Which were tedious to create in Disk Utility.
CreateDiskImage saved the day here (copy paste function would be nice – but a great little app that just works).
BUT disk images have about the same odds of getting corrupted as any drive, which doubles your chances of loosing access to your project. On the other hand, it does make backing up very easy and perhaps makes it less likely to have sloppy organization in the finder.
If you did want access to media from a particular project that was not the one you were working on, you needed to open the given sparse bundle, not just navigate to the media you wanted to import from within FCP X.
The other problem at day 1 (and this in some ways continues to this day) from the perspective of a film teacher (at any level of the educational system) is its lack of acceptance by the Hollywood community. At this point if you are a film maker and you edit on FCP X no one cares. But there were people during the FCP 3-7 days that made a living with just FC. Not generalists just FCP editors. X changed that. There were only two NLEs that the industry cared about back then. FCP and AVID. And at the time FCP X came out there was a feeling that if Apple nailed FCP 8 with a major update that AVID might loose even more of its hold on the film and TV industry. No one took Premier seriously at that time. Though independent PC users did use it.
Even now there are things about the FCP Interface that feel annoyingly like an annoying consumer product. Yes I hate this aspect of Apple’s current software design even for products and apps I use on a consumer level. I want to export not share. I want to know what codec my media is in not have daddy take care of it for me. The Vimeo export doesn’t tell you H.264 or High Profile H.264 just its resolution. FCP X’s “optimized” means don’t worry about it (maybe transcoded maybe not). How hard would it be for FC to just report AVC-Ultra or imported as such and such transcoded to Apple Pro res 422. For example here’s a copy of a segment from the user manual from FCP 7.
To choose an Easy Setup for transcoding HDV
Choose Final Cut Pro > Easy Setup.Choose one of the following from the Format pop-up menu:
Apple Intermediate Codec
Apple ProRes 422
Click the Use pop-up menu to see all of the Easy Setups related to your choice in the Format pop-up menu.
You can further refine the list by choosing a specific frame rate from the Rate pop-up menu.
Choose an appropriate HDV Easy Setup from the Use pop-up menu.
Important: Make sure to choose an Easy Setup that matches the format of your HDV source tapes.
Note: The Apple ProRes 422 Easy Setup option supports only 1080p24 HDV. You should use this codec when you have 24 fps footage stored with 3:2 pull-down in a 1080i60 HDV signal.
Click Setup.
The corresponding capture, sequence, and device control presets are loaded, as well as A/V device settings.
Simple enough for someone learning the program; informative and detailed enough for any pro. Can’t say the same of HDV though it was the cheapest option for many ‘prosumer’ film budgets. (Canon XL2/Sony PD150/170).
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.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Last year I worked on a historical doc and the script was 95% done before my first day on payroll. The director/producer had a premise of the doc, did the interviews accordingly, had them transcribed, and cut them into a script along with VO. “
I will toss in on this topic. After just finishing an investigative doc as the producer director and editor I can certainly tell you that my “script” changed plenty of times.
With my doc (and I’m sure many others) there was that “big fish” interview. You know, that one expert that you are chasing after.
In my case it was Bob Alvarez. I had no idea if I was going to get him or not. He lived half way across the country and also had not committed to it. I set forward putting the film together without him, but when he became available late in the game, everything changed.I moved everything around to accommodate him because he is amazing.
He wasn’t the only interview that came along late in the game either.
When you are doing a doc, these people have no obligation to be in your film. They can say yes or no. It’s up to them and that’s part of what you have to deal with as a producer/editor.
X was perfect for me with this.
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I did disagree that it was “not broken” from the beginning and offered a list of what didn’t work……. you’ve embraced the Apple way of doing things — again good for you — there are many of us who don’t like it, don’t find it faster or more productive and offer our ideas too. Happy editing!
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852 -
[Craig Alan] “On day one I was pretty pissed off about a couple of pretty basic things.
One was the EOL of FCP legacy. It was just too central to the work flow of too many film makers to just end its life without a good deal of continued support and a much more developed replacement.
If Apple were a small company that was hanging on to a non-profitable product and issued a statement to the effect that it just wasn’t financially sound to continue to update it then its just how the digital age rolls.
But that was not the case.
FCP X at day one had a lot of problems. It’s hard to remember all of them but the one that I just couldn’t believe was having very little control over how and where media was housed.
One library for all your projects?
And only on the root level of any drive.
By default your system drive.
Seriously?
Yes there was a workaround: sparse bundles.
Which were tedious to create in Disk Utility.
CreateDiskImage saved the day here (copy paste function would be nice – but a great little app that just works).
BUT disk images have about the same odds of getting corrupted as any drive, which doubles your chances of loosing access to your project. On the other hand, it does make backing up very easy and perhaps makes it less likely to have sloppy organization in the finder.
If you did want access to media from a particular project that was not the one you were working on, you needed to open the given sparse bundle, not just navigate to the media you wanted to import from within FCP X.
The other problem at day 1 (and this in some ways continues to this day) from the perspective of a film teacher (at any level of the educational system) is its lack of acceptance by the Hollywood community. At this point if you are a film maker and you edit on FCP X no one cares. But there were people during the FCP 3-7 days that made a living with just FC. Not generalists just FCP editors. X changed that. There were only two NLEs that the industry cared about back then. FCP and AVID. And at the time FCP X came out there was a feeling that if Apple nailed FCP 8 with a major update that AVID might loose even more of its hold on the film and TV industry. No one took Premier seriously at that time. Though independent PC users did use it.”
Realize that like many others, you have just invested hundreds of words in re-litigating an issue that became obsolete 4 YEARS ago. I was able to use X effectively then. And I can use it VERY effectively now. In large part because I didn’t let what it isn’t – dissuade me from patiently learning about what it is.
If you and others wish to continue fanning, as you do in this thread, the flames of “the EOL of Legacy and the introduction of X was H O R R I B L E and hurt feelings” – just realize that some of us – who enjoy editing in X – view time spent doing that as immensely unproductive. I, for one, would rather move forward towards an ever increasingly enjoyable future with X, rather than dwelling in the past. The new path feels like progress. Big progress. It’s nice.[Craig Alan] “Even now there are things about the FCP Interface that feel annoyingly like an annoying consumer product. Yes I hate this aspect of Apple’s current software design even for products and apps I use on a consumer level. I want to export not share. I want to know what codec my media is in not have daddy take care of it for me. The Vimeo export doesn’t tell you H.264 or High Profile H.264 just its resolution. FCP X’s “optimized” means don’t worry about it (maybe transcoded maybe not). How hard would it be for FC to just report AVC-Ultra or imported as such and such transcoded to Apple Pro res 422. For example here’s a copy of a segment from the user manual from FCP 7.”
X is NOT 7. 7 is 4 years EOL 7 is irrelevant to me now. Long past time to move on. For me, end of story.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Thought it was brought up whether it was good to go day 1. Not by me. This is also a debate forum centered around FCP X merits.
You overlooked, by choice I suspect because it didn’t meet your agenda, my opening line: “Like any other software I think FCP X now has its pros and cons but it’s a great program for my needs.”
You don’t feel it needs to round trip better with say Motion?
You don’t feel its ability to handle several layers of audio could be better?
You don’t think it should make the codec of each clip clear?
Just Critiquing my post is the true waste of words.
My concern in switching to FCP X (which I did do and stopped using FCP 7 asap and did not try to get it to behave like FCP 7) as a teacher was very real. If it failed to to be taken seriously by the industry it would be a bad choice. This was a debate taken on by all the local film schools which was a another concern. My students that go to film school get complimented on knowing the skills that are used in their programs. I like to use all industry standard stuff.
If you feel this makes me an ignorant non-believer toward the NLE messiah, FCP X, then you have freedom of religion in this country. Enjoy it. But I suggest you swallow your condescension. It’s a waste of words and counterproductive.
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.
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