Bunim/Murray chooses Avid

[Shane Ross]

Avid was losing ground fast in this town. Mainly used on high end features (well, 95% of the features made) and a lot of broadcast TV. But FCP was a HUGE contender in broadcast TV…and was used on more than a handful of features. I can say that in my neck of the editing world (documentary/reality), FCP was king. And even some major shows (American Horror Story, Scrubs, many others) were edited with FCP. It was a 60-40 thing.

But now…Avid will dominate again. I hope they don’t get lazy about it…comfortable. They need to be challenged to stay competitive.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Lance Bachelder]

Yeah I agree – i’ve cut on Avid for pay and used every version they’re had over the last decade but would take FCP7 any day over MC including MC6. Yeah Avid has great shared storage but the NLE blows chunks – I truly hate editing on it and I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of frustration on some of the 100 seats at Bunim. Sure they’ll all adjust because they have to pay rent and buy groceries but it’s not a fun NLE to work on.

Truth is I think everyone on here is wrong, FCPX will win in the end if Apple pays attention to it and ads a few simple features we’d all like to have. But even as it sits, I prefer it to MC6, PPro 5.5 and Vegas 11. It’s just works, its sexy, it’s fun and it’s fast. Color tools blow away anything on the aforementioned NLE’s and some of the plug-ins coming out like Yanobox MOODS are so fun and futuristic I feel like I’m opening OS9 every time I open another NLE. Even working with audio is better and more “pro” than any NLE I used including Vegas.

Here’s to an interesting 2012…

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Feom what I have been reading today, (not this particular thread) is that Avid has/was/forever will be the Hollywood NLE of choice. Just seems odd that anyone in LA was using anything else but Avid if it’s true!

“

Then you’ve been reading some wrong stuff. FCP made small inroads into Features, but it was/is huge in reality, in promo, in trailers, and quite a bit of television, less so in dramatic, but huge in documentary, and magazine programing. I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but its wrong.

[Bobby Mosca]

You’re right, businesses aren’t picking them up, but I don’t know anyone who uses them at home that doesn’t wish they had them at work. I’ve talked to people who wanted to use a MacBook for their office-to-home work, and even though it can get the work done, convincing the boss to let them is another story. (Sometimes they can, sometimes not.)

I’ve also talked to IT guys that would be fine making the switch to Macs, but they can’t convince their bosses it would work because Apple can’t or won’t provide a 5 year plan for their products. Everyone else does, and that’s what the boss wants to see. (Of course, those plans don’t really amount to a hill of beans, but try telling a middle-man MBA without a creative bone in his body that. That’s just corporate inertia.)

My point is that pressure on employers is going to continue to mount, but the companies won’t know how to change to meet their workforce desires (and probably get better productivity) because Apple is going in the other direction. Again, Apple could be aware of what demand they are creating and plan to take advantage of it, but it doesn’t look that way.

[Les Kaye]

[Chris Harlan] “FCP made small inroads into Features, but it was/is huge in reality, in promo, in trailer”

I believe this is a little turned around. Yes FCP is huge in promos and trailers, and was (finally) beginning to make serious inroads in features – just look at last year’s Oscar contenders. But no, with the notable exception of Bunim-Murray and a handful of others, most reality remains Avid.

If anything, this decision will make things easier for Bunim-Murray.

http://www.leskaye.net

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Lance Bachelder] ” It’s just works, its sexy, it’s fun and it’s fast. Color tools blow away anything on the aforementioned NLE’s “

come on. I’d take FCP7 too – the point is Apple just trashed the house – near the entire editing house.
They spent ten years clawing to grab it, and they just spit the entire thing out. I’ll do away with the narrative of the sociopathic attributes of large corporations, but apple irrevocably threw the craft of editing for many into a confused, wet, dumpster.

at the very least, Apple do not exhibit anything like a duty of care for the skills dependant bill paying environment they allowed to build for a decade.

And this a company that farts on and on, and farts on again, about the crazy ones. Einstein, Da Vinci, and them. Apple – the phone maker.

they make phones.

Had they told any of us they were planning a core prosumer editing shift as early as 2008, as they indeed were, we might have been better prepared.

Editing is a reality – it is required to continue in the same fashion as stage managers, cinematographers, gaffers, ap’s, and the rest of the general stuff –

in the end… apple may actually be seen to be a particularly heinous, opportunistic entrant.

One who messed about when desperate, rolled up half of editing, and then suddenly found themselves changing, in scale and nature.

And they then exhibited not a single duty of care.

they are a total disgrace.

I truly mean this: Apple are a sheer f**king disgrace as a company.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Harlan]

[Les Kaye] “But no, with the notable exception of Bunim-Murray and a handful of others, most reality remains Avid. “

I don’t know, Les. I don’t have figures, and I usually work adjacent to unscripted, and only occasionally in it. I know big guns like Survivor are pretty much all Avid, as is anything else that has 17,000 lbs of footage, but I sure have seen a lot of growth in syndicated/cable unscripted for FCP over the last six years. For giggles, I just scanned back through 3 months of available editorial positions on Reality Staff. I didn’t keep a tally, but the ratio seemed to be about 1/3rd to 2/5ths FCP, and the rest Avid. This one-third to two-fifths strikes me as being in the same neighborhood as what I guess FCP saturation to be in unscripted. Just my sense from talking to people and walking around. Like I say, I don’t have the figures, but I think you are minimizing FCP’s impact in unscripted.

[Jeremy Garchow]

That’s it.

The name of this forum should officially be changed to “The Armchair Speculators”.

Glad to be a part of it.

[Daniel Frome]

Good for Avid. I hope they eventually break even as a company and make MC 6.5 even better.

[Lance Bachelder]

Hey I was as angry as you Aindreas – I was at the Apple NAB event and then felt betrayed once FCPX was released – it was total garbage to me and my colleagues. Like most FCP7 users I was wondering what I would do next – I’ve been a Vegas beta tester for over 10 years but the latest version is so buggy it’s unusable. I did several rounds as a PPro tester and gave up after they refused to listen to even the most basic feature requests. I was hopeful for MC6 but again a total dud – Avid did nothing to improve audio performance and track count and I hate cutting in it. In the meantime 10.01 came out, hmmm…. I didn’t really give it a thought. Then 10.02 came out so I stuck a new 5770 card in my old Mac Pro and gave it a chance. I have been pleasantly surprised and actually beginning to see the light here – I actually like FCPX! Does it need add’l features – of course but I can see the future and I think this thing is gonna be okay. I’m actually having fun and excited to edit each day (I’ve been cutting since 1986)

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California