Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare

[Neal Barlow]

I teach high school Video Productions and then run my own business when not at school. I’ve taught the kids to start on Vegas as an editor because of price point and speed of editing. So I was hoping the announcement this week was going to be some big to excite them, since I sometimes have people turn up their nose at what I teach because it’s not Premiere of Final Cut.

I updated our lab to Movie Studio 13 so that the students were current, but I hate it. I’d rather go back to 11, but I wont in case students by their own version so they can work at home. So much changed in the interface between this and Pro from version 11. Like Freakishly large buttons and not being able to natively create a fade.

At the end of the day, I want students to be good editors and I hold to the belief that if a carpenter can drive a nail straight, who cares what kind of hammer they have…but I want them to also be relevant to an employer or University…

I already have a strict order for saving files and logging footage, so here’s hoping that Catalyst adds to Vegas’s clout.

– Thanks John for your thoughts on FCX.-

Neal Barlow
To The Skies Productions
Gh2, Sony Vegas 13, AE6 and Stuff, cause that’s the real secret ingredient.

[John Rofrano]

You’re welcome. I assume you teach at a school filled with Windows PC’s. That’s unfortunate. The great thing about the Mac for budding young video editors is that iMovie comes for free and is quite a capable little NLE so all students with Mac’s will have access to it. If you have an older Mac it only cost $15. It’s very approachable. I don’t think it’s appropriate to teach young students Premiere or Final Cut. They need something more basic to just understand the concepts of great story telling and not let the tools distract them from doing that. Movie Studio or iMove are more appropriate for young editors so I think you’re on the right path.

It’s funny, my son is going to college for graphics design and all of the college labs have Macs. My daughter is going to college for marketing and all of the college labs have PC’s. I just had to install Windows via VirtualBox on her Mac so she could run Microsoft Access. 🙁 There really is a cultural divide when it comes to creative people and business people and the tools they use.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Steve Rhoden]

Well for me and after months of assessments on a Mac based workflow,
I’m sticking with Windows.

Steve Rhoden (Cow Leader)
Film Maker & VFX Artist.
Owner of Filmex Creative Media.
Samples of my Work and Company can be seen here:
https://www.facebook.com/FilmexCreativeMedia

[Scott Francis]

I have Macs at work and PC’s at home/business. I have one Macbook Pro (which was provided to me) and also a Mac Mini (I bought it refurbed) as it controls and records from my Blackmagic ATEM TVS, when doing live events (bought it solely because of size!) I cannot afford a Mac for my business, as I build my own computers and can build one WAY cheaper than buying an iMac let alone a Mac Pro. I am working on learning some FCPX and also After Effects as well for work. I don’t really like OSX as an OS, things just don’t “make sense” to me for layout and just some really basic things (like why doesn’t the + button make something go FULL SCREEN!!) But I digress, when the rubber meets the road, schools don’t really “pay” for their labs, they can adjust tuition and/or taxes to pay for Apple products, those of us who run a business, money matters!!!
With that said, John, I get having a good work palette to pull from is essential!!

Best

Xavier (Scott) Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions