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CHALLENGED! Making transition from FCP7 to FCPX
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Thanks for your insight, Mark. Appreciated. Little by little, I am getting my head around this. 🙂
J. David Jones
V I D E O P R O D U C E R
Unleashing the Power of Stories
to Impact the World….
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https://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jdavid17 -
I have been forced to start cutting on FCPX as my main client now using it as their primary edit tool for features.
Like many others I have found the transition deeply frustrating and some of the comments here in this thread are, it seems to me, ‘unhelpful’. Specifically:
1) Suggesting that FCPX is ‘all about the story’ suggests that every other edit tool is not. I am not aware that FCPX serves the story any better then any other NLE and i am not aware of having being unable to tell stories in Premier or FCP7 before now. So this is unhelpful twaddle. The idea that the magnetic timeline works some sort of magic is a nonsense. The track tool in Premier of FCP7 allowed you to move the entire story line down the timeline to build a new sequence in the middle of the film or copy and paste a sequence form elsewhere (including from another edit) and slot it in. The ‘add gap’ tool in FCPX is just a bit less handy than the track tool.
2) ‘forgetting tracks’ is also nonsense because FCPX uses tracks it just renames them as ‘storylines’. Audio lanes mimics audio tracks and I can see that assigning roles to specific audio puts them on different ‘lanes’ but I can’t see that the same is true of assigning roles to video clips. In other NLE’s the ability to order video tracks so that you have say sync on track 1 and cutaways on Track 2 allows you to very easily create a sequence and shift things about. You can then add specific trans for alpha channels or grades (in Premier Pro) and build mini title animations or layered fast cut edits. etc. This kind of precise cuttign still seems to be much easier to achieve in a classic track based NLE like Premier.
3) 64 bit v 32 bit aside, FCPX is not necessarily ‘faster’. There are plenty of people who have cut 1/2hrs for broadcast in a day on all manner of systems including on FCP7. You are up and running on Premier Pro much more quickly than you are on FCPX as you don’t need to wait for the machine to churn to ingest & transcode footage. The biggest beef I have with FCPX so far is how it handles media. I have had to use Edit ready to transcode P2 media to ProRes Quicktime files on my last project and one of my colleagues had issues with Canon Log, which again needed to be transcoded for FCPX to play with it. FCPX saves me no hard drive space as the workflow I have settles on to the safe is that everything should go through Edit Ready before it gets imported into FCPX. This is partly due to point 4 …(below)
4) Sharing projects seems problematic. I took the (very) rough cut into the client for final cutting. They loaded my XML without a hitch. We produced a first cut. The Series Editor asked for some script changes. I brought the XML back to my studio and none of my source material would relink to the new XML. The reason? FCPX it seems had created a load of proxy files on the client system (links to ProRes files) that I could not relink on my system. I have since learned that for grading the colourist will require the entire project (sorry “library’ – minor gripe, but why use different language when referring to everything. WTF is an ‘event’…?) rather than an XML. Ok, this would be the case on FCP7, but nonetheless, FCPX is not proving to be any smarter at handling/managing media than FCP7 which required a consolidated project file for post. Worse, the OMFs that FCPX exports for audio dubbing are, I am told< a shocking mess.
5) Adapting to this system has taken most of the editors i know a huge amount of time. Now for old dogs to learn new tricks is not a bad thing, but just think for a minute about how much time, collectively everyone has had to waste learning this application. It has caused days of down time with my main client and I have spent endless hours looking at Youtube and other tutorials trying to figure out how to make this system work. Compare that with the amount of time I spent learning Premier or Davinci Resolve – about an hour and you’re up and running. If the system were some holy grail then it might be worth it, but to end up working on an NLE that is actually not quite as good as others out there is just crap.
Those points not withstanding and given that I have to learn this system my requests are these:
1) can the magnetic timeline be turned off? Sorry it is very annoying. I can see some benefits, but it would be good to be able to disable it.
2) can I scrub/preview clips in the preview window rather than having to do this in the bins
3) Can I have a track tool!
4) Is it possible to layout my desktop and resize windows as I need them? There only seems to be fixed layouts and you cannot resize windows. This is a major loss from FCP7. And each time I restart FCPX I have to manually reposition stuff to my seccon screen, even though I have saved my desktop layout. What is that all about…?Given the choice, I would be cutting on Premier…just in case anyone was wondering…every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Thanks for any thoughts.
Andy
Andy Johnstone
Wild Dog Limited
film & multimedia production
http://www.wilddogworld.com -
[Andrew Johnstone] ” The idea that the magnetic timeline works some sort of magic is a nonsense…”
There are pros and cons to it. In the “Off the Tracks” documentary, Apple engineer Dave Cerf (who was a designer of the magnetic timeline and later assisted Walter Murch) described some of the philosophy behind it. I personally think some other features such as the high-performance skimmer, range-based tagging and pervasive database orientation make a bigger difference in overall productivity.
[Andrew Johnstone] … ‘forgetting tracks’ is also nonsense because FCPX uses tracks it just renames them as ‘storylines’.
Storylines and audio lanes are quite different from tracks. If a storyline was simply a track by another name, people wouldn’t have such a difficult time adjusting to FCPX.
[Andrew Johnstone] …64 bit v 32 bit aside, FCPX is not necessarily ‘faster’. There are plenty of people who have cut 1/2hrs for broadcast in a day on all manner of systems including on FCP7…
You can obviously get the job done with any NLE, and the proficiency of the DIT, Asst. Editor and Lead Editor make a big difference. FCPX is very strong at unscripted high-shooting-ratio material like field documentaries. This has little to do with the magnetic timeline but more involves the skimmer and range-based rating and keywording.
[Andrew Johnstone] ….You are up and running on Premier Pro much more quickly than you are on FCPX as you don’t need to wait for the machine to churn to ingest & transcode footage…
I’ve used Premiere since CS4 and have a subscription to CC. FCPX is generally no different regarding performance of ingest using “leave files in place”. It does not require transcoding. You are probably describing ingest with re-wrap which FCPX does by default for certain tree-oriented media formats. Using the right technique, those can usually be imported using “leave files in place”, although there is some variation.
[Andrew Johnstone] ….The biggest beef I have with FCPX so far is how it handles media. I have had to use Edit ready to transcode P2 media to ProRes Quicktime files on my last project…
In most cases you don’t need to transcode to ProRes using EditReady. It can usually just re-wrap (IOW “passthrough” ) the files which is vastly faster. On FCPX 10.4.3, I can directly import 4k MXF files from a Sony PMW-F55 using “leave files in place”, and it works OK. Those can also be re-wrapped via EditReady without transcoding.
It’s a good idea to make sure you’ve installed the latest version of Apple Pro Video Formats: https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1947?locale=en_US
[Andrew Johnstone] …Sharing projects seems problematic… I brought the XML back to my studio and none of my source material would relink to the new XML. The reason? FCPX it seems had created a load of proxy files on the client system (links to ProRes files) that I could not relink on my system…
There are definitely some things you’ll need to learn about FCPX media management. It is not perfect but it’s possible to work collaboratively and lots of people do that. Ripple Training’s media management class covers much of this: https://www.rippletraining.com/products/final-cut-pro/media-management-in-final-cut-pro-10-4/
[Andrew Johnstone] ….Adapting to this system has taken most of the editors i know a huge amount of time….
It can definitely take a while to unlearn past ways of doing things and adapt to the new system. It was difficult for me.
[Andrew Johnstone] …..can the magnetic timeline be turned off?..
It cannot be fully and truly disabled. However some describe the Position Tool as “disabling the magnetic timeline”. This lets you do certain things but the best approach is use this only when it’s unavoidable: https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/understanding-the-fcpx-magnetic-timeline/
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This lengthy article helped me overcome my track based thinking: https://library.creativecow.net/austin_charlie/FCPX-Timeline/1
And when I saw this, I was flabbergasted:
It is from this article: https://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1538-how-honda-s-interactive-commercial-the-other-side-was-edited-in-final-cut-pro-x
As I don’t make my main income with video editing, I could try FCP X without a lot of pressure and just decided to edit a music video I shot in it and while it was slow compared to PPro and MC, I could start to see its value.
Since then I converted all my old PPro projects (converted from MC earlier) to FCP X and got rid of Adobe completely, and I don’t regret it.
I am by no means a professional in FCP X, but it helped me edit tremendously. I even could use a pesky 12″ MacBook to edit 26+ “vacation” music videos, which took around two months in my free time. FCP X makes storytelling much easier, even though I am no storyteller. Well.https://vimeo.com/user74949585
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I posted at some length higher up on this thread and expressed my dismay at some of the features of FCPX that I did not like very much.
Since then I have cut several pieces for TV and fed news cuts from the field and got to know the system pretty well. I have overcome my frustrations with the sticky timeline and with audio mixing/fades etc. In fact because my main client (BBC) uses FCPX for all its news and regional feature/docs, I have not touched premiere since cutting a 1/2 hour doc in Jan and my subscription has lapsed. I can;t afford to have various edit packages lolling about on my system, costing me money if I am not using them – this has always been my beef about subscription based software. It does not take into account the needs of many users.
But back to FCPX…I really like the ease with which you can grade in FCPX and there are clearly benefits to the system converting content to a flavour that it prefers. But its data management is also a major headache for me now.
In Premiere Pro, my main issue was system speed. My current machine does not have enough RAM or a faster enough Graphics card to render & grade as fast as I would like in Premiere. But other than that it works brilliantly reading directly form the source file. All my rushes are copied directly to a mirrored Thunderbolt RAID and I can work directly from that. I appreciate tat there are downsides to this workflow, a mirrored raid is not as fast as a single RAID and there is also the danger of drive failure from overuse. But in Premiere I can start work the minute the material is put on the RAID and the project files are relatively small when it comes to archiving.
FCPX however is a different issue. And this is GRIPE 1:
While I can, in theory ingest material into a ‘library’ (a ‘project’ in old money…why did they change the names…!) and ‘leave files in place’ FCPX does not in practice let me do this with material from my FS7. It sees an Sony card file structure as the card it self, not the copy of a card and the only option I have is to ingest the material into the library.
Example: a recent 10 minute wildlife film, shot in Slog , created over 481GB of project data on my project drive (I run a single thunderbolt drive for projects – a legacy from FCP7)
Problem: Now, not only do I have a back up of the original rushes on my mirrored RAID, I also have a duplicate of all the material in the film’s ‘library’. All the music for the film (which I store on my project raid) also gets copies into the library. This creates a massive storage night mare and means that to archive my projects I have to buy terrabytes of harddrive space – much more that I needed for Premiere. And don’t under estimate the time it takes to copy all this material to external drives either. I am copying as I type.
GRIPE 2: The size of the FCPX project files creates a massive issue for my system. I filed two news package from the filed the other day. The lunchtime package was fine. But when I came to cut the package for the evening show, my 13inch MBP ground to a halt. I have found with FCPX that you really have to let it sit and munch away at everything before you start cutting on my system. Even on the much faster Macs at the BBC, the background tasks grind to a halt if you are cutting.
The bottom line for me is that I need to throw even more money at Apple and at the external hard drive mfrs to get this edit package to whizz along.
There are lots of benefits to this system, but unless I am doing something wrong the data management is a real headache.
Andy
Andy Johnstone
Wild Dog Limited
film & multimedia production
http://www.wilddogworld.com -
[Andrew Johnstone] “FCPX however is a different issue. And this is GRIPE 1:
While I can, in theory ingest material into a ‘library’ (a ‘project’ in old money…why did they change the names…!) and ‘leave files in place’ FCPX does not in practice let me do this with material from my FS7. It sees an Sony card file structure as the card it self, not the copy of a card and the only option I have is to ingest the material into the library.
“You DON’T have to ingest files to the library, ignore the import file function and simply go into your original card file footage and drag all the .mxf files into whatever FCPX library you are using making sure you have “keep files in place” selected in preferences. (see video below)
[Andrew Johnstone] “Even on the much faster Macs at the BBC, the background tasks grind to a halt if you are cutting”
Background rendering in FCPX ISN’T background rendering, it only works when you are not performing edit operations.
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[Andrew Johnstone] “I appreciate tat there are downsides to this workflow, a mirrored raid is not as fast as a single RAID and there is also the danger of drive failure from overuse. “
Actually, a mirrored RAID 1 is slower than a single hard drive. I would suggest you use a RAID 5 at a minimum or even no RAID at all would be faster than a RAID 1 although without redundancy.
[Andrew Johnstone] “Problem: Now, not only do I have a back up of the original rushes on my mirrored RAID, I also have a duplicate of all the material in the film’s ‘library’.”
This is actually an opportunity to reorganize how you work. I avoid this problem because all of my camera card media is on a separate portable drive from my projects. I ingest media to a camera card drive. Then when I’m ready to start editing, I transfer from that drive to my projects drive by importing into the Library. This gives me a back of up original media on a separate drive in case of project drive failure (because there are no more “tapes” to go back to!). ????
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com
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