Come on! Debate away… Where do I go from here?

[Oliver Peters]

[Fiona Fuchs] “SO which way to go? X – Premiere – Avid?”

All of the above.

Seems a bit market-dependent. I’m in Cen Fl and most of the production companies and agencies moving away from FCP are switching to Premiere (and the rest of the Cloud). Only a few individual users of X. Avid for the shops still using Avid and still a lot of FCP6/7 around. Clearly Adobe has the momentum for folks not turned off by the subscription business model.

OTOH, if you are in NYC or LA, then it’s still largely Avid at bigger places.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Herb Sevush]

[Fiona Fuchs] “BUT I find myself with time this week and feel like I should be keeping my tools sharp.”

On the one hand I could suggest reading a good book, for the sharpest tool you will surely need is your mind. I’d recommend anything by J.M. Coetze or Philip K Dick for starters, but I’m sure you have your own favorites to pursue.

As for NLE’s, the most logical choice for any FCP editor is Avid if your interested in marketing yourself as a freelance editor. It might be a boring answer but it’s true.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Mark Dobson]

[Fiona Fuchs] “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a job advertised for an X editor, but then again same goes for Premiere.”

Strangely enough there was an advertisement for a FCPX editor to work on a photo montage sequence for a major awards party after Wimbledon 2 weeks ago.
They were offering £250 (plus expenses I think) So whilst not top rates for a days work not the national minimum wage either.

And a while back Wired Sussex posted a job for a FCPX editor. So there are some opportunities for those with FCPX under their belts.

If I were a freelance editor I would definitely take time out to learn FCPX – and it is deceptively difficult to learn.

But Herb and Oliver’s advice is sound – learn the lot and especially Avid.

For myself FCPX is just fine, I’m used to awkward workarounds and I could not live without skimming, compound clips, the event library and even . . . . the magnetic timeline.

Apple have done a great unfinished job and were it not for the carcrash of a launch many more people would be using it.

It’s time is yet to come, and it will.

[Ronny Courtens]

In our company and in some other broadcast houses I know in Europe you don’t get a job unless you know FCPX. But as a freelancer it’s Avid for sure.

[Nicholas Zimmerman]

Here in Dallas it’s still a crapshot between FCP7, Premiere, and FCPX. Avid’s gained some popularity here, but what’s really surprising is how big FCPX has become. The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, and our ABC affiliate WFAA have all jumped in head first with FCPX. I’ve seen a really surprising number of web and broadcast jobs the last six months for FCPX. Our local FCPUG has 80%+ switched to X.

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Avid MC, PPro CS6, FCP7 – wasting away on my SSD.
I just can’t quit X.
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[Oliver Peters]

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, and our ABC affiliate WFAA have all jumped in head first with FCPX”

If you analyze how X is designed and built, it excels at fast-turnaround, news-oriented productions. So broadcast news and web extensions for print operations seem like a natural.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Rich Rubasch]

“If you analyze how X is designed and built, it excels at fast-turnaround, news-oriented productions. So broadcast news and web extensions for print operations seem like a natural.”

Interesting, because the Newscutter was Avid’s bread and butter….was Apple being simply genius by secretly going after the news guys (lower cost than AVID and perhaps less headaches) all along?

Here we’ve been bashing or applauding Apple for this new tool that wasn’t meant for any of us really..but rather the news outlets…not that would move some product if it took off. Every producer and editor at a news outlet would have a copy.

Ker-ching.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Nicholas Zimmerman]

I would say for Doc and News work there isn’t anything better at the moment than FCPX. The keywording and skimming are incredibly powerful for ripping through hours of footage in little to no time, and with Motion’s integrated lower thirds, the editor has fast access to customizable mograph.

I also think the commercial workflow is really nice in FCPX, using Auditions to test multiple versions of the same cuts.

My favorite things I’ve cut in X haven’t fallen into either of those categories though, they’ve been narrative shorts. I’ve cut two so far in X and both went very smoothly. They went to Pro Tools for audio sweetening and Resolve for color without any issues. What I’m trying to get at, is that at the moment, X seems to be pretty versatile. I’d say it’s ready to do the heavy lifting, just not many are really using it for that yet.

————————–
Avid MC, PPro CS6, FCP7 – wasting away on my SSD.
I just can’t quit X.
————————–

[Oliver Peters]

[Rich Rubasch] “was Apple being simply genius by secretly going after the news guys (lower cost than AVID and perhaps less headaches) all along”

I’m not sure Apple had any plan for a specific market. They designed a tool that they felt worked for modern file-based production. It just happens that this aligns with certain types of operations.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Charlie Austin]

[Oliver Peters] “f you analyze how X is designed and built, it excels at fast-turnaround, news-oriented productions.”

It excels at fast-turnaround anything really. Cutting trailers and TV spots for features really is great in X. I guess I’m in the 2% subset of the “Hollywood 2%” Shane references above that actually prefers cutting in X.

Forgive my rant but… The silly thing here in my little Hollywood niche is how misinformed people still are regarding X. Here’s what it can’t do yet: Allow multiple users to share Events/Projects concurrently. If you need that use MC. There’s this popular belief that X can’t share projects at all though. But X can do sneakernet project/event sharing like FCP 7/Pr quite easily. It requires about 3 extra steps compared to the “old” way, but it’s easy.

I’m not gonna say X is perfect, it isn’t. But most everything, as far as getting your cut done, really does work the same once you get used to it, which isn’t instantaneous. 🙂 X does need 3’rd party apps if you need EDL’s/ AAF’s. A little digression…

X2Pro’s Role handling has made getting elements to a mix so much easier than it ever was in track based NLE’s. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I need to work fast. Pre-X, in FCP 7 or whatever, I’m not spending time when I cut to make sure all my “tracks” are perfectly organized… I’m just trying to make them fit in the timeline so I can see them, complete the cut, and get it to the client. I’m not finishing spots for air/exhibition in X, though lots of people do… As a result, when it’s time for finishing, I need to go back through and spend the time to split everything out nicely. In FCP X, spend 2 seconds assigning Roles to clips when initially importing them, and X2Pro does it with a button click. Still blows my mind. 😉 And EDL-X let’s you edit the source table for the list. That’s huge, particularly when you’re cutting from 5 different versions of a feature with 6 reels in each version and someone forgot to assign reel names to 3 of those features. Not having 001 as the source for 2/3’s of the cut make online editors happy.

Anyway… I think the biggest sticking point to X in “Hollywood” is still the timeline, and all the self-reinforcing company town negativity. I see it right here in my office. I’ve been cutting in X, and loving it, for over a year. Yet some editors here still repeat the “everyone hates it” mantra. And they’re too freaking lazy to spend the time to learn how to cut in X. It’s ridiculous. It’s all the same crap we wen’t through when people started switching to the original FCP. Except there were tracks in everything. People are terrified of the magnetic timeline. But they can’t admit that, so they call it names. lol 🙂

There certainly are some gigs for which X isn’t currently the best choice, just like it was for FCP 7. But I really believe that a lot of the resistance to X in some circles is just the fact that it isn’t the same as everything that came before it. I’ve been editing for almost 2 decades, and was a Post Audio Mixer for years before I started with picture. I’ve worked “professionally” with MC, FCP Classic, ProTools, AudioVision (remember that?), and dabbled in countless other random NLE’s and DAW’s. (I include PPRo here, as I’ve used it, but not for paying work…) I like cutting Video and Audio in FCP X, warts and all, better than any of them. Yes, Clip Connections do require workarounds sometimes in a complex timeline, but it’s no big deal really, and Apple is addressing that stuff.

Back to the original point, use whatever tool suits the gig, and as a freelancer, you really should be able to use them all. But, IMO, aside from some valid technical issues here and there, most of the resistance to FCP X is just stupid.

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~