Creative Cloud

[Will Eccleston]

Shawn,

I work on a wide variety of project types – long-form TV shows, network promos, agency spots, and some very slick corporate B to B video, and for some of the television stuff, AVID is more or less fine, especially with facility support behind it. But for the heavily graphics-intensive corporate work that I do, using the AVID feels like having one hand. I find using effects in the AVID to be a very backward and tedious process, and keyframing is an amazing exercise in frustration. (And AVID was the first editor I learned, and ran for YEARS before starting to get into FCP in version 2) Adobe is just, in my opinion, a more modern interface, with much better graphics capability, and MUCH more attention to moving the product forward in a way that makes sense. Every time AVID releases a new feature it sounds great on paper but, to me at least, feels like it was conceived by engineers (NFG). Also being able to copy and paste right from Premiere timeline to an AE comp is pretty huge for me. And then a billion little things about how the timeline operates in Premiere, many of which just made it into the software in the last few weeks. And oh, (and I know the bar has never been high) Premiere has the best titler I’ve EVER seen in an editor, by a HUGE margin. I just used multicam the other day for the first time, and it’s fantastic (granted – I only had a 2-camera shoot, and they were the same codec, but the functionality was great).

I can’t stress enough though that a huge part of it is Adobe’s amazing responsiveness lately, which is in stark contrast to AVID over the years, but, as stated previously, there’s a lot on the line for Adobe right now. We’ll have to see if they continue responding this way going forward.

I’m probably forgetting some stuff here, but hopefully that helps.

EDIT!! Oh yeah!!!! AND THIS ONE IS HUUUUUGE FOR ME!

AVID still crushes every piece of media into whatever format project you’re working in, which is simply paleozoic. Every other editor is resolution-independent. It’s really a killer for me. Add to that the incredible multiformat capability of Premiere. Yes, I know, there are performance advantages to transcoding everything, but it’s truly getting good enough that it’s really not worth it anymore. Just plug in your camera drive and start editing. I have heard that AVID AMA may be getting better, but it was still miserable when I used it a few months ago.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

Simon said “Premiere is a non-starter for all its attractions because no-one in our industry uses it and it holds no advantages over Legacy for the work that we do.”

I would contend that it is everything you love about Legacy plus everything it was sorely lacking. But I can’t help you if no one in your market knows how to run it. You could be a pioneer though : )

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Will Eccleston] “Simon said “Premiere is a non-starter for all its attractions because no-one in our industry uses it and it holds no advantages over Legacy for the work that we do.”

I would contend that it is everything you love about Legacy plus everything it was sorely lacking. But I can’t help you if no one in your market knows how to run it. You could be a pioneer though : )”

For better or for worse, the film industries in the territories with which we do business, from the US, to the UK to Europe, are all still exclusively working in either AVID or FCP7 – the latter far more frequently than you’d expect.

Premiere has no penetration whatsoever among our clients. (Neither has FCP X) for that matter.)

We don’t really get to choose which NLE to use since it is more or less dictated by what we are given.

Sometimes these days I’ll start a project in FCP X, knowing how much fun it is to cut in, but also knowing how many headaches I’ll have at the finishing stage.

I know and use Premiere quite a bit but to me there’s nothing attractive about using it just for the sake of it.

Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Shawn Miller]

Thanks Will,

I really appreciate your insight! I’ve thought about learning Avid for some time now, mostly for long form stuff. But I’ve been hearing long time Avid editors express such dissatisfaction with Media Composer that I’m now looking a lot more at Lightworks. I’m a long time PPro user, and I really like it for short form stuff (corporate, short films, etc)… but I like to keep my options open. 🙂

Shawn

[Will Eccleston]

That’s what I thought you meant at first, but then I second guessed myself and thought, “no, he means he’s hearing folks singing the praises of AVID like I’m spewing about Premiere”. Thanks for the clarification. I think there were (and still are) a TON of AVID folks who always thought Final Cut was a piece of ship. I certainly hated it when I first started using it. But then I grew to love it, although there were a few things I always missed about the AVID. I am quite certain there are a billion AVID users who will for a long time, if not forever, think that Premiere is a piece as well. What can you do? I do realize that if I’m going to keep spraying about it I need to spend some time playing with X, but that’s tough to envision doing. I’d rather spend my time trying something new with AE or learning C4D.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films