FCP 7 vs FCP X: The Bottom Line: I’d like to know what you pros think

[Chris Harlan]

[Bill Davis] “The only thing missing from this thread is that one thing that separates the two camps (X is useful, from X is not very useful) tends to be those who desire to keep working the way they have in the past, only faster and more efficiently – verses those who are happy to change to a new way of working because they see that the way our industry is changing, it can be very valuable to learn processes directed at how the industry is changing………………The actual editing skills will always remain the same. But you simply have to be ready and willing to re-think “how to edit on an NLE” if you want the benefits that X’s engineering team built into the new program.”

Bill, I know that you won’t believe this, and probably never will, but there are just some things that X does not do as well as other NLEs, and because you don’t regularly do those things you will never see that. You don’t think those needs exist. On almost every large project I work on, for instance, there are times when it is extremely beneficial to have multiple bins and multiple time lines open, and though I could work around that with X, it will cost me hours to do so. It doesn’t matter how strong the metadata indexing is, or how quickly you can call up and dismiss clips. It just isn’t as valuable as having multiple bins open. You don’t see this because you don’t have to do some of the things I have to do. I know you are trying to be nice, but it gets really insulting every time you pull out that “old school dudes just want to be old school” meme to explain why everyone does not embrace X to the degree you do. I know you think it is somehow my dogged bull-headedness, but you are wrong; I’m open to all kinds of new things, and there are just some things that X is not better at. And that’s okay; its not its fault. Or yours either. You just need to try and understand that you are not walking in everybody’s shoes.

[Charlie Austin]

[Chris Harlan] ” I know you are trying to be nice, but it gets really insulting every time you pull out that “old school dudes just want to be old school” meme to explain why everyone does not embrace X to the degree you do.”

I’m with you. Just like there were/are things that MC does that FCP “classic” couldn’t, there are things that X can’t do that other NLE’s can. And visa versa of course. The “just don’t want to learn new things” refrain is a little tiresome, and in many cases, incorrect.

Bill, when you say: “It’s a philosophy that rewards anyone who gets excited to learn new things. And kinda penalizes anyone who is honestly just trying to leverage everything they already know about how NLEs already work and preserve that knowledge while operating a new one.”

it comes across as kind of condescending. Also, it’s sort of wrong. X isn’t reinventing the wheel here, it’s just maybe uh, like when bias ply tires were replaced by radials? lol I dunno.

Anyway, as someone said the other day, the war is pretty much over and people are adopting X, now that it actually works. 🙂 I’m getting quite a few inquiries about my workflow from people in my niche. People who, a year ago, thought X was a toy. There’s still resistance, but less than in the past.

I dig X, and am using it more and more on things I would have been nervous to use it on 6 months ago. Anyone who still says it’s not a “pro” app is demonstrably wrong. But there are some things, as Chris points out, it can’t really do yet. If you need those things, (and I’m not talking about tracks here, that ship has sailed, thank god), then you use the app that does ’em. If X doesn’t do something that an editor needs, it doesn’t mean they are luddites stuck in some sort of time warp. (cue rocky horror soundtrack) 🙂

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

[Jason Porthouse]

To me it’s not a binary thing – X or not X. I think that the entire post landscape has moved on from the ‘were Avid/FCP’ paradigm of the last 10 years. I’m cutting 3 hour-long programmes at the moment on MC5.5, and boy do I wish sometimes I was in X or legacy – but then something will come along and make me think ‘thank God I wasn’t in FCP’. But overall, and I say this as someone who learnt Avid way way back as my transitional NLE from tape based work, I prefer to cut in Legacy and X. I did a job recently in X and the fluidity with which I can manipulate the timeline astounded me again. But the trackless nature caused me an equal amount of frustration – mainly because I’m so used to working with tracks, moving items and using areas of the timeline as a ‘scratchpad’. It’s a headspace thing and I daresay if I used X more I’d be OK with that model and fighting it less.

That X is ready for ‘pro’ use is now a moot point, I think Craig’s work at the Beeb has answered that. I’m very happy to have it as a tool in my kitbag and I have a feeling that over the next month we may see it mature into the ‘go-to’ nle of choice for many people. I certainly hope so given Adobe’s stance with regard to CC which is a bit of a non-starter for me.

Jason

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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

[David Mathis]

I am really starting to like Final Cut Pro X but it needs further development.

For starters:
Bring back the round-trip between Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5
Keep audio and video separate
Give us the option of being to disable connected clips
As for Motion the ability to parent layers, have null objects and expressions would be helpful
Do away with the group feature and make it like After Effects and gives the option having pre-comp and multiple comps, would make more complicated projects easier to manage

What is nice:
Building a custom template, title, effect and transition in Motion for later use in Final Cut Pro X, a big advantage over having to dynamic link between P Pro and AE just to make a transition

Those are just a few thoughts. Oh, please don’t go to a cloud based scenario.

[John Davidson]

[David Mathis] “Building a custom template, title, effect and transition in Motion for later use in Final Cut Pro X, a big advantage over having to dynamic link between P Pro and AE just to make a transition”

Check this out David. 4 months ago we rebuilt twenty three 30 second ‘tips’ spots we made originally in FCP7 for air on the sister network of one of our clients. When repackaging, we took the after effects graphics (backgrounds, transitions, etc) and keyable elements into Motion and made each a ‘theme’ based on the network name. We then used that theme in FCPX to rebuild our spots.

Last week they finally wanted delivery – but lo and behold they have a NEW graphics package. We updated our generators to use the new elements in motion. The updates translated throughout the spots that used those generators. Obviously some font work had to be done in FCPX, but we revised all 23 in a day. I haven’t confirmed with the editor this worked perfectly, but in theory it did because he got it done so quickly.

Awesome.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Bill Davis]

All I’m going to say is that all three of us, Chris, Charlie and I – have come up through an editing industry that has essentially done things via a unified overall workflow for 25 years or more.

If you were going to edit – it was understood that you’d gather your footage – put it on a timeline – manipulate it to a careful set of professional standards – and deliver it as an edited master.

I am NOT saying this isn’t also happening today. It totally is happening. And professional editors around the globe still do that. And likely will for generations to come.

What I HAVE been relentlessly trying to say here (and annoying many by doing so) is that this is not the ONLY way to view video editing in the modern era.

That “catechism” of edit. Is still alive for anyone who wants to study and live it.

But there are ways to see editing that don’t need to adhere to that tradition.

I see more and more that there are legions of others who’s workflows are NOTHING like those of folks who work in broadcast TV. And sorry, but I’m more curious about how X solves problems outside those type of workflows than how it solves problems for traditional TV show production.

Chris, I respect your points of view and you’ve been a very eloquent advocate pushing back against X from a traditional editors point of view. And I honestly appreciate how far you’ve come in opening up your thinking about X.

Charlie, you know I hugely respect how you’ve integrated X (particularly when everyone else was dissing it so relentlessly) into the kind of traditional TV workflow that nobody can argue isn’t fully professional. And without voices like yours, this would have been a much more difficult place to hang out.

But as much as I truly appreciate both your contributions here, you’ve got to at least see that both of your workflows represent two sides of ONE coin. Editing for broadcast. And I’m still convinced that the changes built into the fundamental re-imagining of X are less about re-seeing how broadcast might work – and more about how 100,000 other industries will leverage the new ideas in X to meet the needs of the wider video world.

For example, one of the guys I know here in town has a robust business providing high level training for working dogs in areas from police work/search and rescue thru behavior modification so at risk pets fit in better with their families. I know for a fact they’ve been using X since the beginning to build a robust catalogued visual library that they can call up by breed and behavior to help owners “see” different breeds behavior issues.

That stuff will NEVER hit the air. (Well, unless it does!) But the library of data they’re assembling might change that whole industry. Or not. Hard to say.

But take that one example times 100,000 and THAT is the potential I see in X and it’s integrated database.

Broadcast gets it’s due here all the time.

But as I keep saying, it’s NOT the only game in town anymore.

So I’m fine with being criticized for “not getting” how X is inadequate for some tasks. Just so long as you guys are OK with being criticized for “not getting” that broadcast is no longer the holy grail for all editors.

It will keep all of us more sensible perhaps?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bret Williams]

Couldn’t this have been done in 7 with master templates? Or does a motion template in 7 not ripple through if you edit it? I realize you can’t publish much more than text and drop zones in Motion 4/ FCP 7, but still pretty powerful if it ripples. I really never heard much chatter about master templates in 7, but I toyed with them and they were pretty cool.

[John Davidson]

I always found Motion integration with FCP7 buggy and crashed more often than not. I may be wrong, but this seems to really work better than it did in 7. Making your own transitions and effects from motion into FCPX for free is pretty awesome, too.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Joseph Owens]

In the spirit of Meh, the Element of Indifference…

I am still responsible for Online, where the penny drops. Versions, seamless, subtitled, textless, captioned, up- and down-converted, widescreen, letterboxed, center-cut … &c., its an endless list. I do not care one jot at all about editing, other than all the times that I have to fix the myriad of editorial errors, revisions, omissions, didn’t-know-how-to-do-it-so I-kludged-its, that come with the job, because….

Because at least 99% of individuals carrying out the duties of editorial construction really don’t have a total grasp of how to actually operate the software. I don’t… been in the industry nearly 40 years. It keeps changing and often its just a waste of effort to become fully conversant with something that could be obsoleted at any time. But sit down with a trainer sometime, someone who really does deserve the title, or on-line handle “FCPGuru” or whatever, and its pretty apparent that what you can do in one application, more-or-less, you can do in any other — with the exceptions of the absolute, over-the-cliff non-starters like codec support, or media types, or the other, largely political/proprietary gotchas.

Ultimately, arguing one application over another, feature by feature, is kind of silly, when a professional’s clients utterly do not care about those things and only want to realize the benefit of somebody using a tool that solves their problems with no added pain. SHAKE works like my brain works, and so even though it is as dead as an application can get, while it supports up to 4K resolution more or less agnostically, I will use it and make money with it… its pure profit now because it has been well and truly amortized. And waddya know, it still works, beautifully.

About 30 years ago, when I had more time on my hands, I became familiar with the Japanese-rules strategy game of GO. Read the books, joined a club. Deceptively simple, 8 rules (like dating a teenage daughter, but even Kaley Cuoco has moved on). Oldest board game in existence, played unchanged at least since the Tokugawa shogunate of the 1600s, when it was at its zenith of national regard. Still very popular – pretty good for something that has been around for at least 1200 years. The secret of its appeal is that it is infinitely complex — possibly something that a computer will never be able to master, because of the 361! (factorial) outcomes of any particular game. There may not be that many atomic particles in the universe. Add the nuance that some moves are played strictly for aji (taste). One of the best introductory books (“Fundamentals of GO”) was written by a “strong amateur”, Kageyama — somebody tarred with the title of someone who could never attain the ranking of a professional. He dealt with that description, and this is the reason for this paragraph, with the observation, not entirely original, that the real difference between professional and amateur is that the latter play for the love of the game, while the former — well, its their job, they work at it, they are paid to win. Almost nothing else matters for them. Do what you have to do to win, however you measure that.

Now I have to go pound some nails and set some stones. The wolf is at the door, huffing and puffing, and may have more ko threats than me.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[Chris Harlan]

That was fabulous.