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FCP history
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over on the Simon Kirby site
> Originally called Key Grip, pundits assumed this software acquisition was being made in order to enhance future versions of Apple’s QuickTime. < Does anyone else remember the ghost editing application known as Hitchcock? Seems that Data Translation, later Media 100, was toying with and dumped it. There was an implicit connection to FCP somewhere. Yes, I could search google or wiki but thought the forum would be faster and stir up some memories for someone. bogiesan This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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In 1998, I had been exploring video production as a business for a few years. I was working as a project manager for my fathers commercial construction business and was shooting HI8 video and editing between the camera and a VHS deck to make promo tapes for our construction company.
It was always very depressing to go shopping for an edit suite and get numbers like a hundred grand thrown back in your face by sales geeks who took perverse pleasure in spouting out numbers they new you could never handle. It was all Avid all the time. Snots.
Then in 1999, a local vender showed me the first suite that I had ever heard of that was under 75k. I think it was a Silicon Graphics box with assorted parts and chunks from the various tech providors of the day. There were capture cards from Germany and innards from California and so on. All these parts from different manufacturers slapped together willy nilly with no one to call if the whole shebang refused to function as advertised. It was 20 grand for the whole works and was tantilizingly within reach. But, my subdued glee was dashed when, during the 2 hour demo, (the sales dude was going to cut me something from a tape that I brought him) this steaming pile of techno wizardry crashed time after time after time.
Shortly thereafter, I met a guy at a party who sold Macs. He spent some time telling me about this program called Final Cut Pro that was soon to be released on his beloved platform of choice. I thought, “What? Buy an obscure brand from a desktop publishing nerd who wears Birkenstocks and socks to house parties?” Hmmmmm. He seemed too passionate. Weird.
Turns out I could buy everything I needed from BirkenBoy, software, hardware, and peripherals for under 6 grand and, bonus, the whole enchilada came from one manufacturer, ready to roll right out of the box. Dreamy.
So, in spring 1999, I bought a Blue and White G3 450 and Final Cut Pro 1.0. (I still have the disc and my kids are now pounding away on the G3). Plus, it worked perfectly with my other gleaming new investment, a VX1000 with companion DHR1000 deck that I acquired 6 months earlier.
I officially incorporated in December 1999 and have never looked back. The only reason I was able to be in this business was because of Apple’s efforts to bring this technology to the table. I have nothing but gratitude and respect for the efforts of those at Apple who fired up the FCP wagon and pushed it through to the forefront of video editing apps. Like many, I was a prime beneficiary of this enlightened foresight. If it wasn’t for them, I could still be arguing with plumbers and engineers.
Dean
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[bogiesan] “I could search google or wiki…”
Hi
You’d need the keywords Aldus or CoSA as well as Hitchcock to get the hits.
Presumably killed off when Adobe bought out Aldus. -
[Dean Steinmann] “I officially incorporated in December 1999 and have never looked back. The only reason I was able to be in this business was because of Apple’s efforts to bring this technology to the table.”
Hi
Christmas Eve 1999 was the day that I did a playout to tape of a 30min edit on my trusty Radius VideoVision Telecast system (in a 8100 Power Mac), switched it off, and after the holiday never again powered it up, switching to FW DV.
That system, starting off as a VideoVision Studio, had been bought in December 1993, with Premiere 3.1.3.
It did almost-DV quality MJ-PEG online to UVW Beta from day one 🙂
So for me FCP was very late to the table, and I didn’t move over until v2 because of Premiere 6.5’s buginess… -
Coming from a film background I was never satisfied with any of the early NLE systems. I purchased a SuperMac Video Spigot and Premiere v1 back in 1991. I even took a Premiere class at AFI that was taught by none other than Randy Ubillos. That bad boy ran on my Mac IIfx. It wasn’t until 1993, when I purchased my first Avid Media Composer that I felt a level of comfort when moving back and forth between the film world and video world.
Wishing for a cheaper alternative to my Avids, I purchased EditDV when the Sony VX1000 started shipping. I cut a few side projects on that system, even did a doc for Eddy Olmos. Regardless, EditDV blows. Never a very stable app.
While at NAB in 98 I saw a demo of KeyGrip at the Macromedia booth. I don’t recall if that was the same year Avid announced it was dumping the Mac in favor of an all Windows product line. Regardless, the writing was on the wall for me when it came to Avid. I had four Avids by that time and was tired of bending over for Avid’s business strategy when it came to it’s loyal users.
It was NAB in ’99 that I first saw v1 of FCP. I gobbled up a copy as soon as it became available. By version 2 I was almost confident enough in the product that I seriously considered switching my facility over from Avid to FCP. I managed to cut a feature film on v2, but it still had a ways to go in that realm. By that point most of our Avid’s were being brokered out by a rental shop here in LA and we went full hog into FCP. We picked up some awesome Aurora Igniter cards for all our realtime film digitizing and were using Film Logic for the neg tracking. Many people don’t realize it, but the Igniters were the first uncompressed 601 boards for FCP, and this was back in 2000.
From the Igniters we migrated over to the Aurora Pipe Pro’s (which by the way were the best all around SD cards for FCP bar none). Ever since FCP 5 we’ve been running on Kona 2’s and Kona 3’s. We bounce back and forth multiple times a day from HD to SD and all the flavors in between.
From a creative perspective we couldn’t be happier, and from a business point of view we’re certain we made the right choices every step of the way.
Sorry for the long winded post down nostalgia lane.Only 9 more days to see what the future hold in store for us. We’ve got high hopes for FCP Studio at this years NAB.
Michael Alberts
Ambidextrous Productions, Inc. -
Bret,
Those are just effects of my bad English and my 28Kbps internet connexion.
rafael -
Add me to the list of folks who never thought I’d own my own gear…I wasn’t interested in the overhead.
I started in the first all-601 core editing facility in my market. I was a digital linear online editor and did most of my own offlines on Avid.
When I started my business on January 1, 2000, I assumed I’d be editing on what I called “OPAs”, or “Other People’s Avids”, and some linear work here and there. After 6 months or so, maybe a year, the linear work dried up, but calls for Avid work kept going up and up and up.
Many of the other editors I used to work with also went out on their own. Most of them bought Avids. I was still the roving editor. It was a great little niche.
In late 2003, after a couple of my clients upgraded their Avids to OSX, and a few even put in FCP 3 systems, I realized that I needed to know this new operating system. My spouse and I both had G3s running OS 9. I had a copy of FCP 2 on my G3. We agreed that I should get a machine that ran OS X so I could be more familiar with this new system my clients were expecting me to understand. As well, I should learn to operate FCP a lot better than I knew how to at the time. Clients were asking for it.
As I was pricing things, knowing I had a copy of FCP I could upgrade, I decided I should get something that I, as an editor, could really use. I had the app. I should get a computer that won’t make me crazy using it, like the G3 did, so I could learn FCP better. Plus, I still have all that videotape from our wedding to edit!
So I bought the then-current top-of-the-line, a Dual 2 GHz G5. I upgraded the RAM, and went to town with my shiny new G5.
A month after I installed it, one of my FCP clients called, said that their FCP 3 system was on the fritz (I think a PC-orieneted IT guy upgraded something without knowing what he was doing…because THAT never happens! 🙂 ), and could I edit on my system? I borrowed their DVCam deck for the first few projects, and then decided I needed my own.
CUT TO: Three and a half years later. As I’ve slowly amassed a complete editing suite, I have invested only 8% of what that first linear 601 digital room cost to build. I can do so much more than I ever could have done in that room on what I have in my little office. Currently, I have one Avid client left. The rest of my clients now routinely hire me to work on my system. Only occasionally do I work on “OPFCPs”.
My clients keep me busier and busier every year that I’m considering a second system and hiring freelancers when I have too much on my plate.
I could have never done this without Apple and FCP. Before Apple and FCP, I never wanted to!
Oh, and I still have that wedding video to edit.
debe
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