FCP use in Video Production Facility

[Shane Ross]

1. Depends on how complex the text and video. I can most certainly do it with FCP using multiple layers and in many cases do. I alos use Motion and After effects, depending on what my needs are at the time.
a. yes, if it is quick and easy…FCP all the way.
b. If it is complex, instead of nesting I use Motion or After effects, as I said before.
c. yes…that and Motion or more recently, Shake.

Offline/online in FCP is…interesting. With the really LOW COST of drives (No reliance on AVID ONLY CERTIFIED drives) I tend to not work offline, but work at online resolution. But it depends, if it was shot HDCAM, then I will offline at DVCPRO HD and then recapture at the higher rate…similarly with digibeta. But, if it was DV, HDV or DVCPRO HD…then I would cut at their native full resolution and simply output at the required resolution via a capture card.

FCP is flipping the offline/online workflow on it’s head. When we pit our budgets against what Avid shops have, many people are..get this…untrusting of us because our budgets are significantly lower. One of the reasons is because of not needing to offline/online. Also because we can pull off effects in FCP, or Motion, or AE, or Shake that other places farm out to Smoke artists or FLAME bays. What they don’t get is that we can do the same thing with lower cost tools. We once LOST A BID because the competition overbid us by $300,000. They were going to charge $300,000 MORE than we were, and the agency thought that we must be leaving something out, and that we couldn’t put out a quality product. Even though our reel reflected what we could do and covered what they wanted. They were very much entrenched in that OLD PROCESS way of doing things that, well, we couldn’t possibly do it right. So they wasted $300,000. To this DAY I cannot possibly fathom where they came up with that number. I come from an Avid background and am used to sending stuff out to compositors…and bringing that knowledge to bear I couldn’t figure out where their numbers were coming from.

FCP is flexible. It and all the tools that come with it…with a few tools on the side, paired with very creative people…can do wonders.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Chi-ho Lee]

That $300,000 went to lunch and dinner for everyone. Lattes in the afternoon. Italian leather couches. And a pretty female coordinator solely dedicated to that project. At least from my experiences.

[Chi-ho Lee]

Woops. Posted too soon. Agencies want to be wined and dined like they’re royalties. They don’t want to sit in your home studio. They want a pool table, fancy lighting, and someone at their beck and call the entire time they’re at your facility.

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks for all that great info Shane. It is extremely helpful.

[Gary Adcock]

[lasvideo] “Is anyone on this list using FCP in a medium to large video production facility?”

FCP and AJA Kona Solutions are in place in in any number of facilities all over the world, From christian broadcast stations in Chicago and Texas to ABC / Disney stations around the US. Not to mention any number of places that FCP is used in day to day production for television and film production.

Take a look at the graphics and interstitials artist Tom Meegan (woven pixels) does every night on the NLCS series between the Mets and the Cards.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Andy Edwards]

Since your in the Las Vegas market, what facility do you work at? There are a ton of FCP suites in town, including mine that put out top quality work. From Broadcast shows on Fox, commericals you see on all the local stations, to Documentaries that air across the country….. FCP can get the job done. Just tell your boss that the AJA XENA cards are being ported into Avids as a OEM option. So if it is good enough for Avid to move into, FCP and AJA could save you some serious money in post.

If you want to talk about some of the projects I’ve completed on my FCP system…including HD, drop me a line.

Andy Edwards
AE Digital TV
Las Vegas
aedwards@aedigitaltv.com

[Steve Cohen]

FCP can do anything that Avid can. I have not come across a request from a producer that I could not accomplish in FCP or it’s associated package elements.

Obviously you are asking this question in a Final Cut forum and are going to get positive replies. I bet if you ask the same question in the Avid forum your answers would be much different.

Everyone here has been telling you the truth. Final Cut can do it all. It is not for weddings and home movies anymore.

I work in a medium size facility that produces educational shows and Direct Response infomercial and have never have any problems from the networks that we air out stuff on.

Steve Cohen
Senoir Editor
O2 Media Inc.

[Neil Ryan]

“FCP can do anything that Avid can.”

A gross generalization, of course, but holds a lot of truth.
What’s grey about a line like that is, while the two ‘systems’ can achieve many of the same things, they often have a different way of going about it.
And that’s usually the part that frustrates a user switching from one to the other.
Some important differences that I’ve found, and I hope others will add to the list so that you can investigate the relevance to your needs of the differences between the two ‘systems’, include:
The way they handle the relationship between clips and mediafiles. (including the offline/online approach you mentioned)
Information available during digitising and outputting.

Also important, these days, to understand that Final Cut Pro is not an application you can buy. FCP Studio Pro is the product, and, as is the Apple approach to most of its products these days, contains a suite of applications. So check that any comparisons are between apples and apples.
Note, too, much of the promises made by sales people about software products or ‘systems’, depends upon using the latest, fastest, best and most expensive versions of hardware.

I don’t know if there is one (if there isn’t, then that’s a sign in itself) but it would be great if someone could point you (us) to a comparison between the systems as you mentioned.

DISCLAIMER: In case there’s any question about it, I’m not taking sides, here, for either Apple or Avid!

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks Steve for the general statements of support for FCP . Can you tell the some specifics relating to the questions I asked later in the thread?

…maybe you can answer some workflow related questions I have.
1. When building complicated layering of text and video do most folks:
a. Make mutiple video & layers (similar to the Media Composer environment)
b. Do layering in a nest when multiple elements need to be associated together (similar to
Avid DS or Smoke)
c. Use AE for any layering situation that demands a high degree of complexity
2. Due to storage issues, we employ the “offline” (lo res) and “online” (hi res) approach to
project creation. Keeping in mind we tend to do high end complex compositing of video and text…
is this stuff others have done with reliability and succes? (this relates to media management)
3. Can FCP handle multiple resolutions on the same time line?

Tom

[Tom Daigon]

Thanks Post man. I appreciate your nonbiased insight and candor. I hope some editors that have used both can
address some of the questions I have asked earlier in the thread.
Tom