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FCP X can’t do “pro” is officially vaporized.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Do I wish PPro was more like Avid in terms of multi-user collaboration? Yes. Do I wish I was working on Avid instead of PPro on this project? No. “
I was just going to point to the part in the article where he says “When classic FCP went EOL the Post Production department at RTS had the choice of going back to Avid, which was a prospect that no-one here was truly excited about…“.
So better/superior collaborative editing or not, if no one wants to put up with the rest, there’s little good that that will do you.
We have a 12 machine FCP X suite btw, and if sharing is needed then current edits are simply copied to a joint library on the Xsan, which also just simply needs to be reloaded to get the most current version. Even if there is no “live” updating. MEDIA can be shared at will either way. So really if a simple reload or a few more clicks are worth a 5-6 digit $ amount to you, I see no reason why FCP X shouldn’t be an (obvious) option for those scenarios. I have yet to hear anyone complain. Even if it could be even MORE convenient, as always, sure. We’ll see what the future brings.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[Andrew Kimery] ” A good workflow is more than the sum of its parts and the trick in each situation is to get the most amount of Pros with the least amount of Cons. To go back to my previous example of the gig I’m doing now. Do I wish PPro was more like Avid in terms of multi-user collaboration? Yes. Do I wish I was working on Avid instead of PPro on this project? No. Looking at it as a whole PPro is a better fit for this gig than Avid.”
It really is a matter of meeting the goals of how you want to work, and not just ticking boxes on a list of features.
I recently wrote what I think is a pretty nifty article about one kind of workflow enabled with an FCPX-centered feature film workflow, specifically designed for the ways that those directors wanted to work.
Andrew, to your point, I remain equally enthralled by the approach that Kirk Baxter elucidated for Gone Girl, and which Fincher’s team is using for House of Cards and other projects.
Tim Miller obviously talked about very much the same kind of thing with Deadpool, but back in the 80s and early 90s, I was totally obsessed with Fincher’s music videos in particular (which I’ve written about here before).
As someone then primarily working in the field of nature and science documentary and TV magazine production, I can’t say how much Fincher necessarily influenced me at the time, but I’m not sure that any filmmaker has ever had me as tightly in his or her grip as Fincher did then. Combined with an affinity for After Effects, I find the issues as laid out around Gone Girl to be the ones that sound the most like how *I* would want to work…
…if I wanted to work for living. LOL Which I emphatically do not. LOL I would much rather talk about working than actually work.
Anyway, here’s that piece, which is worth a speedy re-viewing if you haven’t seen it in a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o6pjd2AU9c
To speak more specifically to Ronny’s epic article….
[Bill Davis] “against the voices arguing that X wasn’t and would never be “pro” enough”
My emphasis added to underscore that “wasn’t” and “would never be” are two different things.
I’m not sure that there’s ever been anyone arguing that it would NEVER be pro enough, at least in the COW. (If I’m wrong, please include a link correcting me.)
But if we can indeed consider that argument vaporized, I hope that we can ALSO officially vaporize any notion that X was ALWAYS “pro” enough. It was, originally, in many cases simply not.
As Patrice told Ronny, “Moving to FCP X was out of the question for us if it didn’t do multicam.”
Of course, Patrice goes on to say, “So we said: Apple seems to be working very hard on this, let’s wait a little bit and see how it evolves.”
But again, originally, “Moving to FCP X was out of the question for us.” It took just shy of 5 years for the twain to meet, a not insignificant interval.
In the meantime, they weren’t haters. They weren’t dinosaurs. Their needs were simply not being met. They were right to wait, but people who could wait no longer for new software were also reasonable to move on. The “not-quite-pro-enough/not-quite-yet”-ness of X was real.
So can we have a deal? Agree to obliterate the notion that X isn’t pro enough NOW, and ALSO also obliterate the notion that X was ALWAYS a viable option?
After all, it’s just a matter of agreeing with Apple, who acknowledged that X originally lacked features that Apple had themselves identified as essential for professional production in versions of FCP dating back to 2005. Hopefully, agreeing with Apple isn’t too much of a stretch.
Let me say again how much I enjoyed this article, though. Ronny Courtens is a god.
Ronny, if you’re reading this, YOU’RE A gOD. (Sorry man, gotta be a small g. LOL)
Congratulations to the big giant brains from around the world who put together what looks to be a remarkable solution.
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Very interesting, Michael, thanks.
It would be nice if Apple would do something with this patent they had for FCPX, with ‘Guards’:
https://blog.alex4d.com/2011/07/18/secret-fcpx-xml-multi-user-editing/
It’s been a long time in the code of FCPX already, so I’m wondering what Apple has in store for the future for FCPX.
https://mathieughekiere.wordpress.com
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From the article –
When classic FCP went EOL the Post Production department at RTS had the choice of going back to Avid, which was a prospect that no-one here was truly excited about, or we could adopt Final Cut Pro X. Premiere was out of the picture for various reasons.
So the evaluation was strictly Avid vs X, not Ppro vs X. I wonder what were those various reasons?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “So the evaluation was strictly Avid vs X, not Ppro vs X. I wonder what were those various reasons?”
The Swiss don’t like subscriptions?
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[Tim Wilson] “[Bill Davis] “against the voices arguing that X wasn’t and would never be “pro” enough”
My emphasis added to underscore that “wasn’t” and “would never be” are two different things. “
Don’t have time to go back and pull quotes Tim but there were voices arguing loudly here right up to the release of Focus that Apple was TOTALLY jettisoning professionals, that FCP X was aimed at prosumers and web kiddies exclusively – and that the software was and always would be useless from any professional perspective. It was gleefully pronounced with poetic flourish here almost weekly.
There’s no reason to point fingers. But the folks who have been here for the duration know who spoke in those terms the most loudly.
Happy to finally have that perspective proven to have been the result of a lack of vision, nothing more.
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.
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I didnt know i was swiss
Ricardo Marty
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[Bill Davis] “there were voices arguing loudly here right up to the release of Focus that Apple was TOTALLY jettisoning professionals, that FCP X was aimed at prosumers and web kiddies exclusively – and that the software was and always would be useless from any professional perspective. It was gleefully pronounced with poetic flourish here almost weekly. “
By one person in particular, who doesn’t post here anymore and possibly a couple of others who also aren’t regular visitors. This hasn’t been the tone of this forum for quite some time, do you think it might be time to let it go now?
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Hey Herb,
In such operations there are many different factors that can swing decisions in one or the other direction.
Premiere was an option. But none of their editors use Premiere and they found it didn’t offer anything particulary interesting or unique that would make it worth re-training their editors and rethinking their workflows. Avid was the easiest option. All their editors know Avid, and they have the infrastructure for it because news is cut on Avid. But no-one in Post Production wanted to go back to it. The third option, Final Cut Pro, seemed to fit best into their existing workflows for the reasons they have mentioned in the article and which I’m not going to repeat. And the editors found it really easy to make the transition from the old version to the new one. The only barrier was their concern about Apple’s commitment to the application. As soon as we took away any doubt about this at management level, the choice was easy.
– Ronny
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Apologies, over the course of the day this morphed from a small post into a dissertation.
FOR GREG
[Greg Jones] “I think ‘Pro’ software is any software that can be used to make money, period. So whether one uses FCPX, IMovie, Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker, etc. It can be considered ‘Pro’. Just my 2 cents.”Iv’e always seen it kinda the opposite. If you do something to make a living you are a ‘pro’ in that field by default. Tools though, are deliberately stratified in terms of quality, feature set and price but anyone is free to use them as they see fit (such as a pro using a consumer grade tool as part of their workflow). For example, I used to use iDVD to make DVDs for clients but I’d never consider iDVD a professional grade DVD authoring app. I was a pro using a consumer app because it fit my needs (later my needs changed and I bought DVD Studio Pro). I’ve walked by some amazing buskers drumming on buckets but I’m not going to put an orange, Home Depot bucket in the same category as a floor tom from Pearl. 😉
FOR MY MAIN MAN BILL D
[Bill Davis] “I was just responding to the description that Michael posted which seemed to show a single editor owning a bin, but other editors able to access the content for review and notes.That seems to me to represent one form of collaborative editing.”I just wanted to revisit this for a second. That certainly is one way to collaboratively edit, but Avid allows for complete fluidity where anyone with read/write access (as opposed to just read-only) can push and pull media, sequences, folders, bins, whatever from any project to any project.
The ability to ‘pull’ media into a project we are working in is normal and it’s how most people think of sharing/working collaboratively. I ask you for your current cut, you give it to me in some form (ex. as an XML) and I import it (I ‘pull’ it) into my project. Adobe has short cut this process a little bit by allowing me to go directly into your project and copy/pull out what I want via the Media Browser. This saves the intermediate step of me asking you to stop what you are doing and export something for me but sometimes it’s flakey and doesn’t work without a restart of one, or both, of the projects. FCP 7 allowed you to open up multiple projects at once but you had to be careful not to overwrite the other persons project and copying sequences from one project into another can cause media management problems down the line for certain workflows. With Avid everyone is already in the same project so if I want your latest cut I just open up your cuts bin. If I need something outside of my project I can either use the Open Bin command to open up a bin from another project or I can copy the folder/bin I need from one project to another via the Finder/Windows Explorer.
What is unique to Avid, AFAIK, is it gives you the ability to ‘push’ media into someone else’s project, not just pull media into your own project. If I have something in my project I want to give to you (new media, a current cut, etc.,) I can just copy/paste the folder/bin from my project to yours via the Finder and ‘poof’ it will show up in your project. If new GFX come in the AEs can just drag/drop an updated GFX bin into the target project’s folder, thus overwriting the existing GFX bin, and presto all the editors now have the new GFX in their project.
Being able to unobtrusively manipulate projects at the Finder level in a heavily collaborative environment is amazing. I came up as an AE which is a big reason why I’m so in love with this functionality from Avid. I didn’t have to ask editors to export things that I needed from them or to import things they needed from me. It can all just happen in the background as they are editing. When you have 3-4 editors working on an episode together plus AEs getting in new media on a daily basis plus story producers doing string outs there is a lot of collaborating and sharing on. Even something mundane like ingesting media can be made simpler by being able to work out of a single project. If you are working the night shift and have a ton of new media to ingest you’ll want to press into service any machine that can be plugged in (the most machines I’ve ever had ingesting concurrently is 12 or 13). With Avid I could capture everything into a single project where as of I was in another NLE I would’ve had to make a new project for each station and then consolidated all the media into a single project at the end of the night. Show stopping? No. Easier to just manage 1 project instead of 12? Yes.
FOR ROBIN
[Robin S. Kurz] ”
So better/superior collaborative editing or not, if no one wants to put up with the rest, there’s little good that that will do you.”And the inverse is also true. I know many people that like the background processing and metadata-centric tools in X but they didn’t want to put up with the rest… Like I said, it’s about maximizing the Pros and minimizing the Cons for your specific situation, and one man’s steak is another man’s cardboard. In the last 8-12 months I started seeing reality show jobs in LA looking for PPro editors so obviously there are people in that market that value PPros Pro’s more than Avid’s Pro’s. I don’t know any of them personally though so I don’t know what exactly went into their decision making.
[Robin S. Kurz] “We have a 12 machine FCP X suite btw, and if sharing is needed…”
I might be reading too much into your choice of the word “if”, but in the examples I’ve mentioned there is no “if sharing is needed”. Sharing and collaboration is a mandatory part of the workflow with editors and assistant editors (and sometimes story producers) sharing cuts, new media, etc., multiple times a day.
[Robin S. Kurz] “So really if a simple reload or a few more clicks are worth a 5-6 digit $ amount to you, I see no reason why FCP X shouldn’t be an (obvious) option for those scenarios. I have yet to hear anyone complain.”
I agree, at this point in time it should be considered as an option. Though I’ve yet to hear anyone try to roll out FCP X at a facility that does a lot of highly collaborative work like reality TV shows. 10yrs ago we had places like PieTown Productions and Bunim/Murray that were the canaries in the coal mines with FCP Legend when the common thought was that it was impossible to create a viable workflow around FCP in a demanding, multi-user environment like reality TV. If X exists somewhere like that I’d love to read about it. Hell, if it exists in LA I’d love to get a guided tour and spend a day learning all the in’s and out’s. A decade or so ago places dropped Avid (and it’s superior multi-editor abilities) for FCP but the astounding cost difference back then played a big factor in those decisions. Now many of those places have switched back to Avid (or switched to Avid for the first time) and the cost-per-seat difference is minimal compared to in the past.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Even if it could be even MORE convenient, as always, sure. We’ll see what the future brings.”
And everything will be getting better, more convenient, new features, etc., not just X.
FOR STEVE
[Steve Connor] ”
By one person in particular, who doesn’t post here anymore and possibly a couple of others who also aren’t regular visitors. This hasn’t been the tone of this forum for quite some time, do you think it might be time to let it go now?”I dunno… now I kinda want to find someone who’s been in love with Premiere since Version 1 and had to wait two and a half decades for Kirk Baxter to use it on Gone Girl in order to get external validation for their choice of NLE…
Maybe the guys behind Bandito Brothers, who have been using PPro since ’05 or so, should be calling out all the johnny-come-lately PPro users? I know Vashi Nedomansky has been using PPro for a long time (I think he even worked at Bandito Brothers) but I can’t call him a homer because I think he’s flat out said PPro used to suck.
In some what seriousness though, I think the truth is somewhere between Tim and Bill.
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