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FCP X Six Months Later – Blog Post
Blog post by Art Guglielmo –
https://www.artguglielmo.com/blog/2011/12/24/think-for-yourself.html
He nails it with this statement:
“No one in their right mind would ask a “professional” photographer to do a job with a point and shoot camera. Why ? Its not because they cannot take great pictures with it, they most certainly can. Its because they cannot have the control they need to deal with any situations they run into, or creative ideals they may have.”
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
133 Replies
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Yes, another informative blog from someone who hasn’t spent the required amount of time learning the software, still trotting out the same tired old arguments about cutting music videos that are simply not correct.
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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Absolutely true. There are plenty of better arguments about the direction Apple is taking. Away from pro editors, that is.
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[Bob Woodhead] “Away from pro editors, that is.”
Away from SOME Pro editors
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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Some pros need point-and-shoot editing software. Right. That’s why Findl Cut Express existed. And why this should have been the new FCE.
But to kill the pro features is like Canon stopping making the 5D, that high end pros and hobbyist alike use, and replaced it with the Elph.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane, what does he mean here?
“The Magnetic Timeline. Because of the way that the program works, you are now limited to editing decisions that are based on a relationship to the first frame of your project. The whole idea of being non linear is things can go where you want them go, and stay there. I can easily work on the end, go back to the beginning, then the middle, etc. That is virtually impossible with FCPX. ”
Isn’t that what place holders and gaps are for?
I feel totally free to just toss stuff down on that line because it’s so easy to slide stuff around.
I agree with him about students though, I would teach them Avid and let them pick up X at home. Then they would know both ways.
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[Shane Ross] “But to kill the pro features is like Canon stopping making the 5D, that high end pros and hobbyist alike use, and replaced it with the Elph.
“Not a very accurate comparison really
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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Art is both completely correct…and, IMO, completely stuck.
As an individual editor, he needs to jettison X and get on with his life. (as to many others who keep coming back here with the same arguments based on their desire to shoehorn the new software into their historic workflows and expectations.)
They need to see their “editing” as thing that lives and dies in the timeline. It’s what they know – and driving it is their central focus. Nothing wrong with that. It’s a noble task that can certainly consume a lifetime. It’s also, unfortunately, increasingly not where “general purposes content creation” is headed.
In that wider game, “editing” (more accurately “content assembly” is just one step in the overall scheme of things. Editing’s relationship to content creation, (like this or not) is becoming a lot like type designs relationship to art. Society still needs pros who can do it – but not so many seats are going to be available for that, as seats for individuals who can work at the wider levels of “project creation.”
Because that’s what the market really values now. The market is increasingly seeking people who can efficiently provide the “whole package” not just one element of the package. This is driven both by a desire for short schedules, cost control, and that whole “democratization” thing where there are hardly any barrier left for anyone who wants to learn anything.
This makes it increasingly hard for specia*ists (spam trap killer), but it’s way the market is going, like it or not.
The decisions that will remain for us are what games we want to play. Do we want to be exclusively “editors” for the rest of our careers? If so, work your ass off to earn one of the gently diminishing number of seats that will always be there for people who are great at narrow skill sets. And use a tool that empowers that.
But if you want to spend your career on a different level – you may want to learn a tool that has a more “balanced” emphasis where editing is ONE task presented to you in the window – along with some newly enhanced other tools like the more robust database management tools in X.
This is not odd, it’s just a simple evolution.
After all, nearly all the “video editors” I know also do “type design” at a functional level. They are seldom true “type designers” – but they’ve learned enough of those skills to do a credible day-to-day job of it.
X encourages us to start building similar functional skills in database management, motion graphics, and compression/export with it’s new design – rather than spending all our time in the narrow (if complex and very important) realm of the timing and finishing of our video streams.
More choices are better, IMO.
Simple as that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Bill. Final cut studio provided many tools for the entire post process, not just editing. Editing, motion graphics (and if you didn’t like Motion, there was AE), soundtrack pro, color, DVD studio pro, cinema tools.
So are you saying that FCX now does ALL of that? No, it does not. It provides presets and shortcuts. Like a point and shoot camera sets the focus, f-stop and shutter for you. The ASA. Put it on the “A” and just press the button.
Fine. A vast group of editors need that. Yaay, you have that now.
The other part of that blog was trust. many of us put our trust into Apple, and they broke that trust. I guess it is hard to let that go. If I could, then it would help me stop posting here. But they just flipped us the bird and walked away. Tough to let go after 6+ years of trust in a company.
I was pretty vocally mad at Avid too. And I am using baby steps in going back to them.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Bill Davis] “Art is both completely correct…and, IMO, completely stuck. As an individual editor, he needs to jettison X and get on with his life.”
Bill, your constant refrain is that FCPX is targeted at the new “content creators” and that traditional “complex workflow” editors should look elsewhere for a Legacy replacement. While I personally agree with you on this point (the difference being your happy about it and I’m not) don’t you find it odd that Apple doesn’t publicly agree with you? Don’t you find it odd that Apple claims X will have all the functionality of Legacy and that it will be appropriate for the TV and Film industry? This has been Cupertino’s position since they released X, with the admonition that we would have to wait for third party developers to supply the missing pieces.
Much of the fury and antagonism on this forum would vanish if Apple simply restated your position as their own. Why do you suppose they haven’t?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Perhaps the one hour session on Saturday. February 4th will answer some of these questions, as Steve Bayes of Apple, a pro editor himself, takes attendees through an in-depth session.
https://www.editorsretreat.com/schedule.htm
Michael
Michael Phillips
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