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FCP X Six Months Later – Blog Post
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As a matter of fact local 700 the motion picture editors union out here in LA held both tutorial classes in FCP 7 & AVID. Many top films were cut on FCP 7. ABC, Showtime(east coast) had in house facilities that were dominated by FCP 7. Now all going back to Avid. They’ve dumbed down the software too much and makes it hard or even impossible to accomplish some of the simplest tasks or convolutes industry standard methodologies that were based on decades of practical development. It’s kind of like reinventing the automobile with concrete square tires and calling that an innovation.
FCP X will do well being a finishing tool for iMovie, but that’s about it. Kids learning FCP X will have a harder time learning Avid if they ever get an opportunity to work in Broadcast & Theatrical.
Every frame has its own unique place in space and time.
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Hi Jeremy – a good point on not being too reliant on one tool for yor work. Whilst it was never the case that I picked FCP as my primary platform for anything other than positive reasons (i.e. Being very strong choice for short form content, which I specialise in, excellent multicam, being quick for simple VFX work + extensive library of 3rd party plugins + being most adopted NLE among companies I did/would be working for) what the whole FCPX issue has made clear to me is that I was becoming too reliant on one tool, no matter how good it was/is. Its not a mistake I’ll be repeating, believe me.
In terms of FCPv1 being a questionable choice for editors at the time, whilst I’m sure that is true its not quite the same as FCPX because the former didnt try to reinvent the whole editing paradigm. Although different, it didnt require the user to change their entire way of working to such a degree as X does and it wasnt nearly as polarising. My point was that I do worry younger editors learning X at college/film school/whatever are going to find that their whole way of thinking and working is going to be totally at odds with whats happening in the “real” world because X shares virtually nothing with any other software (other than iMovie). There will be a whole lot to relearn and rethink, much more so than when going from FCP to Avid.
And whilst I totally agree that our NLEs do need to change periodically and keep up with changes going on throughout the industry, my issue with X is that VERY few of these changes appear to have anything at all to do with the editing process. Who was arguing that a source monitor was no longer needed or that tracks on a timeline were archaic? In the end I’m not at all adverse to change, but only when its actually enabling greater creative control and efficiency – I’m still totally unconvinced that the major and deeply divisive overhaul of FCP was worth it, by any measure.
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Hi Steve,
I agree with some of your points there. When I say that I think FCPX is over as a professional NLE I should be clearer in that I dont think its going to be taken up by editors in the middle and top end of the market as the previous versions of FCP were. I fully expect it to be used by large corporations who need non-editors or unskilled people to turn around video content that doesnt need to conform to any real quality standards (i.e we need this video to fill a whole on the website, and we need it quick). For that reason it will almost certainly become a factor in a more professinal editors day to day work eventually, but only in a perennial sense. At least thats what my little crystal ball here tells me – no disclaimers offered on that though obviously! 🙂
And yes, with some more functionality Im sure X COULD be used in a professional environment, and as I said in initial post doubtless some people will do great work with it. BUT I still think those key design decisions will continue to be roundly rejected by the majority of editors because I dont think they enhance or improve the editing process, in fact in many respects I think they are a step backwards. And in terms of the next generation of storytellers, the best of them will not want to be tied to an app seen by the industry leaders as amateurish and unreliable and I am now really struggling to see how FCPX is ever going to rid itself of its currently atrocious reputation. We will see – I may be eating my words and wizzing around a magnetic timeline in a few short years!
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[Adam White] “I am now really struggling to see how FCPX is ever going to rid itself of its currently atrocious reputation”
Presumably when some more people actually are forced by choice or circumstance to learn how to use it correctly and discover it’s not the devils spawn that many are making it out to be 🙂
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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[Adam White] “In terms of FCPv1 being a questionable choice for editors at the time, whilst I’m sure that is true its not quite the same as FCPX because the former didnt try to reinvent the whole editing paradigm”
I would invite you to go back and read about the kinds of problems people were having with FCP v1. It was certainly a disruption. Here’s some really old posts: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/21677
[Adam White] “My point was that I do worry younger editors learning X at college/film school/whatever are going to find that their whole way of thinking and working is going to be totally at odds with whats happening in the “real” world because X shares virtually nothing with any other software (other than iMovie). There will be a whole lot to relearn and rethink, much more so than when going from FCP to Avid.”
Like what, for example? And how is its different, from say, learning Smoke? They are all different. Smoke was a single viewer application for a really long time (it now recently adopted source/record model). You can still cut, you can still dissolve, you can still add text, graphics, multi channel audio in fcpx. The control is a bit different, and fcpx needs a bit more control, but if you can look beyond its shortcomings, you mightl find that if Apple chooses to keep developing (and it’s a big if) that the level of control will be pretty great.
I have likened fcpx to DSLRs. DSLRs removed a ton of control from shooting. No timecode, no audio control, no real time exposure feedback, no full resolution monitoring. In order to make it a shooting package, a ton of bits and bobs needed to be added on to make it more like the cameras the people were used to shooting with. There’s now a generation of video people that ONLY know DSLRs, for better or for worse.
Time will tell if it gets adopted by an industry, not necessarily the film industry, but the greater video editing industry. Fcpx presents a different interface to speak the language of visual communication. That’s OK. Theres not a lot to rethink, so much as there is to learn, but it’s not necessarily relearning. Iit’s adding to what you already know as a visual communication language, and it also presents new ways of thinking about footage as data. It’s furthering education, and trying to sort the absolutely massive amount of data that gets thrown around these days. People say fcpx is too simple (and when it comes to ineterchange, it is) but when diving in, it’s not super simple.
Stability of the program, is a major concern. It fcpx doesn’t stabilize, then it’s not going to be a contender. That’s simple math.
[Adam White] “And whilst I totally agree that our NLEs do need to change periodically and keep up with changes going on throughout the industry, my issue with X is that VERY few of these changes appear to have anything at all to do with the editing process. Who was arguing that a source monitor was no longer needed or that tracks on a timeline were archaic? In the end I’m not at all adverse to change, but only when its actually enabling greater creative control and efficiency – I’m still totally unconvinced that the major and deeply divisive overhaul of FCP was worth it, by any measure.”
I think these changes do have to do with the editing process, especially sorting all of the media. Fcpx is not feature rich at the moment, but there have been announcements about new features that are coming. The lack of a source side monitor might be a major people for some, and with feedback, Apple could very well change the way it works, currently. A big function that is missing from the lack of the source/record model is matching edits (which is big, don’t let me undermine it). But the trimming, clip collision and effects work make the process go much faster for MOST operations. I would say for everything but heading towards the finish, fcpx is fast. If Roles get a bit more visual organization and user control, they could really be a suitable replacement for tracks, and yes it might take a bit of learning from us to learn to control the efficiency. It’s already much easier to deliver a multitrack export in fcpx, and I welcome that. Easier is OK with me.
No one knows if it’s going to be completely worth it. It’s up to Apple to keep developing. There are plenty of working professionals who seem to like it, or seem to like what it might be someday. In the meantime, there’s the old FCP and a small number of NLEs that are more mature and stable. If Avid is still king in Hollywood, then it will probably remain there, for the rest of 98% of the vast editing community, there’s choice. In my opinion, no matter what this will be a good thing. For those who don’t like fcpx, they will adopt a better NLE from a different company who is interested in listening to their customers and this will be the kick in the ass they’ve needed to rethink their operations and move to more powerful solutions, for those who choose to remain with fcpx, then they will have a new platform that suits them and their needs.
Constant learning and improvement is a major part of this business. Fcp v1 was not seen as an improvement as first, and for some, fcpx is not seen as an improvement either. In my opinion there are things about that are much improved, and some things that need major work. It is six months old, there’s a lot of new technology on the horizon and fcpx is probably going to fit in there somewhere even though it’s hard to see at the moment.
If not, then we all get a kick in the pants to move along with our lives.
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Our television station just had a major television network come in and check out our Avid system. They were using FCP 7. No way in hell did they even think about moving to FCPX. It’s not a pro app. Period.
Editor/Videographer
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I would invite you to go back and read about the kinds of problems people were having with FCP v1. It was certainly a disruption.”
Jeremy – respectfully I would like to say that there is often as big a danger from learning the wrong lessons from history as from ignoring the past all together.
Comparing FCP v.1 to FCPX is often totally irrelevant.
Yes, FCPv1 like FCPX was buggy and lacked features and it grew and improved over time. If Apple had released theirr new editor as Icut Pro the analogy would hold. But that is not the case here, and to ignore the difference between Apple then and now is more than a little disingenuous.
[Jeremy Garchow] “how is its different, from say, learning Smoke? They are all different. Smoke was a single viewer application for a really long time (it now recently adopted source/record model).”
Which is one of the many reasons why Smoke was never considered an editor, it was a finishing tool with editing capabilities. Not too many films cut totally on a Smoke.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I have likened fcpx to DSLRs. DSLRs removed a ton of control from shooting. No timecode, no audio control, no real time exposure feedback, no full resolution monitoring. In order to make it a shooting package, a ton of bits and bobs needed to be added on to make it more like the cameras the people were used to shooting with. There’s now a generation of video people that ONLY know DSLRs, for better or for worse.”
And if Panasonic or Sony had EOL’d their entire pro camera line to come out with a new super DSLR people would have thought them insane.
[Jeremy Garchow] ” For those who don’t like fcpx, they will adopt a better NLE from a different company who is interested in listening to their customers and this will be the kick in the ass they’ve needed to rethink their operations and move to more powerful solutions, for those who choose to remain with fcpx, then they will have a new platform that suits them and their needs.”
With the added frustration of knowing that the ideal program for them was FCP 8. If there was a better editing solution for my workflow I would have quit FCP before this. For all it’s faults, the FCP feature set was the closest match to the way I preferred to work. All of my other options, at least at this point, require more compromises than I would like.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “All of my other options, at least at this point, require more compromises than I would like.”
Even Premiere Pro? To me this seems the closest match to a theoretical FCP8 at the moment
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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[Steve Connor] “Even Premiere Pro? To me this seems the closest match to a theoretical FCP8 at the moment
“At the moment PPro has a limit of 4 cameras for MultiCam. This is insufficient for me. I have heard strong rumors that the MultiCam feature is going to be enhanced in the next upgrade, which is why I qualified my statement with a “at the moment.” There are still a number of other issues with PPro that make it less than ideal, but I’m waiting till NAB to make a decision. Right now, FCP8 was/is still my best choice.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I would invite you to go back and read about the kinds of problems people were having with FCP v1. It was certainly a disruption.”
[Herb Sevush] “Jeremy – respectfully I would like to say that there is often as big a danger from learning the wrong lessons from history as from ignoring the past all together. Comparing FCP v.1 to FCPX is often totally irrelevant. Yes, FCPv1 like FCPX was buggy and lacked features and it grew and improved over time. If Apple had released theirr new editor as Icut Pro the analogy would hold. But that is not the case here, and to ignore the difference between Apple then and now is more than a little disingenuous.”
I’ve actually got Jeremy’s back on this one. I think there are two alternate interpretations of the FCP v1 vs. FCPX comparison that is so frequently made here.
The first — and the more naive of the two — is that everyone laughed at FCP v1, but then it took over the world. This suggests that FCP v1 was a reasonable contender, but that the “industry” just didn’t get it until it was too late.
The second — and the one that I think Jeremy is espousing here — is that FCP v1 truly wasn’t fit for production, but that Apple developed it into a worthy contender over time.
I discussed this a couple weeks ago [link] with Craig: anyone who looked at FCP v1 and thought it was the future was right. Anyone who looked at FCP v1 and thought it was totally inadequate for professional post production was also right.
Jeremy’s right to suggest we shouldn’t pass permanent judgment on FCPX based solely on its first six months, or even its first year. If Apple gives editors enough compelling reasons to use FCPX, then I think FCPX could creep back into the industry over time the same way that FCP Classic did.
The problem is that Apple themselves have also given us many compelling reasons not to use FCPX.
The questions are whether Apple will develop FCPX to the point where the reasons to use it outweigh the reasons not to, or if either through Apple’s action or the industry’s action, the reasons not to use it fade away.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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