FCP X Summitt in San Jose

[Doug Suiter]

Wish I was there! Looking forward to experiencing it vicariously through you guys 🙂

[Kevin Monahan]

Hi Bill,
I will be at the Super Meetup. Please stop by our table and say hi.

BTW, when taking my Dad to lunch the other day, I was rolling by the Apple building where FCP and FCPX are engineered (I worked on FCP, if others did not know). That building has a lot of construction around it, the parking lot is stripped, and no one looks to be inside. Maybe they moved to a new place? The construction site for the new Apple HQ is HUGE. On your trip to ‘Tino, you may want to drive by and see all the work.

Kevin

[Bill Davis]

Hi Kevin,

Will definitely see you tomorrow night!

The thin at Apple is at an address I don’t recognize, so there may well be construction underway.

Do wish the spaceship was ready. Maybe next year?

See you soon.

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.

[Doug Metz]

I was able to attend the entire Summit. Had a wonderful experience.

The SuperMeet was a blast – nice work on the raffle, Bill!

Doug Metz

Anode

[Michael Hadley]

Are there any detailed summaries/videos coming from attendees? Would have loved to be able to have gone.

In particular–what was the trip to Apple like? Did you come away reassured that FCPX has the love/resources from HQ to continue to grow and improve?

Would love to get your thoughts and thanks.

[Eric Santiago]

[Kevin Monahan] ” The construction site for the new Apple HQ is HUGE. On your trip to ‘Tino, you may want to drive by and see all the work.”

HUGE it is…https://vimeo.com/131334254

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Vimeo framework” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Kevin Monahan]

[Eric Santiago] “HUGE it is…https://vimeo.com/131334254“

Nice video, Eric.

The downside of the giant new HQ is that life in Cupertino and Santa Clara will be changed forever. Allow me to not be the biggest fan of this colossus.

I grew up a quarter mile from the build site. It was a small, friendly neighborhood called “Westwood Oaks” (actually in Santa Clara), which will now be a major thoroughfare to and from this behemoth. My friends and former neighbors will be subject to all the strain that goes with it.

It’s not going to be to fun moving around the area any more with traffic, crowding, and pollution significantly increasing due to the volume of autos and trucks moving down Pruneridge Ave. (meant originally for suburban use.). Though “energy efficient,” additional sound, light, and other pollution is bound to happen, along with other unpleasantries emanating from the site. Any benefits for surrounding residents due to the build site? Nope. No promises there. The neighborhood will be convenient for Apple workers but not for anyone else.

I never thought my parents would move, but they have finally said, “enough is enough.” They just sold our family home and are moving on. Sad.

The end of an era.

Kevin

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Vimeo framework” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Tim Wilson]

[Kevin Monahan] “It was a small, friendly neighborhood called “Westwood Oaks” (actually in Santa Clara), which will now be a major thoroughfare to and from this behemoth…It’s not going to be to fun moving around the area any more with traffic, crowding, and pollution significantly increasing due to the volume of autos and trucks moving down Pruneridge Ave. “

And we’re going to be hearing for years and years about how this is the greenest office building ever. Just not for anyone who lives near it.

Not specifically an anti-Apple dig (not like they’re the only company blowing community-altering craters in the area), but I wonder what they might have come up with if they’d tried harder to “think different” rather than “let’s make it really big as long as it’s energy efficient.”

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Hadley] “Are there any detailed summaries/videos coming from attendees? Would have loved to be able to have gone.

In particular–what was the trip to Apple like? Did you come away reassured that FCPX has the love/resources from HQ to continue to grow and improve?

Would love to get your thoughts and thanks.”

In order:

No. I spent quite a bit of time with the FMC people who put on the show, and left with the feeling that the economics of the “first year” thing- particularly not knowing about last minute registrations – meant that they had to truly guesstimate the need for support budgets such as food, etc. Professional Video or Audio recording, I suspect, fell aside in the face of that. As to summaries I’d guesstimate there were between 150-200 attendees – so there are that many other people qualified to write about what they saw.

As to the trip to Apple, it was outstanding! No NDA’s asked for, but Apple was typically strict about photos or recordings of any type, with all of us required to leave our devices on the bus.

FCP X’s home looks just like any modern office building from the outside. Currently it’s totally surrounded by construction and we had to mildly “off road” it to walk to the entrance. Everyone had been peal and stick “badged” in the parking lot, and asked to please stay in our group. The trek was split into two waves, Group A and Group B – leaving about an hour apart. I was lucky to land in B. I say that because with traffic and logistics, I think Group A got a bit delayed and our Group B got more face time with the FCP X team.

Basically quite a few of the team that creates FCP X were in the room. They introduced themselves and did a series of keynote presentations, all of which were designed for public consumption (meaning no, they did NOT tell us what to expect in 10.3) But it did speak volumes about Apples commitment to X. They talked about having a downstream roadmap for where the software is going. They also talked about things like how much they do read and value user input – but my sense is that there’s a LOT of it – much duplicated and some ill communicated. And by that I mean, they clearly get a lot of “FCP X crashed when I tried to use Zapf Dingbats, whats up with that???.” rather than “When I do these precise steps (list the steps) X always hangs, and heres the specs of my machine and the third party stuff I have loaded.” That type of specific and clear feedback is of HUGE value to the dev team and they love it.

Then the best part of the trip happened. “We have some time to chat if you want to come up and ask individual questions or just say Hi.” So there we were. In the heart of Apple with the chance to directly talk with with the X team. For some of us who are particularly active on the boards, they actually knew who we are. They read this stuff.

The other thing that was cool was that key members of the FCP X Apple team were in almost all the conference sessions for rest of the week. They didn’t make a big thing about it. But it was not just “go to Apple and shake hands and leave it at that” – it was more meet them at Apple, then see them in the room at the conference, and if you have a question or concern, you could easily get 10 minutes of face time to have a discussion about something. That was great.

Look, they’re just people like everyone else who have a particular job that they seem to really love but that comes with a particular facit that’s a bit unusual. That being that like a pro athletic team, or a popular band – they put their work out in public where EVERYONE gets to critique and judge it. Relentlessly.

Part of the gig.

Finally a note about the seminars and sessions at the Creative Summit. They ROCKED. I’m pretty good with X (less so with Motion) but I came away with PAGES and PAGES of notes about tips and tricks that will make me an even faster and more efficient editor. And I got to meet a lot of new folks that I knew by name, but not in person – from ALL over the world.

Made a lot of new friends – reconnected with old ones – and had a blast. It was great.

That’s my off the top of my head stuff. It’s gong to take me weeks to mentally review the rest. There was so, so much to think about.

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.

[Bill Davis]

[Tim Wilson] “Not specifically an anti-Apple dig (not like they’re the only company blowing community-altering craters in the area), but I wonder what they might have come up with if they’d tried harder to “think different” rather than “let’s make it really big as long as it’s energy efficient.””

Well this is a long standing and never solved urban design debate. Paolo Solari the master architect argued for decades that the smartest use of geography was self contained “arcologies” – rather than concentric zone sprawl.

Granted the spaceship will not incorporate housing, but if there is any value in creative cross-polination then I wonder if the spaceship will be a more creatively conducive physical space than the current system of a central campus, surrounded by far flung and isolated buildings (Like where the FCP X team currently works!) where when they walk out for a break, they see pretty much other team members, but not rub up agains too many cross-functional players.

Apple among the biggest companies in the world. A central campus would be disruptive no matter where it’s put unless they go the way of Dubai and opt for a “build a city” different type of isolation.

Kevin, believe me I feel your pain. Much of what I grew up with in Phoenix is now gone. (I literally got depressed for a whole day when they tore down the Round-Up Drive In Theater to put in condos.)

It sucks, but time moves on.

Sigh.

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.