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FCPX in action
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First of all thanks Craig for explaining your workflow. It pretty much matches ours and we also have a similar experience of having an easier job, being quicker to adjust to customers`/ directors wishes etc.
It is a bit sad that this thread like so many others here, which starts as a story about BBC using FCPX turns into a CS6 – promo show (they are sponsoring the cow and Apple doesn´t, right?) and a PC-Apple religious-talk.
I have recently read the Belgian national TV was using FCPX at the Olympics in London, we use it for Austrian TV and Red Bull´s ServusTV, there are TV series in the US and germany edited in FCPX, so there is no doubt anymore, that it is a tool with as much entitlement to be in the industry (whatever that is nowadays). I don´t see it in danger of becoming a new Vegas, because within 1,5 years it is further than Vegas was after twice the time.
[Gary Huff] “And this “faster” thing is completely nebulous.”
Is it nebulous? Maybe when you are paid by the hour or have an assistant who is paid by the hour.
Skimming and Keywording/SmartCollections alone save me HOURS every week. Hours I can use for other projects or simply to spend it elsewhere…or maybe even to give the project more time in the finishing (grading, audio) as I would otherwise have.And I am not even considering auditions and the various export-tools (“e-mail to client out of the timeline” comes to mind), because I don´t use these on a daily basis.
FCPX is NOT perfect. Nor is any other NLE and NONE will ever be working for all. FCP7 wasn´t (never worked for me really), CS6 isn´t and Avid isn´t. They all have strengths and weaknesses. For me and my projects (documentaries up to 52´, commercials 60´´, image-clips 3´-8´, and Live productions) it is perfect. I cannot speak for 3D and not much for dialogue-based movies, it works great and we have now a couple freelancers who jumped ship and work in it also.
I played with CS6, but I wouldn´t feel to have the authority to tell anyone over there in their forum what CS6 is supposed to do which works in FCPX (and there is A LOT that is missing in CS6 when coming from FCPX).
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[alban egger] “First of all thanks Craig for explaining your workflow.”
Indeed. Very nice to hear about!
[alban egger] “It is a bit sad that this thread like so many others here, which starts as a story about BBC using FCPX turns into a CS6 – promo show (they are sponsoring the cow and Apple doesn´t, right?) and a PC-Apple religious-talk.”
But this is rather the point of the FCPX or Not forum, no? Craig gave an “FCPX” case (quite nicely, I might add), then Gary gave an “or not” case, and then off we go…
You’ve got a bunch of folks discussing their opinions and professional choices here; the insinuation that either position is bought and paid by a sponsor is a little ugly, don’t you think? Or should we also assume that any pro-FCPX posts are bought and paid for by Apple as you are suggesting that pro-CS posts are bought and paid for by Adobe?
I do think the issue of platform is germane. If you want FCPX, you must have Mac. If you want a PC, you may not have FCPX. There are additional pros and cons that accompany each of these choices, and then there’s the question of how cross-platform the cross-platform software is.
You’re right that these have nothing to do with FCPX at the BBC, but they come up organically and it’s a topic worth discussing for anyone who has to make the decision about what system to purchase. You know, anyone who has to decide “FCPX or Not.” (Personally, I think FCPX AND Not is an interesting move.)
It’s all one big ball of yarn, but ultimately, since everything in this forum eventually veers off-topic, I think we should make an effort to label the ON-topic posts…
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Thanks Walter. My sentiments entirely. And for Alban’s edification, I have no deal with Adobe. The decisions I make based on the best workflow for my facility are entirely my own. I like to think out loud and without the robust debate and sharing of experiences I would be struggling to work out what is best for me.
The fact that BBC is using X successfully is significant news. It doesn’t change my current decisions about hardware and software but it is another important part of the jigsaw.
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[alban egger] “dialogue-based movies”
It’s works very well.
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[Michael Gissing] “The fact that BBC is using X successfully is significant news. It doesn’t change my current decisions about hardware and software but it is another important part of the jigsaw.”
Well, to be technical “BBC isn’t successfully using X.” It’s an editor at the BBC . I suspect more and more will over time. Because X is a fine editing solution for a lot of kinds of projects, as the OP has now learned. It also has some extremely innovative strengths in organization and workflow management.
That a particular editor is free to use it is the big deal here to my thinking. Two months after it was debuted, the conventional wisdom was it was such a disaster that anyone owning up to using it would be scoffed at. That’s significant movement over time. And reflects another reality. Editing is increasingly moving away from something being done by a shop to something being done by a person. Not always. Not exclusively. But increasingly.
There’s a discussion here about PC editing compared to Mac editing. I’d be very surprised if there were a way to magically assess the number of “edits” being done at any one moment – PCs would dominate. Because there are vastly more PCs on desks in corporations than Macs. And in many corporations, there are marketing folk and product managers and even admins who do some limited video manipulation and cutting as part of their day to day jobs.
The big question is whether those PCs will stay there and earn Premier installations, or whether something else will happen.
In the corporations I deal with, the company computer is increasingly the exception. The personal employee computer being used at work – is increasingly common. People want to use their own tools. So whether it’s a personal laptop or ARM Based netbook, or increasingly a tablet – I think the trend to hyper-personal cloud based computing at work will continue to expand dramatically.
If X continues to become “acceptable” in large scale workflows such as the BBC example here – then it becomes simply what it should be. A personal choice. The editor doing the work SHOULD be able to decide their tool. Yes sometimes they must conform to larger workflows – but often they don’t. If editor Tom or Editor Jane decides they like X and want to organize and pre-cut and deliver their work that way, they will.
If the management of an agency says “we use Avid here and that’s all – they’re also saying that they only want to tap the editing talents of those who use that tool.
If, as we keep saying, the software is just a tool – and the the EDITOR is the critical thing. Then requiring devotion to any particular software might become as odd (in some situations) as requiring an excellent piano player to play a particular brand of piano.
The way I see it, every time someone is able to view editing as a thing a person does – over a thing that a company does – X gains strength – because it’s a uniquely capable personal editing tool that requires less resources in money, hardware horsepower, and even in necessary breadth of classical edit suite experience to get excellent quality results.
That’s a good long range combination to my thinking. Tho I’m absolutely sure others here will violently disagree.
“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, professional piano players will have preferences but be able to play any brand. The big issue is of course collaborative workflow and I am certainly not displeased to see that such workflows can be relied on for this BBC example.
However it has taken nearly 18 months for such workflows to be considered reliable. X2Pro has only had it’s new version out for a few weeks so that export to audio post is feasible.
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[Michael Gissing] “X2Pro has only had it’s new version out for a few weeks so that export to audio post is feasible.”
I would also suggest that apps like Xto7 are still far from reliable and definitely not bullet-proof for anything mission critical. That’s not a slam against Philip and Greg. They’re trying incredibly hard within the limitations that are FCP X XML.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Walter Soyka] “the insinuation that either position is bought and paid by a sponsor is a little ugly, don’t you think?
..
You’re right that these have nothing to do with FCPX at the BBC, but they come up organically and it’s a topic worth discussing for anyone who has to make the decision about what system to purchase. You know, anyone who has to decide “FCPX or Not.” (Personally, I think FCPX AND Not is an interesting move.)”What irritates me (and I have posted that before) that basically EVERY thread gets into a “FCPX or NOT” discussion, even if that was not the OP´s intention, and the same arguments are brought from the two sides. And maybe what irritates me most is the fact that many who write “against” FCPX are doing so without even knowing it or based on stuff they read on the web.
And sometimes it seems to me not very organical how the pro-CS6 arguments pop-up. They pop-up in the first two or three replys. I am not so naive to believe threads are not viewed by Adobe, Apple and Avid. If you go to dvxuser you will always have Panasonic in the back of your head when you walk away. Here it is Adobe.
I doubt it happens that way in Avid or CS6 parts of the Cow. Maybe the FCPX users are too busy to spill bad blood elsewhere. It just has a bad taste at the moment in this FCPX-or-not forum. -
[craig slattery] “The Culture Show, Wednesday 10pm BBC Two 10 October 2012. This episode will contain to the best of my knowledge the very first item cut at the BBC Production Village in FCPX and will screen nationally. Yesterday I completed a 8 min item for our national Arts magazine program cut in FCPX, and the experience I have to say was a lot of fun.”
Hi Craig,
Just wondering which section of this programme was cut on FCPX. I’ve just found it on iPlayer and am interested in looking at the cut you made.
Not that there should be any difference in the quality. I would have thought that FCPX was ideal for cutting documentary styled segments for programmes like this.
[craig slattery] ” The item was cut in London and sent down the line to our Glasgow studio to be included in tomorrow nights show. In Glasgow the item will be dubbed and graded. We sent a Pro Res422 QT and an AAF from X2pro.”
Presumably you carried out some primary grading before sending the piece down the line? Or was that all done in Glasgow?
Thanks for the post
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[Mark Dobson] “Just wondering which section of this programme was cut on FCPX. I’ve just found it on iPlayer and am interested in looking at the cut you made.”
The 1st item on the show after the menu.
[Mark Dobson] “Presumably you carried out some primary grading before sending the piece down the line? Or was that all done in Glasgow? “
No, all the grading is done by one professional grader in a grading suite. In London we grade in Color, not sure what they use in Glasgow.
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