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FCPX is so completely weird, it makes Motion look sane. And no one will hire you by the hour for either of them.
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[Bill Davis] “And in 2002 that was EXACTLY the state of the industry – but the ONLY name on the “approved big shop editing choice” was AVID.”
Ironically, we may be coming right back to that same point. Right or wrong, Avid has stayed pretty solidly focused on what an editing application should be. At least in the eyes of its customer base.
The key issue – which Aindreas brought up at the end of the OP – is TRUST. For many folks, Apple burned that bridge. I personally know corporate clients who now live with an internal edict that future bids WILL NOT include any Apple products. Not just because of FCP X, but the whole path from Xserve to X that has left enterprise customers, who put all their eggs in Apple’s basket, quite shaken.
I don’t for a minute believe Apple has any conscious intention to negatively affect the workflows and business models of their professional costumers. However, I have no confidence that the goals of Apple are aligned with the goals of professional customers. So, even as many of us continue down the path of using FCP X, it’s only with a CYA mentality, that leaves us equally ready to jump ship if the need arises, depending on Apple’s next moves.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “The key issue – which Aindreas brought up at the end of the OP – is TRUST. For many folks, Apple burned that bridge. I personally know corporate clients who now live with an internal edict that future bids WILL NOT include any Apple products. Not just because of FCP X, but the whole path from Xserve to X that has left enterprise customers, who put all their eggs in Apple’s basket, quite shaken.”
So here’s the counter question.
Which “trust” will be more critical and more lasting. The “trust” built between one decision maker in an enterprise and a vendor … or the “trust” built between the individual editor and the tool they prefer to use to execute their creative vision?
Once upon a time, the tools and equipment was so expensive that the employer HAD to provide and control the tools.
Today?
Then you add the rich irony is that what the very exemplar “corporate client” referenced above managed to “ban” – is the vision of editing from one company on the planet to become the most successful in the world by rejecting precisely that exact type of defensive thinking!
I’d be interested if that company is REALLY walking this talk by also banning those other pesky Apple products such as iPhones and iPads from it’s hallways.
My bet is that we’re increasingly in an era where editors see their tools more as an extension of their personal lives and preferences, as opposed to what sits on their boss-provided desks. And that like a master guitar player, nobody really cares much what a really good editor uses to assemble their images.
We shall see.
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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[Bill Davis] “Really? I didn’t realize that Legacy could start multi-cam editing mixed DSLR and GoPro files virutally instantly on load – without any prep at all – on a laptop.”
Bill, seriously, did you even read the piece you quoted me on – it says “OTHER THAN TRANSCODING” – so I acknowledged, right at the top, that X makes it possible to work with all those mixed codecs whereas Legacy would require me to transcode them first. I also said this was a major strength of X.
I have a Compressor droplet set for transcoding to ProRes, which works in the background, so with what I consider the fairly small amount of footage I’m guessing you were working with, even with 14 cameras, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. And yes I could do that on a laptop. And since I’m guessing you weren’t working with time code, I would run the files thru Plural Eyes, and they would be sunk just like in X.
Once your files are in sync, can you permanently assign the individual clips the same time code, so you can always find sync points even outside the multi-clips. Can you assign Aux time code to the clips, for secondary sync groupings, and then have multi-clips created using Aux sync? In other words does X give you the same ability to create change and manipulate the time code of clips that Legacy does? I’m honestly asking as I don’t know the answers to these questions.
Other than avoiding the need to transcode, which I agree can be a major consideration under tight deadline pressure, what advantage did X have over Legacy in cutting your specific project?
And by the way, was your turnaround so fast that the few hours to transcode would have made a difference in your case?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Bill Davis] “So here’s the counter question.”
I get what you are saying and don’t really disagree. However you and I are both freelance, independent contractors. To a large extent, based on our various posts in this forum, I take it that each of us has some control over the tools we choose. I’m not sure that’s true of most of the pro editing world.
Ignoring the actual user numbers, I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of pro editors work at fixed facilities, even if they aren’t staff. Most broadcast, film, corporate and commercial work is done by editors who show up at a job or freelance at a post house and use the tools provided to them. Among working pros, I think it is still the exception (and will continue to be so) that editors are handed a project and then left to their own devices.
Even when that’s the case, there’s still an expectation of project interchange. For example, if I farm out graphics to a designer/animator or to a sound editor/mixer, I have an expectation that they will be using Photoshop, After Effects and Pro Tools, respectively. The reason is so that I can take those project assets at the end and use them down the line, quite possibly with a different designer/editor/mixer. That doesn’t mean some folks aren’t successfully using Logic or Pixelmator or Corel Draw, but they tend to be the exception to the rule.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Herb Sevush] “Other than avoiding the need to transcode, which I agree can be a major consideration under tight deadline pressure, what advantage did X have over Legacy in cutting your specific project?
“I presume you’re talking about the multi-cam thing I was discussing in the other thread?
Keywording to “bucket” the clips into song/takes with the biggest win. Setting up a folder let me tag any clip I dropped into it as part of a Song and Take was hugely efficient since it resulted in a folder where everything about that “take” was isolated. Command A and “Make Multi-clip” instantly set up my post switch session in seconds.
Next, the “no arbitrary beginning or end” nature of X’s magnetic timeline meant when I ran across the “street scene” that the steadicam guy had captured without my knowing it, I could toss it at the head of my timeline to add an opening sequence and the magnetic timeline let me keep working without worrying about any downstream damage.
Also, it was great to be able to see a possible cutaway shot that might not have been IDEAL slap it into an AUDIITION – knowing that if I saw other candidates, I could add them to the audition and decide later which might be best. With that much footage, it was like having a visual scratch pad attached to the points where I had problems in my developing edit.
[Herb Sevush] “And by the way, was your turnaround so fast that the few hours to transcode would have made a difference in your case?
“Funny you mention this. Originally I had all the time in the world. No deadlines so it was easy to let the transcoding happen over night. But oddly, I’d done a very rough cut for the not-for-profit to review, and a combination of unresponsiveness on their part and my getting busy with real work derailed this project for nearly three months.
When one of the participants asked me about how it was coming at a meeting a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I’d let it slide, and agreed to get it prepped for a public showing. But when I went to resurrect it, I realized it’d deleted the Original media files (a HUGE bucket of data) and had been working exclusively with proxies – so X’s “go ahead and work while the clips are re-processing” saved me HOURS of waiting.
That’s one of the things I like MOST about X compared to Legacy. Legacy was always change – then render – then continue oriented. X is work first – THEN render (if required) – oriented.
As always, X gets some things VERY right – and misses some things that some other editors must have.
I still feel lucky to be able to use it.
There’s were plenty of other wins and losses along this particular project’s path, but my original question was really “will X choke with lots of mixed cameras and lots of complexity” and I got my clear answer. NO.
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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[Aindreas Gallagher] “FCPX is so completely weird, it makes Motion look sane. And no one will hire you by the hour for either of them.”
I just want to be clear, are you saying you don’t like it?
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I’m finding it more fun every project I start in X…painfully aware of things like no trackable masks that Bret mentioned, and about a hundred other obvious things that need to grow up now.
Because it is a very slick interface, once you adapt, because it does so much, so well, once you adapt; I have great hopes for what it will do when they really get at the detail stuff.
Which hopefully they’ve been doing for 6 months now.
Waiting for the upgrade. -
[craig slattery] “I just want to be clear, are you saying you don’t like it?
“I know what you mean about Mr. Amorphous.
I’ve grown tired of trying to read his tea leaves. -
I’m no fan of FCX, but I fail to see the point of ragging on it all the time. You don’t like it…fine, don’t use it. Many professionals are using it, in professional ways. So that statement makes no sense.
Yeah, Apple has a huge trust issue with me. Because of their history of taking great things and killing them (Shake, FCP Server, FCP). But here I am cutting on Avid Media Composer and I swore I wouldn’t be back after all the crap they pulled…for years!
Never say never.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Well this is my opinion…
Apple should have –
1. Release FCPX as iMovie Pro
2. Continued development of Final Cut Pro
3. Eventually have iMovie Pro replace Final Cut Pro (6 years…?)
The effect would have been –
1. This would not have alienated a captured professional market
2. Prevented large amounts of cash going off to the competitors
3. Allow the next generation of editors to respect Apple as a Pro App supporter
4. Maintain a continued market for the Mac line of computers
You can add many others but I am trying to be brief here.
What I fail to understand is that if Apple have sooooo much money why did they choose the path they did? Is it because they thought they we so great they could do anything they wanted and the people would follow?
Remember, the Roman Empire was once great and they fell; I suspect for similar reasons why Apple will one day (soon) be filing for a divorce with the rest of the world. Pride will be their demise.
Baz (FCP 7, Avid MC 6, Adobe Premiere, FCPX) (in that order)
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