Final Cut Pro in Ads – Everything Changed

[Tony West]

I’m glad you posted these. What’s interesting in the X ad is the choice of source material.

They could have used any car (a Chevy perhaps) but they picked a $196,000 R8
Why not kids playing soccer if that’s what it’s for?
If you look at the Imovie ads that’s exactly what they do have as source.

It’s clear to me from that ad they want the pro market with this, unless they think average people are driving around an R8

The 7 ad is pretty interesting also. The part when the guy is bragging about being totally tapeless.
They were foreshadowing tapeless in their ads back then.

The 7 ad used top end folks because Legacy had been around long enough to have them.
X is brand new so they had to introduce the product in the ad.

The R8 was meant to rep the high end user in the future (spot for that type of car or auto racing coverage)

[Joseph W. bourke]

Let me preface this by saying that I’m a PC user, having worked on A/B roll analog (1 inch) systems, CMX, Edit*, AVID, and now Premiere Pro CS5, which I’ve been working with for several years.

While it was very interesting to see the “old” promo, and why FCP Studio became the juggernaut it is, I have to say that I liked a lot of the features I saw in the FCPX promo. For short form stuff like commercials, promos, and broadcast pieces, not to mention news packages, I could see this version speeding up the process immensely.

I’ve followed this forum out of interest, not need, so I’m aware of the many shortcomings of FCPX, but it looks to me as if FCPX could, or should, be just another tool in the arsenal of capabilities, depending on the project. It’s not a heavy-hitter, but for the price, it’s an inexpensive tool.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[Timothy Auld]

I think you’re right. If they work the bugs out I can see it becoming very useful for short form, quick turn around work. Sadly, that’s not a big portion on what I do.

Tim

[Bret Williams]

As for a tool, I can see it right now. For example, I recently finished a 10 video project where it was a lot on on camera, green screened host, with lots of typography, etc going on. All the hosts were different and shot at different time/places by different people on different gear. Needless to say they were all different settings. In fact I used different plugins or software for each. Some FCP’s Keyer. Some looked best with primatte Others had to use key light in AFter Effects.

So I recently downloaded the demo of X and threw the key effect on these clips. They keyed perfectly with little adjustment neccessary if any. Plus they rendered very quick and played back in real time before rendered. Very important for green screen software because it might look good as a still, but in playback can always have a strange edge or area that just doesn’t key right, etc.

So with another green screen project coming up, I may just take it into the field on a laptop to check keys during the shoot. If they had an iPad version., hmmm.

[Christian Schumacher]

FCPX as product has a perceived value for each customer, as it varies.
One may find it useful and worthy and that’s indisputable, of course.
I’d be surprised if an Apple product would be useless right out of the gate.
And even though X is a rewrite, it still is the editing software named FCP.

Now, if one takes them for what they are, these ads show a clear shift in the FCP’s market targeting.
In the Studio package there were robust developments built over time to cater to high end and long form.
They used to show off lots of intertwined products as they were building that powerful yet simple workflow.

In the brand new X, despite all novelty and the wonders of 64 bits, there’s a simplifying effort, instead.
They are making it very clear that its past environment Apple have provided won’t be there anymore.
Their goal now is both to clear FCP up and shave off their product line, thus catering to a broader audience.

Do you all agree or disagree with this? Keep your inputs coming, please.
This debating is extremely helpful to our industry.

[Craig Seeman]

Anecdotal but I’ve heard from a number of Vegas, Edius and other Windows Platform Only NLE users who would never consider FCS, looking at FCPX and finding it interesting. Of course buying it would mean they’d need to buy a Mac and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple was thinking about that.

There’s no way I can prove this theory but I think one (of several) factors in Apple’s switch from FCS to FCPX is that they may have felt FCS might only maintain and not expand Mac sales. To state it another way, would FCS start attract more Avid or Adobe Windows users that hadn’t already moved? While FCPX may not either it might bring over those using other Windows NLEs.

If you keep in mind that Apple is primarily a hardware company, those jumping to Avid or Adobe on Mac isn’t much of a lose. Obviously those jumping to Windows would be but that’s only a subset. Apple is looking to expand Mac CPU sales.

BTW this even feeds into what I think will replace the MacPro as well. They have to offer something attractive to Windows users that wouldn’t consider all-in-one iMacs as an NLE host. It has to have a lower priced entry point than the MacPro but it has to be expandable.

[Christian Schumacher]

In a nutshell:
I feel they took their simplfying trend way too far.

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Seeman] ” To state it another way, would FCS start attract more Avid or Adobe Windows users that hadn’t already moved? While FCPX may not either it might bring over those using other Windows NLEs.”

Let me see if I get this right – Apple’s strategy is to drive away high end users, a percentage of which can afford and will switch to PC computers, for low end PC users who, even if they wanted to switch programs, for the most part can’t afford to switch platforms.

The minor PC editing world is pretty small – I doubt that the total number of Edius and Vegas users combined will equal the number of seats FCPX is driving away. Somehow I don’t think the math holds up.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Bret Williams]

In either case, I’m predicting a Xeon box with little if any expansion capability. Think Cube 2.0. A MacMini Pro of sorts with all the faster busses of the Mac Pro, ECC ram, Xeon processors- but without the internal drive bays, internal burner, and PCIe. The writing is pretty much on the wall that Steve was into appliances. His baby the cube was too expensive but he was very proud of it.

I need to get something this year for a project and the writeoff. My 2.0 ghz MacPro 1,1 is beat. I’m looking at the maxed out 3.4 ghz i7 IMac and a thunderbolt raid as a stop gap measure until we find out what’s up. I can always sell it if Apple comes out with a thunderbolt Xeon box cube mini pro thing soon.

[Craig Seeman]

I make no claim that FCPX has met Apple’s goal. I do think their intent is to gain PC switchers.

I do think within the next couple of FCPX updates they will gain some momentum, but that remains to be seen.