Goodbye FCPX

[Dean Neal]

You nailed it.

As a producer of TV content for many years, I used to chuckle at editor’s BIN naming structures with manual numbering and alphanumerics to try and find content and sort their media… manually.

Same with when I would ask for vision compiles of past content to be accessed for shot selections…

It’s those past frustrations with media management that I see what Apple is trying to head into with X… and I like it… integrated database collectives (Libraries) of content – cheesy nomenclatures or not.

Dean Neal…

[Jim Wiseman]

If I have to start carrying a purse or a backpack for my phone, I don’t want it. Jeans or shirtpocket, inside jacket pocket in the city. I have my iPad when I need larger. Slightly off topic, sorry. And BTW, I really like FCP 10.1.1. Beats Adobe slavery.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.1.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.5, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1 TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD

[Dan Stewart]

Well I’ve been sat on Avid this whole time. I’d love to move forward into the sexy future, but along with the good ideas there always seems to be some demented corporate bullshit that makes it toxic. And I never go full retard.

[Dennis Radeke]

[Charlie Austin] “I’m just a little tired of the high and mighty “FCP is not Professional” bullsh*t. That’s all.”

Oh, the irony…

Charlie, I feel for you…in fact I understand exactly how you feel. As an Adobe employee for over 9 years, I saw where Premiere Pro was headed yet had to endure the perception that Premiere Pro is just for prosumers and hobbyists. Now, that has changed and people recognize Adobe’s commitment to our customers through innovation.

My advice is to not worry about what other people say – if you enjoy FCPX, then rock on and have fun. Time will tell if it sheds its current perception, but that shouldn’t matter to those people who enjoy it.

[Jeremy Garchow]

After the new Library structure, with the Snapshot and Duplicate functions, the meaning of the word Project started to change for me.

Now, I make one timeline, and call it “Awesome Sauce” or whatever the current gig requires.

I don’t dupe it > open it > rename the dupe > then open the dupe > and close the original > Start working.

I simply work from that one timeline (or Project, if you will) all the time and make snapshots of different versions. If I need to go back, I can go back to the Snapshot.

Cantemo portal is showing a pretty cool demo involving FCPX Libraries including upload/download features.

https://www.cantemo.com/fcpx.html

It seems to fit rather pro needs and workflows.

I’m not saying you have to like the decisions that Apple has made, or the arrogant audacities, or any of this new world order b.s., but if the next company you choose to “partner” with makes an unagreeable change to further their business, it won’t make you any less professional.

Nothing is sacred,

Jeremy

[Charlie Austin]

[Dennis Radeke] “Charlie, I feel for you…in fact I understand exactly how you feel. As an Adobe employee for over 9 years, I saw where Premiere Pro was headed yet had to endure the perception that Premiere Pro is just for prosumers and hobbyists. Now, that has changed and people recognize Adobe’s commitment to our customers through innovation. “

Yeah, and in all fairness, FCP X was a useless mess when released, and Pr kinda did suck before you guys rewrote it. 🙂 That’s no longer the case for either of them. There are perfectly good reasons not to like X, or Pr, or MC. All have strengths and weaknesses, but in my experience, “lacking professional features” isn’t one of them. Clearly there is some disagreement on this. 😉

[Dennis Radeke] “My advice is to not worry about what other people say – if you enjoy FCPX, then rock on and have fun. Time will tell if it sheds its current perception, but that shouldn’t matter to those people who enjoy it.”

I don’t really worry about it, it just gets under my skin now and again. But it does matter to me because, as a full time editor, if my little niche industry all moves back to MC or Pr or stays with FCP 7 ’til it stops working, then that’s what I’ll be working on. And frankly, the only NLE I have “fun” cutting in is X. 🙂

Honestly it’s not even the NLE “wars” that bug me as much as the petty “who or what is, or isn’t, professional” BS.

Oh well… Guess I should get back to cutting my YouTube skateboarder and cute cat videos…

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Bret Williams]

[Charlie Austin] “Yeah, and in all fairness, FCP X was a useless mess when released, and Pr kinda did suck before you guys rewrote it. 🙂 That’s no longer the case for either of them. There are perfectly good reasons not to like X, or Pr, or MC. All have strengths and weaknesses, but in my experience, “lacking professional features” isn’t one of them. Clearly there is some disagreement on this. ;-)”

Ditto. I actually believed that PremierePro was likely just as good as Avid or FCP legacy all those years, but figured they just lost the war. That FCP was just first to the plate, etc. But then when they finally put it back on the Macintosh with CS3 (let’s not forget how Adobe completely jumped ship for a number of years) I found that wow, it was extremely lacking. And it really really wasn’t until CC that it’s feature set was comparable with legacy 6 or 7, and then some. The difference between CS6 and CC put it over the hurdle for sure.

[Scott Witthaus]

[Douglas K. Dempsey] “and a few kids gravitate to PPro”

I have some too (graduate students) but I think the subscription thing bugs them and a good percentage of those few have gone to FCPX (they had switched directly from FCP7 to PP. Our computer lab has all three on 21 computers, but FCP7 will go away next fall). They own it. It’s on their laptop and it gets the job done for them.

Horses for courses.

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Similar numbers. Small school, a Digital Lab with 14 iMacs, and another 10 in the Art Department. All have FCPX and CS6 (I don’t know if and when admin might switch to CC subscription model).

In the last two years, about 1/3 or my students have ended up owning FCPX on their own laptops, working on their stuff all the time. Class consists of me showing tech tips and creative techniques, and other students offering critiques.

I’ll show clips of features, docs and abstract films, a history of how “technique” evolves over time. Then I will show them FCP7 and Premiere, maybe Avid if I have it … and discuss the NLE interface as “mixed metaphor” — with Timeline tracks reflecting physical film & mag tracks running thru a sync block on a cutting table … and the Source and Record windows descended from tape deck-to-deck editing … and Browsers and Bins obviously using the computer files & folders metaphor. An unintended consequence has been that FCPX seems kind of like their generation’s app and many embrace it accordingly.

So Apple better remain serious about expanding X’s pro features, because these kids are already serious about using it!

Doug D

[Lance Bachelder]

Feel pretty much the same – though I still use FCPX here and there for certain things – like burning Blu-rays for screeners etc.

Premiere CC is just a better, much more thought out and of course conventional NLE. FCPX seems geared toward the Apple fanboys who will use it ahead of any other NLE regardless of its features etc because it’s from Apple – so it must be better right?

I’m 100% certain that not ONE SINGLE FCPX user on Planet Earth would be using it if FCP7 had become 8 and FCPX was from some other company.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1