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In-Action Story on FCPX and Focus
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[James Ewart] “All great Empires come to an end and usually it’s when they start to get complacent.”
Except with Apple, where disregard for customers is the bedrock that the company is built on. Steve was talking about how little he valued opinions from customers from the time he launched Mac. (Among the reasons why, even though the Apple II was built on openness, the first thing he did with Mac was seal it shut.) He loudly and viciously mocked companies who asked their customers for input from the beginning. As late as 2008, he was still bragging that they never asked customers for anything.
Obviously a bit rhetorically exaggerated in practice re: FCP/X, but in principle, pretty much on the money.
“Skating to where the puck is” is the nice way to put it. “You a-holes don’t know what you want or what you need, so we’re going to make you want what we WANT you to want, even if you don’t need it” is the way that Steve probably phrased it in his head.
And more often than not, he was right. Apple customers generally like Apple stuff enough to put up with Apple. So I wouldn’t use the word “silly” to describe the desire for openness from Apple as much as “futile” and “self-defeating.”
The issue with openness for those companies who are inclined to be open has historically been revenue recognition. It goes a little something like this.
- If I announce a feature, I have to ship it in 90 days. Hence all those NAB announcements that say “Shipping in June.” June is in the same quarter as NAB in April.
- If I fail to ship within 90 days, I have to set aside the revenue that that feature is worth. Basically placing it in escrow. I don’t get to “receive” that revenue until I deliver the feature. The transaction isn’t complete.
- Some companies are fine with this. They consider it money in the bank…but it’s not even worth talking about unless there’s enough cashflow to not only keep the company on the rails (likely) AND to keep revenue for the product line on track (not necessarily as likely).
These kinds of calculations, though, are massively time consuming. I can give you an example from Avid. This is what EVERY company making promises used to have to go through, so I’m not revealing any secrets. I’m just offering some specifics.
Just as I was arriving there in 2003, they were contemplating what to do about delivering HDV support. There was no way it was happening by June 2004 (ie, the first quarter after the next NAB, which would have made it okay to announce at NAB 2004), but September seemed likely.
Okay, only deferring revenue for a quarter (ie, 90 days after the first 90 day grace period), so a tolerable risk.
So what happens going into NAB 2004? They wanted to ANNOUNCE upcoming HDV support, but because they couldn’t ship the feature 90 days, they had to defer that revenue, right? But HOW MUCH revenue?
This is where things get crazy. Product managers had to work with salespeople and dealers and customers to answer this question: how many sales are we missing because of THIS FEATURE and ONLY this feature? And how much are we missing by? And for people who are buying a new box of Avid software, what’s the exact amount of money that that feature is worth as a PROMISE to those people?
That is, “I’m buying this BECAUSE of the promised HDV support” — but customers can still get most of the value from the product before then. So what’s the delta for not just the value of HDV in general, but the value of HDV for the next 90 days?
So you take that incremental amount and add, you know, profit and stuff.
It’s real work that sucked down a tremendous amount of internal cycles from very conscientious, committed people, some of which would have been devoted to actual product development…but those people were busy trying to figure this stuff out.
If you recall, btw, the answer was $49. If you didn’t want HDV, you didn’t have to pay the $49. HDV would show up in your next paid upgrade anyway. But if you wanted HDV in the next 180 days, Avid’s calculation was that it would be worth $49 to YOU in September.
So THAT’s what the pitch at NAB was. “Get your box of Avid software now, and get HDV support in September for $49.” That HAD to be part of the pitch, or they couldn’t mention HDV at all. Couldn’t even HINT at it without deferring the revenue based on the hint of a feature that wouldn’t be delivered in that quarter.
See why most people avoid all that? No promises, no penalties.
NOW THEN, things are different for Adobe. They’re getting a steady flow of money from customers, and they get it whenever a feature is delivered.
However, there are STRATEGIC reasons for playing specifics close to the vest, even if there aren’t LEGAL reasons. They still have to compete against other companies , so it’s a delicate balance. Still, you see quite a bit of hinting from Adobe folks here, because there’s no risk of running afoul of the SEC….
….and because they’re by and large not dicks. LOL
This is also why so many companies are going subscription RIGHT NOW. You can thank your friends Senator Sarbanes and Representative Oxley. These risks simply didn’t exist a few years ago. But they exist NOW.
You remember all that trouble Avid got in with the SEC and the Justice Department? It was because of the difference between a “bug fix” release, which you HAVE to give away free (because bugs prevent customers from receiving full value” vs. a “feature upgrade” release, which you CAN’T give away free, unless you had set aside the incremental dollar value of that feature (eg, $49 for HDV).
Well, Avid gave away a release with a feature in it (oops), so they had to recalculate millions of transactions BY HAND, going back to 2008.
(BTW, this is grossly oversimplified because I’m NOT an accountant, and I AM an idiot.)
Which is also why, in the end, Avid’s total revenue numbers were still by and large the same. There just needed to be a recalculation of which money for which features landed in which quarters. Fun fun fun.
The workaround for Avid today? Either subscribe, or pay for a service contract, so we don’t have to go through this again — we can just give you fixes or features as they’re ready, because the revenue is accounted for by promising “receive all upgrades during your contract.”
And the only thing you’re promised when you drop OFF the contract is that you’re going to have to either start over from scratch with a new box, OR pay for the upgrade AND the following year of service. No new features no matter what, and so, no revenue to defer no matter what.
What. The.
Anyway, this is what EVERY company making promises had to go through, pre-subscription.
This is the advantage for Adobe that most people don’t talk about: that product managers don’t have to spend time assigning incremental dollar values to features, and do actual calculus to factor those multiple sets of dollar values against the vectors of a projected trajectory of development effort and product deployment, as well as the financial, and potentially legal, costs related to the difference between hitting the target and missing it.
Instead, product managers can focus on…wait for it….products.
AND THAT’S WHY MOST COMPANIES DON’T ANNOUNCE STUFF IN ADVANCE.
But some can hint at some of it because of the vector between being dicks and not. LOL
Andrew, to your point about Microsoft and Intel: there’s a difference between a roadmap and a promise. Those companies rely on partners whose development cycles are years away. Using Microsoft as an example, their installed customer base is so massive that year- or years-long public beta cycles are critical for vendors showing up in the same place at generally the same time (although lord knows there are still drivers not ready, etc, for each new release). If you as a customer want a specific software feature now, you can have it now, for free, for a year or more, so the risks of deferred features are minimized.
(Older folks here may recall that we debated this for weeks around the first announcement of X. Specifically, whether roadmaps exist at all, whether they’re practical, and why Apple are suck dicks — the latter of which wasn’t much of a debate, since even Apple’s biggest fans admit that they can be…well, you know.)
But this is also why MSFT’s key non-OS software is increasingly going subscription. Not just for maximizing revenue over time, but for minimizing very, very real risks. The risk to Microsoft being delisted has implications for world markets, and is just too big to ignore, even for a company that has built its business model on openness. These risks are new, so the response is new.
But to the original point, saying that openness “can’t” be achieved really is demonstrably nonsense. But this is an overlong, overly complex, but not entirely delusional look at the why of the thing.
As always, I heartily invite corrections. This stuff really is interesting to me, and there’s no telling what I got wrong until you actually tell me. LOL
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[Bill Davis] “Of course. Hey, if you have time, can you show me the pictures of the car style coming out in a few years, you know, without all the camouflage body parts the car companies use to obscure the styling details?”
Go to the Detroit Auto Show and you’ll see manufacturers showing off new things they are working on. Some concepts are just for wow-factor and others actually make it into production. Part of the fun car-junkies have is debating what’s going to make it and what’s not (or what should’ve made it and what didn’t).
Go to CES or NAB and you’ll see some companies showing off tech demos or proof of concept prototypes of things they are working on in their labs. Hell, 4 or 5 years ago Avid showed off an early demo of Avid Everywhere (dubbed Edit Anywhere, on Anything). IIRC it had an editor on a laptop using a web interface to cut full res (I assume DNxHD 175) video that was stored on servers in Virginia (https://community.avid.com/blogs/avid/archive/2010/04/08/edit-anywhere-on-anything-richard-gratton.aspx). I think the original app was all Java based so it could run on anything from a desktop to a laptop to a tablet.
[Bill Davis] “Seriously, you simply can’t point at a couple of examples of leading players who do things a different way – and argue that openness and disclosure is somehow an industry standard because of that.”
Where did I make the assertion that openness and disclosure are industry standards?
Scott asked which publicly traded companies talk/comment on upcoming projects and I listed three off the top of my head. I also said that no company is 100% transparent *and* mentioned the Osborne Effect as a reason why companies understandably keep things under wrap.
If you don’t think Apple is more secretive than its peers I don’t know what to tell you. Secrecy is part of their shtick (even w/in the company) and it works very well for them. Even if openness and disclosure were industry standard so what? Don’t you like that Apple thinks different? If so, why do you get defensive when people bring up the fact that Apple does some things differently than other companies? It’s not a slight against Apple, it’s reality.
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Simon-
I re-read all the relevant posts in this thread to see if I may have been projecting or misunderstanding.
Here is a sample of my concerns addressed in my first two points:
The directors didn’t feel that an experienced feature film editor would have anything useful to offer. That’s a bit surprising.
Equally they didn’t feel that an experienced titles designer could bring anything of value. That too is interesting.The presumption here that I find strange and revealing is that the editor’s skillset is less important that the kit he’s cutting on – which is a point that I think we’re agreeing on.
The reality us surely that Ficarra and Requa, whether rightly or wrongly, don’t believe that an experienced editor brings that much of value to the party.
I don’t see how can you be a great feature film editor without a reasonable amount of experience as a lead editor on drama even if it’s only TV … which is clearly not the case here.
I thinks there’s quite a leap here, for a couple of reasons:
1-The assumption that anyone is in fact valuing the equipment over the editor.
Conjecture, but we really don’t know that.2-This guy is not an experienced editor, at least not an experienced feature editor.
Again, conjecture. Neither of the two features I’ve edited has, as fas as I know, made it on to iMDB. Don’t know if the one I’m currently cutting will, either. Nevertheless, after almost 30 years in postproduction, I do think of myself as experienced – albeit less so as a feature editor, I will grant you.3-Lack of (credited) feature experience = not suitable for major studio feature editing.
Perhaps you’re right. Then again, I’ve seen plenty of truly horrible films edited by editors with plenty of Hollywood credits. Even then, I’m not prepared to assume it’s their fault. Way to many people are involved who have the power to ruin a film.4-While I’ve not quoted the relevant posts here, the build up from “I’m curious” to apparently being truly astonished at this editorial choice seems a bit overwrought. Perhaps I’m reading too much into the near constant repetition of the surprise. Given the number pf people I know who have been hired because they are friends of the producer/director/exec. producer, etc. in both film and television, I’m very reluctant to presume to know why someone was hired or not hired. And, for what it’s worth, being a friend of the director is certainly not automatic grounds for suspicion or a presumption of incompetence.
I do think the overall tenor of these exchanges has been rather unfair to the editor in question and to the production team. I think a lot of assumptions have been made as to motivation and process, and the leap from assumption to what seem to be negative conclusions is all too short and unsupported by actual facts.
Now, I may be guilty of making my own assumptions based on these posts. If so, I do apologize if I’ve misrepresented your thoughts. It’s all too easy to come across as rigid and snarky in forum posts, whether intentional or not.
As for the other points, it’s the usual suspects with the usual agendas. Not something I’ve ever seen you be a part of, and off-topic for this thread, anyway.
Cheers, etc.
Jeff M.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “I do think the overall tenor of these exchanges has been rather unfair to the editor in question and to the production team. I think a lot of assumptions have been made as to motivation and process, and the leap from assumption to what seem to be negative conclusions is all too short and unsupported by actual facts. “
OK, now you’ve quoted all that back to me, I’ll agree that I over-egged the pudding more than once, though I think I tried to be generous to Jan Kovac at all times, but apologies all round if I seem to have failed in that.
Inevitably on this forum one gets dragged into arguments that one never meant to get involved in – I think I found myself arguing against the contention that feature film editing experience has no real relevance and all that counts is “talent”, which did strike me as a curious position. I still don’t find that I can agree with this position, I’m afraid. But then again, perhaps I was misunderstanding what others were saying – it wouldn’t be the first time.
Let me just restate the reason for wanting to bring this up. In fact, rather than restating it in different words, let me just copy and paste from my last post:
“Cold Mountain was a landmark moment in large part because the choice to use it was made by a universally acknowledged giant in the feature editing world and it was for that reason almost more than any other that Legacy “suddenly” acquired a perceived legitimacy it didn’t have before. Walter Murch’s reputation and experience were the seal of approval that validated the product. You could almost say that his talent as an editor was not relevant in this case …
Focus may well come to change a lot of people’s minds about FCP X but in comparing this moment with the Cold Mountain moment, it is surely not inappropriate to point out that in this case the reputation and experience of the editor are not in the same league. Kovac may well be a super-talented editor, despite his lack of imdb credits, but he doesn’t bring the same credibility to the party as Murch did.
I just don’t see how this can be considered contentious, and mentioning it is really not a disparagement of Jan Kovac.”
Obviously, Focus is important to everyone, not so much as confirmation that X can be used for feature editing, which I think a lot of us knew already, but rather for the PR value of having had a major Hollywood movie choose it.
From that point of view, it is interesting to know who made the choice – if it was Ficarra and Requa rather than Kovac, as everything seem to suggest, who made the choice, then the PR value is of a different order to the Walter Murch/Cold Mountain choice. They’ve made a couple of pretty decent films but I don’t think anyone considers that they have a reputation as editors, though again in the shadows of the cutting room, their talent and experience may be considerable for all we know. But the fact is we don’t know and that in itself is the point.
Within this context, Kovac’s apparent inexperience is surely not without relevance, in the sense that it’s unlikely that he drove the decision single-handedly if at all, and from a Hollywood perspective his validation of FCP X necessarily carries less weight than if it had come from an editor whose work is well known and universally respected.
He may be well-known and universally respected after Focus, but there’s no way you can say he was before now – again with every respect to his undoubted talent.
Does that make sense, or am I still overstating it?
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Wow. If you read to far down in this post, you will never realize it started out as a discussion of the new movie FOCUS using FCPX to edit. An incredible high jacking. Fun to read, but it reminds me of the old school game of passing a sentence from student to student to see what comes out the other end.
SF Chron did care much for FOCUS, but I still have to check it out.
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[Tim Wilson] “Andrew, to your point about Microsoft and Intel: there’s a difference between a roadmap and a promise. “
Right. My only point was that not every publicly traded company is as secretive as Apple. And as much as people complain being secretive has obviously turned out well for Apple and I think is part of their success. The anticipation is addictive and, generally speaking, I think the user base loves it (just look at the rumor culture that has grown around it). It’s like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. You want to know *now* but if you actually find out you’ll probably be crestfallen come Christmas morning.
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[Claude Lyneis] “Wow. If you read to far down in this post, you will never realize it started out as a discussion of the new movie FOCUS using FCPX to edit. An incredible high jacking”
We prefer the term “branching discussion” and it’s something done amazingly well in the Debate forum. 😉
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[Andrew Kimery] “We prefer the term “branching discussion” and it’s something done amazingly well in the Debate forum. 😉
“The word “nonlinear” fits in here somewhere. 🙂
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[Andrew Kimery] “My only point was that not every publicly traded company is as secretive as Apple. And as much as people complain being secretive has obviously turned out well for Apple and I think is part of their success.”
Very much agreed on both points.
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Hi Simon.
You may be surprised that I agree on all points.
Focus is certainly not X’s “Cold Mountain moment.” I don’t think such a moment will ever happen again.
As far as directors who make a big deal about being intimately involved in all aspects of the film process: that sort of statement usually puts me on guard. When the natural and appropriate involvement of a director has to be explicitly highlighted and pointed out as something unusual and/or tied to a particular system, it makes me wonder why? All good directors are involved in the entire process, unless they are kept away by the studio or for other reasons.
As for Kovac: yes, his apparent lack of mainstream feature experience made me curious as well. Not because of any doubts about his skills, but because of what I know to be true of the Hollywood process. Politics reigns supreme. It’s usually only in the indie world that non-big name people get their chance. All of which makes me wonder if the studio sees this as more of a vanity project for the star than a major release. Again, no implications as to the skill or artistry of all involved.
In the end, I agree with you and several here that this is less about editing a movie on X than about delivering a movie on X. In that sense, the real “hats off” and attention should be paid to Mike Matzdorff and his team.
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