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Is anyone using FCPX for movie trailers yet?
I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who is currently using FCPX to cut theatrical movie trailers or anything similar, i.e. on-air promos for narrative drama/film, TV spots for movies, movie trailers for web use, etc.
As anyone who has cut this kind of material will know there are a number of very particular demands that need to be met which are different in many ways to the challenges faced editors in other fields.
This is a completely open-ended, non-judgemental question. I know what obstacles I currently face in trying to use it for this kind of work, but I am also very aware that there are ways in which it would make the job a lot more pleasurable.
With absurdly little time to spare this week, I made the incredibly foolhardy decision to cut (or rather recut) a movie trailer that was destined for use at the Berlin Film Festival entirely on FCPX. It shouldn’t have worked out, but it did. And surprisingly well.
I received the materials at 8pm on Monday night, had the first cut out on Vimeo for approval by 2am on Tuesday, delivered 4 more cuts during the day and had the final piece completed by 5pm.
Admittedly, it was a relatively simple job – the basis of the edit was already there from an FCP7 edit completed a few months back; I had to remake the trailer using new source material for both sound and picture, change all the music, tweak a few scenes and devise a whole new ending.
The audio was simple enough that I could mix it inside FCPX which was a great advantage, as there is currently no solution to getting an OMF of the audio out in any satisfactory fashion. I downloaded Xto7 the following day to see what the results would have been and virtually nothing came through as it should have.
But that aside, the speed of the entire process (and I can’t claim to be especially fast on FCPX yet) was an eye-opener.
I really liked the speed and simplicity of getting the approval cuts onto Vimeo via the Share menu – a small thing but of very significant impact in this case.
I liked very much being able to create music edits inside secondary storylines which now seems to me the best way of music editing there is, knowing that you can easily fine tune all the edits without affecting anything else in the timeline. (Just as well, of course, because music editing with connected clips is not a serious proposition.)
There was of course a lot that I didn’t like but then we’ve all heard about those things far too often to bring them up here.
I will just mention something that would clearly have become a major bugbear in a more complex scenario, and that’s the clutter of the audio timeline. Very quickly you can end up with something utterly unwieldy and confusing that Roles do nothing to alleviate, and the only way around it would be to spend time (which I clearly didn’t have in this case) shunting clips up and down to make more visual sense of it. (It’s particularly annoying that secondary storylines can’t be minimized but this would be an easy fix.)
I know this has been discussed at great length before, but from this experience I would say that the use of vertical screen real estate in the magnetic timeline is seriously sub-optimal for all but the most undemanding audio editing situations.
Rambling a bit here, but it would be great to hear the answer the original question, thanks!
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
32 Replies
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Hi Simon,
I just signed up to the cow to respond to this. I use FCPX alongside 7, MC6 and Premiere 5.5. I’m giving them all a chance, but have been really loving FCP X and it is becoming by editor of choice, especially for my own material.
I recently directed my first feature film, titled ‘Footsteps’. It was shot on the RED MX camera, and I decided to cut it in premiere due to the native support for R3D. The process was okay, premiere got the job done but I was relatively underwhelmed by the software. With that said though I was running it on a 12 core mac pro and apparently premiere is less buggy on PC’s. Regardless, I anticipate by the time I edit my next film, FCP X will be robust enough to handle it and that is likely the direction I’ll go. In contrast to many users, I love the interface and am finding it more and more difficult to go back to 7, avid, etc.
Anyways, I’m by no means a trailer editor, but I needed to give it a stab as I am starting to submit my recently completed film to festivals and hold some private screenings – and wanted to create some promo material.
FCP X was absolutely amazing for cutting this trailer. I was able to breeze through the entire film so quickly and easily, using keyword collections to mark moments from the various acts that would be applicable to the trailer.
Again, I’m by no means a feature trailer editor, but I did what I could in a very short amount of time. This was cut in about an hour and a half:
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Footsteps – Theatrical Length Trailer from Noam Kroll on Vimeo.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s encouraging to see I’m not the only one actually using this thing.
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Nice job, Noam!
Most trailer editors I know would expect to take at least a week to cut a theatrical trailer, at any rate three days minimum, so that’s pretty damn good for an hour and a half!!!
Did you mix the sound inside FCPX?
Movie looks great – best of luck with it on the festival circuit.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Thanks for the feedback Simon!
I would have liked to have had more time with it.. At least a few days, but it had to be rushed out as per my co producers request. We’ll likely be recutting it at some point to polish it up a bit.
As for the audio, It was roughly mixed in FCP X. The audio mixing tools from logic that are built in are absolutely fantastic. With that said though, I was using an already rough mixed dialogue track from protools which had been synced with the video. All I really needed to do it X was drop in the music tracks, adjust some levels and other basic adjustments.
I’d love to see some of the material you’ve been cutting on X. Keep us all posted when some of it is viewable!
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[Simon Ubsdell] “Most trailer editors I know would expect to take at least a week to cut a theatrical trailer, at any rate three days minimum”
I currently cut trailers, and yes, I get about 3 days for the rough cut. But that includes the time needed to watch the movie and choose selects (half day). And then find the right music (that takes a good half day if not more) And then cut, recut…cut again, and present a rough cut.
[Simon Ubsdell] “so that’s pretty damn good for an hour and a half!!!”
I suspect the quickness there was due to familiarity with the material. My 3 days includes getting familiar with the material, and writing the spot.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “I currently cut trailers, and yes, I get about 3 days for the rough cut.”
Yup, and it gets shorter all the time! And you talk about rough cuts – is anybody actually allowed to present a “rough cut” these days? It seems the sound needs to be fully mixed, the pictures graded, the graphics all done – the concept of the offline seems to have gone for good.
I know (not sure how!) that you’re not one of the biggest fans of FCPX, but do you know of anybody in LA who is even thinking about using it for trailers? I did hear that Trailer Park were among the very few beta testers – do you know if that’s true?
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
ello, what with you being eminently sane, do you want to blab for a bit in a general sense about how you approach this timeline in terms of material organisation and laydown?
I’m vaguely short form too, in me humble way – do you want to give a notion on how you get into the FCPX timeline in anger? am madly curious –
Its not FCP7, you’re not whacking from bins into viewer, then reviewing and dragging or stamping into timeline – the three step is collapsed – I’m still a trollish toe dipper with FCPX, but that seriously aside how do you find your approach to the timeline altering?
Do you find yourself constructing the video assembly differently? how are you using projects? do you pop a duplicate off to hold an edit version? are you still looking to throw stuff down the timeline for a play with a gap clip separator?
How much in practise do you hold with the ripple behaviour? general malarky – not looking for super detailed but more where furniture is in the room – do you stick with list with top lozenge for reviewing clips? will you stack a crude edit and refine as fcpx seems to want you to do, do you still try and hone a shot edit back in the event, ((i want a dedicated viewer)) do you use the precision editor much?Basically I am demanding a pithy communicable precis of altered habits and processes..
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I know (not sure how!) that you’re not one of the biggest fans of FCPX”
I’m pretty vocal about that, in many places. 🙂
[Simon Ubsdell] “but do you know of anybody in LA who is even thinking about using it for trailers?”
I know of no one in the professional LA market considering FCX for anything. Trailers, commercials, narrative shows, docs, corporate. I know several trailer and commercial editors who gave it a go, but because FCX lacks workflow options they rely on (EDL exporting, for example…as well as SOLID broadcast monitoring), it isn’t an option at this time. Plus, this town is full of people with old habits. Getting them to go to the new thing takes years and tons of arm twisting.
[Simon Ubsdell] “I did hear that Trailer Park were among the very few beta testers – do you know if that’s true?”
Yeah, I know they tested…I know they gave a quote. But I don’t think they are using it yet.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “I know of no one in the professional LA market considering FCX for anything. Trailers, commercials, narrative shows, docs, corporate. I know several trailer and commercial editors who gave it a go, but because FCX lacks workflow options they rely on (EDL exporting, for example…as well as SOLID broadcast monitoring), it isn’t an option at this time.”
Thanks for the feedback – pretty much what I expected from my sources over there. As you say, there are some basic things that we absolutely have to have, whether we like them or not, or whether or not we believe them to be the best possible options, simply because this kind of work is so heavily dependent on being able to mesh seamlessly with what our clients deliver to us, our suppliers expect from us, and so on.
EDL, OMF, broadcast monitoring that actually works, multicam that actually works, and lots of smaller things (“gang” is a big one for me as I’m sure it is for you, as is simultaneous feedback about timecode from multiple sources, and so on) are really non-negotiable essentials as things currently stand. Even if the “next generation of editors” who will only ever distribute on the web don’t understand why could possibly still need them.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Nice Noam!
Love that wide tree shot.
Images look great : )
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “Basically I am demanding a pithy communicable precis of altered habits and processes..”
Yikes, that’s not a big question at all, is it?!!!
I’ve only cut one trailer so far on this thing and even that wasn’t a start from scratch kind of job. It went much better than I thought it would, apart from a lot of stuff we all know about.
My problem is I’ve got a geeky attraction to anything new and shiny and I think that’s maybe why it feels quite interesting still.
The other factor is that I’ve been forced to work on Media Composer for the last five projects and anything, anything, anything at all is less irritating. Yup, MC works (though not nearly as solidly, if you drive it hard, as everyone will always tell you, and don’t get me started on AMA … but that’s another story.
By contrast, FCPX seems to have all the freedom and flexibility that drew me to FCP Legacy after many years on AVID – only it seems to have more of that freedom and flexibility. I’m not talking about the app in general which is absurdly constricted in terms of how can you do things, but rather in the “feel” of actually cutting on the timeline.
I absolutely hate all that metadata, keyword nonsense that we are meant to be getting so excited about, thought I wouldn’t dare voice that aloud around here … I just did? Oh shucks. It is of no value to me and acts only as a hindrance.
The magnetic timeline however is the ultimate creative scratchpad because of the speed with which you can throw stuff around and discover the shape you want for your material. Again, it’s a reaction to the clunkiness of the Media Composer model that I long ago abandoned the source/record model of editing, preferring even in Legacy to mould stuff on the timeline, which now to me feels much more natural and intuitive.
I like slapping stuff into the timeline and moving it around and trimming it and seeing where it will go and shuffling it around, and I love using cut and paste. I don’t like prepping my shots in the source monitor unless I have to – it just feels too clunky and methodical. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the best editing gets done when you get down and dirty with the material and see what it throws up at you.
And it’s this model of editing that FCPX, even more than Legacy, lends itself to very well. The magnetic timeline is just made for this kind of working – it’s great just be be able to throw something in there without bothering about where you’re patching it and what effect it might have on the rest of the timeline. It’s especially brilliant to be able to edit music in secondary storylines – this is a huge plus for me, really huge, and music editing is a very big part of my kind of work.
So there you go. There’s stuff I really do like. At the same time there’s a whole mound of issues which mean it’s still just an amusing toy for now. Gotta have EDL, OMF, broadcast monitoring, deep and extensive timecode display, ganging, and so on and so on.
Put it this way – working on Media Composer, I’m wishing all the time I could be on FCPX instead. In fact, I’m finding I’m getting draw to it each time there’s a little “utility” job that needs doing because there are all sorts of little efficiencies that are big time-savers.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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