Less a showdown, more a decision – Phillip Bloom outlines his reasoning for choosing PPro 6.

[Michael Gissing]

Any editor who works in collaborative workflows involving other facilities must take note of what trends are doing. If you are an editor that does the lot in house then a lassez-faire attitude is acceptable.

If any editor decides to use editing software that is incompatible with workflows in my post finishing facility then they don’t get much sympathy from me if they are forced to buy third party software to get something off their system. I am all for editors choosing the tool that suits their style but knowing what systems are becoming poular or even market dominant is just sensible business practice.

[John Davidson]

I liked this interview better when I first read it on PVC 6 months ago. Maybe PVC had exclusivity to it for six months before Phillip could post it on his blog.

Although it does remind us how long it’s been since we got a real FCPX update.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “If any editor decides to use editing software that is incompatible with workflows in my post finishing facility then they don’t get much sympathy from me if they are forced to buy third party software to get something off their system.”

How many Pr projects have you received and how did you receive them?

What system did you use for finish?

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

I like what Philip has to say. He shoots nice images. He puts them together pretty well. His Dubai time lapse piece is worth watching. He works hard and I think it shows. Saying he’s not an editor and his opinion is invalid makes no sense to me. Watch his videos, he edits. In my opinion, he edits just like someone who shoots their own stuff. It all makes very logical sense, all of the moments stand on their own. Shots are picked for composition and light. If CS6 helps makes those decisions, then so be it.

He also uses a lot of plugins to “finish”.

The Creative Suite will be the next FCP in terms of ubiquity, I have no doubts about it. It’s a perfectly logical decision, Adobe seems very committed, there are lots of tools available in the suite across many different post disciplines, Adobe presents a modern outlook on tapeless and interchange within Adobe products, and a modern outlook on what it means to ‘own’ software (or subscribe to it) and hopefully, all of this will only get better.

FCP fell in to the hands of many many people in the production field, not just “editors”. Part of the reason it became so famous was because it fit in to multiple disciplines and became a general tool that was used beyond media editing, but it was also used for media display. My very first copy of FCP Legend came from a DP as a matter of fact. He said I needed to check it out. He was right. It is hard to go on a set and not see multiple copies of FCP7, and there are usually no “editors” around.

This does not mean that a person who decides to use FCPX is a ninny. It is also a decision. Choice is what today’s production commerce environment is centered on. There isn’t one way to finish, there isn’t one type of editor, there’s not one type of color science, tapeless format, or brand of lens. There isn’t one type of camera, there isn’t one NLE, there’s isn’t one job description, there isn’t one tool to get work done.

I know I am a master of the obvious, but there is severe fragmentation now more than ever and it will only continue as computers do not seem to be suffering from scarcity.

There is also more than one way to make money in production. Philip also teaches. He’s not a professional camera tester, he’s a researcher and he shares his research in a variety of different methods, and as far as I can tell from here, he does a decent job of it.

If you took the time to figure out what a few different hard drives do that fit the needs of your job, Shane, I’m sure there’s be a swath of people that might want to hear what you say even if you aren’t a hard drive expert, but rather use them as part of your set of tools to get the job done. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Jeremy

[Michael Gissing]

[Jeremy Garchow]”How many Pr projects have you received and how did you receive them?
What system did you use for finish?”

I will be getting my first Pr projects in a few months as a few clients are in the process of transition to CS6 and I am currently building a new computer to run CS6 and daVinci.

Up until now I have only had clients on FCP7 and AVID so I have used FCP7 & AutoDuck. It is precisely the amount of feedback publicly & privately that has let me know that CS6 is the best progression for me after FCP7. I will keep FCP7 running for the many clients that are not yet shifting. So far the only ones to shift have been to CS6 and a few to AVID. Nearly all AVID clients also have CS6 and can supply me an AAF for da Vinci and titles & sundries in a Pr timeline for the final online and playout to HDCam.

Still not one person asking for FCPX. If someone does, I will be requesting that they create an AAF/OMF for audio and XML for da Vinci.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “Nearly all AVID clients also have CS6 and can supply me an AAF for da Vinci and titles & sundries in a Pr timeline for the final online and playout to HDCam. “

All I can say is, test the crap out of it if you need to keep a clip based workflow.

[Michael Gissing]

Thanks Jeremy. I know there are AVID to da Vinci workflow issues. One reason for building the machine now and getting the software soon is to have lots of time to get up to speed with Pr as a finalising timeline & various workflows between Pr & da Vinci, especially with legacy FCP and AVID in the mix.

I am hoping Pr continues to be a general conversion toolkit and with Wes from AutoDuck in the Adobe house I am hoping that a viable FCPX to Pr workflow may also be possible eventually. With the move to CS6 it makes better sense to switch to a self build WIN7 solution for me. I can get so much better bang for buck, particularly the NVIDIA cards. Getting FCPX and having a dual boot with Legacy seems like such a hassle. If FCP 7 to Pr is reliable enough I may sell the MacPro to a colleague who is mid stream on a feature and his mac died so he is after a MacPro with FCP7.

[Mark Dobson]

[John Davidson] “I liked this interview better when I first read it on PVC 6 months ago.”

Yes, I thought I’d seen this before.

Phillip Bloom is always at pains to say that all he is doing is expressing his own opinions and that is what they are – his opinions. They have no more weight than those expressed by the members of this forum.

I’m personally a big fan of his site and have learnt an enormous amount from him in the last few years. I started following his blogs at the same time as he made his first films with the 5Dmk11 and that pushed me into trying out DSLR filming myself and that led to a total rejuvenation of my interest in filmmaking.

I think that his site is one of the most successful of its type and he is now in the process of changing the way it works through monetising some of his reviews using the new Tip Jar feature on Vimeo, one of his site sponsors.

Like many others he has decided that FCPX is not for him at the moment. What I’ve learnt from my time with FCPX is that it takes a long time to get used to, it’s still incredibly buggy, lacks a lot of customisable features, but at the end of day it can work really well and produces sparklingly good results.

I think the next update will be a crucial one, when it’s going to arrive is another thing, but from what’s promised it should turn FCPX into a far more professional application, and slowly attract back users such as Phillip Bloom.

[Michael Sanders]

[Andrew Kimery] “[Michael Sanders] “Personally I don’t care what Philip Bloom – or for that matter Walter Murch – has to say. I don’t think he (that is PB) is much more than an ardent (and very good) self publicist. ”

I like hearing what other people have to say because it may provide a perspective or a nugget of information that I hadn’t experienced and/or thought of. Ultimately how I choose to operate depends on my needs but I do enjoy reading up and/or talking with other people to see what their experiences are like compared to my own.
“

Yes in hindsight my response was a bit harsh. It’s always interesting to hear what other people think – but i just prefer to shape my opinions from people who are doing the job day in and day out be it camera or editing or whatever.

I’m just a little bit worried by how many times over the past few years I’ve read in various places “If X say’s its no good then I mustn’t use it”.

Michael Sanders
London Based DP/Editor

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “I know there are AVID to da Vinci workflow issues. One reason for building the machine now and getting the software soon is to have lots of time to get up to speed with Pr as a finalising timeline & various workflows between Pr & da Vinci, especially with legacy FCP and AVID in the mix. “

I say this with all due respect to Adobe as they are trying, but interchange needs a lot of help. It’s not easy, it is sometimes downright confusing, and there are many many times were it just doesn’t work. It really depends on your source material. If your projects are like any of mine, that usually means a bunch of differing formats these days due to the amount of differing camera formats that are used on any given production.

Some people have taken to simply exporting flat files and letting DaVinci sort out the cuts. That might be fine, but it’s very difficult for my particular needs to work like that.

I do have full confidence that Adobe will shore this up. I will say FCPX to Davinci and back is 95% easier. I am not saying this as someone who likes the direction of FCPX, I am saying this as someone who needs to get these kinds of workflows done.

Just be careful when importing XMLs in to Pr. It dupes all the media instances, and if you delete the wrong copy from the Browser, it deletes the clips on the timeline. Test, test, test and find the limitations. There are many.

Jeremy