-
Losing a job to FCP users.
Anyone have similar experiences? I get a client, we do a day’s work. She’s happy and excited by the end of the day. Next day, 180 degree turn around. Her old editor had told her a project on Avid PC (my system) would be hell to adapt should she ever need to doing any tweaks on FCP. She freaks out and bolts even under my assurances that using simple EDL’s for most of it would work great, excluding nested effects. All the heavy lifting of creating the stories would be easy to maintain on a single video layer for the EDL and any nested stuff could be converted to movs, etc. Especially since I was using her mac drive, and the files she wanted to use were already in Apple Prores422. Just AMA them into Avid, no transcoding needed, no need to use a PC formatted drive. And no need to use Automatic Duck even. We even did a test where I did an EDL, emailed it to her old editor, she took the drive to him. He couldn’t “open the EDL” she said. At that point I realized a case of stonewalling and using the producers naivete on technical things for leverage. What if I needed to use Photoshop or AfterEffects, she be screwed coz those are Mac-based. I had to assure her that they are cross-platform, Photoshop has been for almost 20 years now and AfterEffects, illustrator and all the rest are PC as well. I use them all the time. The FCP user spooked her and off she went. Sigh.
-
12 Replies
-
First off, that kind of behavior is platform agnostic. Sorry it happened to you, but, believe me, I’ve seen it happen in reverse as well.
Second, I’m thinking that with FCP X it will be much less an issue. I mean it will always be an issue. Wankers happen.
-
A sure sign that the FCP editor ONLY knows FCP…and is an idiot. I can go back and forth fine, with the use of Automatic duck too. The guy is just FCP only and doesn’t know jack diddly. And producers never know this tech, so they trust their editors.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Not so sure about FCP10 taking a nose dive. I just read an enthusiastic blog by a highly regarded industry player in L.A. about how great it was to have your video and audio locked coz now you can ripple edit and have the tracks in sync! I asked, but you can ripple as many tracks as you want? No, just the one. What?! Avid has never cared how many tracks you want to ripple at once; L-cuts, music track, snd fx track– they can all be rippled at the same time if needed keeping them all in sync as you go. People buy this stuff because they don’t know about the easy to use alternatives. There’s an FCP/Mac propaganda machine out there it seems, ha! Not sure it’s going to fade so quickly.
-
I had a similar experience to this when I only used Avid. Bashing of other programmes and platforms is almost always self serving. Even FCPX bashing is to a certain degree just a defensive manoeuvre. I actually like a lot of its features and for web based delivery of DSLR shot footage it would be the fastest solution out there. For editing a feature, not so much. My solution is just to learn and have access to as much as possible. I have Avid and for features or anything long form I push for that. But I get a lot of little jobs where the client wants FCP because I can give them an FCP file at the end that they can take to the hundred other FCP editors they know, if I’m not available next time. It’s a piece of mind thing. And if a client comes to me wanting me to edit on FCPX, and it will work for the project, then I will.
Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCP7
Pixelwizard.net -
[Shane Ross] ” I can go back and forth fine, with the use of Automatic duck too. “
Totally agree. That has been one of the joys over the last few years as interoperability has really been coming together.
-
I used FCP full-time for 3 years, but was never able to work as fast as I could on Avid, and was quite happy to leave it behind. Mostly just the basic interface functions for tasks you need to do every day, like sub-sequencing–all simple and fast drag and drop stuff in Avid, cutting the subs without trashing the originals; not having to export a section and re-import for fear of losing rendered effects; no ScriptSync type function which is faster even on small projects; not having to do multiple keystrokes for basic one-key functions, etc. I’ve heard they made sequence editing work better, so maybe that’s been fixed. But unfortunately, I should have both FCP & Avid just to cover myself. I guess it’s just one more necessary evil to deal with. Switching between Mac & PC though or between Avid and Premiere is easy. What is self-serving, here is my resistance to have to buy and use a system that is sub-standard, kinda annoying. But gotta do it. Thanks, you just gave me that little push I needed to jump back in with the shark that used to bite me everyday, lol.
-
Considering FCP is EOL, what if she needs to open the project say 2 years from now? I can understand that if they use a certain app in house and that is their comfort zone why they would want it created if possible in that app. But FCP projects will shortly be a big problem to work with. After Lion all bets are off. If they were willing to hire an outside editor why would doing the same down the line be a problem?
Besides would you be unavailable for these tweaks? Can’t you offer her x amount of time for re-edits?
On the other hand, working with these folks might have been a big mistake. Hope you got paid for the time you already wasted.
OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
She was going to me coz she was tired of having to supervise her old editor and I don’t need supervision as I’m used to taking raw footage and creating stories. Yes I would have been available to do the tweaks. No I wasn’t paid. What’s happening with Lion; why all bets off? I think comfort zone was a big part of it.
-
FCP 7 is supported in Lion. But FCP 7 will never be updated and and most likely will not work on any Mac OS that follows Lion. FCP X has replaced it in Apple’s mind. But FCP X cannot open FCP 7 files. I’m just saying AVID is a lot more future proof at this point in time.
OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
Yes future proof. And because project sharing is so easy, there are now Avid Unity based cloud options by 3rd party vendors that allow users all over the world work on the same project using proxys for off lining derived from a single repository. Just get your proxies delivered via dsl if you want. I guess FCP can use Unity too, it’s just a little clunky to use since its basic architecture wasn’t designed for sharing. I wonder if this hasn’t something to do with why Apple is conceding the high end to Avid with its introduction of FCP10.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up