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Opinions on what NLE to teach on a new BA in Film & Screen Media Production
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alright there david – howdie do.
FCP holdouts all over london. I think it has to shift this year though surely. right?
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “FCP holdouts all over london. I think it has to shift this year though surely. right?”
I know a couple of Production Companies who have buried their heads in the sand and aren’t even looking at other options. I also know one that is still using an Avid from ten years ago!
It still might take a while
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
I’m also a teacher.
After running legacy FCP for ten years, we made the decision to switch to FCPX and couldn’t be happier. The students love it and they’re producing fantastic work. The two things that students always struggle with: the initial setting up / ingesting media and the exporting of their final piece are handled so much better in X than other NLE.
We always run a six hour film challenge with our first years: plan, shoot and edit a factual piece on a particular theme. In previous years we always gave then 30-60 minutes longer for them to finish their edit. When using FCPX they finished before the deadline.
People have been saying that we should teach students what the industry uses now. I believe we should teach them what the industry will be using in 3-5 years time. I also think that graduates entering the industry will influence what technology will be used. Film students embraced legacy FCP several years before it was taken seriously by the media industry.
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[Ian Bailey] “I believe we should teach them what the industry will be using in 3-5 years time. I also think that graduates entering the industry will influence what technology will be used.”
You are obviously making the assumption that will be FCP X. You could be completely right, however, there’s nothing yet to indicate that being true, so it’s just as much of a gamble as any other NLE. That “bet” is track-based versus trackless. If you teach FCP 7 or Premiere Pro, they can adapt to anything track-based later and in fact, moving to FCP X is also possible (with some head scratching). If you teach FCP X first, the transition to track-based (should they need to do so for a PAYING GIG) will be much harder.
Of the students I have taught, who are savvy to both technology and editing, many have found they prefer Media Composer, once they get used to it. And that’s with prior exposure to FCP 7, FCP X and Premiere Pro. In fact I taught them FCP 7 (or earlier) and they later picked up Media Composer.
In my experience, I can have any class of students working productively on any NLE within two weeks time. This means that part of the answer is whether you actually teach them the mechanics of the NLE or give them the basics and then let them figure the rest out as they go along. In the first situation, any NLE will work. If the latter, then FCP X wins out.
But to put that into perspective, it’s the same thing as comparing a Canon 7D to a RED or Alexa, if you are teaching cinematography. That isn’t a low cost or high cost, consumer vs. pro statement. Rather one of simplified tools versus advanced tools that take a deeper dive to learn properly. If the goal is to teach lighting, optics, camera movement, then the Canon 7D is a great tool. If you want them to be employable in a market with more pro tools, then it does them a disservice. I see plenty of shooters who have worked on higher end cameras turn in great work with the HDSLRs. I rarely see it coming from folks who have attacked it from the other direction.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I’m a video production teacher at a High School. I’ve been driving myself nuts the last year or so trying to make the same decision. I have come to two conclusions. A: it doesn’t matter as long as your students can produce projects. Their reels and their contacts will get them jobs, not what NLE they used at school. However, they should be able to say at a job interview, “Yeah I can edit on that.” So — B: have stations with all three contenders for those students serious about being professional editors. Tell them they need to know it all including sound editing, color correction, special effects, 3D, etc. The ability to tell a story on a timeline doesn’t change. Even FCP X with its reworking of everything still slips slides rolls inserts overwrites, applies transitions, etc. They can call it what they want, it’s still a timeline and when you hit play it’s still linear. That said, if your students learn AVID MC they can learn the others. Maybe not the other way round. It is also $300 for multiple years of free upgrades. It is rock solid and no one claims its not professional. I’m going with FCP X for now with copies of MC for the serious ones. I am still conflicted about the choice; but after some time since Apple EOLed FCP 7, no one knows how the future will play out. Maybe it is for the better that one company does not dominate. On the other hand, it would be nice if we spent more time on our craft and less time learning new software.
MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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[Ian Bailey] “People have been saying that we should teach students what the industry uses now. I believe we should teach them what the industry will be using in 3-5 years time. I also think that graduates entering the industry will influence what technology will be used. Film students embraced legacy FCP several years before it was taken seriously by the media industry.”
Who can predict the future though? How many students learned FCP Legend only to have it EOL’d around the time they hit the job market? Speaking of hitting the job market, how many students actually graduate and walk into a job in the cutting room? I’d wager not many (especially in larger markets). We all obviously agree that teaching students how to edit is ultimately more important than teaching them how to use an NLE, but in the real world knowing how to use certain software is a requirement more often then not. I think students interested in post production today would be getting the short end of the stick if they weren’t exposed to multiple NLEs (and in the U.S. at least Avid MC should be one of them).
I’d say low budget filmmakers (especially docs) embraced FCP Legend well before it was widely accepted and that started the trickle down to universities and students. If FCPX starts getting traction in the same areas that FCP Legend did then we could very well see a repeat scenario but so far that hasn’t happend. In part because the landscape is much different now than it was at the turn of the century. Lots of people still use FCP Legend, Avid is more affordable than ever, Premiere is getting serious looks from areas of the industry that typically wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole…
As a final thought (for this post at least) since Avid MC does have the steepest learning curve why not spend class time teaching it as opposed to FCPX which would be easier for students to pickup on their own time?
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At our London-based university students learn on Premiere Pro, mainly I think because someone a while back chose to go with the Adobe Production Bundle. You can get that in the education version for just over £300, and it includes all the standard stuff – After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator etc etc. Not only that, it runs on PCs, so that the area used for editing can also do compositing with Nuke, 3d with Maya, and other stuff. Keeps the all-round cost down.
As for which editing system students should ideally use – it really doesn’t matter. As someone further up says – it’s the story that matters. I’d have that line tattooed on their foreheads. If asked and given an open budget, I’d probably – at this point in time – still pick PPro. It runs in a standard way – no magical new concepts – and gives an introduction to the way most editing systems work. Anyone who can edit on PPro would have little trouble switching to any other, especially Avid or Edius.
Bernie
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[Andrew Kimery] “If FCPX starts getting traction in the same areas that FCP Legend did then we could very well see a repeat scenario but -so far that hasn’t happend. In part because the landscape is much different now than it was at the turn of the century”
indeed – and then the rant –
above is quite hard to see right? Plus it’s really hard to make netscape navigator era comparisons anyway?ARGUMENT:
the success of FCP was based on the – then – apple engineers corp directly engaging their surroundings and delivering a competitive judgement.
FCP was their competitive judgement.But the point surely is that apple have felt no such onus this time around.
This time, they really, really didn’t care what anyone else was doing.
as a corollary to FCP 1999, and as to basic motivation, I kiiiiind of think this gets overlooked.[Andrew Kimery] “low budget filmmakers (especially docs) embraced FCP Legend well before it was widely accepted and that started the trickle down to universities and students.”
Indeed.
can we not at least agree that, in FCP legend, they were, in craft terms, answering avid, they were facing off to them directly and intellectually for a fraction of the price, at a truly desperate time for apple? They were hungry for editing practise, and they heavily analysed it. I got a physically malleable timeline and a whole bunch of stuff. they built a classic plane under duress. Thats how classic planes get built.Say It’s like Lucas and Star wars – the first shot was almost surreally good, the constraints squeezed quite a bit of genius. Apple in a very tight spot, that will likely never hit again, poured out a very specific thing to drive hardware.
SLIGHT PROBLEM:
If you are going to be in a game, you need to need to be in the game.
if you are in the game, and everyone -avid and adobe – has 250 bucks, and you have now 11,254 billion and change – that’s a mental problem.Because even when you win, the casino chips don’t mean that much to you – that has to be a problem.
Valid Relative Scale, competition, hunger and impetus are all valid drivers.Personally FCPX feels like Star Trek software -I’ve got a sexy dark interface, everything moves, and, as Picard’s tea cups were wonky, my colour corrector is square and insane – but also there are the real future moments: surreal footage tagging capabilities, drill down skimming, not half bad footage analysis, and if they ever broke out the API’s – quite literally star trek real time masking and effects operation, with transfer modes, for about a grand’s + worth of hardware – at HD.
Unlike 1999 – I think apple did whatever they felt like here.
The very real problem is that they could not have done ANYTHING as ludicrously insane as they chose to do to the FCP install base in almost any other context, as into say:
well I don’t know: OSX? iOS? Pages? Numbers? Keynote?their remaining pro software is alone on Mengele’s island.
Does no one else at all feel a burning magnifying glass here?
is it because it makes Apple literally no money bar a rounding error?PPro 7 people. Seriously: it’s verging on excellent and they lack God scale psychological problems.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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An interesting question. I’ve always thought high-end software, like NLE’s, have at least a passing similarity to language. In both mastery begins by essentially memorizing a variety of arbitrary elements and also submitting to a overall logical construct to create and finish a coherent statement. The key variable of course remains the editor’s insight, creativity, and commitment to doing the work necessary to a good job.
Like language, mastery of one specific form tends to lead to undue confidence that the path chosen is superior to alternate approaches. I think the psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance”. It’s a pretty rampant phenomenon in the technical arts.
Ultimately, I’d advise you to teach whatever application you personally know and like the best. But at the same time caution your students that they are not learning the key to editing, just one path that works. Whatever you teach them will not necessarily be immediately commercially useful, and in any case it’ll probably be obsolete in 5 years, certainly in 10. So please also advise them that the best thing they’ll get from your course isn’t the ability to make application “X” jump through hoops, rather it’s the skill, perseverance, and confidence necessary to absorb a relatively complex piece of software and use it for art or commerce. That’s something that they’ll need to do over and over if they expect to make a career in the field.
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[Patrick Murphy] “NLE’s, have at least a passing similarity to language. In both mastery begins by essentially memorizing a variety of arbitrary elements and also submitting to a overall logical construct to create and finish a coherent statement.”
a variety of arbitrary elements…?
But isn’t language underpinned by broadly held grammar rules? as opposed to arbitrary elements?
Isn’t the broad editing thoughtspace common logic of dis-interested tracks and universal immutable time (ala David Lawrence), something quite like broadly understood, disseminated editing grammer? To literally all involved reading this as editors? As a result of a few decades of investment and thought on all parts?
outside the zany new scientological sea-org secondary storyline school of FCPX?
Didn’t the FCPX guys end up with some kind of tilde key to negate all their core basic operations some twelve months later?
Isn’t that just weak intellectual sauce?https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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