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Real World job on FCPX
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[Clint Wardlow] “Actually my biggest fear is that FCPX is just a “hammer.” That it forces you to edit in a very specific style that isn’t conducive to more free-form creativity. That it is aimed at hammering out product as quickly and painlessly as possible at the cost of hamstringing the more subtle art of editing.”
Not only is it just a hammer, but it’s that little dollar store hammer that your wife keeps in the junk drawer to hang up pictures with. It is not anything a craftsman would use in the real world. But to hang some pictures up in a hallway, it’s perfect.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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Hi Scott,
Sorry, but I was too busy working to get back to you + i’m in England and probably asleep when you are awake.
Don’t think I’m knocking your huge top end professional experience, or that of your client, it’s just that a lot of people have simply joined the FCP X is crap band wagon without actually gutting to grips with it and there are a lot of great features that are really missed when you work back in FCP7.
There are very few things you can’t do in FCP X that you can do in FCP7 – sure you haven’t got the easy round tripping into Color or Motion. But it really isn’t that difficult to get material in and out of Motion and as time passes superior 3rd party color correction will be incorporated into the application through companies such as Red Giant Software. Incidentally, DVD Studio Pro still works just fine and whilst bundled within FCS has always been a standalone application.
Whilst supporting your argument, equating an editor using FCP X to a carpenter or mechanic using bad tools just doesn’t ring true. FCP X, whilst lacking certain attributes, is perfectly capable of producing top end broadcast specification material. And well up to the task of producing material to be published on DVD.
And lets remember that it is just a tool, just as FCP7 or Premier Pro or Avid is.
If in a years time FCP X has not opened up to allow broadcast spec monitoring and full integration with 3rd party post production tools your producers opinions and your analysis will sadly be proved right – but I see the application as a starting point not a dead end.
Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv -
Scott,
I never have and never wlll quibble with anything that’s based on a “satisfy the client NOW” mentality.
Everyone here with any experience at all, knows that this is one of the unbreakable the golden rules of business.
What I’m trying to signal is a reality I’ve seen over and over again in my career. I had boxes of 5,10,15,30, and 60 minute VHS loads plus all the attendant boxes and labels and mailers necessary to produce client dubs back in the day. And one day I realized nobody wanted ANY of them anymore. They ended up in a dumpster. Same with my audio cassettes. Same with my DC-2000 computer tapes and Jaz Drives and Zip Drives and Syquist carts.
They were all totally useful right up to the moment they all became TOTALLY worthless.
DVD “will” be the same – trust me. Thats because it does a thing (distributes video) that something else (the net) increasingly does WAY more efficiently and easily.
I don’t advocate dumping it tomorrow if your clients are still asking for it. I advocate understanding that it WILL be dumped and getting both yourself AND your clients ready for that to happen.
Simple as that.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Rafael Amador] “Even not working multi-layers, layers are fundamental.”
Layers exist in FCP X. Just not tracks.
[Rafael Amador] “My sequence layers are my “Finder” when I work in FCP. I put in any upper layer everything I want to have at hand.”
This is an example of how we often do not want to re-evaluate the way we work because it’s the way we’ve always worked. Personally, I find this method of throwing junk on upper layers to be extremely silly, but whatever, it’s the way you work. Sure you can’t edit in this exact same fashion in FCP X, but they did actually provide a means for another “popular” junk method. Many editors throw shots that they may use at the end of their sequences past any edited work. FCP X has the Append Clip shortcut (E) which will throw your junk shots at the end so you can grab them later. Same basic workflow, just at the end of the timeline, rather than above it.
[Rafael Amador] “I want my gaps back too. As my story has holes and I need to see them at first sight and in their real magnitude.”
Gaps exist in FCP X. Use the position tool (P) to create them. It’s just a reversal of the default in FCP 7 where you have to delete unwanted gaps. In this case you have to create “wanted” gaps. My only peeve is that I wish they’d have a gap clip in the generators tab similar to the Slug clip in FCP 7. However, now, it’s actually quite similar to the Avid “filler” paradigm.
[Rafael Amador] “I want to be able to have many sequences and projects open at the same time.”
The sequences are easily and readily available for switching back and forth. True, you can’t have two sequence windows torn off and showing on screen at the same time, but if you’re copying from one sequence into another, or comparing one version to another, it works fine for that.
[Rafael Amador] “I want a full customizable project in terms of settings.”
Well, we agree on that at least. I certainly want more control over the working environment and how things are displayed. For example, why can’t I have big track icons without the filmstrip. Heck, I’d even settle for a single thumbnail over the filmstrip look. However, there is quite a bit you can change in the interface that people assume you can’t. Not enough for my taste, but for now it’s workable.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Bill Davis] “DVD? Really. That’s the level the CEO is stuck at? Plastic discs for a meeting. Wow.”
I’m not sure what market you work in but most Fortune 500 companies conference rooms are still based around DVD players and RGBHV (that’s VGA for you non-technical types). They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on automated conference rooms and are not quick to adopt and upgrade to new technologies. Additionally DVD is a format that the video can be distributed in that has almost universal acceptance.
[Bill Davis] “If the CEO had a clue, he would have simply ended his presentation with a slide containing a QR code – and told anyone wanting a link to the video to take a picture of it with their phones.”
Once again most executives for Fortune 500 companies are using company Blackberry phones which are locked down tightly with security and downloading a QR code reader is just not an option.
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[Steve Connor] “It doesn’t ‘force’ you to edit in a particular way and the only limits to free form creativity are where they have always been – in the hands of the editor.”
Lets go back in time to when everyone was using Steenbecks or KEMs. Steenbeck comes out and says “We are no longer offering dual viewers, and will only give you 3 plates.”
Would you have said the same?
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[MIke Guidotti] “I’m not sure what market you work in but most Fortune 500 companies conference rooms are still based around DVD players and RGBHV (that’s VGA for you non-technical types). They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on automated conference rooms and are not quick to adopt and upgrade to new technologies. Additionally DVD is a format that the video can be distributed in that has almost universal acceptance.”
That is one thing the DVD has going for it. There are so many places for failure in distributing video on a thumbdrive, on the users end that you have no control over. Everyone knows how to play a DVD, and they don’t require any technical knowledge. And there are players everywhere, even in the car these guys are being driven around in.
The other thing the DVD has going for it is surface area. Both on the disc, and the jacket. These are convenient places to put logo’s, additional info, etc, that a person can simply read, without ‘going to the web’. Believe it or not, some people still like that sort of stuff.[MIke Guidotti] “Once again most executives for Fortune 500 companies are using company Blackberry phones which are locked down tightly with security and downloading a QR code reader is just not an option.”
I have also seen operations that have a prohibition on thumb drives being used on the company system for security reasons. Since the DVD can’t be used to record anything once it is finalized, they are not a threat for data theft.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
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Craig… did I miss the link, or did you NOT share your video?
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I’m calling it FCX. They took the “pro” out, so I will too.
I’ll reconsider after the first upgrade.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
blogging at https://fcpx.wordpress.com
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