Someone give me quaintifiable evidence of FCPX market penetration. Features. Industrials. Commercials. Weddings. Where?

[Jon Smitherton]

Cut this 6 part series for Al Jazeera in FCPX:

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/wildlife-warzone/

The most that I can say is that after getting used to for a couple of weeks, it is an extremely fast editor without having to worry about tracks; in/out bang! (overwrite, assemble, overlay).

Last couple of projects in AVID, track assigning gets real tiresome…and the fluidity of the interface – like touch something and it stops – is just ludicrous, as Pro Tools does this. (and don’t get me started on usable audio waveforms until the latest releases…)
FCPX, was able to trim and reorder(!), while it was playing in the timeline! (yeah it’d drop a frame or 3…but what the hell)

Jon.

[Joseph Owens]

[jon smitherton] “it is an extremely fast editor without having to worry about tracks; in/out bang! (overwrite, assemble, overlay).”

There you go. For standard, templated productions with an unstructured media source — that is, most of “news” or improvised timeline structures – as opposed to scripted – that’s what this little editor was built to do. A standup, some B-Roll, an overlay… done. Right from the words “this is your timeline in X” on that fateful night in ‘Vegas.

“Quantifiable” market penetration data would be difficult to supply — it would also have to contain the word “verifiable” because sales does not equal utilization. I can cite handfuls of colleagues who have downloaded the thing, and then toasted it. Not with champagne, immolated is what I mean.

Also astonished at the apparent innocence around the prevailing influence of financial considerations. Especially Americans should be acutely aware that their own government at almost every level has been compromised by the overwhelming presence of Big Money. Institutions that can (*) pull off the biggest frauds in history, in plain view, and not even investigated. *Allegedly*, for legal reasons….

“Eats Shoots and Leaves” is plenty of fun… try “Amusing Ourselves to Death.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

The biggest difference I find today between arguments as to whether Orwell’s nihilistic vision in 1984 is still relevant, is that we now have to take the https://WWW into account — which is far, far more serious, and something he never knew about. Doublethink? I think the term is now “spin”, which I see used here in a pretty cavalier way, and blithely accepted, which is the way to make it work.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[James Culbertson]

[Joseph Owens] “here you go. For standard, templated productions with an unstructured media source — that is, most of “news” or improvised timeline structures – as opposed to scripted – that’s what this little editor was built to do.”

I would agree with you Joseph, but I also find it very good for scripted documentary and narrative work. Anecdotally, I am finding more and more editors locally who are using it for every kind of production; which editor you use is really coming down to personal preference (and sometimes facility preference) more than any particular feature limitations.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Have you watched Black Mirror, jPo?

[Tim Wilson]

[Joseph Owens] ” whether Orwell’s nihilistic vision in 1984 is still relevant”

To Postman’s point in Amusing Ourselves to Death, it’s almost completely irrelevant compared with the numbing effect of being overwhelmed with nonsense, a la Brave New World, where TV can never be turned off and thinking is discouraged. Surveillance doesn’t need to be stealthy and sinister when people are stumbling over themselves DEMANDING to expose everything about themselves.

But I think both are overstated, and neither is on topic to the DEBATE over the appropriateness of FCPX to a task OR NOT.

Wow, FCPX or Not: The Debate. We should name a forum after that! Sure seems to describe an awful lot of threads, where people DEBATE whether FCPX is the right choice OR NOT.

So please tread lightly around dystopian fiction (my favorite genre, btw, that and teen vampires), as politics are specifically not on the menu chez COW.

You do raise an interesting point about expense, though, which I’ll also gently disagree with that too. If EVERYTHING was about cost, then the cheapest thing would ALWAYS win. I’m obviously overstating your point, and cost is certainly an issue, especially where public budgets are concerned (thinking more about schools than government agencies per se), but I don’t see much evidence that decisions are being driven BY cost.

See, there’s no debate about cost. But there IS debate about the appropriateness of FCPX OR NOT for a given task, AND for different styles of working, AND for different personalities.

That’s why I’m ultimately not too interested in FCPX market share, even by verticals (within schools, within indie production, within commercial production, within SoHo, etc.), because none of those tell me anything important about ME. And it really is all about ME. LOL Does YOUR experience have anything to do with ME?

I continue to believe that feature sets, workflow, compatibility, and price are ALL secondary to personality traits. I like what I like, and nobody’s experience is going to budge me. You liking what you like is only meaningful until I try it myself, at which point your experience ceases to have any relevance whatsoever.

Speaking metaphorically rhetorically. LOL

In that sense, I’m far more interested in seeing a correlation between NLE choices, verticals and Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator. (INFJ, holla!) What works for ME has a lot more to do with I’m LIKE than what I DO, no matter what I like to tell myself about how rational I am and how carefully I consider every choice. I do. I use the “draw a line down the middle of a yellow legal pad and list the pros and cons” approach to EVERYTHING, including what to wear today.

(I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll let you know.)

But seriously? In the end, I go with what I LIKE, and make it fit my needs because I WANT it to.

That is in fact the history of this forum in a nutshell. People WANTED X to work, and forced themselves into workflows that X demanded because people WANTED to use X. Then, over the following couple of years, X has continued to evolve to be more capable out of the box….but in fact, there’s an extent to which people are going to use it because they WANT to use it, and will let everything else about their working experience flow from that.

Which, again, I think is not only a good thing, but an inevitable thing. And, if we’re being honest, the ONLY thing.

In fact, I was going to say “except in cases where clients or markets force other choices,” but a big part of this forum is also people liking what they like and forcing the issue AGAINST clients or markets where necessary.

So, somebody give me a quantifiable PERSONALITY correlation between FCPX OR NOT, and you’ve got my attention.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Joseph Owens] “There you go. For standard, templated productions with an unstructured media source — that is, most of “news” or improvised timeline structures – as opposed to scripted – that’s what this little editor was built to do. A standup, some B-Roll, an overlay… done. Right from the words “this is your timeline in X” on that fateful night in ‘Vegas.
“

I’d be curious to know why scripted dialogue editing is not possible in X, and why X was built without scripted projects in mind.

Qua(i)ntifiable reasons only, please.

[Michael Gissing]

[Tim Wilson]”Speaking metaphorically rhetorically. LOL”

Is this your favorite forum Tim? In all the vast world of Cow this does seem to bring out in you a certain..I don’t know what.

[Tim Wilson]

[Michael Gissing] “this does seem to bring out in you a certain..I don’t know what.”

Thanks for noticing! LOL For better and worse, that’s pretty much just me. I really do talk like this in real life, including liberally LOL-ing.

But yeah, I love this one for sure. I’ve had to be away from posting at the COW for a while, and I saw a couple topics here that jumped out at me, so I merrily jumped right back on…

…but over the long haul, I think I might post more often at one of our least-trafficked forums, TV & Movie Appreciation. The original idea a long time ago was simple: we’re sophisticated consumers of media, and I think we’re generally sophisticated consumers of media…but we almost never talk about it.

That forum HAS changed names. It was originally called “Film History & Appreciation,” but now, TV is often better than movies, and it’s more about current stuff than historical stuff, which is fine by me. I’m going to be able to come up for air in a little bit, and while you’ll definitely see me here more often than I’ve been around lately, I suspect you’ll find me over there even more often.

There’s only like a dozen of us, and it’s been pretty quiet of late, but when we’re cooking, I love talking about this stuff. I’ve turned several of my posts there into articles, and could probably turn a couple more into articles as well.

Depth of Field: Gregg Toland, Citizen Kane and Beyond

and

TV’s All-time Greatest Openings, Part 1: Friday Night ABC 1971-72

are actually two of my favorite pieces of writing at the COW, and both started as posts, adding a few pictures and subtracting a little psychosis.

The Toaster & Tim’s Vermeer was one of a handful of pieces I’ve written where I got to combine both sides of it — the making of media and the watching of it. A cool interview on a strange subject that was turned into a cool movie.

Here’s the thing I learned from that forum and this one, though. The COW has never been about ideas. We celebrate our 20th anniversary next spring, and we’ve ALWAYS been about ACTIONS and NEEDS. It just so happens that needs and actions have intersected with ideas in this forum over the past couple of years…but without the DEBATE (yes, debate) about FCPX OR NOT (yes, that’s mostly what the debates are about), this forum would cease to exist.

Nobody wakes up and says, y’know, this is a great day to talk about what I want from an NLE. The DEBATE (or debates, but yes) about FCPX OR NOT (which is mostly what the debates are about) are the spine of this forum, maybe also the heart. Nothing survives without a spine and a heart.

(Notice: no mention of a brain. Jury’s still out on that. LOL And actually, now that I think about it, plenty of folks seem to be getting by without much in the way of a heart or a spine either.)

I also know this from having tried to start a general-interest forum along these lines many times over the past 20 years, and them never taking off. Why now? Why this time? Because there was a DEBATE over FCPX OR NOT. It’s not general interest AT ALL. It certainly spins OFF into other generally interesting stuff, but it all starts in a very specific place.

The COW as a whole will survive us all, but as long as there’s some question over the suitability of FCPX to a given task or market, OR NOT, this particular forum will be around. We’ll know almost to the day when the debate ends. It ain’t yet.

Anyway, the other thing that fires me up is music. I’ve tried MANY times to start up a music forum here, but none of ’em have worked, for the same reason that general-interest industry forums haven’t taken off in the COW. Nothing to talk about RIGHT NOW, no reason anyone HAS to speak up, so no spine and no heart.

Music is actually what I write about in my spare time (hahaha). I’ve had to put a music-cultural history kinda book on hold for the moment, but I do write a TON about it. That means plenty of overly long, not-as-witty-as-I-think writing along those lines too.

One of these days, I might even getting around to linking to my off-topic music stuff in my sig. Right after I make a sig. LOL

I do love this industry, though, and I feel lucky to have come at it from so many directions: owning a business, making lots of different kinds of TV shows, user groups, software development, marketing, trade shows, vendor partnerships, writing and editing a trade magazine, and a bunch more, including watching what alla y’all are talking about. It’s fun, and I like having fun.

Thanks again!

[James Ewart]

I think Apple are playing a much smarter “long firm” game than you suppose. They are long term planners. Why make a big song and dance about one movie? Especially if nobody knows yet if the movie is going to be any good or not.

[James Ewart]

I do understand there are limitations for the multi user shared media workflow (although even this also seems debatable) but to suggest the software can do a magazine show but can’t manage a scripted movie or TV drama without telling me why? Now that is a little puzzling …