The FCPX Personality Types

[David Mathis]

I agree with you 110% here Jeremy!

[Forrest Burger]

[Chris Harlan] ” Forrest, I disagree. Aindreas’ posts, as well as all the other arguments we are all having, are fundamental. This is a forum, not a website of tutorial links. Forums are about discussion and argument. It should be clear to you that FCP X is quite controversial, and being so, has enabled a mass of passionate debate. I don’t see how any of this passion or debate is dragging anything down. In fact, it is one of the elements that makes the COW the special place it is. You offered Aindreas a metaphor about taking his ball home. I would offer you one involving heat and kitchen.”

Well put, and accepted. I know this is not a place for tutorials, and I’m fully aware of the controversy surrounding FCPX. I also understand the passion that was uncorked on June 21st…

Like many of you, I’ve been using FCP for many years now and have recently purchased FCPX, downloaded the trial versions of MC and PPro and have been sitting in front of all of them.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but when these threads become overrun by attacks, I question the value in that. We’re all trying to find what will work for us, for some it might be FCPX, MC or PPro…or a combination. Who knows?

Apple dumped on all of us, which is unfortunate. Let’s keep up the debate, I just think it would be more beneficial if it was done in a civil manner.

[Chris Harlan]

It IS a mighty amount of noise, is it not? Thank you for the even reply, and I apologize for the heat/kitchen remark. We’re all talking like madmen these days.

[Lance Bachelder]

I have to agree with you Craig – people, some of them even Cow leaders just hanging around to slam the program while talking about the big switch to Premiere Pro! So leave already! And if you’re really serious then you better be launching PPro on a Win7 machine! Thinking “I’ll show Apple!” and opening up PPro on your Mac won’t hurt Apple a bit – you’ll probably need to upgrade in a big way to get the most out of the software too. And when you discover how truly crappy PPro is don’t come crying back here… go over to the Avid forum and join them! Lol….

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Julian Bowman]

Hang on. There is the techniques forum. It is apparent to most that this forum is about people’s feelings of X. The ‘cheerleaders’ are just as bitter and snide and rude as the ‘whiners’ though from my experience the ‘cheerleaders’ like to pretend they’re not but are victims of incessant vitriol whereas the ‘whiners’ appear to be quite candid about hating X and expressing that forthrightly.

I discern two things from these perceptions.

1) I come to this forum to be both entertained and feel catharsis

2) If I didn’t want to read the ‘debate’ that goes on here, I wouldn’t come here.

I find the cheerleaders hilarious because the majority of the time their posts are laden with blinded optimism, hypocrisy, flip-flopping arguments and insults followed quickly by protestations of victimisation (Actually, I’ll amend that to most of Craig and Chris’s posts)

I find the ‘whiners’ engaging because they have a similar perspective to me, seem to be angered and frustrated by Apple in the same manner I currently am, and Aindreas posts are poetic in their antagonism.

Personally I still find it hard to accept that we weren’t given FCP8 in the last 2 years with just 64bit to use the power of our Macs… it would have tied us over until FCX3 when this may have value as an editing system for anyone other than people wanting to do relatively basic edits as one man shows, and had FCS3 not been EOLd would have stopped about 97% of all antagonistic complaints…. and YES THAT IS GOING TO F*** ME OFF FOR YEARS because although FCP7 still works, it still only works as a 32bit programme (a fact gleefully ignored by the cheerleaders when they so wittily say ‘well, was FCP7 deleted from your Mac’) and those of us embeded in FCP have waited 3 years for this upgrade.

Sure I can (and probably will) move to PPro 5.5 at some point this year, but that is a £1500 switchover in real money terms (4 to 5.5 upgrade and a new graphics card) and worse still is the amount of time it will take to get myself back up to speed when i’ve spent 8 years learning FCP and being comfortable and fast with it.

X isn’t a brave new shift into a new paradigm that is the future of editing, it is a new idea forced upon me at my expense because Apple wants to be a consumer company with go faster stripes. That’s fine for them, truly, but when that change directly impacts on me and my life then i’m going to p!ssed and i’m going to want to vent and feel catharsis. I get that here.

So, personally, no, I won’t f*** off. I won’t stop calling a spade a spade. I won’t start believing in some magical mythical future where X is the dogs b0llocks because at this moment all that belief is hope. No I won’t accept snide digs and ridiculous statements from the X fanbois nor be told I’m antiquated or stuck in my ways. Believe me I am not. I don’t make a killing from filmmaking but I do bring in £60,000 a year on average, on my own, with a lot of happy clients and not having had to find new ones for the last 2 years. I work hard, and enjoy it, but it means that my free time is precious, as to be honest is my money and Apple have just taken a large turd on both my free time and my finances.

And this is a public forum. Till they change the title of this forum to FCP X Sycophants, everyone’s opinion is valid and whining that we’re spoiling your buzz… well, tell it to your mum.

[Dan Stewart]

Hear hear.
And Bill, maybe read your own signature block, or get rid of it, it’s making you look foolish.

[Daniel Frome]

Agree that if you don’t like the software just move on. I understand some of the anger, of course, but it’s been long enough to realize it’s not changing. My studio “upgraded” to avid amidst this situation, and I’m quite enjoying the software. There’s no reason for everyone not to be happy – just maybe not while sporting the apple logo, that is all.

[Craig Seeman]

[Julian Bowman] “I find the cheerleaders hilarious because the majority of the time their posts are laden with blinded optimism, hypocrisy, flip-flopping arguments and insults followed quickly by protestations of victimisation (Actually, I’ll amend that to most of Craig and Chris’s posts)”

It doesn’t fit me at all. That’s for sure. I don’t think that fit’s Chris either.

[Brian Langeman]

[Lance Bachelder] “And if you’re really serious then you better be launching PPro on a Win7 machine! Thinking “I’ll show Apple!” and opening up PPro on your Mac won’t hurt Apple a bit – you’ll probably need to upgrade in a big way to get the most out of the software too.”

Don’t know what you’re smoking. PPro is running great on my 2010 Mac Pro and iMac. It’s also running just fine on my 3 year old 15″ MacBook Pro!

[Chris Jacek]

I think the attitude of “If you don’t like it, just move on and stop complaining” is a load of crap. This forum is not just an exchange of dialog. It is a historical record of the attitudes of creative professionals surrounding an event. Perhaps the sheer number of angry posts is the perfect way to illustrate just how angry everybody is.

By that thinking, the protesters in Egypt should have stopped after day one. They had already made their position known, right? Everything else was just “rehashing” the same points. Now, FCPX may not be 1% as important as democracy in Egypt, but I refuse to dismiss the value of repeated passion and outrage. This is how awareness is built.

If there is outrage and passion, why should we censor ourselves because some of your are “tired of all the vitriol?” If you don’t like our rants, my response if that nobody is forcing you to read them.

I, for one, will continue to express my outrage at Apple’s giant blunder until the Cow tells me I can’t. The rest of you will have to deal.

Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee