Things you can do that you didn’t use to be able to do….

[Nick Toth]

Checked out your presentation over the weekend. Very exciting stuff. Between that and Ronny Courtens recent FCP Radio interview, I’m really curious to see what the response of the community will be. Thanks Sam!

[David Mathis]

Thanks for this post! I now consider the debate over! 😉

In all seriousness this is a great read and learned much from it.

[Shane Ross]

Yup…with the aid of a handful of third party apps, FCX, is now a professional app!

No…in all seriousness I do believe that it is a pro app. And it’s really cool what it can do, and how quick it can do it…with the aid of third party applications. Stuff that Apple didn’t see fit in including. I am glad that there are many passionate people out there to make these apps to make for a smooth workflow. And that Apple is pretty open…and current…with developer options to make all this stuff possible. Avid is pretty closed off, and has very old code making it difficult to make third party apps to help make a more current, slick workflow. Still find it funny to say “FCX IS PRO!!” when it took so many apps to help make it so. At least in this instance. WE all know it’s pro. It’s just sticks in the mud that are Avid-or-die people that don’t think so.

[Sam Mestman] “In 2016, you can now shoot a well made Indie TV Pilot in 6k for less than 20k and easily finish in 4k with FCPX.”

This is a dangerous statement to make. Because producers will look at that and go “Wow, we can! it’s so much more expensive with Avid…let’s do that!” And then they try to do so only to find that, no, it isn’t that cheap. The tools might be cheaper…although given all the apps used on this, it might be more than the apps used in an Avid workflow (which might need Resolve added for a good finish).

But also, that budget isn’t including paying the talent what they are worth. Sam did mention in the FB post on Post Chat (exact same announcement) that the crew was paid. That’s good to know. But with that low of a budget…I can’t see them being paid the full rate of a crew. This no doubt is a “labor of love” payment. Meaning people worked for far less because they believed in the project. Which is a great thing! This is how new stuff gets made…people making projects on the cheap, for the love of the craft, because they believe in the project. But to say that “we did all of this for $20K!” might plant the seed that going with FCX and these other tools means that projects can be done MUCH CHEAPER than other workflows.

This is the issue we had when FCP 3 came out. “It was cheap, so the editors that used it must be too, right?”
Sorry, this all sounds great in a press release, but those aren’t real world costs…so the expectation set it unrealistic. But then I guess that’s not the point? But it should be. Say that it was accomplished, and then factor in real costs…what it would cost had you paid everyone a realistic salary.

I dislike when Avid says “Hey! Look at all these Academy nominated films…ALL CUT ON AVID!” As if that’s what made them great.

Don’t get me wrong, I am impressed with the accomplishements here. And a tad jealous that great third party apps are developed to help smooth things along with FCX when people don’t make those for Avid because the developer kit is a pain to get and deal with, plus is old old technology. I just think that press releases need to be genuine. This comes from years of dealing with producers who thought “FCP EDITORS” were cheaper because the software was.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Andrew Kimery]

[Shane Ross] “Yup…with the aid of a handful of third party apps, FCX, is now a professional app! “

I know you are half-kidding, but some of the apps are to facilitate getting info from production into the NLE and others like Sync-N-Link are available for FCP Legend and PPro. Sure, something like X2Pro fills a gap in X that is considered ‘default’ for an NLE to have but not all the apps fit into that category.

I agree with you about the money statement though because those types of things end up getting taken as gospel w/o any thought as to the context the statement was made in.

[Oliver Peters]

[Andrew Kimery] “I agree with you about the money statement though because those types of things end up getting taken as gospel w/o any thought as to the context the statement was made in.”

A colleague of mine made the switch to LA a few years ago and made the transition from assistant to editor. She stuck with Avid instead of FCP “legacy” jobs precisely because of pay. At least on union gigs, Avid was the tool to stick with. Marketing based on “cheaper” is a slippery slope, because clearly the cost of post has little impact on the total cost of producing TV shows (pilots or otherwise) and films.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Charlie Austin]

[Oliver Peters] “Marketing based on “cheaper” is a slippery slope, because clearly the cost of post has little impact on the total cost of producing TV shows (pilots or otherwise) and films.”

I agree. For what it’s worth, the marketing – lately anyway – is about easier. Faster. That is good. And the only things you need to add to X for “apex pro” work are EDL-X and X2Pro. 2 apps. That most people who use an NLE, *any* NLE will never need. BFD.

Every NLE relies on 3rd parties, for better or worse.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Shane Ross]

[Andrew Kimery] “I know you are half-kidding, but some of the apps are to facilitate getting info from production into the NLE”

I am half kidding, because with many tapeless formats, Avid and PPro need help too, and Resolve is the defacto app to do that. But Avid does have more built in options to deal with specific high end workflows…Change lists and EDLs and AAFs…most everything needed to plug into film and TV workflows. Apple needs help. But that’s fine…even with the helper apps, that not everyone needs, it’s cheaper than Avid.

No, my main concern is that cost factor thing. Don’t need producers gloming onto that idea of “FCX means cheaper labor” thing…

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Andrew Kimery]

[Oliver Peters] ” At least on union gigs, Avid was the tool to stick with.”

Yeah, union is typically scripted and scripted is almost entirely Avid. There’s also the case of just the budget in general. Lower budget shows tend to be non-Avid so everyone makes less (including the editors).

[Charlie Austin] “I agree. For what it’s worth, the marketing – lately anyway – is about easier. Faster. That is good.”

Easier, faster… better value. All pitches that sound a lot better than “cheaper”. 🙂

[Jeremy Garchow]

What is weird to me is that, back in the early release days, fcpx was clowned for not having third party support.

Now, it gets clowned for having third party support. You can’t have your clown and clown it too.

Getting FCPX Projects/Libraries to almost any other “high end” system (Smoke, Flame, Adobe, Resolve) is relatively easy. Getting to Avid and working with Avid, is a huge pain in the rear.

[Charlie Austin]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Getting FCPX Projects/Libraries to almost any other “high end” system (Smoke, Flame, Adobe, Resolve) is relatively easy. Getting to Avid and working with Avid, is a huge pain in the rear.”

According to Micheal Angelo, he ran some tests taking fcpxml into Flame (mac version) and was “amazed” at how well it translated. Like, almost perfectly. MC is really the odd app out here, even going from/to ProTools from MC can be hit or miss. Going into/out of Adobe apps is easy. It could be better better, but the version of xml that they support is ancient. Pretty sure they don’t have any motivation to update to fcpxml…

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~