This one probably won’t make the “In Action” page, but an interesting read…

[Andrew Kimery]

[Bill Davis] “And now I get general agreement on 80%. Amazing.”

Not to dampen a rare Kumbaya moment in here but when I’m thinking about 80% of the editing market I’m thinking about everything from professional YouTubers to corporate videos to cable TV shows to blockbuster movies in terms of volume. There’s a whole lot more of the former than of the latter so I think any NLE marketed as a professional tool should be able to work in the vast majority of the market place.

I feel like FCP X has almost always been a viable NLE outside out the broadcast/film sector and that makes sense because Apple consciously made the decision to target the sector with the biggest growth potential which is people that aren’t full time editors. I think X has been suitable for maybe 50% of the market since pretty much launch and now it’s up to 80%. I think X got banged the hardest from the broadcast and film sector but that sector is pretty small in the grand scheme of video content creation even though it’s high profile and influential.

[Walter Soyka]

[Bill Davis] “And now I get general agreement on 80%. Amazing. With that radical a bending of the perception curve, it appears I have all the justification I need for my original contention that X needs no further apologies from anyone.”

FCP X has matured a lot since its 10.0 release earned it that poor perception. The same thing also happened with AVID, FCP Legend, and Premiere Pro. The critics were all right at the launches of these products, but at some point, they started being wrong if they didn’t change their tune.

Who’s apologizing for FCP X? I re-read the original article, and I still don’t see it as pandering for balance — just a straightforward discussion of what was good and what could have been better about using FCP X for a project. (And after countless apologies of my own to the FCP X community, I’ll take a tiny portion of the credit for PIOPs that got a shout-out in the article, for no good reason other than I talked them into the ground a year or two ago.)

As for bending the perception curve, I’ll consider it bent when “commercial edited with FCP X” is no longer considered newsworthy.

(That’s not a criticism of X, but rather of the continued perception thereof, and perhaps of a touch of persecutory delusion among the FCP X using/promoting community.)

One thing that stood out to me in this was the emphasis on interchange and collaboration. FCP X offlined the spot. I wonder what the rest of the workflow was like?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Andrew Kimery]

[Walter Soyka] “As for bending the perception curve, I’ll consider it bent when “commercial edited with FCP X” is no longer considered newsworthy. “

I had a similar litmus test for FCP Legend, we’ll know FCP has ‘made it’ when it’s no longer noteworthy to mention when it’s been used on a TV show or narrative feature film. Unfortunately it never made it to that level before the reboot.

[Michael Gissing]

This thread seems like another example of confusing positive criticisms with negativity whilst being negative about peoples lack of positive praise. I do love the banter that this forum throws up and the fact that between the zealots and haters lies a strange informative balance.

I have been paying little attention to this forum lately but I will enjoy the Resolve 11 or not debate.