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Thoughts from an Apple Fanboi
There are so many competing philosophies going on regarding the cloud issue popping up. As a relative early adopter of FCPX, Apple fanboi, etc., maybe some of you will consider these thoughts interesting.
First, yes, I’m taking a little pleasure out of this. No sense in lying about that!
Second, we have Creative Cloud as well as CS6 Production Premium. Will this affect us massively? No. Eventually the Production Premium will be put to pasture because the hassle of bouncing between CS7 and whatever system we have that runs CS6 will be more annoying than de-authorizing and re-authorizing systems. That authorize annoyance will become a larger pain in our butt over time, especially because we don’t use Adobe applications as much as we used to. Our primary applications are AE, PS, and Illustrator. AE is the main one we use, and even then it’s just occasionally.
So we’ll be paying for a whole suite of applications, the majority we don’t want or need. We don’t use the bulk of new features that have come out in the applications over the years. We will always have to pay whatever Adobe charges because we get graphics packages from networks that are all built in AE. There’s just no way around it.
Back in the day it felt like buying into Adobe was like a date. You could go out once a year and buy her the lobster dinner and every year she’d always dress up and keep you interested. This is more like a shotgun wedding – with a promise that she’ll always keep you entertained. Maybe. I have a few divorced friends who would be pretty skeptical about that.
I don’t like renting or leasing. It’s a method of financial servitude, but we don’t have a choice now.
And then there’s FCPX and Motion. While everyone has been has been clamoring about for everything but X, it’s been right there in the App store, installed on every mac I own, working away for a year now. It’s gotten upgrades. It works with our cameras and AJA/Blackmagic products. It’s incorporated with our media browser for quick access to all photos and music on each system. We’ve figured out how to get the most out of it. And the reason we don’t use AE as much is because we’ve been able to take network pre-rendered graphics (logos, transitions, end pages, etc) that we used to have to work with in After Effects, and incorporated those graphics in Motion. These graphics are editable themed generators and titles that show up in FCPX natively. Need to access the end page for network XYZ? Click the XYZ generator theme in FCPX, drag it in, and there’s an editable layer we used to have to jump into AE to create. Done.
With FCPX I can navigate the land mines of running a small business, paying employees, freelancers, overhead, etc – without having to be reminded that something needs to be authorized, seeing a monthly bill, or even having to dig through plugin websites, because we make most of our own in motion. There are so many little hassles that get in the way of just being creative – FCPX is helping us avoid them.
If you are a parent and want to give your graduating child an edit system, would you rather buy that child an application they can always access and keep on their mac, or a monthly credit card bill for life?
I wish that in all the new features and presentations Adobe announced we could have gotten an announcement that Creative Cloud will also bring all plugins from Red Giant, FX Factory, etc., into the Adobe updater so that when you update your Adobe software, the plugins update as well. I’m not partial, I want this from Apple, too. It would also be nice if Mac systems got more love from the CUDA gods, and even nicer still if when you pre-render in AE, that playback was rock solid, real time. If Adobe really wanted to woo me, they’d have a Production Premium version of Cloud for $29, with an additional $10 per month, per seat. Wouldn’t that be something?
I’m glad that many people have found joy with Premiere. Competition is a good thing for all of us. I’m hoping that Apple and Adobe both start upping the ante and really scrapping for the love. That said, I’m glad I’m with Apple and that we’re a year into FCPX. We have gotten past the initial hurdle of being confused by the software and are really starting to ‘explore the space’. We’re teetering very closely to 10.1. I’m pretty excited to see what that brings.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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35 Replies
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For an incredibly expansive suite of software that has a great track record, for people that are presumably making a living off of it I don’t understand the angst over $50/month.
Cameron Clendaniel
Film Editor, NYC
718-254-8027
cam@camclendaniel.com
http://www.camclendaniel.com -
[Cameron Clendaniel] “For an incredibly expansive suite of software that has a great track record, for people that are presumably making a living off of it I don’t understand the angst over $50/month.”
It’s because after, say, two years and $1200, if you stop paying monthly, you have nothing.
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Dead wrong – Gary –
You have all of the assets you’ve created with the software, whether they be .mov, .avi, .wav, .xml, the list goes on. And if you need the source files, you just fire up the old Cloud grill, and away you go…
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Joseph W. Bourke] “Dead wrong – Gary -“
Did your hands tremble with excitement as you typed that?
I meant software…as in, you spend $1200, you lose software…not assets.
Clear?
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[Joseph W. Bourke] “Not exactly…but there was a certain cold satisfaction from exposing you as the sly manipulator you appear to be…just twist those old words anyway you want…did you used to sell used cars, by any chance?”
Are you seriously suggesting that I’m trying to backtrack? I thought I was pretty clear on what I meant, but in case you need help, Craig echos my sentiment here:
[Craig Seeman] “With Adobe, if you end the service contract, you don’t have something that works. This obviously is the peeve. Need to use it again and, at the very least, you need to rent it for a month.”
I can understand people who don’t care for a software subscription model because of the above. I am not personally bothered by it, as I’ve had a pleasant experience with Creative Cloud so far, and with Steam, which had a similar rough birth back in the day (though it’s not at all a subscription-based model).
However, if trying to catch me in error gives you pleasure, please, by all means continue. I can be just as full of it as anyone from time to time. So I’m sure you’re come up with something eventually. I just try really hard not to be.
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What worries me is that maybe after 2 years Adobe decides to raise their prices. Maybe $50 dollars to you isn’t that much, but, what about $150? Also, I know plenty of post houses who’s clients just don’t pay on time. Budgets get tight. You could be ready to fire up the bay to deliver a spot and Oh-no. We forgot to pay our bill! It might sound stupid but how stupid would you look trying to open up an app that just won’t open because you forgot to pay your bill – in front of the client.
I’ll admit I use Adobe cloud now. Only because it was too expensive to pay for the bundle all at once and I liked the payment plan. But, if I had the money no way I would be in the cloud. Now, they have me.
Jordan Mena | Editor | Colorist | Producer
Los Angeles, CA
jordanmena.com -
[John Davidson] “Second, we have Creative Cloud as well as CS6 Production Premium. Will this affect us massively? No. “
Same here. Non-issue. Our GFX guy uses AE and C4D and will continue to do so. In the meantime, the “temp” GFX I can whip up in X or Motion are often as good as what he’d do anyway, which frees him up to do stuff for the poor souls still stuck in 7 here…
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
Imagine what FCPX and Motion will be able to do in that same two year period!
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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I actually have physical pain when I see 7 now. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d probably cry if I had to use it again.
Poor souls indeed.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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[John Davidson] “I actually have physical pain when I see 7 now. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d probably cry if I had to use it again.
Poor souls indeed.”
Actually, I’m the poor soul. Due to the fact that others are on 7, I still have to work in it now and again. I mean, it’s a fine NLE but uh… “once you’ve seen Paree” etc… :-/
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~
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