Thoughts on FCPX from Oliver Peters

[Carsten Orlt]

Same old story and nothing new. Has been said a million times in different combinations before.

If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you don’t like Apple anymore, don’t use their products.

Do you really think Apple will magically announce that they’ll put FCPx in the bin and take FCP7 out of the draw and polish it a bit to make you guys happy?

Why do some take it so personally? Switch over prices for Premiere and Avid are very low right now.

Carsten

[Mike Jackson]

An excellent and thoughtful article. Thanks! I’ve been enjoying your other postings as well.

And I’m glad to know I’m not the only editor who frequently uses sequences as scratch pads. 😉

I think the musical instrument analogies are very apt. Our tools become our instruments, and we learn to excel with them. I’m sure someone could’ve handed Jimi Hendrix a synthesizer, told him it was the future, and with a bit of practice he could bang out a serviceable tune… but man, he SCREAMED with that guitar.

I *can* learn other software, and I will. But I won’t become a virtuoso overnight. And if I have to retrain anyway, I may just skip that synth and move over to the bass or the banjo, since they still have strings and work in the way I like.

Y’know – with dual monitoring and non-magnetic timelines.

[Chris Harlan]

Good review. I agree completely. I seem to edit in a similar fashion, as well. One of my favorite things about FCP is the ability to use sequences as bin-like scratch pads. Thanks for posting.

[Ben Scott]

not sure I agree on the split edits point he makes, yes assymetrical trimming cant be done

split edits are a double click to expand and can be trimmed out from in or out and in any direction to sub frame accuracy

may not be understanding his point but also think a lot of this bashing comes from actually misunderstanding the interface

e.g. people are complaining no video only transition, try option clicking edit on video to get that result

[Ben Scott]

if you like sequences as a way to try things out

create new compound clips in the events browser

serves exactly the same function

also duplicating and adding a compound clip to an audition branches it out so you now have 2 options at that point in timeline

[Andy Field]

“Why do some take it so personally? Switch over prices for Premiere and Avid are very low right now.”

If you spend 12 years becoming a professional pianist and Steinway suddenly changed all the keys and told you all your old music wouldn’t work on the piano — you might take it personally too. This is why FCP editors are outraged. Apple just obsoleted a decade of their professional training and made their skills worthless going forward in professional shops that will have to change NLE’s.

Mastering a new NLE takes months and years — this was a marketable skill that kept people’s mortgages paid and children in school. Now not only has the company created a product that’s not usuable in many professional situations – they guaranteed that our “Steinway” will eventually stop working when apple breaks it with a future Quicktime or system update.

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852

[Carsten Orlt]

[Andy Field] “Mastering a new NLE takes months and years — this was a marketable skill that kept people’s mortgages paid and children in school. Now not only has the company created a product that’s not usuable in many professional situations – they guaranteed that our “Steinway” will eventually stop working when apple breaks it with a future Quicktime or system update.”

Sorry but I thought your skill at telling a story was what kept your children in school and let you pay the mortgage..
And who says you need to buy a new computer or install the latest operating system right now?
Use your Steinway until it breaks down and than buy a new one. If Steinway doesn’t exists anymore when you need a new one, well yes you have to find a new company. Happened many times before and will happen again, BUT the Oscars in 1920 didn’t give awards for the machine you used nor will the Oscars in 2123 do.
And if you know that your beloved Steinway will not be available in x years time when you need a new one, and you think you’ll will not get another concert without it but only if you were able to play this Yamaha thing, get one and learn it in your spare time. Now if you’re really smart you would wait a little and see if Yamaha or the other guys (don’t know any other piano company 🙂 will make a better replacement. And who knows maybe Steinway will come good….

In the meantime:
Stop panicking everybody and stop calling it the end of the art of editing.

Rant over 🙂
Carsten

[Nick Toth]

You can have multiple clips in an audition. Why use compound clips?

[David Battistella]

This is a great and thoughtful article.

I think what is most fascinating is this betrayal people feel.

I agree that many people stake tier livelihood on their tools. But we forget so quickly what the landscape might be like right now had FCP never been released.

Professional Editors brought FCP to maturity and many did not jump over until version four or five.

Maybe FCP X will never work for the “high end professional” that is very possible. If I was cutting a feature tomorrow FCPX would not be the software (but not because of it’s interface or language) but because those jobs require a powerful offline editing/editorial tool that does one thing perfectly.

This is more of a media authoring tool that does many things really well.

I’m using the “skate to where the puck is” analogy a lot these days. Media models are crumbling. I do not think this software was built with a narrow audience in mind. But I think it will evolve to eventually suit that audience, very much the same way FCP evolved into a suite of apps.

Apple FCP was a dv editor. Everyone reacted the same way. It was full of problems.

Now they’ve released a DSLR editor. I think the pro stuff will come. They just tailored it to a wider audience first.

David.

______________________________
The shortest answer is doing.
Lord Herbert
https://vimeo.com/battistella

[Jim Glickert]

Good article. Thanks for posting.

Not being a professional editor, I don’t have as much invested in FCP 7 as many others. I’ve been mostly happy with it, and will continue to use it before likely moving on to something else (other than FCP X) in time. The article helped clarify my thinking.

I’m not mad at Apple, though I must say I’m very disappointed. I just don’t need or want a new paradigm. I like the way FCP 7 (and EDIUS before that) works, for the reasons pointed out by the author of the article.

My Excel spreadsheet works pretty much like my Lotus 1-2-3 did back in the 1980s. My Word word-processor works pretty much like WordPerfect did back then. My CADD software works pretty much like it did years ago. Same goes for my music software. Sure, they’ve all changed in features and sophistication over the years, but there’s been no new paradigm for them similar to what FCP X has brought. I don’t get it.