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Why FCPX?
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[greg janza] “However, I didn’t touch it until 2015 and I’m glad I waited because by then it was ready for prime time. And now I’m relatively neutral on the product. It’s not my NLE of choice but I can appreciate it’s merits.”
That’s a PERFECTLY rational explanation.
All I can do is suggest that by NOT doing what you did, (look, leave, wait a long time, and then re-engage) I feel like I got a tremendously larger and more valuable boost than any I might have gotten by waiting.
Those first two years while the industry had their heads largely turned away – a small group of us was head down going well beyond “how to just get my current edit done with X) – and instead started figuring out the aspects of the new tool that could ACTUALLY increase our workflow efficiency.
And many of us felt from DAY ONE that it very much could.
So here we are six years down stream – and just this week I’m seeing stories of some of my friends from 3-5 years ago – who have now gone through that long climb to real FCP X expertise – and it’s paying really nice dividends for them.
Patrick Southern and David Tillman who just snagged Emmys yesterday. Mike Matzdorff, Jan Kovac, Darren Rourke – who EARLY ON saw the potentialof the FCP X workflow and learned how to actually leverage it.
That’s what I’m hearing all throughout the X community right now. People hot to find truly qualified FCP X seat holders – and having serious trouble filling those seats. It’s apparently not FCP X JOBS that are missing – cus I’ve seen lots of my FCP X friends landing them – but it’s mostly the truly qualified folks in the TALENT pool.
Those “look – wait – then maybe” come back folks are NOT snagging those gigs. Perhaps because with just “look occasionally” and use it now and then – they aren’t particularly qualified for them? The guys I see who ARE getting excellent FCP X gigs – are the guys who started learning it 5 and 6 YEARS ago.
They are the X editing equivalent of an AVID editor with 5 years experience. Which is WAY different than an editor with just 1.
I mean if YOU were hiring an editor to drive AVID – who would YOU hire? Certainly not a relative newbie in ITS language and practices? Why should X be any different?
I know I’d prefer to hire someone if I saw them on day one adding custom keywords to reflect their “in the flow” editorial thinking, using Auditions fluidly, and actually thinking “magnetically” while managing X’s snapshots to leverage ideas and options.
I understand that real editors are NOT “button pushers” as much as “idea flow constructionists” but we’ve all seen editors approaching X with poor to moderate seat experience – rapidly reach the point of frustrated bitching, because what they REALLY want is to transport their AVID or Premiere cutting styles as closely as possible into X and just leave it at that.
Not how it really works – as you probably know.
Just food for thought.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[greg janza] “and perhaps more importantly since our industry relies heavily on a freelance pool, if you switch will you have a large enough group of talented editors to hire for projects?
Any facility would be foolish not to take that into consideration.”
Well, if the “freelance pool” remains pretty much what you are accustomed to seeing it as.
I’ve said before here, the guy who does a lot of my motion graphics sits in England. Other collaborators on my stuff live in Australia, Spain, the Czech Republic, and ANY ONE of them could edit for me starting tomorrow.
I know TONS of qualified FCP X editors now. Some here, but MANY outside the US.
And even of the ones who do live in CA – a shocking number of them are pretty recently arrived immigrants.
So let me post THIS as a thought. Will that sweet US gig go to a local US editor who currently CANNOT swing fluidly with FCP X – or will it just go to a talented editor from the Dominican Republic or Spain or Denmark – who are FCP X wizards – and for whom the client could care less – where they are sitting?
I know, I know, the very thought of “runaway production” very reasonably lights highly qualified US craftspeople’s hair on fire. And I have tremendous sympathy for that.
But it’s already a GLOBAL talent pool – for good or ill
Just a thought.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[greg janza] ” discovered that the competition had a wide variety of offerings that delivered superior performance and were cheaper.”
To me, cheap superior performance largely means getting home earlier with more money in your pocket.
If you’re doing that – excellent.
Today, I feel like I’m getting done with projects about twice as fast as I used to (I used to say a third, but it keeps improving and improving the better I understand X.) – slightly more prep – editorial time a good bit faster from the prep and curated content access X is built on – but not a TON of story building time savings cuz I tend to re-invest any saved time at that stage on working to improve stuff.
But then MASSIVE time savings on alts, revisions, client changes and the whole back end. The more client changes – the more time I save. And experience shows me there will ALWAYS massive client changes in everything I do. Sometimes I think no program I edit will ever actually be truly LOCKED again. Sigh.
If you are seeing big productivity boosts as well – EXCELLENT. We’re BOTH good. So rock on.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Neil Goodman] “lol. and there it is folks ☺”
Totally.
See the widely published benchmarks for getting video work turned around on Macs running X
compared to PC hardware running — anything.
(Well, in fairness, maybe Resolve is in the running now?)But apparently only recently.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Those “look – wait – then maybe” come back folks are NOT snagging those gigs. Perhaps because with just “look occasionally” and use it now and then – they aren’t particularly qualified for them? The guys I see who ARE getting excellent FCP X gigs – are the guys who started learning it 5 and 6 YEARS ago. “
With all due respect Bill, this ain’t brain surgery. a NLE is an NLE is an NLE. Any veteran editor can pick up FCPX very quickly and so the notion of not getting a gig just because you aren’t a so-called FCPX expert is ridiculous.
Editors are first and foremost storytellers and the technical guru part of our job is neccesary but secondary.
[Bill Davis] “I understand that real editors are NOT “button pushers” as much as “idea flow constructionists” but we’ve all seen editors approaching X with poor to moderate seat experience – rapidly reach the point of frustrated bitching, because what they REALLY want is to transport their AVID or Premiere cutting styles as closely as possible into X and just leave it at that.
“A veteran editor should be highly adaptive to new NLE’s. Going from AVID to FCP to Premiere to FCPX is really not that big a leap if you have the basic skills already under your belt.
I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles -
[Neil Goodman] “Wouldn’t you be a little bummed if you didnt have a little knowledge of said NLE so your transition into it was smoother? “
Since Resolve has only been touted as being nearly a speedy as X for less than a year, now – I feel like I’ve still got time to go there if some “feature” appears in it that I truly need.. And I’m not opposed to that.
But it’s got to present a value proposition BEYOND where I see it today.
The things that drew me to X had nothing to do with speed. They were exclusively new workflow ideas. (Magnetism, Range Tagging, etc, etc, etc.)
Show my ANY NLE that does something similar – and I’ll be all over it like gravy on potatoes.
But I look at all the demos of the existing NLEs – and ALL I see is stacks of tracks that look largely like EXACTLLY what what I was using in 1999.
I’m sure the engines are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better – but the editing paradigms are still largely from the 1980s
No thanks.
But I’ll definitely keep my eyes out.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Wait, are you suggesting the FCP X team should have hauled out Job’s old Pirate Flag and broke off from the EXPLICIT policy of Apple NEVER to speak about any Apple products in development?
What planet were you on, Herb.”
Except they did just that when in reaction to the furor, weeks after the release, they published a white paper outlining their plans for future development of X over the following year, which in marketing terms is called “closing the barn door after the horses got out.”
“Apple never does this” and “Apple always does that” is one sad ass’d excuse for screwing the pooch.
The planet I’m on doesn’t make excuses for screwing up – not “oh don’t pick on him cause he’s dead” nor “but that’s the way they always do that.” How about a simple acknowledgement that for a multiplicity of reasons Apple messed up on one of the oldest truths in business “you only get one chance to make a good first impression” and they have been playing PR catch up ever since.
And yes I know they have sold millions of seats, and this has nothing to do with the actual quality of X, but you’re the one that’s all “Curious” with a capital “C” about the negativity to your beloved NLE, and if it bothers you that much then you might want to come out of your Apple “bubble” to understand why.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[greg janza] “A veteran editor should be highly adaptive to new NLE’s. Going from AVID to FCP to Premiere to FCPX is really not that big a leap if you have the basic skills already under your belt.”
And here is where we conceptually part ways.
Mostly because I spent a some time last year in the edit room of a daily television show – and watched as highly skilled and well trained (but inexperienced in X) editors with oodles of basic skills – struggle.
Not because of ANY lack of talent.
But because they were trying to adapt FUNCTIONALLY – rather than CONCEPTIONALLY to the software.
They had not yet reached that “A-ha” moment.
(No, not some “a-ha, this is glorious” thing – just “a-ha now I get it and THIS is the new workflow structure this tool requires for success.)
Without getting there – no matter your skill pushing the buttons – you will struggle with X.
In the Ubillos interview posted in another thread, he notes that editors with the MOST experience can be the ones with most difficulty adapting to the foundational ideas underpinning X – and how much easier learning its system sometimes is for those who don’t arrive at it with a head full of prior expectations.
That’s worth emphasizing, I feel.
My 2cents.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Mostly because I spent a some time last year in the edit room of a daily television show – and watched as highly skilled and well trained (but inexperienced in X) editors with oodles of basic skills – struggle.”
That’s the core issue with adoption of FCPX in a company that uses a wide range of editors. The FCPX design and operation is sufficiently different from everything else to be a road block. Understanding FCP7/Media Composer/Premiere Pro/Smoke/Resolve gets you 80-90% of the way through knowing how to organize and edit with anyone of these NLEs when you first encounter them. The concepts are similar and transfer well. Not quite the same with X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “The concepts are similar and transfer well. Not quite the same with X.”
Precisely.
IF you want the added efficiency that many X editor (definitely including ME) feel strongly you can get by using it – you must be OPEN to the thinking change it requires.
If you resist that workflow thinking change – no matter the reason – it’s going to hold back your transition.
And (and this is my opinion only) if you are constantly switching back and forth between X and Non-X editing – your thinking will adapt much more slowly. NOT because the editor won’t adapt to the buttons or processes well enough. Good editors are plenty skilled at that. It’s because the soft skills of X editing – keyword strategic thinking – case specific thinking about stuff like when it’s best to use Snapshots verses Auditions – how to structure Roles vast exports for efficiency – THOSE skills are typically refined for X editors via constant trial and revision.
Not via “learn how to do it” and then simply repete the same sequence of actions every time you come back to X to edit.
IMO, those “soft skills” drive as much X efficiency as how you trim clips in your storylines.
Just 2 more cents from me.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
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