Why is Larry Jordan making up stories?

[Marcus Moore]

Aindreas- I’m not sure you know the whole picture.

In the presentation Larry says he spoke with both Sam Mestman AND film’s editor. Two separate people.

Things could have changed or progressed since then, and maybe FCPX’s role in the film has expanded based on the production’s experience so far.

I think that’s just as, if not more likely than him intentionally misrepresenting the situation.

[Jim Hines]

The old apple tree is suffering from excessive crown suckering.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

I just re-watched it – he says cutting a 100 million dollar feature. “A new feature, after six months testing they decided to go with FCPX…” then he says “I spoke to the film’s editor and he spoke to me about why they decided to go with FCPX because of the utilities available for it”

I find it odd that Larry had that conversation with the film’s editor, because Mestman acknowledges himself that X is not cutting this 100 million dollar feature in his own article. It is cutting EPKs.

Larry never mentions the fact that its not cutting the feature – Mestman gets rid of that point in a sentence too. mestman was not sent in there to prep the film’s edit infrastructure, he was sent in there to prep the EPK BTS below the line stuff setup – that’s a completely different ballpark, with a different assigned budget. It’s perfect for X as an inexpensive, powerful, fast turnaround tool.

It may sound carpy on my part, but there seems to be some wilful misinterpretation going on. It’s not a knock on X – he demo’s some great features later.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Marcus Moore]

Yes. I re-watched it too before commenting. It’s a bit foggy.

I’ve inquired elsewhere to see if I can get some further clarification.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

Foggy nothing – he refers back to X and cutting 100 million dollar films later on towards the close too – if Jordan spoke to mestman and the films editor, its hard to understand how he didn’t know the film was not being cut on X.

One other point – in the original Mestman quote he states that eventually all that studios features would be cut on X going forward – presumably now based on its performance as a below the line EPK cutter in bulgaria – Larry Jordan then clarifies it to say that they are talking about one of the big six Hollywood studios. the quote goes –

“and eventually handle editorial for that studio’s films moving forward.”

So – the real headline here should surely be “FOX/Paramount/Warners enters into formal roadmap to somehow insist to various directors and editors that eventually all this studios films will be cut on FCPX”

that is, if this is all completely on the level. Which I’m sure it totally is – maybe Mestman can pop in clear up FCPXs role, Larry’s understanding of it, and the studios commitment to it as “their” editing system going forward.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Craig Seeman]

Sam Mestman mentioned that he was about to do a system for an upcoming feature (not the one FCPX is being used for EPKs on) that would likely be the first major feature cut with FCPX.

https://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/1225-fcp-x-in-bulgaria-a-new-definition-of-professional
,,,
When I get off the plane, I’ll be staying in New York for a couple days, and then I’ll be immediately flying out to get off the ground the first major U.S. studio feature film to be cut entirely in FCP X (at least the first that I’m aware of).

[Aindreas Gallagher]

Yes but Craig, according to Mestman he’s already got a commitment from the Bulgaria 100 million dollar shooting major six Studio that FCPX will:
“…eventually handle editorial for that studio’s films moving forward.”

Forget one film Craig – Mestman already has one of the major six movie studios fundamentally editorially committed to X for its studio output going forward.

I look forward to this bombshell hitting Variety imminently.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Shane Ross]

Larry might be confused. Been known to happen. I’ve been confused on occasion too…publically…on stage. Not fun.

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

[Craig Seeman]

Although Larry did seem to be referring to a single production as Mestman in the article. There’s “eventually” and there’s what’s happening now (supposedly).

Larry mentions on his blog
https://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2417

There were two people I want to mention specifically who shared their thoughts with me for this presentation:

Sam Mestman, Chief Workflow Architect for Lumaforge
Mike Fernandes, Post-Production Manager for NBC/Universal
Sam is currently working on an unannounced feature film with about a $100 million production budget. The producers, director and editorial team spent six months researching what software to use for post-production. They choose Final Cut Pro X, because of some of the tools I’ll show you later in this presentation.

So he did talk to Mestman and this is not the EPK setups Mestman wrote about in the FCPCO article.

[Chris Harlan]

I get the fussing over the blurriness.

And, of course, no Studio is going to dictate that all their products be cut with any particular NLE from this day forth, because it just doesn’t work that way. Projects of that size are loose affiliations of companies, both internal and external, and the production tools, from choice of camera to choice of NLE, are the provence of the production, itself. In general, no one is going to tell an editor on any A level film what they have to use. So, that’s just some odd misstatement.

To play devil’s advocate, though: Maybe there actually are significant, powerful changes in this next X, which is Larry’s other recent odd, unsubstantiated blurb. And maybe there is something going on behind the scenes that we can’t see.

And maybe it is smoke and mirrors. I’ve never met him, but from what I know of him, and the little correspondence I’ve had with him, I like Larry a lot. He seems like a great guy, so I’m going to side with there’s something there I can’t see, and not worry too much about it. If it turns out that he’s misinformed, oh, well. But I don’t see anything nefarious here.