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why would anyone want to use FCPX (SERIOUS discussion – no bashing)
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[Michael Paul] “Also you might open my eyes where I am like OH WOW I never thought of it that way.
“Most, if not al,l of the people on this thread use or have used multiple NLE’s. So we have been there. I am not sure what or why you are even asking? As I suggested earlier, the best way might be to go to Ripple or Lynda and take an essentials class to see how the software works as designed rather than trying to make it work like a traditional track based software.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Scott Witthaus] “As I suggested earlier, the best way might be to go to Ripple or Lynda and take an essentials class to see how the software works as designed rather than trying to make it work like a traditional track based software.”
+1
If you want a whole bunch of those moments, invest in Ripple Trainings basic course on FCP X. Their Media Management course is also outstanding and full of great ideas on managing media. That’s what I did when I first got FCP X and it really opened my eyes to the possibilities.
FCP X does things differently and you really need to re-learn as much as you need to learn but in the end, I felt that it was a better way of working. Your mileage, of course, may vary. But how to best use FCP X won’t be obvious because it won’t be intuitive to your existing way of thinking. You need to be shown and then you have that “Ahh Haa!” moment and it all falls into place.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com -
No don’t worry. This is NOT a troll post. I was dead serious. Seems like nowadays people always believe someone is trolling on the internet. If I were trolling I would 1) go somewhere else 2) word my stuff differently. I had thought that people might feel attacked or defensive about their program so this is why I’ve even put no bashing- serious discussion in the thread. I do not know what else I could have said. So yes I am reading all this, I am looking at the links and yes I am excited to get used to the program and realizing how great it is. Like others said it takes time. The links you have provided are also good so thanks for that. I was also already liking comments.
I am also looking forward to read more comments. I have found some things that I thought are nice but I am a bit embarassed to bring those up. It’s “tiny stuff” and stuff you might not even be using.
I like the 3d text feature and it’s ACTUAL 3d text. I think that’s cool. What I haven’t found yet / figured out yet: Can I also 3d rotate a bitmap/plane? Premiere has this 3d filter I can put onto anything and then I can rotate and flip a flat picture/text/whatever in 3d. I tend to use that for some graphics and text. I couldn’t find it in FCPX yet. I did some 3d text without any depth but the colour still seems to change depending on how I rotate it (so I never get a true white) because there seems to be a light source of some kind I can not ignore.
I also thought that zoom onto a picture feature is way faster than moving and scaling a picture around in any other program.
I’ve learned some trick to leave a gap at the very beginning and put your music there so if you remove your first clip it won’t affect the music for your entire film- Not sure how to think about such “hacking” solutions yet.
So yes I’ve read it all. I am here and I am looking forward to more examples and reasons why you love and use it. This is the discussion forum after all- don’t feel attacked. I am curious, excited, new to this and willing to learn and looking forward to have a great time in FCPX.
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Hey Michael,
Good to hear you are taking your first steps with FCP X very seriously. And yes, it is being used by many content creators all over the planet. If you just look at the line-up we got together for our little event at IBC, you will see that it is very popular among a lot of television and film producers in Europe: https://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1847-fcpx-tour-ibc-announced-10-11-september
As to your questions:
FCP X has true 3D text (not just some 2D extrusion like in many other apps). This means that the text accepts materials, lighting and shadows. And that’s what you see when you rotate the text, even if you use a flat title. Of course you can use non-reflecting materials, or manipulate your lighting, so your white stays white however you rotate the text. You can find a lot of tips about working with 3D text materials and reflections here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIbQ3LYibTw
– If you want to replace the first clip on your timeline without affecting a music clip that its attached to it, use the Replace function.
– If you want to delete the first clip on your timeline without affecting a music clip that its attached to it, press Delete + Tilde (grave) key.
– You also can change the connection point for your music if you don’t want it to be connected to your first clip on the timeline: place your playhead (or skimmer) under any clip on the timeline, press ALT+CMD and click on the music clip. It will now be attached to the clip where your playhead is.
So no hacks required.
BTW: if you want to learn more about FCP X, this will keep you busy for awhile: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTJa1o34Oay-LrhjK0DHfiLEPi0MD9NdL
– Ronny
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[Michael Paul] “Premiere has this 3d filter I can put onto anything and then I can rotate and flip a flat picture/text/whatever in 3d.”
If you mean a 3D DVE, for some reason FCPX doesn’t include one by default. However, Motion has that and many folks have created and published Motion templates as their own version of the standard 3D DVE effect. A number are available for free:
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/building-fcp-x-effects-update/
https://www.fcp.co/forum/9-free-fcpx-plugins-and-templates
https://fxfactory.com/info/better3d/[Michael Paul] “I’ve learned some trick to leave a gap at the very beginning and put your music there so if you remove your first clip it won’t affect the music for your entire film- Not sure how to think about such “hacking” solutions yet.”
The trick with connecting clips is where to make the attachment. By default, it’s always the first frame of the primary clip. However, in some cases you want to change the attachment point either to later within that clip or to the clip before or after. It depends on what action you want, based on what the magnetic timeline will do when you move the primary clip around.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Michael Paul] “So why do you use FCPX? What are your reasons? What’s great about it? I have started to use it now so of course I am lacking experience in it. So far it doesn’t make any sense to me since I come from programs like Avid or Premiere. “
The reason you have to ask questions like this is partially due to the lack of authoritative conceptual and philosophical background on FCPX. See my reply to you in the other forum: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/44094
Re your question it is probably easier to show you than tell you. See this presentation by Thomas Grove Carter on editing high-end commercials using FCPX: https://vimeo.com/158641571
Provided you accept the implied workflow and work *with* FCPX, it is especially strong at documentary or anything with a high shooting ratio. The skimmer is incredibly fast and tagging, rating and keywording content can greatly expedite post-production. See MacBreak Studio’s “Warp Speed Keywording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azJ4J41JaZk
Last weekend I had a conversation with several well-respected Indie filmmakers (who don’t use FCPX). I asked them as quality cameras become ever more affordable, multicam more common and shooting ratios skyrocket, do they use a Digital Asset Manager or what? The answer was “we just use bins”. They admitted it was such a problem they try to ingest only the good takes and rely heavily on notes from their script supervisor. There are add-on solutions to this like CatDV: https://www.squarebox.com/ but it seems lower end productions usually don’t use them and high-end productions often have a custom system.
One advantage of FCPX is media management is built in, and not just a toy. It is scalable from low end single-camera vlogger-type productions up to feature films.
The 3rd-party plugin market for FCPX is very active, so if you need specific features not in the core product by all means investigate this. FxFactory is kind of like the App Store for plugins: https://fxfactory.com/download/
FCPX is not perfect and there are several things I wish they’d fix. However it is very fast and uses available machine resources efficiently. The problem is to fully utilize FCPX you must learn to think a little differently, and work with it, not against it. This can take some mental reorientation, and IMO there is a deficiency in tutorial information which elaborates on the conceptual and philosophical differences which led to FCPX and the workflow changes this implies.
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[Robin S. Kurz] “Because “I don’t want Apple telling me what to do!”, or because that actually poses some sort of workflow advantage, that is worth breaking up the GUI concept over?”
Some users prefer versatility and choice, which gives them a way to customize the UI in ways that improve their efficiency.
[Robin S. Kurz] ” In my experience, if most tabs are anywhere else than in their default layout position, things start looking completely funky, space is being wasted and the usability and visibility is made worse in a plethora of ways. Here the window content is only 10% visible, over there the opposite. 90% is blank because scaled up way too far, because of another tab that’s docked with it.”
You are probably in the minority there. Adobe’s implementation of the UI also enables third-party panels, which a lot of users really like. Obviously Apple chose a different route, since the Adobe approach was how FCP “classic” was designed.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joe Marler] “The reason you have to ask questions like this is partially due to the lack of authoritative conceptual and philosophical background on FCPX.”
There is this from Apple
Final_Cut_Pro_X_for_Final_Cut_Pro_7_Editors -
[Craig Seeman] “There is this from Apple
Final_Cut_Pro_X_for_Final_Cut_Pro_7_Editors”That’s the kind of thing I mean. It is mostly vague references to a “completely new trackless editing paradigm designed for speed and flexibility”. Nothing specific about optimal workflow using the new paradigm, no background info on why the change to such a radically different system, etc. They don’t even describe what the skimmer is, how it’s qualitatively different, or what new workflow it enables.
Imagine in 1984 if Apple merely described the groundbreaking MacOS by summarizing what each menu choice did, vs elaborating on *why* it’s different, what led up to the new approach, and how investing in the new approach is worthwhile.
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You would have to ask Walter Murch directly, or look through his various comments on why he doesn’t use FCPX. When I spoke to him during Particle Fever, it was before the xml export and sharing with other apps, e.g. send tracks to ProTools etc, had been tuned up, and before several of the third party apps had emerged. At the time, it was those complaints and the usual suspects, lack of mixer, inability to key-frame certain effects, and the lack of numbered tracks representing a film-synchronizer type interface. I don’t recall that file sharing was ever an issue with him, and in any case that has been worked out by now, as well. So why doesn’t he use it now, after all the evolution we’ve seen? I can only generalize that it still isn’t as “full-featured” as he’d like for interface with Hollywood-style post. Maybe I am wrong; maybe he just doesn’t like the way it works. Many of us who grew up cutting actual film on a bench, on an upright Moviola and then on a Steenbeck or KEM … thought FCPX was just plain “goofy” at first glance. I obviously no longer think that at all; I find it MORE logical than all the stuff I grew up with. It just required “letting go” of certain “metaphors” that most NLE’s use to re-create the look of physical film cutting. So maybe Walter is a classicist and it is as simple as that. Sorry for my half-informed generalization!
Doug D
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