[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “I vote for a new name. The Taco Shop Debates!”

Brave of you to publicly come out so pro Mexican and anti-Italian. (fake political debate rim shot to be added here for emphasis) ????

(secretly, I too give the nod to chips and salsa over bread sticks — mostly)

Nobody HATE me for this, please.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “I’d be happy to be proved wrong so I could clean up my desk and not bother with the hardware that clutters it,”

Simon,

Nobody’s suggesting that you eschew ANY tool that works for you.

And if my day was divided by large swaths of Grading as opposed to Editing – I’d probably get a control surface as well. But it’s NOT.

AND – more than that – I’m afraid from what I’m seeing – The delta between what an onboard Camera Pre-set + LUT + whatever the AI folks are creating in the labs in terms of automatic correction can do – and a dedicated colorist can achieve – is kinda shrinking.

Understand I’m NOT saying those artistic skills are in immediate jeopardy.

They will ALWAYS have value. Hopefully great value for a LONG time.

But facing the incoming FLOOD of video production, it’s fair to ask if ALL of video processing will move toward being less like the services you’ll procure from a fine art studio – and MORE like those you’d procure from – say – a hair salon?

Which is to say, ubiquitous and not nearly as rare or precious as they are now.

I’m not ADVOCATING for that. Just trying to read the tea leaves of what’s been changing across the industry.

As I’ve written before, the primary talent of my youth – that of a professional narrator and VO talent – has been GUTTED over the past decade.

And it won’t stop there.

Not with all the AI stuff percolating in the labs now.

Having the COMPUTER compute a white balance offset and correct it? Trivial. Whether you have to push a button to initiate it or now.

Having a drag and drop LUT for the RAW conversion? Same..

We are inundated with people selling LUT based “looks” that attempt to turn aesthetics into an algorithm.

Yes, hopefully, there will ALWAYS be the artists who can out-perform the machines – but the mechanics of grading and “aesthetics you can scroll through and choose” are getting closer and closer to automated.

So I just don’t think I’m going to be comfortable going forward basing my entire future resume on that type of current skill.

But maybe I’m wrong. I almost hope so.

YMMV.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “It’s not fun to debate with you Bill because you have no idea about workflows that you don’t use or care about.”

Yeah, it’s all my fault.

I only had 20 plus years of editing behind me at the time of X’s release – including experience in quite a few types of workflows – plus apparently something you appear NOT to have had…

Which was quite as much “prejudice” about what might constitute a viable workflow for ANY other type of editor?

Here’s a cute fact. It’s not that I didn’t see the things X didn’t do on release. It’s just that EVERY SINGLE critique about X appearing in the first year was stuff I was able to acknowledge – understand and work around.

I was doing Multicam in X BEFORE X added it. It was trivial. Just sync the camera shots as connected clips and hack away. EXACTLY as I’d been doing in FCP Legacy when the nature of my jobs dictated that approach.

You saw the glass as 80 percent empty – and bailed.

I saw it as 3/4 full – and sailed into a new era of productivity.

And here we are six years later.

I’m still excited every day to sit down and edit at a tool I can play like a piano – and that makes my editing WAY easier and more enjoyable than it’s ever been in any of my 20 years doing this.

If you don’t feel the same about your toolset. Oh well. Sorry.

I’m sure it’s just because I don’t have enough “experience” to see things your way.

Again, I’m NOT telling you how to edit – or what to use.

I’m telling you about MY DIRECT EXPERIENCE with this tool.

How it makes me feel empowered to edit faster and smarter – AND how it started making me feel that way the DAY IT WAS RELEASED.

Shit, I even enjoyed reading source books like The Accidental Taxonomist as I tried to learn more about database driven editing – struggling to evolve my understanding of keyword strategies that might make my searches work better. Something NO EDITING TOOL had EVER before encouraged me to do. And, incidently, something I now use to leverage search across the web, across commercial databases, in my own product AND in my editing with FCP X.

And X was helping me with that in my first TWO months with it.

And to this day – when I wonder if I should go OUT of X to do a particular graphic animation or reasonably complex audio fix – I pause and ask myself if I can find a way to do it in X. And about 60% of the time – I find out I can.

While you were dismissing it – I was learning it as deeply as I could. Because I keep getting signals that it was WELL worth my time.

An investment I’m now seeing pay off every day I sit down to use it.

Maybe Premiere Pro or AVID inspires you like that. I hope so.

Because it’s really, REALLY nice

That’s all.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Neil Goodman] “This is not a strictly FCPX forum, its a debate forum and one of the most informational and entertaining forums about NLE’s period and there is one specifically for FCPX so Im not sure what the issue is?”

Oh, EXCUSE me.

That “Final Cut Pro – the Debates” string of public-facing characters up there clearly confused me.

I didn’t realize that clear communication is now expected to require a deep knowledge of forum history and tradition – well beyond what the ACTUAL English language can convey.

Maybe this will spread and people will become delighted to go into “The Taco Shop” and find a menu featuring mostly Lasagna?

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Then simple fix.

If this is to be a place of neutral NLE discussion – Petition Tim and/or Katheryn to Re-brand it as such – and just REMOVE those pesky words Final Cut Pro from the forum title.

Just be honest.

As long as SEARCH brings people interested in FCP X HERE – walls of posts that DO NOT even pretend to relate to X – weaken the forum brand, IMO.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “Have you, like many here, used various systems that offer alternatives like dedicated… “

Hell no. I’m a sometimes producer and nearly daily EDITOR.

I’m not and never have held myself out as a Colorist.

I think it would be HUGELY presumptous to claim I have those skills st anything resembling a professional level.

I do what a majority of modern editors do. I know enough about grading to understand when the needs of a project move beyond my level of expertise and need REAL skills.

The thing is, that’s NOT required for most stages of editorial, is it? I thought our task as editors was to fix Color issues to get our work to a viewable stage for proper client judgement and assessment without gross flaws that can take a viewer out of the viewing experience.

As such, me buying a dedicated Color Board is something I see as the equivelient of a Rich Kid in a Garage Band buying a vintage Strat.

Lame.

But that said, I don’t think that makes my opinions on the efficient operation in working with the color tools on a Laptop specifically for the types of work that most editors need to do day in and day out any less relevant.

If you’re in that fractional slice of the industry that grades for hours every day – I’m not suggesting ANYTHING about how you should work.

This isn’t a professional COLORISTS board.

It’s an EDITORS board.

If you’re an editor who does what I do every day – I most definitely AM saying you can do tons of what you will probably need done – right in X with your hands in the same place they typically rest.

Which is useful to know.

That’s all.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Yeah, I should start posting over in the Premiere Forums about my edits and how much wickedly faster so many database driven operations and auditions and Roles exports makes repetitive work in X.

I’m sure it will be received in the spirit of open discussion and the free flow of ideas to help everyone improve.

And certainly not seen as any sort of crass X promotion.

????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “Assuming that the complaints were only by the clueless offends many skilled and experienced editors and post people who were not wrong in saying that X out of the gate wouldn’t replace Legend for the work they were doing. You really do have a problem with accepting that there was then, and remains for many, absolutely valid criticism of the X software”

I completely accepted any and ALL criticism from the very few voices that had opened the software and could rationally discuss its ACTUAL operations.

Sadly, those voices were as rare as hens teeth.

The acramony I’m addressing was born of the period when it was excoriated by people who had NEVER opened it.

And then by a much wider class that tried it MARGINALLY – saw only what they were pre-disposed to see – then put it aside and continued to trash it.

(A group I think you’ll see quite well represented in the “Off the Tracks” X Documentary, working its way through post now.)

In hindsight X was NEVER trying to merely accommodate an editors existing workflows.

And to pay fealty to their existing thinking.

It was attempting to develop and interest them in a new and bette process.

If a “professional” at the time missed that – whose fault is that? Some of us saw that and we weren’t quiet about it – were we?

I still give an ear to plenty of voices who dont use X – but who can articulate its strengths and weaknesses – Including those it embodied AT its release date.

Those are the people who were and still are worth debating.

Those that come with “well NOW it’s finally maybe OK for real work” are so late to the party as to be dismissible.

Including some still here that I try my best not to read nor respond to. If they ever do get to the point where they understand things well enough to do more than blather about what they clearly still don’t understand – that might change – but I’m not holding my breath. Cluelessness (In others AND in myself) – turns out to be damnably hard to root out. Go figure.

X had ways – good ways – to get the vast majority of the videos the vast majority of video producers might have needed to get done from DAY ONE.

I know that because I did that. First hand. No theory based on reading pundits or preachers. Personal experience. Each “lack” somebody hawked I found I could skate around and STILL make my deadlines.

And while I was doing that – I was talking to others all around the world during X’s first 2 years who were doing the same.

I’d counter that it’s YOU who had the early days problem. And that’s seeing the value ONLY of a too narrow subset of editing tools that matched your conditioned needs – and not properly valuing the broader changes that would hugely rise in importance as the software evolved. I get that. But it was an inflection point of change in the industry and if you missed it, that’s not my business. That and perhaps presuming that all the other editors out there were mostly just like you.

This does not mean it didn’t have “flaws.” – it means there were growing legions who faced those flaws and discovered them to not be the “stoppers” that others suggested – but rather mostly rapidly addressed inconveniences that paled in the face of the fun and efficiency we were enjoying as X editors.

And X Sales figures – 1million in the first few years and 2million now – indicate clearly to me those views of the actual needs of professional editors – symbolized by people willing to PAY for a pro editing app – might have been, from the start, significantly different from your definition – whatever that might have been.

Fun to discuss anyway.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Scott,

Come on.

If you’re promoting something – you go where the eyeballs are. You know that.

Heck – I managed to get ONE thread started that was ACTUALLY about FCP X – in the “Final Cut Pro Debates” forum this month.

Those of us who use it should count our blessings.

????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] “I have been playing around with the Quadro iOS app though, and I think it could turn an phone/tablet into a neat companion HID. It will take some experimenting though to see where I can fit it in.”

Sounds suspiciously close to open mindedness – be careful here Andrew. ????????

[Andrew Kimery] “With that being said, it sounds like you’d be trying out a variety of different hardware and software on a regular basis but for the last 6yrs, and correct me if I’m mistaken, you’ve been in a monogamous relationship with FCP X on your MBP have you not? To Michael’s point, it sounds like you are fine to keep doing what you are doing until Apple makes its next move.”

I’m actually just in the exact same boat as everyone else. I have a well conditioned “normal” that drives efficiency for me. The only real difference, is that the array of technologies that forms my “normal” are largely stuff that’s arisen over the past decade – and I’ve been surprised by how much of the stuff I relied upon before that has dropped away.

Again, it goes back to my “forced conversion” to mobile track-pad-driven computing.

I did NOT seek that out. It SHOCKED me that it happened.

I expected to be working with the desktop-bound large screen editing systems that I spent two decades chasing – for the rest of my career.

Then I got intrigued with X immediately on it’s launch – and it wouldn’t run on my desktop system.

So to learn it, I HAD to run it on my (slightly newer era) laptop that COULD run it. And low and behold – as my efficiency increased – I found myself loving how much more efficient as a laptop editor I was becoming than I’d been as one using a desktop system.

There were many facets of that change.

Ending the CONSTANT reaching for an external device. Getting multi-touch myelinated as an expected set of actions. The geometry of ONE place to rest my hands that allowed ALL the data entry AND the cursor control to happen “above the wrist” rather than having my elbows and hips moving around all day while I was engaged in content creation.

One change was that I had to re-orient my acceptance of “breaks” to get up and move around – because while I”m “in the zone” I’m now at a “steady state” for longer periods – and that means I have to willfully break and move and not allow myself to stay lost in my focus zone for hours.

I didn’t expect this whole transformation to be as pervasive as it has been. But to be able to open a bag and re-create the EXACT edit space anywhere and at anytime has felt like a HUGE liberation to me as someone who enjoys creating content.

Other’s will differ. They will want wrap-around walls of monitors, multiple specialized input devices, and for all I know – a bespoke footrest in place in order for them to feel comfortable at their edit station. (seriously, it’s apparently a big issue for some people who are chair bound for hours in offices.)

I just don’t.

I’ve moved WAY farther away from needing ANY of that – than I used to be. I’m not saying it’s bad to want or prefer or even need that stuff. Everyone IS different.

But that’s the point.

I’m just one voice articulating that working WITHOUT that external stuff can sometimes be AS EFFICIENT as working with it.

It’s just another idea to consider.

That’s all.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.