Brett Sherman
7
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Dominic Deacon] “This has resulted in this absurd pushback from the Apple clan where FCX can do no wrong. FCX has no grading tools? Great, our program is unencumbered by specialist addons! FCX gets some basic curves tools etc? Great, just goes to show FCX is up to date with everything all the other programs have! Those new tools are broken? Apple is taking a bold new stance on these tools, reimaging the whole field! Apple fixes the broken tools? Look how quickly they fix their errors! “
This has become an annoying straw man argument. It’s simply not true. You are taking the posts of a single person and expanding it to encompass everyone. That is offensive and dishonest.
I think what happens is when people suggest the lack of one or a few certain features in FCP X invalidates it as a tool, others who use FCP X push back and say, “actually it works pretty well for me regardless of some issues.” Let’s be honest, FCP X has no more or no less issues than any other editing program. It does certain things well and others not so well. The same is true of Premiere, Avid and any other.
And I think most of us are quite honest about it’s deficiencies.
Simon has become increasingly dismissive of FCP X. Fine, whatever. Don’t use it. There are those of us who ACTUALLY use it on a daily basis that are plugging away quite proficiently. Do I wish Apple was more energetic about improving X. Absolutely. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the best tool for my work.
I also think it’s ridiculous to be dismissive about speed. But that’s a whole different discussion that I’m not going to get into here.
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I do agree there should be able to be more textual information in the browser. I wish you could actually read markers without having to double click them in FCP X.
But what’s interesting to me about his ideas is they all add more work. Im not sure any of this is saving time. Maybe keeping better organized, but at the expense of more effort. The real innovation will come from AI assistance in organizing and finding material. Including, but not limited to, automatic transcription. This is the true bleeding edge and I find it interesting that’s not even in his thought process.
Software developers have to look years ahead. I just don’t think his vision is forward thinking enough.
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Have you already edited the footage? If so, the remedies would be difficult, because you’d have to replace with a file that FCP X deems is the same exact file.
First, I would make sure you have the Canon XF plug-in for FCP X.
Second, I would try to work with the MXF files directly. Just copy straight off the card and drag into your project. This will prevent a rewrap – which is where I ran into problems with C200 footage.
Third, update FCP X to the latest version you can.
And fourth, you could rewrap with the program called EditReady. While FCP X was not behaving right with C200 footage I used EditReady to rewrap the footage as .MOVs. I needed .MOVs for some other workflow reasons.
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You’re right you did say that. But your argument against this video is that he should have made a different video than the one he intended to make. That’s a weird argument. Sort of like going to an action film and complaining that what you really wanted was a rom-com.
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What camera are you using? Does it rewrap the files on import as a .MOV file? Do you have another program you can verify the audio channels in? I had a problem with my Canon C200 where FCP would only copy over channel 1 and ignore 2, 3 and 4. But I’ve never heard of FCP X creating a duplicate channel instead of copying the audio content. That would be really strange.
Another option is to not import and work with the camera original files. Many camera formats can be dragged straight into FCP X without rewrapping.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “As I have to keep repeating whenever I say anything slightly disobliging about FCP X, I enjoy and admire many things about it. Just not everything.”
The problem is you are misrepresenting what the presentation is about. I didn’t watch the entire thing, but I didn’t see at any point where Steve said FCP X was faster than other editing programs. He’s presenting how to work faster IN FCP X. Why is that a problem? I’m sure there are tons of videos out there about working faster in Premiere. You don’t see FCP X users running around discounting those.
You’re trying to make a straw man argument here. I don’t think there’s anyone that thinks FCP X is faster for all workflows.
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I’m not sure I fully understand what you want to delete. But when FCP X moved to the library system you had to upgrade your Projects and Events. When it did that it gave you the option to keep the old ones. That’s what it put in the “Old Final Cut Projects and Events” folder. There is no reason to keep those anymore once you have a working Library file. In fact you’d have to go back a few versions in FCP X to even do the conversion now.
However, I’m not sure how it dealt with media within the old Event as I never stored media in my Event files. My guess is it moved it over to the new Library file, but you’d want to verify that first before deleting the old Projects and Events.
As far as duplicate projects go, I’d just leave them as they can’t be taking up that much room. You can feel free to delete the cache and render files. If you get duplicate cache files they really take up a lot of space and can always be regenerated. In fact one of the things I do when I start reaching the full capacity of a drive is delete old cache files.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “he’s only showing how you don’t have to let it slow you down unnecessarily.”
I just don’t think this is that hard to understand. In travel (and indeed light passing through multiple mediums) a straight line is not the fastest route. The fastest route is to travel on a highway that may take you slightly out of your way. But because you’ve gone faster for that portion of the trip it outweighs the slower last portion of the trip.
And I’m not even conceding that these techniques are that slow. My guess is the difference between this and typical NLE timeline editing is pretty small.
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[Neil Goodman] “I just really want to edit slower to be honest – all this fast fast fast stuff – I’m over here like my client gave 5 days to cut this trailer, I’m going to take all 5 days. Your not getting a cut from me early that’s for sure. If I have extra time – I experiment and come up with alts which are always appreciated by the client and my creative directors. “
And then there are those of us whose edit sessions are measured in hours, not days. And working through hours of footage to do it. It’s those scenarios that FCP X really shines. I’d also say it shines in large documentaries with tons of footage.
It also sounds like your clientele is not very price sensitive. Which is great for you. But I’d say pretty rare.
It really sort of proves my theory that the Hollywood world is sort of unique in the video world. Time and price are not as critical in project prioritization. I work in social media where time is the most critical factor. Pristine quality, meaning that extra last 5% improvement, is really largely inconsequential.
Different jobs. Different tools.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “If FCP X is self-evidently the best product at the best price with the best support (and so on), then market forces tell us that it should be the de facto choice everywhere, including Hollywood.”
Group think is a powerful phenomenon that can overpower just about every other consideration.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Perhaps the efficiencies of FCP X just don’t have enough of a practical appeal in every day terms within this sector.”
Take this with a grain of salt. But I think the Hollywood world has a complicated relationship with “efficiency”. The financial incentives are to only be as efficient as others doing the work are, and not significantly more efficient. Let’s say hypothetically, you can cut a feature 15% faster on FCPX. Well that means you’ll get paid less for the job. Note that turnaround times and speed are two different things. One can maintain turnaround time by condensing hours working at the project while still earning the same amount of money.
All this to say that I question “efficiency” as the primary motivating factor in the Hollywood world.