[James Ewart]

[Herb Sevush] “This has been part of the standard two headed argument “FCPX is very easy to learn, young students pick it up right away” combined with “well if you tried FCPX and didn’t like it, it’s because you didn’t give it enough time to learn it thoroughly because you were trying to make it work like your last NLE and you have to unlearn your old habits.” Apparently FCPX is both way simple and way complex, depending on what point you’re trying to make. “

Both statements are true in a way I think. I unfortunately have clients who used to play with iMovie who are able to cobble things together with FCPX. But they do not understand the depth of the software, the workflows, the audio, smart collections, keywords, auditions, connections and all that jazz that comes under the bonnet. But they found it pretty easy to get started with. Does it annoy me that suddenly they are empowered to put together little things themselves? Yes it does! It worried me a bit too at first. I’ve lost a lot of bitsy little jobs that I didn’t like doing but helped pay the bills.

I think a lot of professionals don’t like that it has this more approachable streamlined interface. That it looks like I movie. “Easy”. “Unprofessional”. And then a lot of them have a go with it and don’t like it all over again because you can’t just jump into it from Legacy or Premiere because it works differently.

So the people who don’t like it don’t like it for both reasons. It’s too easy and it’s too complicated!

Weird innit?

[James Ewart]

[Simon Ubsdell] “What was interesting about the Cold Mountain moment was that a legendary feature film editor made the choice to use FCP”

True enough. However in terms of non feature film market credibility there are a big number of production personnel working in commercials and corporate (I am talking about the UK only) who have heard bad stuff about FCPX. A lot of these (including editors) have never heard of Walter Murch (shame on them).

But they sure as hell have heard of Hollywood. Big budget Hollywood picture cut on FCPX. Box ticked.

I know Robin will say they amount to a tiny proportion of the market which I do not disagree with.

But we all look at what they are doing in Hollywood. And if I have a client who has doubts about FCPX because of something they have “heard” I can point to this movie and that’s the end of the conversation.

So hurrah for Apple marketing.

[James Ewart]

It’s just nice to have it out there officially isn’t it? So that the people who accused those of us who did take the plunge, of using something vastly inferior and unsuitable for anything professional, can finally shut up.

It is the Cold Mountain moment for me.

And wasn’t there a thread to which many of the usual suspects contributed about 6 or 9 months back when everyone was doubting this story because Apple had not announced it yet or used it as part of their marketing.

And we all said “give them time” because the studio will want to have finished all their stuff before they are happy for Apple to do their own marketing on the back of the movie. So that time has come now too.

I’m sure Oliver is right from an editor’s perspective in his comments (not much new). But for the wider world who go on what they’ve been told (production personnel especially), this is a great bit of ammunition for them to use over a martini or two on a Friday night when somebody sneers at them for admitting their latest production is using FCPX.

[James Ewart]

[Herb Sevush] “The reason for the keyboard isn’t speed, although it is faster, it’s that you can keep your attention on the screen as you edit. The key to dynamic trimming is to make your decisions while watching real time playback, and if you have to look down at the timeline while your selecting something with a mouse, then your attention isn’t on the screen. As long as all actions can be performed while your attention is on the screen it doesn’t really matter what devices you are using. Currently this has always been done with keyboard commands, but that’s not essential – watching the screen as you make your cuts is.”

I thought that was the whole point of the mouse. It’s as close as you can get to touch screen without touching the screen. You have to be looking the screen when using the mouse.

[James Ewart]

[Herb Sevush] “”I would also add that all these options should be possible using only the keyboard.””

I know people that use just the keyboard are ‘more professional’ with probably many more hours under their belts than I (although I look back with some incredulity that my journey started 15 years ago but I’m not a day in day out editor I confess).

I’m pretty happy all day long with my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand on the mouse. Sure lots of you would probably beat me in an edit race but apart from that i’m not sure I see an advantage. Surely just a preference but that isn’t really what makes the process ‘dynamic’ is it?

Or is it?

[James Ewart]

[Scott Witthaus] “…or any key you like.”

Which would you suggest?

[James Ewart]

Reassign Snapping ‘n’ to Extend Edit?

So what happens to the Snapping function?

Well apparently the thing to do is have two different Command Sets: One for when you are using the Precision Editor where ‘n’ is Extend Edit and another for when you get back to the main edit Timeline so you get Snapping back on the ‘n’ key.

This seems like a bit of a kerfuffle to me.

It’s useful to know you can do this in the Precision Editor I suppose but I never use the PE anyway because there is no ‘Two Up’ display which there is in the main Timeline.

Incidentally I used to use the Trim Edit function of FCP7 quite a lot but most people I know didn’t use it at all. But I think Trim Edit was rather better than the Precision Editor.

[James Ewart]

Beautifully crafted film. Heavily influenced by Terrence Malick … and why not. One of the greatest film makers IMHO.

[James Ewart]

Changed this post have had more time to consider.

I suppose it would be helpful if somewhere in the manual or help pages it actually told you it cut the audio as well (with ‘video only’ selcted)rather than having to find out for oneself. So perhaps the recommended workflow should be to detach audio first or are you saying what look like audio edits are just markers showing where the edits are? Because I am sure I hear clipping and popping but maybe mistaken. I thought this was what Oliver was talking about.

Am I muddled?

Or maybe it’s assuming that we should always “layback” a new clean master audio?

Thanks

[James Ewart]

Please explain why when I have been editing video only I have cuts in my master audio on every video cut and how that benefits me?

Also I have no wish to apply blanket filters across a one hour Multicam timeline.

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