[John Davidson]

I agree with the above posts about running media manager tonight to copy all your clips to a dedicated hard drive. Once that’s done, yell, throw rocks, or urinate on anyone who tries to ‘just unplug this drive for a second’. That’s likely why your media is getting jacked up.

The Avid way is completely different from the FCP way. Importing elements is much easier on FCP, you just have to understand that where you put that file before you import is where it needs to stay on a hard drive – unless you run media manager. FCP ain’t gonna break that up into a billion little files like Avid will.

I like the FCP way better. At first I hated it – I liked having Symphony hold my hand held in regards to media. I didn’t like the slow ass importing involved. Now I like the FCP way, and want to die if we work in an Avid session where I get held hostage watching a stupid bar slowly fill up when I’m importing a clip.

Get Shane’s DVD if you intend to work on FCP ever again. It’s good stuff.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Who is the worst editor you’ve ever seen in your life? Refer them to him.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

According to Uncle Ted Turner’s autobiography, vj’s were dealing coke in the 80’s to pay the bills. By the time I was there in ’96-97, they had downgraded to harmless marijuana. At that point they were paying us 20k instead of 15k, so perhaps that extra 5k bought us a tad bit more integrity!

Remember how they’d give a 3 or 4% raise and then say “Don’t tell anybody, but we like you and were able to pull some strings for you”. My response was “4 percent of zero still doesn’t add up to much, Joe…”.

That said, looking back, it was still one of the most fun times of my life.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

For promo editors –
abc cable would start you out at $400/day or $50 hr and might consider raising that to $60 right before the bank reposesses the trailer you’d have to live in. abc might pay a little more. I’ve heard of CW paying $800/day, but that was for a predator with no producer. $500-$550 a day would be feasible at post houses or production houses. Fox and it’s cable networks might pay $600 if you’re a rock star. Half-day minimum is standard, so I don’t know where you’re working – but I would find new clients ASAP. I’ve never heard of any editor getting $750 per day to edit promos. I’ve heard of them trying, but they usually end up pricing themselves out of work.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

Stay where you are. Finish up your degree. There’s no sense in transferring and starting your career as a lackey and run the risk of screwing up your graduation plan (it happens). Hopefully your school has at least some tiny multimedia department or program. Learn everything you can learn. Edit stupid shorts. So much can be learned early on with a $400 camera and Final Cut Express.

Maybe there are some tv/radio stations you can get an internship? Does your school have an internship program? That’s what got me in at CNN 12 years ago. Scholastic internships are the #1 thing you can do to get a foot in the door if you’re just starting out. Maybe you could get an internship in Los Angeles for your last semester of school.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

My default reaction is to always accept blame, apologize, and add that to the list of quirks about that client. When clients are part of a large corporation or network, sometimes they drop the ball and they need somebody to blame. As the vendor, we often have to accept that role of fall guy. Lots of people don’t like to hear that, but it happens. It keeps your contact at the network looking good – and they’ll keep giving you work.

Fortunately for me, I like money more than being right.

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I hope that we get the new hardware based FCP extreme. Rumor has it it’s milk-cooled. Simply pour milk into a pour hole on the front. After a few days, cheese is created and grated through the aluminum grill on the front.

Ironically, this isn’t really a new feature. I’ve been using FCP to create grate cheese for years….

Avid is also working on one. However, it doesn’t work with regular milk. You have to buy the milk directly from Avid or Avid authorized dealers. Also, you can’t just pour the milk in, there’s an additional hardware milk-feeder that slowly imports the milk into their proprietary system that doesn’t work with any other systems. I’ve heard that there are quite a few bugs in the Avid system. Currently it only works with Windows Millennium, because it’s the cheesiest OS ever.

I’ll be here all night, folks…..

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I agree. It’s a fun idea but there’s not much payoff in it.

Now if you could get Woz to take the winners out to dinner…maybe get him to call in a favor with Kathy G to tag along and mock everybody…

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

So to sum up:

Mac innocent: “Oh boy oh boy, New final cut studio! Shan’t I dream for just a moment?”

Jaded Luddites: “Grrrr, stop dreaming. You don’t remember the pain of the Leopard rollout, the Final Cut Studio 2 rollout, or the the rollout of the horseless carriage.”

Jim Cramer: “Macs new Final Cut Studio is a bust! Sell Apple stock now!!!”…..(click click click of Jim Cramer buying apple stock on his unibody macbook).

John
Magic Feather Inc.

[John Davidson]

I think my definition of sheep is a little different from the thread’s I’m thinking more along the lines of folks who play it safe and don’t stick their necks out too far. Not the brightest bulbs, but not so dim they have to be replaced. The typical average employee.

When I say the guy pissing people off, I’m thinking more along the lines a guy that tells the truth and makes hard decisions vs. somebody who goes with the flow and continues bad ideas. After 25 years, I’m sure you’re aware that most folks are not fond of change. Rockstars are brilliant, and brilliance can bring lots of change in the life of an average employee. So by that logic Rock Stars are not always beloved by the average employee.

Bad eggs can’t be allowed to stick around. That’s certainly not what I’m saying at all.

John
Magic Feather Inc.