[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Ben,

I hear you, and I hear you loudly.

And, yes I take my hat off to the YouTube creators too – but many of the high earners on that platform, have whole teams producing the videos. Many of which will be using “Professional tools”.

My comments about prosumer software is towards Adobe Express, Adobe Elements, Adobe Rush, and I suppose FCPX on an iPad (maybe resolve should be on the iPad list too?).

Unless Adobe has changed it, Adobe Rush project can not be transferred between accounts. As in I can import my own Adobe Rush project, but not one that a client has produced on their account. So there isn’t a natural way for me to help those who get stuck in their edit, except to move on to their tools and hardware.

There is an obvious lower cost point to some of these tools. That does not suggest that they are low-end hence why I used the term Prosumer. But in all fairness, would a professional (full-time) video editor cut a complex corporate video or broadcast program on Express, Elements, Rush, iMovie, or FCPX running on an iPad?

I would be surprised if some did do that – thinking back in my own history, I would do that.
Aside from frustrations with hardware and screen size, the first big hurdle would be delivery format and QC – no matter whether broadcast or steamed.

And there is nothing worse, like what FCPX has been and still are going through, if you can’t do simple editing commands that saves you a lot of time – it is not long ago that the FCPX team came up with cross-fades on audioclips. This some 20 years+ after other NLE’s had found a way of doing just that.

As you said:
Yes, FCPX development has slowed to a crawl. IMHO these updates are too
little, 10 years too late. But man, that FCP Summit crowd, they’ll use
any weird, twisted logic to justify Apple’s letting FCPX stagnate.

I totally agree, and wound’t mind seeing the Apple P&L sheet for FCPX, and the lack of development on the software – even if the temple of Apple are getting a small crowd to throw themselves on the altar of sacrifice. 😉
But then again, if one looks at Adobe and their relations with Premiere Pro development, they too seem to have slowed down dramatically, in comparison to the early days of Creative Cloud.

Keep watching that space, there might still be some surprises yet to come…

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Jitendra,

If you need to hire someone to help you as a paid gig, the COW job-board is a good place to start.

Alternatively, if you want to do it yourself, you will want to look at After Effects.
There is a very nice crowd over on the AE forum:
https://creativecow.net/forums/forum/adobe-after-effects/

A good place to start is with a storyboard. That will allow for more direct advice.
The paper aeroplane should be easy enough to do either off the shelf, or in Blender or similar.
But moving it around will take some skill and understanding of your needs.

Good Luck!

Atb
Mads

creativecow.net

Adobe After Effects – Creative COW

Adobe After Effects – Creative COW

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Ben,

Thank you for sharing.
Watched the video with interest.

It might just be me, but FCPX appears to focus more on iPad development (prosumer usage?), rather than on the Mac version.

One can see the attraction for Apple of launching a FCPX subscriber version, as opposed to a one-off-payment FCPX. One that might provide a much higher number of iPad sales, than what MacBook and Studio could ever dream of turning over.

What will be the next excuse for not developing the core FCPX product, a version for iPhone?

Adobe is no different with their development focus, which appears more interested in the lower end of the market. Making it near impossible for the Prosumer to share their project(s) with a professional editor. Who could help finish those edits in Premiere Pro, AE and/or Audition.

Maybe I am just a dinosaur that needs to get on with it. But if the high-end-user tool development is being mothballed in return for editing automation targeted at a low level user. Then the professionals might as well just seek their fun elsewhere…

Maybe the new owners of Avid will want to step up?
Or, as some regional Broadcasters in Europe are migrating to use Resolve as a tool for tight deadline editing, that might add some pressure?

I suspect that as long as there are a large group of users willing to pay $5 – $10/month, then we will not see investment in high-end tools except for “bread-crumbs” of innovation.
The only problem Apple, Adobe and others are going to have with that model, is that there are web-based companies, with deep pockets, coming to eat their lunch.

Just an opinion.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Guido,

A disclaimer:
If you are using commercial music in private and not in public, you should be OK. Otherwise, you will want to look around for copyright free music, or buy a license.

You can import Wav and MP3 files into FCPX.

But you will need to find a way of exporting your Spotify or Apple music to MP3.
There is plenty of good advice on how to do this if you do a Google search.
Whether it is legal or you breach your contract with Spotify and/or Apple music, I do not know, as I am not a subscriber to either of those services.

Hope this helps.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Craig,

If you’ve already got Coremelt Detonators, then you’ll find Shotanvil is already included in the download manager.
It’s interesting to note that Mocha is still compatible with other Coremelt FCPX plugins. Suggesting that the best tool to use depends on the specific need of the shot.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Jan,

Completely left-field, but I am wondering whether Apple wants you to connect the drive with an Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable?

They have been known to make it “difficult” for 3rd-party cables to work with their kit.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Matt,

I know the feeling – currently going through digitizing my old library of PAL Betacam SP and DV-Cam tapes. It looked amazing back then, now it looks like something that could have been shot on VHS.

You might be able to “sharpen” the footage slightly and/or make it more crisp using the PPro grading tools.

However, I would advice you to your edit as an “off-line” (No grade and No graphics) and push it through Topaz AI Video. I’ve had some good result from doing that to archieve footage, and to 4K source footage gone bad.

They do offer you to take it for a free run with a watermark.
https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai

If you don’t want to purchase (I got my license on one of their deals), you should be able to find people who will be able to do it for you.

Atb
Mads

topazlabs.com

Topaz Video AI

World-class video quality enhancement on your desktop. Use temporal information to naturally upscale, deinterlace, restore, and increase frame rate on videos.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Matt,

Now I want to edit them and I’m wondering have I imported them in the
best way possible? I was assuming that I was importing with no
compression.

Keep in mind that DV PAL would already come with a lot of compression, then there would always be compression involved. Going to a .mov uncompressed may make it easier to work with in Premiere Pro, but the feel and look of the original PAL DV format will still be there.

Why is it saying “Current Scale – double” and not Actual Size?
You will find the answer in your screen shot, in the above box “General”:
Resolution: 720 x 576 (768 x 576)
Current size: 1536 x 1152

Is it fair to assume that your Mac screen is not 4:3 PAL.
If your Quick Time Player is double size, filling out the screen for playback of the PAL footage, then the resolution will not match the Current size.

Bigger question is: How and where do you want to use the footage?
There are options for noise reduction, sharpening the image, cleaning up sounds and up-converting to HD/2K/4K.

Hope this helps.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Rocky,

There should not be anything stopping you from running After Effects.
But an i5 processor and 4 GB Ram, is kind of like turning up on a pedal bike to a Motorbike race – by the time you get over the finishing line, everybody else will have been to the bar, before going home to bed…

Although, if it is for training and learning AE, you can always work on a smaller “canvas” and at a lower resolution.

Hope that this helps.

Atb
Mads

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

I hear you.
It is quite normal for multinational companies to engage multiple agencies.

So when the message is: “I cannot work on foreign versions because are managed by another agency”, then what you can do, is to carry out work for the other agency.
As you have a complex project, with potential rights issues, and did such a great job that they want to use it globally. So why can’t you work for the other part of the network?

In any case, they’ll need to pay you a price for packaging up the project and transferring it. So there will need to be an exchange of money

If they your current client has always purchased the end-result, and not the project itslef, then this is for the “another agency” to negotiate with you.
And, you do not want “another agency” to strip out your working methods, and sell that service back to your current client…

It is likely that you are dealing with a long chain of decision makers where your client want to look good to their client above (who might still not be the end-client). As such, they will not be looking after you above that of their client, as you are at the bottom of the chain.
Stick to your guns, which is that you have always delivered the final video render, and not the project. But happy to work for a fee for anyone else in a parallel chain for the same end-client.

Just giving an opinion, only you will know what is best for your business.

Atb
Mads