[Mark Dobson]

[Scott Sheriff] “In this forum you will find a small cluster of fans who will no doubt extoll the virtues of of movie hero, and talk about how they use it on project after project with excellent results. All of which is subjective to say the least.
“

If there is any subject that lends itself to a subjective point of view, editing could well be it.

This forum is successful because it allows both sides of the FCPX debate.

To denigrate people, refer to them as a small cluster of fans, who have taken the time to become proficient in this new software, to refer to it a ‘movie hero’ says more about a lack of objectivity than anything else.

And referring to FCPX as imovie on steroids doesn’t actually move the argument on from those early days back in June 2011.

[Mark Dobson]

[Shawn Miller] ”
Fair enough… does this mean that others can’t do what they need to do using software other than FCPX?
“

I believe that 70% of editing is brainwork with the balance made up of technical editing ability. Stick any good editor in front of any of the main NLE systems and they will produce a good result.

Editing is at the end of a chain of a lot of production decisions and by the time a file or tape is ingested into the system the editor should have a pretty clear idea of what needs doing to complete the project.

And as with many creative exercises editing is a process of reduction, of picking out the best material and
working with that.

And it’s this side of the job, dealing with metadata, that FCPX really excels at. Within the event library It is now really easy to quickly organise a ton of clips into a clear structure, to hide rejected material, to even create sub edits, using compound clips, before even opening up a project to start editing in earnest.

FCPX is definitely not the most comprehensive package, nor the most developed and at the moment it has made little impact on the broadcast market but based on Apples commitment to the product through the 5 upgrades within a year I think it’s got a bright future.

One day an insider will spill the beans on what really happened to produce the abysmal FCPX launch and also on the impact the vitriolic criticism had on the development team.

[Mark Dobson]

[Chris Harlan] “Mark, square and clunky are in the eyes of the beholder, and to me, X has been severely clunkified. That doesn’t mean that I think there aren’t any number of uses that X might be best for. And, I don’t insult people for using it, or liking it over any other bit of software. What I get a little tired of, however, are evangelists–on both sides of this issue–who can’t or won’t see beyond their own needs.”

Well you have to evaluate things from how they will serve you and yes for me FCPX works well. It does not easily fit into the world of large production houses or with people who need to collaborate a lot with other
editors.

But for editors working on their own and small production companies FCPX is a self contained and powerful piece of NLE software.

Going back to the original question of this thread – is learning FCPX worth the time? – Yes, definitely if you are prepared to learn how to use it properly. You can’t just dip in and get a good workflow going immediately.

It is very different.

But if you want to be able to quickly organise, color correct and edit and output file based media it’s definitely worth investing the time to learn how to use it.

[Mark Dobson]

[Chris Harlan] “I was gonna argue with you, Mark, but I figure what’s the point. Lets just say I can see an advantage in returning to FCP7, or of learning Premier Pro.”

For someone working with file based formats, doing everything ‘in-house’ and delivering a file based end product what possible advantage is there in returning to FCP7 or Premier Pro?

FCPX does everything I need to a really high, broadcast quality, standard with a minimum of fuss and complication.

I don’t want to return to the square clunky world characterised by FCP7 and emulated in Premier Pro.

[Mark Dobson]

[Christopher Key] “What I’m wondering is… Is learning FCPX worth the time? I don’t want to miss out on any potential jobs – but from the little bit of research I’ve done – most of those editor wanted ads were talking about Final Cut Pro 7 not FCPX.”

More and more people are coming round to the advantages offered by FCPX over the more traditional offerings from Adobe and Avid.

If you are a freelance editor you will probably need a high skill level in all NLE programmes but if you are a freelance programme maker mainly working on your own FCPX is well worth learning. Get over the fact that it is different and learn how it actually works.

[Christopher Key] ” I’ve just started playing around with Final Cut and not much of it seems intuitive and a lot of what I’m seeing seems unnecessary – the magnetic track – audio and video grouped into one track – folders called events.”

There are a lot of new ways of doing things in FCPX and to call key features unnecessary without actually getting to grips with them could be a bit short sighted. There is now a large resource of affordable training material available for FCPX and whilst there are still many annoying workflow anomalies I would definitely recommend that you get to learn how to edit with FCPX.

Editing is a core part of our production company workflow and I really value having learnt FCPX and can see no advantage in returning to FCP7, or of learning Premier Pro.

[Mark Dobson]

Thanks for that information Gerry.

And as you say – Great program.

I use it daily and it hasn’t let me down once. If there is one bit of essential add on software for FCPX – this is it.

Coming in at a close second is Preference Manager by Digital Rebellion. (Free)

[Mark Dobson]

I’ve got a 2008 Mac Pro and I bought a 5770 when FCPX was launched last year.

It all works really well running under Lion with FCPX 10.0.5

However you will be investing in a machine that has already been superseded at least twice.

My next investment is going to be a Retina MBP with the 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB memory. And all the peripheral thunderbolt devices, cables and an external SSD.

This I hope will tied me over until the next Mac Pro is launched next year ( if that happens )

I just think it’s important to start moving forward especially with the news that Mountain Lion will not run on some older 64-Bit Macs.

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/11/os-x-mountain-lion-officially-drops-suport-for-some-older-64-bit-macs/

What a game eh?

[Mark Dobson]

My experience is that the bugs in FCPX are vastly better than a year ago.

Like John Davidson I still suffer from quite a few though.

[John Davidson] “I get strange things that happen like if I add a favorite clip and then go into the project timeline and hit spacebar – the favorite still plays in the source thumbnail. I have to select a different clip and shift-f it from the project to get the project to actually play back. “

Yes, this also happens to me but overall with the help of Preference Manager and occasionally Force Quit I tend to have a smooth experience now.

From the posts on the cow, bugs seem very machine and operating system defendant, some people are still dealing with weird occurrences and crashes on a regular basis but I think that more experienced users of FCPX adopt preventative behaviour to avoid problems.

I now have 22Gb Ram in my 2008 Quad Core Mac Pro and that seems to have improved matters. It also seems important to run the latest FCPX version under Lion.

Larry, my name is, Jordan has written an excellent blog resume on maintaining performance:

https://www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx-performance-tips/

[Mark Dobson]

[Bill Davis] “I’ve don’t feel as if I’ve “lost” anything. I had a great tool for 12 years. It’s still on my machine if I need it, but I actually haven’t opened it in more than 8 months now except for one instance 30 days ago where I had to open an old edit to 7toX it.

Now I have another great tool.

X has freed me to work in more places, more quickly and is superb for creating, modifying and distributing short, punchy video files electronically.”

I totally agree with you Bill.

And for me I don’t recall my time with FCP being that pleasant.

It was an unforgiving piece of software if you got things wrong. To edit fluently with it required a lot of training and technical ability. For the work that I do it was vastly over complex.

I have no desire to return to editing with it and after a year have probably forgotten all my keyboard shortcuts.

Whether people like or dislike FCPX it is undoubtably a lot easier for both experienced and new editors to use.

Whilst I acknowledge that production houses will encounter severe limitations with FCPX in terms of its inter-connectivity and output options, Apple have really improved the reliability and stability of FCPX over the last 12months.

[Will Hodgson] “What we have lost is our collective experience. 13 years of insights and experiments, battle hardened in real world scenarios around the world. And with no obvious heir to the Final Cut throne, it will be a long journey indeed until we have rebuilt our shared knowledge.”

I can’t really see that that experience is lost. Surely the huge advances in file based editing over the last few years have freed the editor up to get on with what’s at the heart of the job, creating stories.

I’m just remembering the pain of digitising location tapes.

[Mark Dobson]

[Andrew Richards] “So you aren’t imagining it- FCPX really is faster and smoother on an iMac or MacBook Pro (2011 or newer).”

Thanks Andy – and yes the Retina MBP does seem more attractive.

So with the Ram fixed at 16 GB the next issue might be what performance difference there might be between the 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and the 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7.

Any thoughts?