Nikolas Bäurle
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I was able to double my income because of FCPX, and especially since here in Germany very few use X. Promiflash, where I freelanced this year in X had a very hard time finding good editors who could deal with X. The other editors they found had to be trained, but got the hang of it in a few days. Now Promiflash does not primarily do video, so you don’t have the same creative pressures like in a postproduction, but we had to be fast, (7 hours for 3.30 minutes, including sound recording, and onlining and one of the things that helped was being able to work during transcoding and the fast rendering, in 7 we would have taken 2 hours longer simply for transcode and export.
I do feel disappointed that many are not adopting X since it could really benefit certain clients, but thats for the postproduction to decide. The argument that X in not professional is simply not true. But again, there are still alot of postproductions in Germany that never opened up to Legacy, so why should they jump to X… Many of the issues I’ve heard of actually come from some bad experiences companies had with Legacy. At least in my experience 7 does not work very smoothly in a shared environment with XDcam or at least not on the one I was working on. When I asked one place if they could at least get Motion 5, their argument against it was having had bad experiences with Motion 4, even though 5 is so much better. I am still amazed how so many pros make such generalized statements without actually really trying things out. All the people I’ve trained like it, even the one that generally use PCs and adobe, and was one of the first haters I met.
I am professional using X, but I still have to use Avid and FCP 7, and might need to train myself on Premiere pretty soon. I simply have one more tool under my belt. But there are plenty of editors who don’t need to change, plenty of Avid editors who will never need to deal with Apple for the rest of their lives, more power to them.
Many of us will continue making money with X, parts of the industry will start adopting it more and more.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Feature length can be cut with X without a problem, like in Avid and Premiere, I just don’t see the issue. yes, there still are workflow issues with shared storage that need resolving, but there seem to be enough companies making it work, when they want to make the move.
Here in Germany, there is still very little high end work going on with X, but the few that are doing it, like Knut Hake with the show Danny Lowinski. ok, its the only example i can know of right now in Germany, but still, someone is making it work, and likes it.
I make my money in TV, internet, commercials, but my background is film, i still shoot low budget shorts, get called to help out starting filmakers, who can’t pay, shooting 2 hour long plays in multicam or work on projects with friends, like the 60 minute experimental i finished last year. Its nothing out of the ordinary, very, very low budget, but its full of fx, fast edits, lots of recorded audio and fcp sound fx library stuff, mixed footage, very badly recorded location sound. of course the director is a painter, its experimental so the filmcrowd avoids it, even I rarely watch art videos or films perhaps some Matthew Barney or Bill Viola once in a while. But on this particular project i was able to work much faster than 7, even though it was more work than the previous experimental 45 min and 60 min we edited on 7.
A long timeline is a long timeline, whats the difference if its low budget or high end? isn’t the issue what computer and storage solution I use to get the software working smoothly with whatever footage i use, at times it requires third party software, but hasn’t that always been the case to a certain degree, especially when new formats come out?
I’ve worked and played with X almost every day for the last two years, I still freelance as an Avid and FCP7 editor, currently i have to use Avid and FCP7, and it looks like I’ll be making more money on Legacy than X for some time to come, i use what I get hired for. I still prefer X, and I’ve actually used it.
When someone tries X a few times and doesn’t like it it really seems to be a matter of taste, at least in the discussions I’ve had at work. And i still hear the not good for features or Apple is leaving the promarket, when i ask for specifics its usually silence and turns into an it looks like imovie argument.
In most cases editors don’t need to change, so there’s no point in learning it if nobody is going to use it for a while, and most editors get hired for their editing skills primarily, the using software skill is secondary. Its important to know how to edit certain formats or styles.
As a freelancer its always good to know more than one NLE.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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You can use the crop & feather filter, found under the distortion filters, or you can add a mask, which also has the feathering option.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Is has been my experience as well. The Editors I trained for one of the places i was freelancing at got the hang of it within a day or two, one was even arrogant enough not to look at the software beforehand, but was able to work with it the next day.
Even though I understand that for many its hard to learn completely new workflows due to lack of time, or fear of loosing clients, I know several FCPX haters who have plenty of time to learn new software, they just don’t want to. And one that had to, who at first was completely against it, suddenly likes working with X.
There’s still a lot of anger about the change Apple made and there’s still a lot of completely wrong information out there. I had an interesting conversation with a producer about X the other day, he had been using X once in a while learning with ripple training and larry jordan, but was worried that apple was leaving the pro market….this was what several editors had told him… the less someone has dealt with the X the bigger the opinion.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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You can’t use FCPX anyway with a G5.
The Retina MBP will work very well.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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[Herb Sevush] “Are most editors simply befuddled curmudgeons, as Bill Davis has often implied, terrified of change and holding onto the past? If so what characteristics of editors make them behave so differently from DP’s, who seem to embrace change with every new sensor release? Or is there something intrinsic to the field of editing that accounts for such behavior? Or is it simply that the old tools were actually quite advanced and adequate for many workflows and the inefficiency of change for change sake has been properly accounted for?”
One of the main factors is the fear many have of not being fast enough. Even as a very fast editor I find myself dealing with doubts every now and again, especially when I haven’t used an NLE for a certain kind of job. The other day I was training myself on Avid 7 to get the same kind of curvy crazy animations I like doing in X. I’ve never had the similar workflows on Avid since what I do on each NLE is different.
In my experience in Germany the job as Editor is generally very stressful. Especially in News, Magazine and MTV style editing. You are expected to multitask (editing, sound recording, fx) and many a times get blamed for mistakes that actually were made by producers or cameramen, and I’ve seen editors and experienced getting fired from jobs for really stupid reason. Even to the point where an editor was fired once many years a go, for not being able to handle a certain codec FCP didn’t have at the time.
These experiences and the financial pressures from clients are one of the main reasons most are still using Legacy, most clients don’t have a clue anyway, but I’m pretty certain once they start realising that working with roles (once mastered) is faster than classical tracks :-)), and why editor X is editing during import and rendering so fast, there will be change, not necessarily towards X but no more 7.
For some reason the FCP 7, 12 core suite I was using today was very slow, probably server, perhaps the fxfactory vignette I was using. It took 5 min for Legacy to duplicate a 60 min cut, Apple Pro Res 422, 8bit sequence. And the render times were fun today, had more time for lunch.The interesting thing is that most X haters in my experience are Legacy Editors. The Avid editors I’ve trained and spoken to who had to use X were much more open to it, they didn’t like everything but they also don’t like everything about Avid. But once the Legacy editors got the hang of it, reactions were alway positive.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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You need to open the effect in Motion, change it to your liking and then save it as a template. You can make a new category to put it in, here’s a Mac Break Studio link with Mark and Steve:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rkql2_aaE4
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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One of the main factors for me is render speed and FX.
This year I’ve been doing a lot of industry stuff on FCP7 and a lot of German Star News stuff on X. So I pretty much have been able to compare the two on fast turnaround projects. My X job at Promiflash (in Berlin) required a lot more Fx and fast clip editing than my industry jobs on 7, which are a lot more classical in style. In addition my X Job required me to do sound recording, as well, which I never need to do on my 7 jobs. Even with more workload I was usually almost 2 hours faster per day on X than 7.
To be fair, in my case FCP 7 is on a 12 core mac pro and X on a new maxed out iMac… on the other hand comparing both on my Quad-Core, 8GB ram macbook I see very similar differences.
Exporting an unrendered 5 min project in 7, with about 6 basic lower thirds takes roughly about 20 minutes, on X it takes a little less than 5 min.
Building lower thirds in X is very smooth, in 7 its clunky, especially since it takes about a second to react to moving titles.
that you can skim effects in X, is a real timesaver to me, applying the effects is very smooth, and X responds immediately.
FX Factory fx and filters work a lot faster in X, less clicks, faster response.
If a client wants to see an effect smoothly i rarely need to render, especially in Proxy, in 7 I usually have to render, and its slower.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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That title sequence was made from scratch, I doubt you’ll find a plugin thats that exact or customisable. Its using masks and video layers, and some 3D movements from one title to the next. You can do it with Motion or AFX, you will not have a good time doing that in FCP tweaking plugins. You will very likely get some good advice if you ask in the Motion or After FX forums.
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python
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Correction – when still in CC mobile mode the address bar is grey, the text icon is black lines. Once you click it the icon turns black+white lines
“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python