[Oliver Peters]

I’ve worked with productions where iPhone footage (and other smart phones) is part of the edit. That’s always tough, because the people using it often don’t know much about setting up cameras nor do they use any software outside of what the camera comes with.

Naturally in this past year, where you end up cutting material that was recorded remotely at home, iPhones have been used more often in those scenarios. It works, because we are willing to excuse the look.

It can be a great additional camera, just like a GoPro or a drone, but it would be hard to recommend it as the primary camera if there is a choice. Quite frankly the original video-enabled Canon 5D will give you better material to work with. And, if you are learning about cinematography, then that type of DSLR will also teach you more.

If you really want to work with an iPhone in somewhat of a cinematic manner, you need extra software, filtering, and external hardware.

[Oliver Peters]

Here’s a link to my own article.

Mobile Filmmaking with iPhone, FiLMiC Pro, and Final Cut Pro (fcp.co)

– Oliver

[Oliver Peters]

In AME, if you have an MXF that you want to rewrap as an MOV, then select Quicktime and Match Source (Rewrap).

[Oliver Peters]

Karen – Just to hit a couple of points that have been brought up.

FCP (formerly X) is a great option, but an acquired taste. After an adjustment period, some people love it and others never adapt. There are plenty of “FCP for Premiere editors” YouTube videos. I think you can get a trial and check it out.

Unfortunately there are a few things that you may need to buy to augment its capabilities, depending on your needs. However, there’s a large and growing ecosystem surrounding it. FCP does not transcode everything to ProRes. You can if you want to, but FCP handles many native media formats quite well. In fact, far better than Premiere.

Media Composer is also powerful and no issues for an individual user. Like the ProRes issue, you do not need to transcode to Avid DNxHD/HR as in the past. You can work with “linked” media, though it’s not recommended by many editors.

If all you’ve ever worked with is FCP (classic) or Premiere Pro, then MC, too, will take an adjustment period. There are, however, quite a few features that surpass FCP or Premiere, like built-in tracking. Other, like PhraseFind and ScriptSync are extra-cost options, but there is nothing comparable in any other NLE. To be sure, MC is more of a straight editing NLE and less of an all-in-one application.

[Oliver Peters]

Hopefully. But mask tracking has already been there for a few years. And the effects available within Premiere are decades old, in spite of the fact that AE and even Photoshop have better effects offerings in some areas. Adobe has been putting a lot of effort into AI, but seems to be forgetting some of the basics.

Given the development pace of Resolve, Adobe needs to step it up a bit.

[Oliver Peters]

Robert – I would say that RAM and the Fusion drives are the main issues affecting performance in regards to your iMac. GPU will tend to affect render speeds. Premiere isn’t much better. In fact, Resolve generally is faster and handles media better than Premiere, but it really varies with each type of project.

I did test a Resolve commercial job with an M1 Mac mini (the base model) and it performed really well. Right now, if you want the NLE that performs best with media on a Mac, then go with FCP. Not perfect, but better optimized. However, in all cases, it really comes down to the type of media, speed of drives, and complexity of the project. So unfortunately nothing is definitive.

Why were you renaming files? That might be better done at the Finder level with a batch renaming app.

[Oliver Peters]

Paul – yes, I work the same way, whether I’m in FCP or Premiere. The Resolve roundtrip has the advantage that you don’t need to recreate titles and effects in a different NLE (Resolve) as what you did in the “offline” editor. Of course, taking it one step further, for most projects the grading tools within FCP (plus plug-ins like Color Finale 2) are competitive versus Resolve for 90% of projects. The color workflow in Resolve is hard to beat (tools and color UI layout), but the trade-off is proper sequence translation. So it’s really a matter of preference.

[Oliver Peters]

Robert – That hasn’t been my experience with Resolve, but in fairness, I use it for grading, not editing. So I’ve had long timeline – like a full-length feature film – but I didn’t do a lot of editing there. I have done some trimming within those and it seemed OK.

Another example for me is that I use Resolve to generate color-corrected master files of B-roll footage. In those cases, my timelines are hours long. I do some editing there, but mainly trimming. Again, no issue.

A lot depends on the media and your timeline settings. For example, if you have 4K media, but plan on finishing in 1080, then set the timeline resolution to 1080. Also, do not do any grading until after you are done editing. As far as folders, I haven’t heard that before.

What are your iMac specs, the type/format/codec of media, and do you have any external i/o devices connected?

[Oliver Peters]

One other data point. If you are on a Mac and use a Mac display (iMac, XDR, MBP) then FCP is the only NLE that properly manages color to the viewer. So if you are not using an external i/o device and display and want a predictable image, then what you see in the FCP viewer window will closely match a QT export. It will also generally match your video output image. This is not true of Media Composer, Premiere Pro, or Resolve.

[Oliver Peters]

Bob Cole – I guess we neglected to ask whether you are on Mac or PC. Obviously if PC, then FCP would not be applicable. FWIW – there’s also Lightworks, which still has fans. And naturally Media Composer or Premiere Pro, too.

Would Resolve work for you as a creative (“offline”) editor, if you didn’t have those playback issues?