[Steven Gonzales]

Thanks for the comments about FCP for feature film.

I’ve spent a lot of time convincing people that FCP was a viable and accurate alternative to Avid for feature editing. I’ve had my credibility questioned with sync issues, and strange Aurora Igniter misbehaving drivers. I was thrilled when the crude tool Film Logic was purchased by Apple and rechristened Cinema Tools.

In it’s current form, this FCP X is totally unusuable for feature film work.

I’m sure it’s a great tool for something, but if there’s an emotional tone here on the boards, some of that is due to many of our arguments for this product over the years being voided instantly.

[Steven Gonzales]

https://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf

Here’s EULA, which has all the info. You can make a one-time permanent transfer of all your license rights….don’t keep a copy though.

3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend, sell, redistribute or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. All components of the Apple Software are provided as part of a bundle and may not be separated from the bundle and distributed as standalone applications.

[Steven Gonzales]

I think Randy Ubillos has been with Final Cut since the beginning. In fact, I believe he came to Apple when they acquired the editing software and team from Macromedia.

He may be misguided, but he didn’t suddenly come in and ruin Final Cut Pro. He was also responsible for what was good in previous versions.

[Steven Gonzales]

I find this quite amazing, if you consider the amount of web space Apple has devoted to Walter Murch and the Coen Brothers when promoting FCP and professional apps.

[Steven Gonzales]

Not to nit-pick, but Steenbeck is a linear editing environment. You cannot go to any frame instantly. You must run linearly through the roll to get to an edit point.

[Steven Gonzales]

I still have an old VHS tape of the FCP rollout in 1999. Randy Ubillos is there, talking about having a professional editor on the team from the very beginning.

Doesn’t this seem to be the problem, that this time around they forgot the wise decision they made way back in 1999?

[Steven Gonzales]

Reminds me of an interview I read of a guy who wrote tag lines for movies. He said the best he ever got paid was for writing the tag line to “Hud”. The poster said Paul Newman … is … Hud.

He got paid a few hundred bucks for writing the word “is.”

[Steven Gonzales]

The basic idea of cinema tools:

For every record in Cinema tools (each line of your flex file, which is basically timecode to keycode translation), there is a quicktime file.

You get the information about that piece of your movie into cinema tools from the flex file.

You also edit with that file in Final Cut. That file gets into final cut either through capturing from tape (where you export a batch list from Cinema Tools, bring that list into FinalCut, and batch capture from the list). Or, you could have had individual files made during the tranfer from film to disc, in which case the information in Cinema Tools matches quicktime files you already have.

If you have one large video file, you will have to break it down into quicktimes that match your cinema tools database.

One you have a number of quicktime files, which each match a data record in Cinema Tools, then you link the cinema tools data record to the quicktime file from within cinema tools.

I suggest you read the manual for Cinema Tools, because there is a lot to this.

If you’re not cutting negative, then you don’t really need to use Cinema Tools usually.

[Steven Gonzales]

On a different computer you also have a different user. Try creating a new user and attempt the project logged in as the new user.

This would eliminate user corruption.

[Steven Gonzales]

Don’t know if this might help, but Final Cut does some strange things with audio imports. Here’s a tutorial about the issue:

https://library.creativecow.net/lyon_matt/fixing-fcp-assets/1

Here’s a relevant quote:

“Unfortunately, certain file formats, like AIFF, WAV and PNGs do not contain timecode tracks.

This is the first important concept to wrap your head around:

When you import a media file that does not contain timecode, FCP will “assign” a timebase to the file. The timebase it uses is based on your DEFAULT SEQUENCE SETTING, as selected in your “audio/video settings” window.

It does not matter what the settings are of your open sequence(s).”

Hope you’ve warmed up from your Utah trip. Congrats again on your film’s success!