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6. My Life in FCP
7 months ago
I needed a project to get back up to speed on Avid. What better than to cut a retrospective of 10 years of FCP...
Read about the making of this video here: tinyurl.com/6kmpwfh
Read about the making of this video here: tinyurl.com/6kmpwfh
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From the screen shots of your timelines I can see why you have made your decision.
But so sad. An obituary of sorts.
For me I've taken the same path since Vers3. However I'm going to learn FCPX and see where things are in a years time.
Adam
Avid Community Team
Everybody just leave me alone. I'm editing.
The video's a little dig at FCP-X sure, but it's actually primarily a tribute to FCP7 (and6and5and4). Far and away my favourite NLE.
yfrog.com/kldb5eyj
Cheers! Back off to learning Media Composer
Apple.
I've been an Avid editor by day and a Final Cut editor by night for years. I also own Premiere Pro (latest version). Both Avid and Premiere are solid editors. No question. But they're stuck in a paradigm that has been around for a century with no room left to take you to new places. Seriously get into FCP-X and let its amazing power envelop you and you might see, as I do, that FCP7, Avid and PP are lethargic and showing their paradigm age.
And please, dear reader, don't respond with the usual 'But FCP-X won't do this, this or THIS!'. Heard it all before from others with itchy condemnation fingers. Here's some of what FCP-X will do that the last-century NLE's can't. Stunning speed, background rendering, un-do's back to the birth of the project. Always saving. Very difficult to knock elements out of sync. Color and Motion effects in your face (A Pleasantville effect, for example, in seconds), secondary color correction, Adjustment Layer that contains multiple 'looks' so you can instantly compare among them. Create custom transitions and effects in Motion 5 that become integrated in X. Create sequences in Motion 5 that you re-use because they appear right there in your X interface to call out. Create sparse disk images and start your edit there. FCP-X can always consolidate your media on a disk image that only fits the media used (no empty space) and then you can take that disk image, put it on a server, and others can edit the project. Or, simply take the disc image to another computer. I will go on as my knowledge of X expands. I didn't stop learning ten minutes in to order my Avid and make a hit piece.
In its current form, all of these pieces, with the exception of the wedding video at the beginning, could not be edited on FCP-X. You can't just skip over the 'what's missing'. Those features are critical to delivering a broadcast documentary, or a feature film.
There's a long thread that goes into a lot more detail here: tinyurl.com/6kmpwfh
It's actually been great to hear some positive feedback on FCP-X. I really, really hope that they come out with an FCP-X10.1 that is fantastic. I just remain highly sceptical that they will.
I've made my living as an editor for many years just like most of you on this thread. Rob; thank you for the reasoned response. I reacted the way I did because there was nothing to indicate this was humor. But, I would like to know, as I asked before, what part could you not edit in FCPX? I ask not with an attitude, but with a desire to know where FCPX failed you. I'll be the first to agree where FCPX falls down and will not make excuses, but I'm finding that many people are not aware of all that FCPX can do and their problems sometimes are a result of that.
As for experience, you went toward documentaries (that look stunning from the clips I saw) and I went toward network news. Not as beautiful as your docs, but I'm a good enough of a storyteller that I've edited (and shot) for most of the network news and magazine shows for many years. I edit (and shoot) for a living. I don't 'play'. And, I want to talk about it among people who have something to contribute.
Apple handled the release very poorly. They took over the FCP supermeet at NAB and implied that X would be everything editors always wanted and more. Then they released an entirely new product - FCPX, and immediately discontinued FCP7.
A lot of people are really pissed off, and (I believe) rightly so. I'm among them.
But there's also a camp of people who see great potential in FCP-X, and it's been very interesting reading their replies. I remain extremely skeptical, but I'm open to the idea of FCP-X. I'll at least check it out before I write it off.
But I'm not about to invest any time in it until they fix the shortcomings that make it unusable in a broadcast environment. I realise these may get addressed with third party plugins and future updates, but I'm talking about what FCP-X is right now, not what people want it to be.
The biggest, and I think most shocking omission is the lack of a video output. With no way to see the picture from the timeline on a calibrated monitor, in the correct colour space, there is no way to deliver to a network.
I would want to be on the look out for video issues throughout the edit - it affects which shot I use, so it's simply not workable to leave off worrying about the video signal until the colour correction.
Which is academic, because with FCP-X there's no way to export your timeline to have it onlined or colour corrected anyway. Another boggling omission. Yes, I can autoduck it out of FCP-X, but that defeats the whole point. These timelines can get extremely complicated and effects heavy, especially in todays ADD TV world. So why introduce an additional step that will likely mess up all those effects.
Yes, there's a colour corrector in FCP-X. But I don't need a one click Pleasantville effect, I need precise controls over colour and contrast, I need the ability to create quick masks and power windows, I need the ability to store 4 different colour corrections on one clip and switch between them. I need 'Color'. Which is fine. I have that. Except that FCP-X doesn't talk to it! This I really don't understand. Put aside editing paradigms and metadata and the rest of it. Roundtripping from FCP to Color just involves exporting a list that says this clip starts and ends here, and it goes here in the timeline. I simply can't believe that's difficult to program. It's got to be choice NOT to program it.
See? I was starting out all reasonably and stuff, and now here I am getting worked up again.
I think a big part of this is that I've spent years, YEARS, trying to convince reluctant big post houses and broadcasters to take FCP seriously. They've invested in gear, they've put up with convoluted workflows, and it's been working. I've been lucky to work on some great documentaries, and the last three (Power Surge, Cathedrals, and Sphinx) were all created with FCP7 and Color.
Now for all intents and purposes, FCP7 and Color are EOL. And what's replaced them FCP-X, doesn't do the things they did.
I haven't even touched on audio.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, I haven't sat down with FCP-X and this is all based on reading blogs and watching tutorials. And I'm sure there's plenty of misinformation out there.
But there's one very simple answer to your question - why couldn't these have been made on FCP-X? At the end of every edit, it is a network deliverable (which is part of the contract - you don't get paid if you don't do this) that you have to deliver an EDL along with the master tape. EDLs are a hangover from a past editing eon where we used to online tape to tape. They still have uses here and there for certain workflows, but have largely been superceded by XML, OMF, AAF and the like. But that doesn't matter. I still have to produce an EDL to complete a project. And with FCP-X, I can't.
Again, I'm sure there's a way to trick FCP into producing an EDL with third party software. My point is that an EDL is such a simple thing to produce, it's omission is a real snub to editors like me who need that functionality.
But really, that's too many reasons. Let me go back to the start. You can't monitor the video output? Seriously?
Has anyone else invested in Final Cut Server in their studio? We have and thus are in deep with Final Cut.
The release of FCP-X was a real kick below the belt.
But, I understand your frustration. I would be angry too if I had convinced post houses to go my way and then have Apple embarrass me with a one-point-oh release of a new paradigm.
I'm a journalist. I've won a couple of awards for investigative journalism back in local news in another lifetime. I am not bothered by a contrasting opinion, I'm just bothered by no why when something is trashed, so I ask. I appreciate your detailed reply and your passion.
I edit for broadcast, but broadcast news is quite another animal from broadcast entertainment and I understand that. I have only to please the ingest engineer when he looks at his scope but I'm fine if he's happy. Having no output issues, I'm free to enjoy the power that is FCPX and I wish everyone could do the same, but I understand completely why you can't.
In the meantime, FCP7 still works. Why the mad rush to Avid? Possibly to take advantage of the sale price offered disappointed FCP users? I would understand that as well.
Thank you.
The other is that the next project is likely to be a collaboration with another production company, and they're an Avid house. I twisted their arm into going FCP a couple of years back, and they were pretty unhappy. The way Apple has handled FCP-X just gives them one more reason to insist on my cutting Avid on my end.
But in the meantime, I'm doing exactly what you suggest. FCP 7 and Color still work. They still have their limitations, and it was interesting to be reminded of Avid's strengths last week. But for me, FCP7 is still hands down the best NLE out there.
It is great to hear your perspective (and others) on the positives of FCP-X, but for the time being I think Mark Birnbaum has put it best: "I'm going to stay with 7 until they pry my cold, dead fingers from the keyboard."
This is one of the best conversations on the FCP-X issue I've seen. Thank you both for the calm tone and thoughtfulness. I am going to play with X for a while but for the time being will continue to edit in both 7 and Avid as need be. I think the particular tone-deafness on Apple's part was not to recognize that the software was part of an ecosystem around which many of us had built reliable workflows. Are there better ways to edit? Sure! But thought wasn't given to the big picture. Apple had a different responsibility in 2011 than it did when it was the upstart. I'm not really upset with X's missing features - not even lack of monitoring or lack of backward compatibility, both of which I hope to see solved - I'm upset that Apple would treat a user base that depends on it for its living in such a cavalier way.
If you haven't already, you should take a look at this thread: tinyurl.com/6kmpwfh
I have long been of the opinion that Avid is the best learning platform - it's a bit more restrictive in it's workflows perhaps, but once you can use Avid it's pretty easy to adapt to any other NLE, the same isn't so true in reverse.
Adobe's academic deals are also very competitive.
I can see a video just like this in a few years time, how FCP-X is barely qualified to cut a wedding video, yet builds a body of support over time, until it's hailed as a timely rethink of the Non Linear Video Paradigm.
Having said that, FCP-X bit me (like many others) hard on the backside around a number of issues (output, audio, metadata, ingest, speed edits and subtitling) that I'm an Adobe house for the time being. Waited 2 years for FCP to clean up its act, and we got iMovie Pro. That was bad for business.
I'm sure you'll love Avid.
I'll say this, though: for every minute I've spent on learning FCP-X and testing Avid and CS5.5, I've come to appreciate the sheer brilliance of FCP7 and its predecessors. I wanted so much more, yet the competition had so much less where I wanted it.
I cut this video on MC5.5 to get back up to speed on it, and as strong as its media management is, it has still has all the flaws that made me jump over to FCP in 2003.
So FCP7 is still my NLE of choice.
I've no doubt that Apple, and third parties will fix a lot of the problems with FCP-X, and replace the missing features. But I'm not sure I'll be re-editing this video in 10 years time with "2011. Regard FCP-X has entirely useless. 2021. Edit everything with it".
There have been some really interesting responses to the video but I remain unconvinced that this 'new editing paradigm' will ever work for me and the way I edit.
I hope I'm wrong.
This thread is worth reading: tinyurl.com/6kmpwfh
i started as an avid editor and fcp4 was my first (self purchased) fcp. .. and i loved it! and after a while it was clear, that i'm (and a lot of friends too) a lot faster on fcp than on the big grandma avid! as i called her!
avid is developed for a switxh between machines an software .. but fcp came for people who where familiar with photoshop etc. ..
but what can i say. i have a lot of similar screenshots. and i was always quite proud of them!
how ever .. i'm quite afraid of the awkward userinterface of aved. (sorry) .. in my opinion it's made for an older generation .. and i need so much more time for every action i would like to do with my editing software.
i will try to be a little more patient .. let's see what's happening!
thanx for your great history!
:-)
ciau c.
Today there is no way back to tape. One day the FCPX interface, anyway the use of the interface as an intuitive storytelling tool will be talked about the same way as we talk about tape now. BTW I changed to FCP eight years ago.
FCPX is for me a similar adventure as going from tape to NLE back then.
After 20 years we needed a new, really new interface. The traditional interfaces are boring. I love the FCP 7 time line actualy I loved it the FCP timeline the day I saw version 1 at IBC in Amsterdam, in 1998. But it was forbidden to think that way at Avid.
But I understand the frustration and anger. Learning a new tool makes people usually aggressive since they have to leave the comfort of what they were used to. I see in this thread a lot of FCPX-phobia
When I started to demonstrate the MC ONE all over the globe I was laughed at many times. So I got used to it and after 22 years I am the one that is lauging now reading your concerns.
I will master the FCPX interface asap and I think right now it is a great tool for many (not for all may be) editors. Then there are issuses, I can not deny that. But that is no reason to turn away completely. Think of the guys in the third world that never could afford a Media Composer. BTW dont ever dare to think that Avid will not change and be the same for ever. They have share holders too, people that never share.
I started editing 45 years ago on a Steenbeck with 16 mm reversal and 35 mm cutting copies. What a time. I need to smile when I think back of that time and what we created back then. I will be happy with FCPX for sure. It is the way I always wanted it to be. And dont give me the crap it is not professional. It is not the tools it is your creativity and ideas that really matter regardless the tool you use. Your profesionalism is not measured by the tools you use.