Real World FCP-X.

[David Parks]

More FCP X thoughts digitalfilms

Oliver Peters says why FCP X won't work for professional feature, commercial, or corporate editing and how film schools may not teach FCPX. He also doesn't see FCPX as an appplication really changing much.

Read the whole blog, Frankly I think the magnetic timeline and lack of tracks has painted FCPX into a corner.

I and some other editors out here are in agreement that FCPX v. 15?? will work if they use the current timeline (storyline) for initial rough cut and then a traditional tracked interface for more complex timeline.

Cheers

[Bill Davis]

Sorry, but your language is unsupportable.

You probably meant to write "Oliver Peter says why he THINKS FCP X won't work for professional...

And why he doesn't THINK FCPX as an application will change much...

Nothing wrong with having opinions.

But Mr. Peters was quite careful to note that these were his opinions, not facts. And while he has supporting ideas for many of his contentions, he is quite clear that his thinking is based on not just his personal experience, but his suppositions and guesses as well.

My guess is that while he's right about much of what he says - he's ignoring the fact that to succeed, even WILDLY - FCP-X doesn't have to supplant FCP-7 in it's users hearts. Those are $1000 a seat editors.

It merely has to attract and satisfy $300 a seat editors. A TOTALLY different group.

We're all obsessed about what it means to people JUST LIKE US.

But I suspect Apple has figured out that as much as we think WE should be the center of the editing universe, we might not be that at all. Not the way things are going.

It doesn't really MATTER if FCP-X is superior to or inferior to or merely different from FCP-7.

What matters is whether it will find it's own audience and satisfy them.

I bet it does in spades. Because every young person I know (rightly or wrongly) views video editing as no more daunting than word processing.

Yes, yes, I know that to do it professionally or even really, really well in an amateur sense takes huge amounts of skill and dedication. But Apple believes that there's a much more massive group of people who simply need to do it "adequately." Exactly like most people who use word processors to write aren't high-end professional writers - just people who need to communicate efficiently via text.

But we're making a HUGE mistake if we think that "professional editing software" is something that must be big, expensive, complex, and reserved exclusively for the use of "professional editors."

Cuz actually it's not. A whole slew more people than ever before might want to try their hand at the video equivaent of writing their novels and spouting their poetry and doing their own business letters - video style!

And what if FCP-X turns out to be PERFECT for that?

Time will tell.

[Brian Drysdale]

Speaking to an editor friend, he feels that the magnetic timeline is intended to be touch screen friendly for use on iPad type machines.

There are a whole raft of people who don't need a full range of NLE facilities and many don't do much full on track laying. This is a different group of people to those who do and need to make changes to the various tracks up to the last minute.

[Philip Lipetz]

Prosumer is a person who can deliver pro level results at consumer level prices. The 90% rule. Most people will not notice the difference between something done fully and something with 90%. Right now FCPX cannot deliver the full 100% but might deliver 90%.

When I look at most indie feature films, and the Academy Award nominated shorts and I saw them all, I see film making at all levels down at 90%. Is it reasonable to think that they need 100% editing solutions?

The big commercial films cannot be done with FCPX, simply impossible; but the art house and direct to DVD or download films can.

With the dSLR and video cam revolutions the lower end market will grow to be bigger than technically expansive films. Such film makers will value speed and ease of use over the last 10%.

When I ran software companies I knew that the last 10% cost more than the first 90%. In the last few years a strange thing has happened to software, most companies only create the the first 90% in first releases. And it works, look at the iPhone iPad App marketplace.

People now value diversity and segmentation more than technical perfection and universality. It has changed the economics of the software industry, and soon look for this to happen for film making.

You say that the end result will be the loss of big income? Tell that to the makers of iPhone iPad Apps whose companies are valued at billions of dollars, more than some film studios.

[Brian Drysdale]

Sound track laying is one area where a low budget feature can punch higher than its weight. The process is time consuming but makes a real difference, however, even 90% is a lot of work and you still need to be pretty demanding.

Usually the difference between the awarding shorts and many others is the quality of the acting and the script rather than the kit used.

I'm sure Apple are aiming at a larger market than higher end professional, who have demands that wouldn't be so affordable to people who don't need those features.

[Arnie Schlissel]

I'm in pretty much the same camp as Bill & Brian.

I think that FCP-X will succeed on it's own terms, even if it doesn't suit my needs, professionally. After all, I'm only 1 of about 2,000,000 seats of FCP "classic". If FCP-X sells 100,000 seats in it's 1st 12 months, that's a pretty hot piece of software, and a noticeable chunk of the editing market.

And there are a LOT of people for whom FCP-X has all they need and is better suited for their workflow and deliverables. People who are doing events, small to middle sized industrials, local TC commercials, web destined docs & narratives, etc.

Also, as I've said elsewhere, if you plan to work with indie film makers, it's in your best interest to know how to get what you need out of their FCP-X project and into your own set of tools.

[Wayne Garton]

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

Hold down Command Option then click on the TOP of the clip or Storyline that has the Connection you want to move.

Example
Command Option click on TOP of the Connect Clip and it will change it's connection to the Primary Storyline at that location.

Hi Craig ... I must be missing something. No amount of clicking top/bottom/anywhere with command and option held down, will move the connection point from the primary clip to another clip above it.

What's am I doing wrong?

[Craig Seeman]

move the connection point from the primary clip to another clip above it.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make sense.
I don't know what "primary clip" is and you don't connect to clips above, you connect to clips below.

You move a connection from a Connected Clip or Secondary Storyline to a clip beneath it on the Primary Storyline. You need to click on the top of the Connected Clip or Secondary Storyline.

[Chuck Fadely]

I'm the guy FCX should be perfect for. I do news out of a backpack. Speed is really important to me. In theory I should be really happy with FCX. I can use footage from small AVCHD cams with it and it devours DSLR footage without burping.

But after all these weeks of thrashing it, all these weeks of tutorials, I find that working with the magnetic timeline is way slower than tracks in FCP7.

Everything I shoot has two mono tracks of audio. All that mouse clicking to adjust the levels independently grows old after a while. J and L cuts take twice as long as FCP7. Frame-accurate editing takes many mouse clicks.

The magnetic timeline is too clumsy for what I do. I've given up.

I like the skimming. I like that FCX is usable with a small laptop screen. I like how you can start editing as soon as you stick a card in the reader. I like being able to insert stuff without collisions. But it's just too slow, too clumsy in the actual editing.

That doesn't mean I think it's a bad program. I've recommended it to a number of people who want to step up from iMovie. It's very good for someone who only does video every once in a while. I'm sure a lot of really good work will be done using FCX. It's what iMovie should have been all along.

But for day-in, day-out production, it needs a way to set frame-accurate in and out points QUICKLY by looking at the audio waveforms, it needs a way to turn off the magnetic timeline, it needs a way to default to dual mono audio tracks on the timeline, it needs a way to set target tracks, and it needs a way to turn off auto-save so I can more easily make multiple versions of a piece. It needs better tools to manage media and It needs more fine-grained control over text and keyframing. I need to organize clips free-form. I don't think these are esoteric or unusual needs, limited only to the exalted editors in hip edit suites with leather couches and huge client monitors. I think every editor needs these things.

I'm particularly disappointed in the database structure of this program. The lack of bins, folders, sequences, etc works against creative editing. It seems to drag us back to the old concept of film edits and logging tape: The footage gets logged, then someone who isn't looking at the footage comes up with a script - the script being the organizing mechanism for the story, a set of instructions for a monkey to follow later to assemble edit into a final piece.

I don't want to work that way. I don't want to enter metadata on my clips. I want to organize by sight and sound! I want to organize by putting stuff in containers and piles, not by doing a search. I want to edit the story using sound and vision - which is why the skimming is great. Why take the non-linear out of NLE? Sure, give me metadata - auto generated by image recognition and voice recognition and time code - but don't make me enter it!

I really really want free-form organization in bins as I'm editing.

(And a rigid database structure? If I move or rename a source clip outside of FCX, everything comes to a screeching halt. Really? Why isn't it object oriented like the rest of the operating system?)

Anyway, that's my opinion. I think the core structure - database & magnetic timeline - is a real negative. I think the surface stuff - skimming, easy effects, format-agnostic timeline, etc is great.

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

On other boards I frequent, the angst appears to be starting to drop away and the grown ups are starting to seriously discuss the massive and fundamental changes that have resulted from the ground up re-imagining of FCP-X.

And the discussion is FASCINATING.

The hidebound thinkers on both sides (my perjoritive view only) are still spouting either RUN AWAY or ITS THE SECOND COMING OF THE EDITING DIETY. But as the dust finally settles, most of us can see that both views are silly, particulary since even after weeks, most people are still barely getting their brains around such a fundamental new approach to editing software.

It's interesting that the people most encouraged by the new build are those who have come to a rapid understanding of the core distinctions. (database structures, trackless modes, clip connections as links between datapoints across media groupings rather than strictly linear tracks, etc, etc, etc.)

Clearly FCP-X is NOT a simple re-arrangement of what an NLE used to be.

I'm interested in hearing from those who are actively learning/using it here on DV Info as to what you've discovered that's caused you to "think different(ly)" about editing.

Is your brain stretching to re-imagine things? Are you getting knocked out of the discovery stream because this is simple TOO different?

Are you still seeing only what's NOT there? Or are you discovering new stuff that you've never considered before?

I'm truly interested.

[Ben Freedman]

Bravo to that last message! All I can say is that I feel exactly the same way. I LOVE apple and FCP7, and while I think X is a great program, it just doesn't work the way I like to edit. I, too, have recommended it to friends, but it's not for me.

If you told me a year ago I'd be using Premiere, and considering a switch to PCs, I'd have laughed at you!

Best,

Ben

[Matt Davis]

+1 - but I rather hope that in 9 months time I'll be on FCP-X.

Skimming, favourites and keywording (assigning to bins) is great. I actually love the new re-timing tools. But I too find the magnetic timeline more of a hinderance than a help.

It also breaks the fourth wall with subclips not taking transitions unless they are, in some kooky way, made into sub-stories (sob stories?). I cannot use the built in chromakeyer, colour correction tools and associated stuff, so have to wait for third parties to fill in the void. ToD BITC is too difficult,

I still haven't forgiven Avid's scars in my early experience, but Premiere Pro is sort of like FCP5's lost brother with mysterious ways and interesting approaches to work. However, not perfect.

Loving (absolutely LOVING) Audition (how dare Apple give us this STP mockery!), Encore and especially AE (welcome back). Worth the upgrade for those alone. Even if I do stick with FCP7.

But I do remember FCP1 & 2 weren't exactly great to start with, which is why there's a little space at the table reserved for FCP-X if it matures well.

[Steve Connor]

Originally Posted by Chuck Fadely

I don't want to work that way. I don't want to enter metadata on my clips. I want to organize by sight and sound! I want to organize by putting stuff in containers and piles, not by doing a search. I want to edit the story using sound and vision - which is why the skimming is great. Why take the non-linear out of NLE? Sure, give me metadata - auto generated by image recognition and voice recognition and time code - but don't make me enter it!

You don't HAVE to use metadata at all!, you can use Keywords in EXACTLY the same way as you use bins, set a keyword like "Bin1" on 1 clip. then simply drag all the clips you want to put into the "bin" on to the keyword in the event library, no other input required.

[William Hohauser]

I am completing my first long form project with it (for a client) and I am overall impressed. I purposely picked a simple on the effects, but a cutting complex project to start serious editing on it. There are lots of small complaints I have (and have sent to Apple thru the feedback menu) and more every time I use it but the experience of tagging, skimming, cutting and trimming is better than any other program I have worked with. The magnetic timeline was initially hard to get used to but aside from a few quirks, it is a big timesaver. At first I didn't understand the method to do split edits but once I got it, L & J edits are a breeze with the magnetic timeline.

Audio has been good for me as well although I would like to see a return of increment buttons on the adjustment sliders. The immediate access to pan filters and EQ is great. Immediate access to the color corrector is good as well but I found the color wheels in FCP 7 easier to use and more intuitive. Also the color corrector's exposure and saturation tabs are too similar looking which has caused me some confusion. Key frames are not implemented properly yet in the inspector window although once you have set them it's easy to adjust them. The memory leak is clearly a problem on my 2009 8-core and I find quitting and rebooting the program a couple of times a day helps.

I see an upwards evolution of this program. Right now it stand next to FCP 7 (and in few ways surpasses, in other ways lags behind) as an advanced editing program but not as an advanced professional finishing program. Perhaps Apple isn't interested but hopefully those ingenious third-party developers who have brought hundreds of add-ons to FCP 7 will be able to step in.

[Robert Lane]

After this last workshop and getting real-world feedback from pro and high-level amateur editors FCP X certainly has it's niche, but put simply it really is iMovie on steroids.

The biggest issue I see with the interface - as mentioned several times here - is that it *forces* a complete re-think of how to do your work rather than giving you more options.

There were two warning signs to me which direction "X" was headed; One, when it was announced that the guy who created iMovie 6 that everybody hated was developing FCP X and; Two, during the first public release of the feature set that FCP would "automatically fix white balance/camera shake/exposure..." etc.

That's clearly an iProduct methodology, to have the software immediately make decisions for you rather than be creatively open and free-flowing.

Like most, I still love my FCP 7 interface and workflows, but for me extending capabilities isn't trying to find workarounds for FCP X it's instead adopting Production Premium CS5.5 which after having it around for a solid month has clearly shown it's strengths far beyond FCP 7 and FCP X put together.

[Henrik Reach]

FCP X doesn't fix anything unless you want it to.

I for one can't think of anyone being bothered by the \option\ of analyzing clips on import... Then again, people are bothered by the strangest things.