AVID skills necessary for hire?

Brandon Murphy · December 22nd, 2004, 11:38 AM

Some good posts on this thread. The Post house I work with uses AVID for about 95% of editing work and FCP for about 5% of stuff. If your goal is to become an editor, In my opinion you should learn both Avid and FCP. The more you know the better opportunity you will have in landing a job. Now, quite a few editing jobs out there also want you to have a little backround in photoshop and aftereffects. It is a lot to learn. I have seen ads for Adobe Premier freelancers once in a blue moon, I have never seen any work for Vegas editors yet. FCP is making it into more work places, but Avid is still the top dog and will be for a while in my opinion. Post Houses who have already spent a lot of money on Avid systems need to be able to charge enough to clients to pay off the system and or make money on the system they have. Frankly it's hard to convince a client to pay the same rate when you are cutting on a G5 mac with FCP compared to when you are cutting on a $80,000 Avid.

Jesse Bekas · December 22nd, 2004, 12:10 PM

Brandon,
In which situation would soembody at your post house choose to use FCP over AVID, and why?

Brandon Murphy · December 22nd, 2004, 01:28 PM

usually what we use FCP for is spots which are almost all done in After Effects. The After Effects artist will sometimes use FCP to edit footage with the rendered AE files. Also using FCP to digitize footage and output the spots done with AE. Im sure there are some other details as to what the AE artists do with FCP, but that is their area of expertise. So I guess to answer your question, the client doesnt really choose FCP or Avid. The project they are creating determines if we use FCP for anything. About all of the editing is done in AVID. Hope that explained something... a little confusing.

Walter Graff · December 22nd, 2004, 04:56 PM

"Frankly it's hard to convince a client to pay the same rate when you are cutting on a G5 mac with FCP compared to when you are cutting on a $80,000 Avid."

Except wen you are editing a half hour program and the computer crashes, hangs up and has to be reboot constantly which does happen with some folks FCP set-up. Create more perceived downtime and you'll find that folks will very easily want to pay more and work with someone else.

One of the biggest problems I find with FCP is two-fold: one, it's software based and as a result it can have more problems than hardware based systems. Two, many folks opt for the firewire 800 setup rather than a dedicated SCSI setup and that can create all sorts of problems.

December 22nd, 2004, 11:38 AM	#16
Brandon Murphy Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: PA, USA Posts: 30	Some good posts on this thread. The Post house I work with uses AVID for about 95% of editing work and FCP for about 5% of stuff. If your goal is to become an editor, In my opinion you should learn both Avid and FCP. The more you know the better opportunity you will have in landing a job. Now, quite a few editing jobs out there also want you to have a little backround in photoshop and aftereffects. It is a lot to learn. I have seen ads for Adobe Premier freelancers once in a blue moon, I have never seen any work for Vegas editors yet. FCP is making it into more work places, but Avid is still the top dog and will be for a while in my opinion. Post Houses who have already spent a lot of money on Avid systems need to be able to charge enough to clients to pay off the system and or make money on the system they have. Frankly it's hard to convince a client to pay the same rate when you are cutting on a G5 mac with FCP compared to when you are cutting on a $80,000 Avid.

December 22nd, 2004, 12:10 PM	#17
Jesse Bekas Major Player Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, USA Posts: 572	Brandon, In which situation would soembody at your post house choose to use FCP over AVID, and why?

December 22nd, 2004, 01:28 PM	#18
Brandon Murphy Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: PA, USA Posts: 30	usually what we use FCP for is spots which are almost all done in After Effects. The After Effects artist will sometimes use FCP to edit footage with the rendered AE files. Also using FCP to digitize footage and output the spots done with AE. Im sure there are some other details as to what the AE artists do with FCP, but that is their area of expertise. So I guess to answer your question, the client doesnt really choose FCP or Avid. The project they are creating determines if we use FCP for anything. About all of the editing is done in AVID. Hope that explained something... a little confusing.

December 22nd, 2004, 04:56 PM	#19
Walter Graff Hellgate Pictures, Inc. Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: New York, NY Posts: 124	"Frankly it's hard to convince a client to pay the same rate when you are cutting on a G5 mac with FCP compared to when you are cutting on a $80,000 Avid." Except wen you are editing a half hour program and the computer crashes, hangs up and has to be reboot constantly which does happen with some folks FCP set-up. Create more perceived downtime and you'll find that folks will very easily want to pay more and work with someone else. One of the biggest problems I find with FCP is two-fold: one, it's software based and as a result it can have more problems than hardware based systems. Two, many folks opt for the firewire 800 setup rather than a dedicated SCSI setup and that can create all sorts of problems.