FIlm professionals petition seeks to bring back old Final Cut Pro

[Peter Moretti]

... you can certainly see how the software will be well suited to large enterprise editing environments (if it matures).

Apple gets an F on the rollout, but an A on what this software can be for many levels of production (especially large networked environments).

David



David

Added some emphasis. B/c in its current state, it's really none of these.

[David Battistella]

@/for Craig b/c you asked.

I am a person who works in scenes (as a sequence) and then I assemble scenes (sequences) to make assemblies. I am not a one timeline editor at all. Generally, in FCP I edit scenes and then assign a 001, 002, 003 to arrange and assemble.

In this case I created a project per scene. When I was happy with scenes I copy pasted into a new "assembly sequence and massaged it as a whole piece from there. I've put in a feedback request for a "merge project" feature where it would be easier than copy pasting a lot of scenes. You could just select three projects and merge them.

I longer projects i still work in 20 minute reels. I do this for two reasons. First I like smaller timelines, second it can easily help you identify story structure problems. So I might not work so much in projects this way. In FCP 10 it would be very easy to create scenes make compound clips, then rearrange etc right in the timeline and I will do this on the next project to see how it can handle larger sequences.

But I'd still stay in the traditional reel structure not letting projects go past 20 minutes and then assembling reels. That would be the last structure to fall. I really like working that way.

It's all possible to do in one timeline. I've just never experiencesd a "responsive" 90 minute timeline. Call me a geezer, I've been doing it that way since avid and AVR1. Or AVR2.

[M Most]

Mike,

This is what I am thinking too. It seems that between keywording, scene breakdown and then finally auditioning takes, it can be a very fast tool for editing scenes. When you are dealing with drama, which is a primary storyline with stacked up audio and not a lot of stacked up video tracks or effects I think it is really well suited to this task.

Uhhh.... I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was saying that Avid's script based editing is the one well suited to the task, NOT FCP X's free from approach. I was basically stating that Avid's approach embraces the organizational tools and structure that long form drama has used for a long time, and that FCP X was trying to fix something that wasn't broken by giving you organizational tools that have very little to do with the way scripted drama works.

Sorry if I used the word "it" in a way that made it sound like the "it" I was praising was FCP X's approach. That wasn't the intention.

[David Battistella]

Yeah,
Sorry. I read that paragraph and that sentence as though you were talking about FCP X. Either way, it doesn't change how I think about it. If anything, with tagging and keywording it can be a much more powerful, fast organizational editorial tool.

IE: instead of digitizing and logging, you import grab a bunch of clips and assign a scene number and a bin/smart collection is created. You grab all of angle A and assign a keyword. A CAMERA, B C etc. Then you can grab ranges and mark good takes. All of this while the import is happening. That, to me, is faster.


I know that AVID is firmly engrained. It's a good old hammer. It does what we want and expect it to do. I get all of that. I know that AVID culturally engrained and that any new approach to editing and repetitive tasking takes an undoing of muscle memory.

I am trying to experience where the tool can be usefull. I think that is constructive. It's good to know where it could be useful and might be useful.

the if's are:

if it further developes
if it is a better way and not just a "new" way.

I treat all technology the same way. Does is make my life easier or harder? I embrace what makes my life easier. I've spent to many hours watching an effing render bar and not having a life. If the render bar goes away and that gives me time to get to an actual BAR to have a couple of drinks with real people, then the technology has made my life better and easier.

If I spend less time on prep and more time making creative editing descisions then that is the big qualifier for me.

David

[Liam Hall]

For narrative drama, it's much more useful to know what line of dialogue and what scene in the script is covered by a particular piece of coverage than it is to be able to find all of the clips that contain Hugh Laurie's face. And it's more important to know what day something was shot than it is to be able to look for something that shows a sunset.

You can organise by shoot date if your footage contains metadata with the correct date and you can assign keywords to shots or parts of shots for every line in a script. It's ridiculously simple.

[Scott Crawley]

Walter Biscardi: Developers to get XML code from Apple in 2 weeks.
Posted on Creative Cow last week.

[Eric Santiago]

Walter Biscardi: Developers to get XML code from Apple in 2 weeks.
on Creative Cow

Man its like back to the grass roots again ;) Maybe Steve and his crew just wants everyone to know what its like to be in the garage again :)
Please dont flame with some obvious re-thread about Avid and Adobe. Its getting tired and most of us just want to move forward.

On another note, ooking forward to a Clipfinder slash FCPX slash Resolve workflow here ;)

[Nicholas Kleczewski]

This petition is idiotic. Final Cut Pro 7 works fine now and will work fine for the next few years without additional issues (than it already has, ha). Anyone who thinks Final Cut Pro X 1.0 won't be updated (and probably soon) is fairly ignorant. Third party hardware (Blackmagic and AJA specifically) XML, and OMF exports are the main things missing making Final Cut Pro X unusable to professionals. There may be design choices people don't like, but that doesn't make it unusable. I have no doubts 1.1 or 1.5 will address these issues before the end other year.

I can't believe anyone could consider moving to Premiere this quickly. Only if Apple canned final Final Cut altogether (which probably isn't out of the realm of possibility given the backlash) would I even consider recommending Premiere CS 5.5 to anyone. At least consider the Avid cross grade promotion if anything....

[Hrvoje Simic]

In general, adding a pile of tools meant to simplify some processes tends to do quite the opposite, by having to "process" the pile.

[Ivan G]

FCP7 needs to just be allowed to die in peace, with what dignity it still has left. FCPX should be buried next to it.

Haha! Just updated my quote!