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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

FCP 7 or FCPX for feature film

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Nadeem Soumah

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I'm about to edit a feature shot on Epic and I'm unsure as to if I should go with FCP7 or FCPX. I've already cut 2 features on FCP and just afraid that the functionality might be amateurish. I just want some input from people who may have used it before I embark.

Shot on Epic at 5k and yes love the RED workflow with FCP X but from a more editorial standpoint does the software itself have a decent enough feature set to actually cut a feature on?

Any info would be great.

Thanks.
 
Fcpx Ofcourse

Fcpx Ofcourse

Considering fcpx does r3d natively, its a pretty clear cut choice. 10.0.6 is ready for primtime but ofcourse It honestly depends how proficient you are with fcpx. If you are just starting, buy nrippletraining tutorials. I did (year ago) and have never looked back. Haven't used fcp 7 in over a year. Fcpx is truly light years ahead of all the other NLe (once you learn in). The magnetic timeline is God send. Once proficient, you will be be editing in half the time, doing so much more, in less steps. With no rendering!!!
 
I just had a meeting about this very issue.

If you're are taking this production to a "finishing house" you need to have long conversation with them about the finishing pipeline with FCPX as there are some real issues to be addressed.
 
I wouldn't use an unfamiliar product and workflow on a real project out the gate like that. If you know FCP7, I'd stay with that. There's nothing amateurish about it and won't be for a very long time. FCPX being "ready for primetime" is still an opinion if anything. I hope it get's there, but personally, it's still a ways away. Until that day comes I'm staying with FCP7 for everything non-RED and going with Premiere for my RED projects.
 
I'm editing my feature with FCPX right now. I love the process and the interface. If you know fcp, fcpx will be easy to pick up and understand. You'll still need other programs like After effect and third party filters and plug-ins but it will be good. Keep in mind that it isn't a perfect program but slowly it is getting there.
 
After switching to Premiere from 7 i can say that Premiere is really great and has all the tools...however, working with 5k natively ( with rocket and quadro 4000) still is not without problems and lots of crashes... After 30 days of Premiere, we are now going to bring 7 back into the picture.. Forget working natively - computers really are not fast enough unless you want to spend 14k on a pc (yuck). We are now back to one lights in rcx, transcode to 422, edit in 7, xml to premiere, grade in rcx, refresh rmd's in premiere and then conform in premiere 5k, output to 4k or 4444.. Yup it sucks! thinking about X now.. but can we run X and 7 on the same machine or does it have to be under two separate users?
 
Nathaniel.

With a RR in Premiere, what res playback are you able to get perfectly smooth (as shot)?

Nathaniel Kramer said:
After switching to Premiere from 7 i can say that Premiere is really great and has all the tools...however, working with 5k natively ( with rocket and quadro 4000) still is not without problems and lots of crashes... After 30 days of Premiere, we are now going to bring 7 back into the picture.. Forget working natively - computers really are not fast enough unless you want to spend 14k on a pc (yuck). We are now back to one lights in rcx, transcode to 422, edit in 7, xml to premiere, grade in rcx, refresh rmd's in premiere and then conform in premiere 5k, output to 4k or 4444.. Yup it sucks! thinking about X now.. but can we run X and 7 on the same machine or does it have to be under two separate users?
Click to expand...
 
Hi guys thanks a ton for all the responses

Yes I am very familiar with the FCP7 layout but as soon as I opened FCPx for the first time a couple days ago i felt like a deer caught in the headlights as it was completely foreign to me.

Cutting native r3ds at 5k or 4k or whatever is definitely of no interest for me however i liked the idea of being able to not have to transcode a whole features worth of footage just so I can start immediately.

I am also very proficient with premiere as I have done over 100 music videos/commercials shot on red on it. however the last time I attempted a feature on premiere, i did some research before starting and at the time we couldn't export omf's and also wasn't able to sync clips and create then as subclips. Is that still the case?

Here are my options in brief:

1-fcp7
pros: love and know the layout, no integration problems come time for exporting omf's for sound post or sending for color
cons: long proxy render times for a whole features worth of 5k footage

2-fcp x
pros: bypass the whole exporting proxies thing (but upon more research seems like its still an arduous process compared to premiere where its straight forward)

3-premiere cs6
pros: perfect integration with 3rd's
cons: can i export omf's and will a post color house be able to take my project file to conform for color correct. Also afraid that come time to send for efx, titles, we're also sending to an Alist editor when i'm done for him to fine tune my work they may be able to work on a premiere project file unless i'm mistaken. are premiere xml's guaranteed to open in an fcp system or can i maybe go with and edl that they can open in fcp or avid from a premiere project file. Also wondering how I'll edit files synced with audio as this was not an option when i last researched (premiere 4 era)

Thanks for all the info. Trying to gather as much as possible before i commit to an nle and start the process only to have to restart from scratch again.
 
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I have cut three features (one Red) in FCPX, After a few months of getting comfortable with FCP X, all was a breeze. You can now export to protools via xtopro audio convert, I'm sure premier will export to pro tools too. Didn't have RED native support when I did the first feature edit but it wasn't to hard to figure out how to work around it. I will never go back to FCP 7. Tried premier but it felt to much like FCP 7. Editing is more about the editor than the tool anyway so any of the three should suffice. I made a gamble of FCP X about a year ago and it seems to have worked out well, FCP X 10.0.6 brought back everything I missed from FCP 7.
 
Nathaniel Kramer said:
thinking about X now.. but can we run X and 7 on the same machine or does it have to be under two separate users?
Click to expand...

No they can be on the same system. It just puts the 'old' FCP apps in a folder Final Cut Studio.
And the new FCP and the old one can't run at the same time, but there are no issues running them on the same system.

BTW: I think the whole Proxy thing is much better in FCP X then it would be in Premiere of FCP7, in the sense that the program makes its own proxies, and relinks automatically. If you have some scale adjustments you made, the program relinks those automatically to the full 4K or 5K files.
Here you have some great tutorials made by We Make Movies:

http://themovieswemake.com/2012/10/fcpx-red-workflow-part-01/
http://themovieswemake.com/2012/10/fcpx-red-workflow-part-02/
http://themovieswemake.com/2012/10/fcpx-grade-raw-fcpx-redcine-pro/
 
LIke i said before, after the 10.0.6 update... it's ready for primetime!! Defintely check with your colorist as far as finishing.... but for editing purposes, fcpx will get EVERYTHING DONE, in less steps.... IN HALF THE TIME. I guarantee it. You just have to get comfortable with it, learn the shortcuts. i HIGHLY recommend purchasing the ripple training tutorial. $39.99 (or free off internet). It gives you sample footage, secondary sound, and teaches you step by step how to synchronize the sounds into one compound clip (3 second), primary and secondary color correction, adding sound effects, and all the most common task you would face as a basic editor.

Im am doing jobs, that used to require roundtripping to after effects, and color.... ALL IN FCPX.... (in half the time). fcpx even does chromakey... straight out the box. Hands down, there's nothing even close. FCPX combines aftereffects, color, and fcp7 all in one... you just have to learn it (and that's why people are intimidated by it).

Film Trailer cut, colored and edited entirely in fcpx(Red MX)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MArcoYwo7Vo

Pool Vodka Commercial - cut, color edited , sound effects entirely in fcpx. Intro / Ending animation was done in AFter effects. (red Scarlet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WbQmnPUXU

Manila Luzon - Rupaul drag race - Chroma key video - cut , colored and edited entirely in fcpx. (Red Scarlet)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIAfRWPGN0




Feel free visit website:
www.kaonmultimedia.com



... no bull $h!t. LEARN THE SOFTWARE and be amazed.
 
Mike Garrick said:
I just had a meeting about this very issue.

If you're are taking this production to a "finishing house" you need to have long conversation with them about the finishing pipeline with FCPX as there are some real issues to be addressed.
Click to expand...

What issues where addressed?
 
Nadeem Soumah said:
...Cutting native r3ds at 5k or 4k or whatever is definitely of no interest for me...
Click to expand...

I used to feel the same way until 10.0.6 came out and I realized that with r3ds in my timeline I could work with much lower storage overhead and bandwidth than working with transcoded prores material... Not needing a RAID to handle throughput of media is a big deal and one of the often unnoticed amazing breakthroughs of redcode.

Also, when working with 1080p sequences, it's nice to be able to pan and scan or zoom in digitally on the r3d and not need to render out a 4k prores file as a one-off.

I'm cutting with 4k footage with no rocket at 1/4 debayer and a single 3tb drive and it's a pretty amazing workflow.
 
Matthew B said:
I used to feel the same way until 10.0.6 came out and I realized that with r3ds in my timeline I could work with much lower storage overhead and bandwidth than working with transcoded prores material... Not needing a RAID to handle throughput of media is a big deal and one of the often unnoticed amazing breakthroughs of redcode.
Click to expand...

I feel the oposite. I would be afraid to work with the copy of my originals on a daily basis with over 12 TB of R3D. Prefer to work with offline Prores HD proxies on a 4 TB drive and not touching those precious 12 TB R3D DUBs.

Pat
 
Hi Patrick - I understand and agree with your concerns -

For Scarlet footage (4k 24p) the r3d is very close in filesize to a 1/2 size prores proxy. With my last test showing that a folder of proxies was a few GB larger than my original footage. (FCP X generates proxies for r3ds at 1/2 size, not 1080p).

For me, this is such a minute size difference that it makes sense to work with a backup of the online footage and not waste the drive space and time doubling storage requirements rendering out proxies.

When timeline scrubbing gets slow for fine tuned edits, you can just render those clips to get a prores render of the media in your edit, instead of generating proxies for the entire library.
 
I echo the note about making sure you can import and export audio, VFX, EDL, XML, OMF, ALE, DPX, etc files when working in a collaborative endeavor like a feature. I agree that the talent of the editor is more important than what NLE is used and that the fluidity with which that talented editor can manipulate elements matters. That said, I think you will save yourself a lot of grief if you make sure interfacing with the sound, FX, etc folks and their specialty systems is well implemented by your NLE.

Cheers - #19
 
I was in the same boat. Been using FCP7 for years, then I tried FCPX and I just can't stand it. It looks like an editing software for Wii.
What I did was I learned Smoke now when it's in Beta and well... It's oh so good! Been using Premiere for some stuff as well and find that been working really well too. Especially if you come from FCP7.
 
Matthew B said:
I used to feel the same way until 10.0.6 came out and I realized that with r3ds in my timeline I could work with much lower storage overhead and bandwidth than working with transcoded prores material... Not needing a RAID to handle throughput of media is a big deal and one of the often unnoticed amazing breakthroughs of redcode.

Also, when working with 1080p sequences, it's nice to be able to pan and scan or zoom in digitally on the r3d and not need to render out a 4k prores file as a one-off.

I'm cutting with 4k footage with no rocket at 1/4 debayer and a single 3tb drive and it's a pretty amazing workflow.
Click to expand...

Hi Matthew, I am curious. What are the specs of your computer?
 
Per von Koch said:
What I did was I learned Smoke now when it's in Beta and well... It's oh so good!
Click to expand...

Nice, very interesting. I wonder how it's to edit on such a finishing tool? I know they did a new version but as their background is more finishing and FX I wonder how are their audio & picture editing tools?

Is it like the Avid DS wich was a great multi task platform but was never used (rarely) by feature editors?

Pat
 
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