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FCPX The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Steve Sherrick

Steve Sherrick

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Upon the release of FCPX I was in the camp of the disappointed. Mainly because of how it was launched, with some key features missing and an arrogance that I didn't think was appropriate at the time (for example, saying FCP7 was going away). A smoother, less aggressive approach may have been better but alas I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to think about the future, to find the tools I want to work with moving forward. Since its release I have only dabbled with FCPX, trying it out on home movies. There was lots of frustration. Having been on Avid since 1995 and eventually adding FCP to my toolbox, I have been conditioned to think of editing in a particular way. And for the most part there were very few reasons I needed to search elsewhere for the kind of work I do. I have also used Premiere which in my mind is an approximation of what I thought FCP 8 would be. It's powerful, modern, and it's part of an incredible suite of tools. So why even bother with X when I already have Avid and Premiere? That's a question I could only answer by taking X through a real project with real deadlines.

And so began my journey back in June when I committed to using FCPX to cut a feature length doc with a client I have edited two other projects for. I would need to learn the software well enough that I could make the client's experience seamless, to the point they didn't even know I had switched software. Imagine my surprise, when after the first week of editing the client said to me, why is this going so much faster than in the past? That's when I realized that something was going on here. And that's what I plan to explore over the next few weeks as I wrap this film up.

There's some good, there's some bad, and for sure there is some ugly. But as Sam Mestman reminded me at the beginning of this journey, you have to keep your mind open during your first experienes with FCPX to have any chance at seeing where it really shines. And that's what I have tried to do. In some ways, I had no choice. A client was paying me. There are hard deadlines. Keep an open mind or the project goes down in flames. I hope I will be able to provide some insight for those who have had a curiosity about FCPX but were turned off by the negative press. Sam's words are the best advice when it comes to FCPX because it's very easy to give up on it.

Stay tuned...
 
THE GOOD


  • Apple could have easily listened to the feedback from FCP 7 users and given them FCP 8. Theoretically it probably would have looked like Premiere CC. They could have cleaned up the code, optimized processing, fixed bugs that have long plagued the FCP app, etc. Instead they gambled and decided to go in a different direction. What we have is a different editing experience when compared to the usual suspects. I am not endorsing their approach for launching this new way of editing. I think they messed that up, but I am going to give them credit for straying from the norm, from the expected.
  • 10.2 seems to have addressed a lot of things people have been finding frustrating. I worked on version 10.2.1 on Yosemite 10.10.4. Now, here comes the interesting part, I cut this 90 minute film (in two 45 minute Projects) on a 2008 Mac Pro (SSD boot drive, 32GB RAM, GTX770 Macvid card version, ATTO R680, ProAvio RAID 6). Clearly this was one of the slowest Macs to attempt this on, but I knew that if I could get through this project on this limited machine with success, then running it on a new iMac or Mac Pro would feel like I had entered the future. What can I say, it has worked like a charm. The only hiccup was I had some RAM go bad, but after diagnosing it was the RAM or not FCPX slowing down, new RAM from OWC got me back to normal. Even some massive stills that somehow slipped by QC didn't bring it to its knees. One file in particular was 10000x4600 and that for sure would have killed FCP 7. The project got a little slower with those massive files in there but it kept working.
  • You have to buy in to FCPX new naming conventions. If you don't, this will mess you up. I didn't like it at first, in fact I thought it was a blatant mistake by Apple to change the terminology. I'm starting to think that perhaps it was needed, so that we could begin the process of wrapping our heads around this new way of working.
  • We are continuously distancing ourselves from tape based media. FCPX not only acknowledges this but embraces the change to a file based world. There are powerful metadata tools in FCPX. I think they will continue to be refined and improved upon. To me, this means that we can access footage quicker, which keeps the editing happening more fluidly. On the film I've been editing, I've only begun to dig into the rich metadata features. The producer/director on this project is quite good and comes very well prepared so we have not had to do as much tagging/keywording in this workflow but I have played with it on smaller projects and it's absolutely the way things are moving in the future. We are producing endless content and being able to manage the metadata in effective ways will allow far greater accessibility to that content.
  • Third party support. This was another area I questioned Apple early on. Why make 3rd parties have to write support apps/plugins for things you should have put in there already. While I think I still have a bit of a beef with this approach, I think the third parties are creating some interesting stuff and maybe there is an argument that as along as Apple provides the tentacles then maybe those 3rd parties can do a better job of implementing additional tools than Apple can. It also keeps the app very cheap most likely as well. I have enjoyed some of the plugins so far. I also feel Apple has included some cool things like access to some decent audio plugins and Motion content.
  • Simply put, the app is fun. This may seem corny to write this into the list but keep in mind that when you have been using similar tools for years and years, the actual tool itself can become a bit, well boring. I'm not going to lie, I have found FCPX fun to work in, even when it has been frustrating me because it challenges me, makes me want to learn more about how it works. But most importantly, some things are just so damn fast to do. Want to do a quick Ken Burns push in on a still, even if it's just a temp effect? There's actually a filter/crop effect called Ken Burns and believe me that alone has saved me probably a few hours on this project. It's fast, plays realtime and generally looks pretty good. Many may scoff and say that's just cheesy nonsense to put a Ken Burns effect in the app. Well, my client has been VERY happy with that effect and since he's paying the bills, who am I to complain about a "cheesy" tool that gets the client what they want, quickly?
  • Background rendering has been working very well. I almost never notice it (which is the point). I should remind everyone at this point that I'm on a 2008 Mac Pro. Granted, this is a 1080P project but sill these are large projects, with huge stills and everything plays relatively smooth. I use Better Performance viewing most of the time unless I specifically need to look at something in full quality. At full quality, I notice the occasional hiccup but this is hardware limitations. Mostly everything play pretty well at full quality too.
  • Compound clips. Admittedly, I'm still exploring these but my initial report is that I like the flexibility they provide. I will add more to this as I work through some of the pros and cons. Although they share similarity to FCP nested sequences or Avid's Collapsed clips there are things that differentiate them and I'll need a little more time to break this down.
  • Media Management. I was not as involved with FCPX in its earlier versions, so I can't speak to media management other than V10.2.1. It seems to work well and gives you some flexibility to choose how you want to manage it. On this project, I chose to leave my files in place when importing. I had created a folder structure that made sense for where I wanted to organize the footage and that seems to be holding up well. I choose where to store the cache files and the backups. Although I haven't had to implement it yet, the consolidate feature seems like it will work well for moving things around. One thing I have not tested and what I would need to see demonstrated is a multi-editor, networked environment. This seems to need very specific hardware and protocols, so if I was a big facility I would certainly be looking at companies such as FCPworks to consult on best practices because this is an area where Avid and FCP 7 have been fairly strong.
  • Skimming. Wow, this really does make getting through footage very fast. I fought this one too at the beginning. Not so much the concept of skimming but that the traditional source/record setup was kind of gone. In some ways, it's not totally gone just reimagined. I can say that I've definitely seen productivity increase with FCPX browser/skimming. This is the challenge with FCPX. At first, a lot of things seem wrong because they are different and the initial reaction is to fight the FCPX way of doing it. I will sometimes turn off skimming when working in the timeline when it gets in the way. But overall it has been very solid addition to my editing experience.
  • Audio is one I need more time to think about because this doc has a lot of premixed elements so I haven't yet done a project that has hundreds, maybe thousands of audio elements. I understand Roles and I will do some test projects that are heavy on the sound side to see how I want to work with audio in FCPX. I am putting it in the good department because volume adjustments are easy (far easier than Avid), and there are some good audio plugins. I have some things about audio that will end up in the The Bad and The Ugly. But I think the things most people are to encounter right away, adjusting volume, pan, and effects are pretty solid.
  • Offline/Online. For this project I did a lot of front end work prepping media so that I had consistent codecs, frame rates, etc. But i do love the idea of being able to create proxy media (in the background) so that I can get better performance when needed, and then switching back for analysis and final export. That's pretty cool. I am used to creating DNx36 for offline in Avid and then relinking to hi-res later. It's similar workflow, just FCPX makes it very easy.
  • Multicam. What can I say, it works and it works pretty damn well. On a kickass machine you should be able to cut plenty of camera angles with smooth playback. I did a multicam edit as a test (one of the things that exposed my RAM problem) and it worked flawlessly.
  • Trimming. I think this is going to end up in multiple places. For the most part, I liked it. I agree there are some things about Avid, namely Dynamic Trimming that perhaps FCPX doesn't quite get as high a score, but then again depends on how you edit, what your techniques are. Haven't found too many things about it that have slowed me down, but I can definitely see some Avid editors having some WTF moments, especially at first. I suspect Apple will look at the feedback they get and possibly refine the trim tools, but as they stand now, they are solid. But, do keep in mind that this is within the context of the magnetic timeline, so a complete understanding of that is essential.
  • Exporting seems to be going very quickly. I'm quite surprised on this ancient Mac how fast my exports to a Master File have been. Background rendering, 1080P timeline, relatively fast RAID all help of course.
 
THE BAD


  • Timecode display approach. Timecode is still VERY important and I want to be able to view it instantly, not jump through hoops to see what my source timecode is, or duration, etc.
  • Fixed UI. I think a default layout like they have is great for a lot of people, but I need to be able to customize the interface more. For example, the text entry window is virtually useless now and forces you to use the preview window and this is not ideal. My workaround is to use other text plugins, but this is a UI problem. For all of the advancements, the UI limitations seem to take it backwards.
  • Transitions. Sorry but there's got to be a better way to deal with transitions in this new world of magnetic timeline and secondary storylines, connected clips, etc.
  • Render caching. Several times FCPX seems to be calling up old renders despite having adjusted something. For example, I might do a manual fade up and part of the old fade up would play. This happens with cross dissolves too and sometimes I have to cut in the clip again. Very annoying. Maybe just a bug.
  • Dynamic trimming like I have in Avid probably should be an option.
  • Not a huge fan of how connected clips get ordered now
  • I think I am in agreement about having a way to go into classic mode for things that might be easier to handle in that mode. Probably not a possibility, but I noticed this mostly after I had gone through my initial cut and was doing fine cutting and sound editing. Perhaps after a few projects I'll feel differently.
  • Perhaps related to the render cache issue, when I move a clip around it will lose its opacity settings sometimes
 
THE UGLY

I'll take the higher ground and just go with The Good and The Bad. :smile5:
 
Welcome to the land of FCPX enthusiasm (I think), Steve. You have, I am guessing, already passed me up on FCPX expertise since you have immersed yourself in a feature, so I doubt I can "teach" you anything. But I can't tell you how strongly I believe this is the future of the edit. You are already fully engaged with Sam Mestman. I imagine you know Michael Cioni's take on it. And, I can only guess you have studied the Focus workflow at some length and seen Jan Kovac's commitment to it. Add Ripple Training to the mix, along with some time and patience, and the picture is complete (pun intended).

I am hoping you'll continue to post further thoughts and experiences so we can all learn from you.

(As an aside, it occurred to me the other day that, with the attention Apple seems to be now paying to shared storage, leading to a shared work environment, that the introduction of El Capitan and another iteration or so of FCPX, this may end up being the death rattle for the financially troubled Avid. I know, bring on the flames.)

And with the introduction of the Mac version of Fusion, we finally may have something to compete with After Effects.
 
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Nice!
 
Here is one thing I love about FCPX, I paid $300 once, three years ago. Overall I really like it, but there is no perfect edit system and wish it did somethings differently. Handles 4k really easily and well.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Welcome to the land of FCPX enthusiasm (I think), Steve. You have, I am guessing, already passed me up on FCPX expertise since you have immersed yourself in a feature, so I doubt I can "teach" you anything. But I can't tell you how strongly I believe this is the future of the edit. You are already fully engaged with Sam Mestman. I imagine you know Michael Cioni's take on it. And, I can only guess you have studied the Focus workflow at some length and seen Jan Kovac's commitment to it. Add Ripple Training to the mix, along with some time and patience, and the picture is complete (pun intended).

I am hoping you'll continue to post further thoughts and experiences so we can all learn from you.

(As an aside, it occurred to me the other day that, with the attention Apple seems to be now paying to shared storage, leading to a shared work environment, that the introduction of El Capitan and another iteration or so of FCPX, this may end up being the death rattle for the financially troubled Avid. I know, bring on the flames.)

And with the introduction of the Mac version of Fusion, we finally may have something to compete with After Effects.
Click to expand...

Thanks for starting this thread Steve. I am very interested to hear your experience of FCPX. I've only used it for home movies so far after finally switching to Premiere.
I look forward to further posts. Good luck with your project.
 
Hi Steve,

I was one of the dissapointed too when it came out. I gave it another chance after 10.0.3 (released in January 2012) and switched over to it completely at 10.0.6 together with switching the complete facility where I edited too.

I still have a 35 bullet point list with stuff I would wish Apple change/do differently. But I like it much more then other NLE's (coming from FCP7 and Premiere), even with its imperfections.
Now I already did a demo in Belgium for it, gathering interest from long-time editors who were skeptical to it, and next month I will do a 3-evening tutorial/workshop for my former teachers in high school where I did audiovisual arts. They told me before my demo last year that they hated X and they were staying with 7, but that they were curious to see my demo, even if they had no trust in me convincing them.
After the demo they seemed to have switched opinions, and now they got the school to switch but I'm gonna teach them, the teachers, how to work with it.

My number one advice during the demo was, and it will be the same when I give the workshop: "you will be frustrated! you will hate it on moments! know this before-hand, but know it is a normal step of the process and don't give up just yet. but after using it more and more, a lot of things will click, one by one, your muscle memory will slowly change to the new system, and one point you will edit and notice that you are thinking in terms of primary storyline, secondary storylines, connected clips, etc. ... instead of track patching, etc.".
There are many reasons why I have a lot more trust in Apple's magnetic timeline with a combination of Roles metadata (which has a lot of room for improvement though, but I think Apple is working on it) then a tracked timeline with clip collissions.

Anyhow, I will be very interested in reading your experiences!
 
Looking forward to seeing Steve's notes on FCPX. I personally don't see enough good in it for my clients to switch from Premiere or Avid. I have recently started doing a bunch of conforms and minor editing in Resolve 12, and I'm getting used to it... but there's a lot of teeth-gritting.

I agree: at some point, you have to stop saying, "but why don't they do XYZ?" and just go with the flow. But FCPX is too alien and foreign for me to even want to try. I get more and more dismayed at how I think Apple is losing their way in terms of pro users these days.
 
fcpx = pro

fcpx = pro

hi Marc
" But FCPX is too alien and foreign for me to even want to try. I get more and more dismayed at how I think Apple is losing their way in terms of pro users these days"
i think after half a day training you will see that Final Cut PRO X is really PRO ;-)
Ttraining and getting used to is really needed.
Best sources, free Vimeo FCPX training, Izzy, Ripple Training, Larry Jordan.
Just be sure that they talk about FCPX 1.1 or 10.2 as there are some big differences ( = much easier - flexible ) in the way it stores the data.
Compare it as switching for a old Blackberry phone to a iPhone. Where are those buttons... not pro ... not a real phone...
;-)
 
Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.
I'm on FCP X since the beginning and I just continued to use FCP7 simultaneously - which was the only point I didn't get from switchers / former FCP users, why not try it out and keep FCP7 for while it works? :)
Well, I tried it out, and held on to FCP7 until the X multicam updates came out and since then I'm on FCPX only and I love it.

Not everything is gold. Some things I don't like, some things I love and a few things I despise. But that's exactly the same with every program I use ;) But: FCPX disrupted the fixed "NLE" process and asked questions and changed things beyond what everybody else does. And I like that in the gear I use ;)

So here I am: listening.
 
As a pure editor, i think it is the best I've worked with (and the list is long) ease of trimming and organising and viewing footage is very good. As a database. very strong. Interface. I like it. the render engine, solid. R3D workflow. Very Solid.
 
I went through a similar path as an editor. Started in premiere back in the day, then FCP 6 and 7. Love FCP 7, but switched to Premiere when I got my Epic. I enjoyed Premiere and used it up until 1.5 years ago when Mark Toia and others were speaking highly about it. It took a bit to get used to, but I really dig it with the Dragon and nMP. Highly recommend it!!!
 
Looking forward to this thread! As an Avid then FCP v1 user I was dedicated through FCP7. In the last four years, my work has been mostly Epic with a lot of VFX so Adobe just seemed to make more sense as a platform. Adobe's not without its flaws, but the dynamic link process has truly been a game changer for creating fast, adaptable VFX-heavy projects. I've downloaded the new Fusion and am looking forward to exploring FCPX + Fusion as a workflow replacement on a Mac. Hopefully, this thread will shed light on the viability of that notion!
 
I think where FCP is the most disappointing is its lack of an ecosystem. FCP7 Studio was a great roundtripper, to logic, Color or other apps. The FCP X ecosystem is rather weak and adobe has definitely focused on interrupt integration (that thing Apple laid the groundwork for in FCP studio) but it seems Adobe is doing it better. I like ONE set of media and not having to create all kinds of new media and folders, etc.

I think if FCP X had incorporated a "Rooms" concept, as in EDIT ROOM, Sound mixing room, color correction room and VFX room, then it would be heaven.

I hoped we would see it laid out in such a way that you could focus on editing when editing, switch the interface to a Color Correction or sound mix or VFX concept. Not only as a workspace, but so that it would take the same media and literally switch the GUI depending on the work you are doing.

I know people will say that SMOKE does this or that you can edit in Resolve, but I still would have liked to see this in FCP X
 
I have to admit being amazed at the continued insistence that "Apple has lost it's way." and "FCPX is not for professionals." (I know, Marc, you aren't the only one saying this.)

I get it that some folks don't like it but it is very probably the most popular NLE on the planet; it has millions of users, many of whom most assuredly use it in some sort of "professional" manner. It is touted by some very talented and capable people, both here on this forum and elsewhere. It has now been proven - with some really eloquent and enthusiastic recommendations - to work for feature films. Just listen to Jan Kovac (editor of Focus), Michael Cioni, Sam Mestman, and and now Steve, as well as many, many others wax on about it's capabilities. Again, it's perfectly reasonable not to "like" it but the condescension should have disappeared long ago.

Randy Ubillos was no stranger to the entire spectrum of digital NLEs (he actually invented a few of them) and he is quite confident about FCPX as the next generation platform. I don't want to be guilty of some sort of "reverse condescension" but isn't the real question whether or not some people are just too stuck in their "old ways" to be able to see the value in something different? Flat beds and film worked just fine for may decades but...

I don't know how old some of the doubters are here but they really do sound ancient and "set in their ways." I am not thrilled with the idea of being past 60 (which I am) but I do still get excited when things get shaken up and new tools come along to make things better. Let's here it for disruption.
 
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David Battistella said:
As a pure editor, i think it is the best I've worked with (and the list is long) ease of trimming and organising and viewing footage is very good. As a database. very strong. Interface. I like it. the render engine, solid. R3D workflow. Very Solid.
Click to expand...
+1000
 
It was a love/hate relationship with me. I like when software companies shake up the norm and re-imagine things. FCPX was frustrating at first but only took me about 2 hours to watch some training and find tips and trick on YouTube to get comfortable enough to switch. I skipped FCP7 so I came from FCP6. Once you wrap your head around setting up a project and how and why it does what it does it starts to make sense.

The ugly side for me is the magnetic timeline. I can't stand that sucker. I never use it. I always drop my clips in using the "Q" command and it places it above the magnetic timeline. There are advantages to working that way and there are frustrations that come with it also. I wish we had the option to turn it off and work similarly to the way we did in FCP.

Other than that I love it. I love being able to directly upload to Vimeo or YouTube from it. The export options are nice and I've become quite heavily invested in plug-ins. Unless Apple totally screws it up then I'm here to stay for a long time.
 
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