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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 :)

FCPX The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Blair S. Paulsen said:
In short: I'm open to the "new" way to edit, but I feel like I need a hypnotist or something to re-wire my editor brain.
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Life's too short. I'd rather fumble with Premiere, edit in FCP7, and futz around with Avid, all of which sorta/kinda make sense. FCPX looks like an editing program left on earth by aliens.
 
Marc Wielage said:
Life's too short. I'd rather fumble with Premiere, edit in FCP7, and futz around with Avid, all of which sorta/kinda make sense. FCPX looks like an editing program left on earth by aliens.
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I'm a big believer that if the tools aren't getting in the way, then there's no imminent reason to change things up. For me, FCPX was something I wanted to challenge myself to learn, with the potential benefit that it might actually be something I'd want to use. But I certainly don't expect everyone to run out and do the same thing. If there's people on the fence, maybe something in this thread will peak their curiosity, and be useful.
 
@ Marc
depends what line of work you are in. Longform narrative stick with Avid. However short form TVCs and the like FCPx is fast and powerfull and noticeably faster than Avid or premier . The sleeper is Resolve 12. But for now FCPx kick goals on certain projects .

For me the choice isn't Avid or FCPX but Premier or FCPX . Each NLE excels in certain areas but not all and the weakest NLE for me is Adobe.
 
Mike Garrick said:
Longform narrative stick with Avid. However short form TVCs and the like FCPx is fast and powerfull and noticeably faster than Avid or premier
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At this point, all three NLEs have proven themselves in long-form. There are more FCPX and Premiere Pro-edited features in the works. Granted these are only a small, small dent in the dominance of Avid in that arena, but the choice is really up to the user. Big, multi-editor, shared jobs will continue to be an Avid stronghold for awhile, but you never know.

- Oliver
 
I am not so sure Oliver. I live very close to Avid's ground zero (as does the OP) and they are still in trouble. They haven't turned a profit since 2007 or so. I have friends who work there. I have turned down two jobs there. Stronghold is not a word I would use for Avid's future. I don't know what is next for them, but something will change.
 
Scot Yount said:
I am not so sure Oliver. I live very close to Avid's ground zero (as does the OP) and they are still in trouble. They haven't turned a profit since 2007 or so. I have friends who work there. I have turned down two jobs there. Stronghold is not a word I would use for Avid's future. I don't know what is next for them, but something will change.
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Scot, I think Oliver is possibly referring to the user base, which I have to agree with him on. I've been fortunate to be involved with some projects that have had some of the top editors in the business, and there is very little desire to move away from Avid for cutting features and TV. And I don't fault them for that. Media Composer is an excellent editor. There are Avid editors who can really fly in that app, lightning fast because they have mastered shortcuts, technique, etc. If story is paramount and the art of editing is paramount, then why give up a tool you feel so comfortable doing your art?

Back to FCPX, I think the important correlation here is that if you master FCPX and it doesn't get in the way of telling a story then you can enjoy some of the same comfort that Avid editors have with their tool of choice. This thread is all about taking that journey into trying something new and see what its role will be for me in the future. I am not a master editor, despite having edited on and off for twenty+ years. I do have some comfort level with Avid, and if I had been editing with it every day for those twenty years, perhaps it would be harder for me to take the plunge. But I feel like I have just enough green in me to not feel beholden to one tool.
 
They could just go subscription and everyone who wants legacy will have to comply or bail out... (I'm joking... kind of.).
 
Steve,
I totally get what you are saying about Avid. What I am saying is that if the company goes out of business, or gets broken up and sold, it does't matter how many people are digging Media Composer, because it could well be EOL. Nothing makes editors nuttier than trying to finish something on a tight deadline on a piece of software that they don't know fully. I think that's why people resist changes, especially when lots of money is at stake. And I think that's why FCPX (besides the totally bungled roll out) has been slow to be accepted by top level pros. It is a different beast, and I think if people cut something on it, not just mess about, they often see that it can be at once simple, and powerful.
 
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Mike P. said:
They could just go subscription and everyone who wants legacy will have to comply or bail out...
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Not sure they need to. The app thing has worked out pretty well for them.
 
Scot Yount said:
Steve,
I totally get what you are saying about Avid. What I am saying is that if the company goes out of business, or gets broken up and sold, it does't matter how many people are digging Media Composer, because it could well be EOL. Nothing makes editors nuttier than trying to finish something on a tight deadline on a piece of software that they don't know fully. I think that's why people resist changes, especially when lots of money is at stake.
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Maybe it will go open source. :-)
 
Hah, I was talking about Avid (who haven't made money since 2007, apparently)... Apple can basically do whatever they want at this point.
 
I think BMD will eventually buy AVID and morph it into Resolve.
 
I go back with Avid to the earliest days and over the years have known a lot of folks on the inside. I'm currently on their ACA P&S council, so I have a bit of a window on how difficult it is to make changes. Overall, I think they have had some profitable quarters or near-profitable ones, but with any of these large, complex companies, it's very hard to determine the exact connection between profitability and longevity. Heck, most of the internet companies we use every day aren't profitable. And who's to say whether or not RED is really making any actual profit either? Yet, no one questions that. My point is that there are many ways this can be transformed and Avid is a bit in that "too big to fail" category - at least in the eyes of studios. So, I suspect Media Composer and Pro Tools as products will survive, even if Avid as a company doesn't. After all, you've still got key industry players (who may or may not be making money) that keep chugging along, thanks to VC money. Like, The Foundry, Quantel/Snell, etc.

I wouldn't put much stock into the BMD connection. That was a decision advised and blessed by the users. Not BMD, per se, but for Avid not to develop their own 4K i/o box when others already existed on the market. So it was either AJA or BMD and Avid went with BMD - probably because this enables users to also run Resolve on the same system. BMD's acquisition history is to buy companies that are on their last legs (DaVinci, Cintel, Teranex, Echolab, EyeOn) so they can own the IP and pull out the good products with viability and scrap the rest. Avid isn't anywhere close enough to that point to be attractive to BMD. Secondly, I think they are pretty close to a functional NLE in Resolve 12, so development costs would likely be less than an acquisition. Let's face it, NLEs have become a commodity.

But to kind of get back to Steve's intent with this thread, there are some interesting comparisons in how the UI design of MC/PPro/FCP7 facilitates one editor's style while FCPX facilitates another's. A lot of editors like to build up "selects" sequences and cut down from there. In the case of features, a lot of film editors have their assistants build a selects reel for each scene. The sequence is assembled in line order with all the coverage from wide to close-up of each dialogue line (or sets of lines) within that scene. This gives them a quick way to compare all performances and to be able to show the director alternates when they start reviewing the cut.

Although this is certainly possible in FCPX, its design really isn't intended for that approach. The FCPX approach is much more tied to Event (bin) organization - sort, sift, filter. Therefore, when it comes to cutting from one sequence to another, MC and PPro definitely are better tools. For example, in Premiere some editors use what they call a "pancake" approach where one timeline window is stacked on top of the other, letting you drag between sequences. In MC, you can toggle the timeline window between source and record timelines, making sequence-to-sequence assembly very fast and precise. In FCPX, you either have to tab back-and-forth between the projects (sequences) in the timeline history and then copy-and-paste clips - or - you have to make the first sequence a compound (nested) clip so that you can use it as a source for your edit. Of course, when you do this, you no longer see the clip boundaries in the timeline, unless you "step into" the compound. Apple could easily fix the compound clip requirement, by re-establishing an "overwrite/insert with sequence content" command (or the FCPX equivalent) like existed in FCP "classic".

While you can make each style of UI do what the other can do (sort of), these are two fundamentally different ways of working.

- Oliver
 
Oliver, that's very helpful. If I understand correctly, the stricter timeline-based approach may be more optimal for a work that's been scripted (and the editor's task is picking the right selects), whereas the event-based approach may be better for organizing documentary footage (whose shot order may be very unresolved until the story reveals itself). Music videos that are very heavy on lip-syncing may do better with timelines, whereas music videos that have a more abstract connection between audio and video may do better with events. Yes?
 
Not necessarily. The thing with FCPX is that it relies on a different concept, such as Roles, metadata. The Storyline concept, and there's something called "auditions" is just a different way of organizing edits.
 
Michael Tiemann said:
If I understand correctly, the stricter timeline-based approach may be more optimal for a work that's been scripted (and the editor's task is picking the right selects), whereas the event-based approach may be better for organizing documentary footage
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I think both approaches can be made to work in the same types of projects. It really boils down to how an editor likes to work. The concept of Auditions is great and some editors swear by them. I find them completely useless, except in a few rare (for me) cases. When you have a complex scene with 50-100 options (on a large film) for all the pieces that make up an edited scene, it's pretty hard to create suitable Audition clips to make that work. Especially is there's some out-of-order ad libbing, which drives the build of the scene, depending on the takes you pick to start out with. OTOH, a lot of the "Focus" shots were built as multi-cam clips, since they shot two camera for much of the film. A lot of features do this, but I think FCPX's multi-cam routines are quite good. This lets you easily switch between sync angles for the best options.

- Oliver
 
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