cowpunk52
Veteran
This is a mood piece that I put together for my first rodeo with Final Cut Pro X. Shot on a GH2 with 14-45mm lens, all handheld and much of it using EX tele-crop mode.
I was particularly interested in the stabilization and rolling shutter correction features of the program, so nearly every clip in this piece has one if not both of those filters applied. You can see that they don't do a perfect job, but I gave it some very shaky footage and it did do better at correcting than I expected. However, it also cropped in on several shots a little more than I would have liked, as well. I'll post up the same video with no stabilization or rolling shutter correction for comparison a little later on.
Overall, I'm very pleased with FCP X. After all the negative reviews of it and online ranting, I expected to be utterly disappointed in it. I also expected the learning curve to be slow and to be frustrated at having to learn a completely new edit system, as that was my experience when trying out Premiere CS5. At that time, a year and a half ago, I actually abandoned my lone Premiere project and just finished it in FCP 7. I haven't been back to Premiere since.
I found FCP X to be surprisingly intuitive, and working with it really felt like I was working with a "smart" NLE. It made intelligent decisions about media and management without me having to babysit every setting. And if there was something I wanted done customarily, that was simple to do. Importing media, music and additional clips was as simple as drag and drop in some cases. The magnetic timeline felt natural and doing simple grading and sound mixing was very quick with good results.
I know there are many features missing that a lot of editors can't live without, but overall I feel that FCP X is an excellent start to what will eventually be a significant and powerful editing platform. One that I missed from this project was video noise suppression. I love Neat Video, and have used it for years in FCP 7, but there is currently no support for it in FCP X. The GH2's EX tele-crop mode introduces quite a bit of ugly fixed pattern noise, especially in the shadows, that I would have like to clean up. That wasn't possible, so instead I went the other direction and added film grain from FCP X's effects palette to match my shots. I thought it worked well, and I like the look of the film grain from FCP X.
Keep in mind, I'm not a professional editor. I do editing for a few personal clients and my own footages, but I'm primarily a Cinematographer and Camera Operator. For me, FCP X is a great tool in my toolbox - and at $300, I think it's a steal.
I was particularly interested in the stabilization and rolling shutter correction features of the program, so nearly every clip in this piece has one if not both of those filters applied. You can see that they don't do a perfect job, but I gave it some very shaky footage and it did do better at correcting than I expected. However, it also cropped in on several shots a little more than I would have liked, as well. I'll post up the same video with no stabilization or rolling shutter correction for comparison a little later on.
Overall, I'm very pleased with FCP X. After all the negative reviews of it and online ranting, I expected to be utterly disappointed in it. I also expected the learning curve to be slow and to be frustrated at having to learn a completely new edit system, as that was my experience when trying out Premiere CS5. At that time, a year and a half ago, I actually abandoned my lone Premiere project and just finished it in FCP 7. I haven't been back to Premiere since.
I found FCP X to be surprisingly intuitive, and working with it really felt like I was working with a "smart" NLE. It made intelligent decisions about media and management without me having to babysit every setting. And if there was something I wanted done customarily, that was simple to do. Importing media, music and additional clips was as simple as drag and drop in some cases. The magnetic timeline felt natural and doing simple grading and sound mixing was very quick with good results.
I know there are many features missing that a lot of editors can't live without, but overall I feel that FCP X is an excellent start to what will eventually be a significant and powerful editing platform. One that I missed from this project was video noise suppression. I love Neat Video, and have used it for years in FCP 7, but there is currently no support for it in FCP X. The GH2's EX tele-crop mode introduces quite a bit of ugly fixed pattern noise, especially in the shadows, that I would have like to clean up. That wasn't possible, so instead I went the other direction and added film grain from FCP X's effects palette to match my shots. I thought it worked well, and I like the look of the film grain from FCP X.
Keep in mind, I'm not a professional editor. I do editing for a few personal clients and my own footages, but I'm primarily a Cinematographer and Camera Operator. For me, FCP X is a great tool in my toolbox - and at $300, I think it's a steal.