Final Cut Pro X adds features to win back the pros

Josh Bass said:
let me ask you guys this: can you give some examples of common editing tasks that you can do noticeably faster with x than 7 or another NLE? im curious as to the specifics of HOW it has sped up your workflow and made you a faster editor.
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In my two weeks of using FCP X, the two biggest things that have helped my speed are…

The ability to quickly scrub through and review clips in the Event Browser without even having to load them into the Viewer. (This makes it much easier/faster for me to sort through takes and quickly mark not only clips but sections of clips as "favorites.")

And what FCP X calls "Auditioning." Say you've got a sequence/project in the works. You've got a few different takes of a certain shot, but you want to see how they all work in the context of the cut. Just drag and drop one on top of the existing clip in the timeline, and you'll get the option to Audition. With a click on the timeline, you can select different takes and FCP X will automatically/magnetically snap the timeline to fit the take, and play back the clip for you in the context of the cut.

Pretty cool stuff.
 
Noel Evans said:
Updating mid project. We're no longer in the days of FCP7 and updating mid project is a non issue. I did it with 4 projects on the go. The app itself is disconnected from your Events and Projects. When the app opens it simply reads the events and projects folders. On this, for those that dont or havent come across it, on recommendation from others Ive created two additional folders 1/ Final Cut Events - Hidden 2/ Final Cut Projects - Hidden. Anything Im not currently working on goes in these folders.
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I think not updating mid project was more of a 'better safe than sorry' mindset than an actual avoidance of impending doom. The doc in my sig was edited over the course of four versions of FCP (5.0, 5.1, 6 and 7) and I never had any problems. I also worked at a facility with a dozen or so FCP seats and they upgraded in the middle of multiple projects 2 or 3 times without a hitch.



paulcurtis said:
I find FCPX a more creative environment than CS6, but a lot of people seem to get hung up on 'unlearning' their tools and approaches. Well if your approaches are so set in stone then how creative can you be?
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I guess you think people that still prefer to shoot on film are the most uncreative people of all time? :grin:

'New' and 'better' aren't the same thing. 'Different' and 'better' aren't the same thing. FCP X is certainly new and different but is it better? That depends on what your needs are. I cut day in and day out so my perspective is going to be different than someone that does not and in LA knowing FCPX won't help me get a gig so it's way down on my list of software I feel I need to be sharp on.

Of the editors I know that are 'meh' towards FCPX some of them started out cutting film, most of them have linear editing experience and nearly all of them have learned multiple NLEs so I don't see the 'old dogs can't learn new tricks' lament fitting. FCPX has a lot of good things in it (tagging, backgrand transcoding into ProRes, better RAM and GPU utilization, etc.,) but it also tries to fix things that aren't broken and that's where a lot of the friction comes from I think. What's the pay off of investing the time to learn something new that at best is only a lateral move? That's my POV at least. When I feel like it's beneficial for me to learn FCPX I will, but until then I'm going to focus my professional development time on tools that I'm interested in and that will make me more employable.


-Andrew
 
adkimery said:
I guess you think people that still prefer to shoot on film are the most uncreative people of all time? :grin:

'New' and 'better' aren't the same thing. 'Different' and 'better' aren't the same thing. FCP X is certainly new and different but is it better? That depends on what your needs are. I cut day in and day out so my perspective is going to be different than someone that does not and in LA knowing FCPX won't help me get a gig so it's way down on my list of software I feel I need to be sharp on.

Of the editors I know that are 'meh' towards FCPX some of them started out cutting film, most of them have linear editing experience and nearly all of them have learned multiple NLEs so I don't see the 'old dogs can't learn new tricks' lament fitting. FCPX has a lot of good things in it (tagging, backgrand transcoding into ProRes, better RAM and GPU utilization, etc.,) but it also tries to fix things that aren't broken and that's where a lot of the friction comes from I think. What's the pay off of investing the time to learn something new that at best is only a lateral move? That's my POV at least. When I feel like it's beneficial for me to learn FCPX I will, but until then I'm going to focus my professional development time on tools that I'm interested in and that will make me more employable.


-Andrew
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I've done film too and we've even cut film the traditional way. But my point was that a lot of the complaints weren't about what it could or couldn't do, just people couldn't be bothered to learn new tools or even try it. Everything evolves, like it or not, peoples expectations, peoples tastes. Delivering entertainment and knowledge *is* about being creative. My issue was what i see as the unfair assault against it for no good reason.

Again the good things you list are all irrelevant technical details, my point was the totally different approach to cutting and being able to try and move things around in a way that promotes experimentation nee creativity. That's what FCPX offers.

cheers
paul
 
paulcurtis said:
I've done film too and we've even cut film the traditional way. But my point was that a lot of the complaints weren't about what it could or couldn't do, just people couldn't be bothered to learn new tools or even try it. Everything evolves, like it or not, peoples expectations, peoples tastes. Delivering entertainment and knowledge *is* about being creative. My issue was what i see as the unfair assault against it for no good reason.

Again the good things you list are all irrelevant technical details, my point was the totally different approach to cutting and being able to try and move things around in a way that promotes experimentation nee creativity. That's what FCPX offers.

cheers
paul
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Why is someone's creativity inherently tied to the tools that they use? How does writing long hand vs using MS Word vs using Final Draft relate to how creative the writer is? Sure, some people may prefer writing long hand because it feels more organic while others may prefer Final Draft because it automatically handles script formatting. Those preferences may relate to a comfort level which makes the person feel more creative or more productive using their tool of choice but neither tool contains an inherent quality that induces or retards creativity. Is Walter Murch more creative than his peers because of his pioneering use of Avid and FCP in big budget feature film editing? I don't think so. I'd call it a sign of being more adventurous but not really more creative. Murch also had the advantage of handing off the mountain of technical hurdles to his assistants and even third party support teams which is a luxury few of us have.

Technical details aren't irrelevant because there is a large technical aspect to our industry. We are also constrained by time and budgets which means technical reasons may determine the best tool for the job even if the best tool isn't a personal favorite. Through updates and third party support FCPX has erased many of the technical short comings that it first had but that still doesn't mean it's the right fit for every situation. It can be like offering a Prius to someone that regularly needs to haul a trailer. You don't need to weld a hitch to the Prius, attach a trailer and then drive it around for a bit to know that the Prius probably isn't the best fit for your needs (regardless of all the advantages that it has over a truck).

Some people wonder why FCPX gets the shaft while others wonder why non-FCPX users are dismissed as uncreative dinosaurs for nothing more than not learning one piece of software.

That's what FCPX offers.
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That's what it offers to you. Other people might already get that same feeling from other NLEs and/or not get that feeling from FCPX. To each their own.:beer:


-Andrew
 
zijital said:
Not if you're still on FCP7. For me, to move from FCP7 to FCPX, Avid or Adobe would be big transition & until I see a need for that extra effort, I'm sticking with FCP7. If FCPX get updated so that transition doesn't take effort, it'll be an easy move.

Though if I end up going Adobe or Avid, then I'm thankful that both of those companies have put out info on how to help with that transition.

Still if it ain't broke...
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And in the nutshell this statement sums up, why people are bitching and complaining about FCPX. First of all, most likely a large portion of posters here, doesn't even work with FCPX. Second- it's a new program. FCP legacy was a dead end and FCPX is far superior in features (by far the best multicam on the market), speed and price. It's a change of thinking and platform- get used to it. If you are in video and media business, people should be prepared to deal with change. The cameras change, the computers change, so do the NLE's. It's affordable, you can add any third party plugins as needed, it's super fast and went through 8 updates in 2 years without extra cost. If Adobe or Avid can do it I might think about switching. But when you consider cost, performance and features- FCPX is hard to beat. BTW- at this stage anyone saying FCPX can't do what FCP legacy could- simply don't know what they are talking about and don't know the program at all. And don't give me this line- "I did edit a 2 minute project", because as any complex program it takes hours and days to learn all the intricacies of the NLE.
 
I was just over reading whats coming in the NEW Premiere Pro - seems they've caught the bug on a lot of things FCPX already has.
 
Noel Evans said:
I was just over reading whats coming in the NEW Premiere Pro - seems they've caught the bug on a lot of things FCPX already has.
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Even if that's true, it would just be the reverse of when FCPX came out and finally caught Apple up to CS5 & CS5.5; not to mention the new PP will have plenty more in addition to whatever FCP features they transpose/integrate.
 
Noel Evans said:
I was just over reading whats coming in the NEW Premiere Pro - seems they've caught the bug on a lot of things FCPX already has.
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FCPX is adding back what many would consider 'standard features' for an NLE while PPro is pretty solid in the standard features department so, among other updates, they are taking a cue from some of the things FCPX has done right (to be honest I think PPro is trying much harder to be FCP8 than FCPX). Avid developed the Smart Tool to woo FCP Legacy users and FCP Legacy spent years improving its media management so you could online/offline reliably like you could on Avid. Seeing what the other guy is doing and trying to do it better yourself isn't anything new. I'm sure if we looked at various NLEs over the past decade or so from Adobe, Avid, Apple, Autodesk, Sony Pinnacle, Media 100, etc., we'd see that features crept around between them in an incestuous way with many users thinking they received something new and unique only because they were ignorant to another NLE, which they didn't use, could do. There's a lot of cross over between NLEs but still enough differences that they each have their own feel, strengths and tradeoffs.


-Andrew
 
As for editing workflows with multiple cameras or tracks I think it depends ons how you look at working through a project. At first I HATED the event project workflow. Now I gneraly love it. keywords are so much more useful than bins to me and gets into what I mean by editing differently with tracks. me personally I would do alot of assembly in the timeline of a sequence in FCP 6. having multiple tracks to move things around to get order and layering was crucial to me. But I didn't realize it was slower.

FCPX concept is story telling and story components. with the example inquired about, 2 video tracks with stereo sounds sources, plus graphics layers etc, me personally I might make a multi clip of the two video sources if they are together in sync. if its A cam with cutaways, I would create the cutaways as a seconary story line. Graphics would go go into their own compound clip with multiple layers, which is what I usually do, then I would attach the graphics story component to where ever it needs to be in the main story line. A lot of times I do intros with multiple layers, titles, etc. once I figure all that out, I collapse it into a single compound clip. refine the edit etc. Its not that tracks are gone per se, but the utilization has changed very significantly.

As another example with multiple tracks audio, recorders, and b-Roll, I work with a local TV show in Houston. I do most of the shooting with a pair of DSLRs a Panasonic hmc40, Tascam DR40 and some LAvs or shotguns. Its an art show that focuses on different artists and culture, so lots of interviews and b-roll. as I assemble, I'll grab the primary audio and synch with video. I make that the primary story line clips. I attach music or other audio as the relate to the primary clip. I attach graphics and B-roll to the primary and build around the interviews or the art presentation. Th fun thing is I don't worry about moving clps around on tracks to be in sync once I make changes to the story. Perhaps I Like a particular answer later and re arrange the order of the interview. I can easily cut, move that portion, and all the attached clips come with it. In FCP 7 that would be much more time consuming to make sure I have everything back in place where I want it on the time line, moving clips out of the way, inserting back into place, making sure when I move clip back to join I don't have any gaps .

So yeah, my mind set is instead of thinking of editing in independent tracks as I would edit audio, I think of it as a story with layers, different parts of the story have different layers. Hope that helps some who were wondering what exactly is faster or how do you get around with tracks. I know everyone has their preference. not trying to preach convert or throw gas on flames. Mind you I also have plenty of problems with FCPX still, but thats another story and another time.
 
All this PP this, FCPX that, Avid another is just plain silly. Each and every of these companies is offering a free 30 day trial. Everyone can just download them for free, and use them for 30 days, then decide for themselves what they liked. All these NLE's pretty much do the same. I personally like FCPX, tried PP (did not like it) and I have a basic grasp of Avid. IMHO it's how well you know the program is the key- as I said- they pretty much do all the same. Everything else is just pointless pissing match.
 
i was the one who asked about how specifically fcp x makes you faster. yours is the best answer so far. (no offense to anyone else. youre all my babies.)
 
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