TheReverend
Well-known member
-FCPX-
It's been the subject of countless debate and ridicule over the past months, with many airing it's faults continuously and few praising it as a great NLE. Many have questioned whether FCPX deserves the "Pro" label and also Apple's commitment (or apparent lack thereof) to the professional market. I don't think I need to go into much more description than this to summarize the current state and debacle that is FCPX.
In starting this thread, I aim to give feedback on and examples of using FCPX in the workplace. We recently decided to do a few upgrades to our video department which include a gigabit network backbone and a NAS storage unit. As part of this we decided that FCPX would best solve our workplace issues. For starters, I should send you this link http://www.crossing-church.com so you can see who we are and what we do.
1) Yes, we are a church. But that doesn't lessen our commitment to deliver top-quality video. The Crossing is attended on average by 2100 people weekly in 4 locations (up to 4000+ on some occasions). We currently use 3 HDSDI cams in a switching environment (that is projected live on screens) that record weekly a 1hour service on Saturday night, that is then rendered and delivered to 3 video campuses on Sunday morning. We recently produced a 30sec commercial that went to local cable access, and have 3 more lined up for 2011. We produce a weekly news show, shoot other classes and events, produce DVD of services, make internal video ads, make creative videos for use in services, deliver all or many of these videos to web... The list goes on. On average, counting all videos made, we produce and deliver anywhere from 4-10 videos a week.
2) We are primarily volunteer based. I am the Video Production head here at the church. I have 2 part-time staff; one that supervises live event switching shoots, and one that supervises projection and does some editing on the side. Other than that, we have volunteers that fill in all the gaps in terms of camera operators, editors, set hands, actors, graphics, etc. We have particular needs for workers in the editing department, and thus have chosen FCPX because of it's shorter learning curve as we are finding it necessary to train volunteers who come in with ZERO editing experience.
3) We are Mac-based in all our service display computers as well as all our video department. We started using FCP7 back in 2006/2007 and have upgraded the software with each update (currently FCS3). We currently have 2 HPX170s that use P2 DVCPROHD. We have 1 AF100 that we use AVCHD on SDHC cards. We have a DVX100b as a backup or auxiliary camera that uses DV tapes. We have and use the Adobe Production Suite for After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and considered switching to Premiere Pro but chose against it. We use a Panasonic AW-HS50 for live switching, and we capture HDSDI live currently via FCP7 using a 8-core Mac Pro with a Blackmagic Decklink HD to internal software RAID. We have never done any tape archiving or tape delivery (other than source DV tapes from the DVX100) and all our data is currently stored on hard drives, although we have done limited archive of source footage but have archived in ProRes many delivered videos. We have acquired a NAS RAID this week, and we will be integrating that into our 3-station video area over the next week.
So obviously we have needs that others may not have (training editors, no tape needs, significant but limited delivery to outside video broadcast). But I don't think that negates usefulness of sharing our experience with FCPX and also the results of using FCPX as our main edit utility. And, the breadth of our current needs and workflow should be very informative to others considering FCPX. And so, onto the first post...
__________________________________________________ __________________________________
-News Segment-
As stated above we do a weekly news segment that gives "announcements" to 4 campuses about different things that are happening at The Crossing. We recently revamped our news segment (started in September) using a new-to-us technique of "black screen". We are extremely happy with the results, although the background work for the new news was proving to be VERY time consuming in the graphics department. The workflow was initially FCP7 ingest and edit. XML export from FCP7 to After Effects CS5. CC and graphics in AE. Render ProRes from AE CS5 and import into FCP7 project. Final adjustments and render.
With the addition of FCPX this week, we decided to try and do the new ENTIRELY within FCPX to see how it fares. The workflow was, import into FCPX. Edit cuts, audio, graphics, CC all in FCPX and export via Compressor 4. What we discovered was that despite needing to learn a new software, FCPX proved faster to post-produce the news. Our fairly inexperienced editors had NO trouble learning the new interface and doing the graphics (which they previously had issues learning and adjusting to AE), which also made this the most volunteer made news we have ever done.
Below are two videos, one produced via FCP7->AE->FCP7, and the other done entirely in FCPX. They have NOT been labelled as to which is which. Watch, enjoy, and give your thoughts!
(NOTE: There is an "ad" for "The Experiement" in one of the videos. This was produced in AE done entirely outside the news segment and has no bearing on which video is which.)
Password for both is: fcpx
http://vimeo.com/29432438
http://vimeo.com/29432294
It's been the subject of countless debate and ridicule over the past months, with many airing it's faults continuously and few praising it as a great NLE. Many have questioned whether FCPX deserves the "Pro" label and also Apple's commitment (or apparent lack thereof) to the professional market. I don't think I need to go into much more description than this to summarize the current state and debacle that is FCPX.
In starting this thread, I aim to give feedback on and examples of using FCPX in the workplace. We recently decided to do a few upgrades to our video department which include a gigabit network backbone and a NAS storage unit. As part of this we decided that FCPX would best solve our workplace issues. For starters, I should send you this link http://www.crossing-church.com so you can see who we are and what we do.
1) Yes, we are a church. But that doesn't lessen our commitment to deliver top-quality video. The Crossing is attended on average by 2100 people weekly in 4 locations (up to 4000+ on some occasions). We currently use 3 HDSDI cams in a switching environment (that is projected live on screens) that record weekly a 1hour service on Saturday night, that is then rendered and delivered to 3 video campuses on Sunday morning. We recently produced a 30sec commercial that went to local cable access, and have 3 more lined up for 2011. We produce a weekly news show, shoot other classes and events, produce DVD of services, make internal video ads, make creative videos for use in services, deliver all or many of these videos to web... The list goes on. On average, counting all videos made, we produce and deliver anywhere from 4-10 videos a week.
2) We are primarily volunteer based. I am the Video Production head here at the church. I have 2 part-time staff; one that supervises live event switching shoots, and one that supervises projection and does some editing on the side. Other than that, we have volunteers that fill in all the gaps in terms of camera operators, editors, set hands, actors, graphics, etc. We have particular needs for workers in the editing department, and thus have chosen FCPX because of it's shorter learning curve as we are finding it necessary to train volunteers who come in with ZERO editing experience.
3) We are Mac-based in all our service display computers as well as all our video department. We started using FCP7 back in 2006/2007 and have upgraded the software with each update (currently FCS3). We currently have 2 HPX170s that use P2 DVCPROHD. We have 1 AF100 that we use AVCHD on SDHC cards. We have a DVX100b as a backup or auxiliary camera that uses DV tapes. We have and use the Adobe Production Suite for After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and considered switching to Premiere Pro but chose against it. We use a Panasonic AW-HS50 for live switching, and we capture HDSDI live currently via FCP7 using a 8-core Mac Pro with a Blackmagic Decklink HD to internal software RAID. We have never done any tape archiving or tape delivery (other than source DV tapes from the DVX100) and all our data is currently stored on hard drives, although we have done limited archive of source footage but have archived in ProRes many delivered videos. We have acquired a NAS RAID this week, and we will be integrating that into our 3-station video area over the next week.
So obviously we have needs that others may not have (training editors, no tape needs, significant but limited delivery to outside video broadcast). But I don't think that negates usefulness of sharing our experience with FCPX and also the results of using FCPX as our main edit utility. And, the breadth of our current needs and workflow should be very informative to others considering FCPX. And so, onto the first post...
__________________________________________________ __________________________________
-News Segment-
As stated above we do a weekly news segment that gives "announcements" to 4 campuses about different things that are happening at The Crossing. We recently revamped our news segment (started in September) using a new-to-us technique of "black screen". We are extremely happy with the results, although the background work for the new news was proving to be VERY time consuming in the graphics department. The workflow was initially FCP7 ingest and edit. XML export from FCP7 to After Effects CS5. CC and graphics in AE. Render ProRes from AE CS5 and import into FCP7 project. Final adjustments and render.
With the addition of FCPX this week, we decided to try and do the new ENTIRELY within FCPX to see how it fares. The workflow was, import into FCPX. Edit cuts, audio, graphics, CC all in FCPX and export via Compressor 4. What we discovered was that despite needing to learn a new software, FCPX proved faster to post-produce the news. Our fairly inexperienced editors had NO trouble learning the new interface and doing the graphics (which they previously had issues learning and adjusting to AE), which also made this the most volunteer made news we have ever done.
Below are two videos, one produced via FCP7->AE->FCP7, and the other done entirely in FCPX. They have NOT been labelled as to which is which. Watch, enjoy, and give your thoughts!
(NOTE: There is an "ad" for "The Experiement" in one of the videos. This was produced in AE done entirely outside the news segment and has no bearing on which video is which.)
Password for both is: fcpx
http://vimeo.com/29432438
http://vimeo.com/29432294
