Is FCPX ready for prime time?

FCPX is Lion onward I believe.

Carl Sagan said:

FCPX is Lion onward I believe.

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No, it's 10.6.8 and above.

Carl Sagan said:

FCPX is Lion onward I believe.

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FCP X needs 10.6.8 and above and runs on my Snow Leopard Mac just fine.

OldCorpse, why not try the trial?

OldCorpse said:

1)For various reasons, I'd like to stay on Snow Leopard. If I go with FCPX, do I have to upgrade to 10.7.x or 10.8.x?

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No, as answered before.

2)Is FCPX going to be sufficient for editing? Can I quickly and painlessly get files off of my GH2, ingested and easily organized in FCPX and get going on cutting immediately

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Yes, it is sufficient for editing. It is easier than iMovie (I come from Adobe Premiere (before it went "Pro") and Avid Media Composer, thus iMovie is garbage for me) and can import your footage. Any transcoding to a video editing friendly format happens in the background and can also be turned off, though editing AVCHD footage natively puts more stress on the CPU during editing.

3)I will need very minimal special effects, but will need some graphics, such as titles which I was able to do in FCP 4.0 HD.

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Titles and some special effects are possible.
FCP X has an extensive list of preset titles (you can modify them easily) and effects:

4)Color correction. I'm going to try shooting very flat, with the idea that I can do extensive color correction in post. Is FCPX going to be able to handle this?

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Yes, though know, that even shooting flat with a GH-2 will not bring that much if you use the AVCHD format to record the video in, as it discards of a lot of information, even the invisible one. But flat is probably better than not flat.

5)Sound. I won't need too much in the way of a lot of overlapping dialogue, but I may need reasonably many sound effects tracks and editing.

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Audio editing and positioning is still something I am not quite comfortable with in FCP X, but I didn't take that much time to learn it either. There are a lot of tutorials out there for almost every aspect of FCP X, many free on YouTube. Maybe have a look. Or not.

6)It's a two-cam shoot for about 70% of the footage. Is this going to be a problem for FCPX?

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No, since it now has Multi-Cam editing ability.

To see, what FCP X is capable of, go here.

OldCorpse said:

Fabulous, simsaladimbamba, thank you very much, this is exactly what I need to know. You've been very helpful. I'm going to go ahead and look into FCPX. Thanks again!

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Honestly, FCPX is improving all the time. Apple started over from scratch with the intention of adding in features continuously with each update. I enjoy using it for what it currently is and it's only going to get better.

OldCorpse said:

Fabulous, simsaladimbamba, thank you very much, this is exactly what I need to know. You've been very helpful. I'm going to go ahead and look into FCPX. Thanks again!

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Glad to have helped at least one person today. Have good experiences discovering FCP X, though be prepared for some head scratchers (to not fall back into profanities).

You are a prime candidate to re-learn video editing using FCPX
Its usually the die-hards that hung on till FCP 7 that are having problems with it.
I teach it and Ive had nothing but great results (and no thanks to me) from new students.
Its the old ones that have tracks on their brain that cant seem to let go.
Last class was June this year and Ive heard back from the problem students that they have now gone full blown FCPX and left Legacy for good.
I havent had a reason to open FCP since last November.
For Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with FCPX 10.0.4 was stable for a long time.
But now its all Lion for me.
No Mountain Lion yet, too many horrors stories.
Check out http://www.rippletraining.com for great cheap tutorials.
Then go to http://www.colorgradingcentral.com for great tutorials.
The PDFs from http://www.dingdingmusic.com/DingDing/FCPx1.html are great and helpful.
Lastly for free awesome tutorials http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html

Have fun and dont fret, we are here to help

simsaladimbamba's post and others have given you some good advice. I came to FCPX from Premiere Pro 5.5 and FCP 7. It was a bit of a learning curve. However, you're going to need a system to do all of those things that need to be done in post and relying on your old system isn't realistic.

FCPX's metadata features, especially when you may have thousands of clips, should make the investment of time worth it.

I have a few thoughts:
1. Space. If you're converting your AVCHD card data to Apple ProRes 422, converting one minute of data will take up about 1 GB of disk space. Assuming that you shoot 10 times as much footage as you'll have in your final print, plus audio (and maybe stills), you will probably need at least a 1.5 TB drive just for your ProRes clips. This needs to be either an internal drive or one connected via eSATA or ThunderBolt to your computer.

2. Backup. A feature film with no budget is a labor of love. Make sure you have multiple backups of everything with one always stored off-site. You don't want to lose anything if a catastrophic event occurs. And remember that a RAID device should not be considered a backup. RAIDs need to be backed up too. It sounds like you should have two or more 2 TB backup devices.

3. Audio recording. How are you capturing audio? You can't record quality audio on the GH2 so you must be planning to record to an external recorder. Remember that most people can forgive poor video if a story grabs them. However, poor quality audio is simply a turn-off. You should plan on having a boom operator (and if possible a separate recordist) constantly monitoring sound, but mics need to be 18-24 inches away from mouths to get good sound. You can't have your mic on the cameras. A high quality pre-amp (like a MixPre) will also help, especially if you're recording onto one of the smaller, less expensive devices. Bottom line: As the director of a film there's enough to do working with actors, blocking, set design, and shooting that you should not attempt to also have the job of concurrently capturing audio.

Allow time to do Foley. Don't record any sounds other than dialog in real time (Turn off the A/C, the refrigerator, etc. while shooting.). Door closes, silverware pickups, glasses being put on the table, drawer openings, and the like should not be recorded while filming. Remember also to record room sound for at least several minutes with your cast and crew in place for each scene. You'll need it for your audio layering.

4. Lighting. What are you using for lights? Ambient lighting will work, but may not give you the flexibility of exposures and focus you might want. You should probably have at least a handful of tungsten fresnels (low cost and make people look warm, but also give a lot of heat), light stands, diffusion material, c-stands, and flags to control your lighting. At a minimum invest in some Chinese globe lanterns. Of course if the feature is a horror story, maybe LCD panels will give you the effects you might want.

I know you said that you'll doing CC in post, but it's always best to get your raw footage as useful as possible.

5. Video effect. For graphics, there are companies that make plugins for FCPX that add more options to the relatively extensive transitions and titling features provided.

I think FCPX will give you the tools you'll need to make this feature. You may need to enhance your hard drive space for editing and for backup.

Best of luck on what sounds like a fun project. Let us know how it goes.

This series of free online fcpx tutorial videos by IzzyVideos should get you started with fcpx: http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/

OldCorpse said:

You know what the odds are for a $10K feature - basically, it's lottery odds... one in 10 million. But if you don't at least once in your life give everything you got, heck, you haven't lived a life worth living. Thank you for your words of encouragement - much appreciated!

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Just go for it
Keep in mind that talent is still required across the board, whether its your gear, operators, actors, gaff, ad, dit, colorist, wranglers, etc...
Oh yeah and the script

OldCorpse said:

Lighting, I'm gonna do mostly practicals simply because I don't have the $ for a lighting package, but I do have a few LED panels, some tungsten and such (yeah, I know). I'm covered on grip stuff (stands, flags etc.) It's gonna be tough. A lot of the action is going to happen at night, so I'll try to finess it with minimal lighting. Yeah, it's a horror movie, though a bit unconventional. I'm gonna have a DP and a couple of grips.

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A thing about horror, and shooting so it looks dark or dimly light in general, is you need a lot more light than you think you do. I've seen so many people completely ruin 'moody' shoots it's not even funny. They under-light which means the footage comes out looking like crap and there's no way to even tweak it in post because of all the noise and macro blocking.

The last thing you want to do is to have shadows so dark that the camera can't pick up any detail in them. If they camera can't 'see' what's in the shadows those areas will be full of ugly noise and compression artifacts. Once you add just enough light so the camera can see into the shadows you'll have to add an equal amount of light to your talent so you keep the relative exposure difference between light and dark the same. Then, when you color correct the footage you can bring down your blacks and get a nice, moody/shadowy look that's free of noise and compression artifacts (within the limitations of your camera and codec of course).

Watch some episodes of the TV show Supernatural (it is streaming on Netflix) to get good ideas about how to light for night/dark/spooky w/o it looking like crap.

Bucket List #2

Not to disurpt the topic, but watch this short film done last year by Ruairi Robinson.
https://vimeo.com/ruairirobinson/blinky
I hope someday I will be able to produce something close to this.
Im more for the CG on this but would like learn and experience the practical shooting of it.
Its on my bucket list and ordered a Black Magic Cinema Camera to help fulfill this dream

FCP X is getting better and I do use it over FCP which I still have. In my experience and for the type of work I do, the most lacking is clip (Called an "Event") management and audio editing (along with a long list of other things such as limited export options and lack of exporting just a segment from the timeline, but I digress ). There are workarounds to both. The latter can be done with a dedicated audio editing solution. I use and like Adobe's Audition, but that's just me. Since you're shooting a feature, I assume you will record audio separately anyway so it makes sense to have a good audio program. There's nothing worse than watching good video with with bad sound.

The former can be made A LOT easier with a $4.99 program called Event Manager X (http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/). Trust me, it will be a very well spent 5 bucks. It manages both events and projects (a Project is basically the timeline).

To piggyback on what LethalWolfe said, it's not until someone tries to do his or her own lighting that there's the realization of the art involved in the technique.

More than 20 years ago, Ron Howard did a film about firefighters with sets that had a great deal of real fire. Although everyone involved going in assumed that fire scenes didn't need a lot of light, Howard discovered that the opposite was true. Because the fire provided so much light only on and from itself, there needed to be even more light on and around the fire to light the characters and sets and to show shadows where they were wanted.

Lighting is at least as much art as it is science.

I just took the plunge and bought FCPX & Motion. It helped me make up my mind by watching some stuff from Larry Jordan (look on YouTube) lots of good free stuff to see if FCPX is where you would like to be.

After watching his YouTube stuff and some others like mentioned above, it was the right path for me to go down and start learning from the beginning with a different approach. I hope it is what you need and don't get discouraged when or if it feels a bit awkward or different, that can be a good thing

I went from the older iMovie HD to FCE then to the new iMovie and now FCPX and at times I didn't like any of them but stuck it out one foot out of my comfort zone, glad I did fwiw.

Last, I've been watching stuff from filmriot on YouTube as well which for a beginner seems to help for extra ideas, how-to's and so on…

Good luck

OldCorpse said:

Basically, my idea is to experiment with lighting and lenses and see what I will actually need to purchase, and what I can get away with lighting-wise just with practicals, maybe change a few bulbs. The advantage I have, is that most interiors will be shot in my own apartment, so I always have access to the location for experiments .

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Experimenting is the best way to go as you'll find out specifically what works and what does not. I mean, I've seen DPs I thought should know better screw it up because they don't understand how the sensor and codec will react. They see smooth black in the viewfinder so they assume smooth black is what gets recorded but in reality it's all funky noise that can't be fixed.

But all my computer gear is Apple, so before I got a PC NLE, I wanted to find out if maybe the outcry was exaggerated and FCPX has progressed nicely. It sounds like it has, and will be more than able to handle my modest feature.

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Avid and Adobe make Mac versions too ya know.

Since this will be a download I should mention about saving some cash if you can. By that I mean look around at local deals like at Costco, Sam's Club or even what I did last week, Target. They had a sale on iTunes cards, the more you bought the more you saved. All total $400 face value cost me $323 after using my Target Visa and an extra five percent (Target Visa) on top of the sale so buying FCPX & Motion was a real deal.

Thought this would help a few folks out reading this so the cost doesn't seem as much if you are on a tight budget or just want to use the cash in other areas

Artful Dodger said:

...Thought this would help a few folks out reading this so the cost doesn't seem as much if you are on a tight budget or just want to use the cash in other areas

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Or go in on it with four others. Create an iTunes account that shared and download to five different computers.

mBox said:

Or go in on it with four others. Create an iTunes account that shared and download to five different computers.

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Yes, I already had made the purchase when I figured that one out which would be really nice in the long run