Apple Showcases Final Cut Pro X Usage in Production of Hollywood Film 'Focus'

[Ploki]

As an AVID editor, i do agree that Final Cut X has it's potential, but I never felt myself into it, I just could not focus on X.

The UI, much like Premiere, for me isn't clean enough: I want to focus on the video, have a well-organized Bins and have a responsive timeline that doesn't get in my way during the job. I found the X timeline very frustrating, the magnetic thing, the hard frame by frame cuts etc, scrolling hours of clips when sometimes you have nothing more than a Macbook screen.

Most of the times editing is not cool for all the amount of pressure, but it surely it's satisfying at the end of the day.

Before writing all my frustration and pleasure in editing in AVID, and also i do edit on FC7 and premiere on the fly, I've done a job for Mazda purely on FCX, and truly understood how important is that the program must suits your workflow and process of editing, and for me FCX actually does it only stylish, but not confortable.

Relaxed editors work better, harder, faster, and slimmier

Ugh, I hate working with AVID editors. They only play nicely with Pro Tools and I had to buy them just for that purpose.

Still, nice post.

Most issues that people have with FCPX is that its different. It's completely different to FCP7 and Premiere Pro isn't. And almost everyone I talked with that said that FCPX is iMovie pro does projects that could be done in iMovie on iPad... I get it that it doesn't suit your workflow, thats why I work in Logic Pro X and someone else works in Cubase. But don't tell me you can't do professional work with it just because you don't like it.
If you can't do a decent edit in FCPX that means you have other issues than the software you're editing with.

 

[alex4d]

Entrenched interests.

High-end post-production gatekeepers workflow feel unloved by Apple. Avid know how to help them keep their place at the top of the industry. Adobe court them continuously. Apple don't need them, but see the PR value in high-end TV and feature films using Final Cut Pro X.

Post production companies have always invested in expensive hardware and software that sell in the 100s. Studios trust large companies who need to spend years paying off assets. You'll see a great deal of pushback as businesses who haven't paid off their high-end kit insist that 'professional tool' means 'expensive.'

Time for a generational change.

Final Cut Pro classic didn't succeed because it was 'as professional' as Avid. The next generation don't care what the outgoing generation think. So what if the establishment doesn't trust Apple - with these Apple tools, I can get my story told sooner and cheaper. Today's 'unprofessional/poor' storytellers are tomorrow's 'professional/rich' establishment.

1995's 'next generation' used a tool designed for corporate video to change the way professional TV shows and feature films were made.

This time the tool might not be Final Cut Pro X, but changing distribution models and the consequent economic model changes don't seem to be part of Avid and Adobe's plans.


@Alex4D

 

[Chris Arkley]

I started out my editing career in FCPX, and yes, it's great for people who want a taste of pro software, but since moving to Premiere Pro, I'd never go back!
FCPX is great, but for anything mildly advanced, it really isn't the best solution

 

[Ploki]

Entrenched interests.

High-end post-production gatekeepers workflow feel unloved by Apple. Avid know how to help them keep their place at the top of the industry. Adobe court them continuously. Apple don't need them, but see the PR value in high-end TV and feature films using Final Cut Pro X.

Post production companies have always invested in expensive hardware and software that sell in the 100s. Studios trust large companies who need to spend years paying off assets. You'll see a great deal of pushback as businesses who haven't paid off their high-end kit insist that 'professional tool' means 'expensive.'

Time for a generational change.

Final Cut Pro classic didn't succeed because it was 'as professional' as Avid. The next generation don't care what the outgoing generation think. So what if the establishment doesn't trust Apple - with these Apple tools, I can get my story told sooner and cheaper. Today's 'unprofessional/poor' storytellers are tomorrow's 'professional/rich' establishment.

1995's 'next generation' used a tool designed for corporate video to change the way professional TV shows and feature films were made.

This time the tool might not be Final Cut Pro X, but changing distribution models and the consequent economic model changes don't seem to be part of Avid and Adobe's plans.


@Alex4D

This post makes an extreme amount of sense.

I started out my editing career in FCPX, and yes, it's great for people who want a taste of pro software, but since moving to Premiere Pro, I'd never go back!
FCPX is great, but for anything mildly advanced, it really isn't the best solution

What functions in particular are you talking about?

 

[ravenstar]

I really have to wonder about all these comments that "nobody is using xxxx". It seems to me that anyone who relies on software for their livelihood should be paying careful attention to all their alternatives and choosing the best product to accomplish a particular task. This applies to any field that relies on computers, not just the video industry. If you become too set in your ways and arbitrarily dismiss a piece of software you last looked at a year or two ago, some young startup is going to come along and blow you out of the water because they can do what you do in half the time for half the cost.

It doesn't seem that professional if you're not constantly evaluating what you do and looking for ways to do it faster and cheaper. Software changes rapidly and what was best last year may not be this year.

 

[Ploki]

I really have to wonder about all these comments that "nobody is using xxxx". It seems to me that anyone who relies on software for their livelihood should be paying careful attention to all their alternatives and choosing the best product to accomplish a particular task. This applies to any field that relies on computers, not just the video industry. If you become too set in your ways and arbitrarily dismiss a piece of software you last looked at a year or two ago, some young startup is going to come along and blow you out of the water because they can do what you do in half the time for half the cost.

It doesn't seem that professional if you're not constantly evaluating what you do and looking for ways to do it faster and cheaper. Software changes rapidly and what was best last year may not be this year.

Professional production companies are "establishments". They have a whole infrastructure and personnel, and changing one thing usually involves changing a lot of other things. It's easier for smaller production companies, but big houses?

But I agree, that on a personal level, you can't rely on that theory.

 

[StoneJack]

I used it to cut this www.hondatheotherside.com

Man, I have Honda civic hybrid, and your video made me want to buy ANOTHER Honda!!
As for video, its story and cut are great. I like the pulsating music, the mystical R button, the smooth ride feeling, seamless transition and blending and the surprise ending. Superb.

----------

By the way, I add a music video edited on FCX to add to some more i saw on top

YouTube: video

This is great video. I like the subtle darkness, the siluettes on sky, the drummer's movements, nice video!

----------

Professional production companies are "establishments". They have a whole infrastructure and personnel, and changing one thing usually involves changing a lot of other things. It's easier for smaller production companies, but big houses?

But I agree, that on a personal level, you can't rely on that theory.

Big houses have their workflow but then might be overrun by indie studios. Thats where the FCPX is intented for. Once the indie studios become big houses themselves, they are entrenched in FCPX. The example; kids who bought iPods, today are Mac users or iPhone users.

----------

I only use Pages so I can only comment on that but:

- No side-by-side pages
- No format bar or inspector, just a clunky sidebar
- No way to have multiple inspector windows, limited to just one "context aware" sidebar
- No.rtfd file support
- No linked text boxes
- Inability to move, add, or delete pages from thumbnail view
- Loss of several templates
- No ability to import styles
- No styles drawer, only a limited drop down menu in the clunky sidebar
- No vertical ruler

you are correct in some instances and wrong on inspector. I still keep and use the old Pages when needed, maybe you could do same if those are features you can't live without. The new Pages has its shortcomings but its advantages as well, IMHO

 

[Ploki]

you are correct in some instances and wrong on inspector. I still keep and use the old Pages when needed, maybe you could do same if those are features you can't live without. The new Pages has its shortcomings but its advantages as well, IMHO

Well, the table of contents and stuff like that... you can argue that its better that you do it by hand, and that it takes an equal amount of time to convince M$ Word to make it work and that it crashes all the time... etc...

Frankly the next big thing I need to write I'm going to force myself on Pages. Last time, I switched to MS word, and was cursing it half-way through anyway.

 

[handsome pete]

NBC/Universal is using it, BBC is using it, lots of big production houses are using it..

NBC/Universal is 99% Avid. Not sure where they're using FCPX. I'm pretty sure the BBC is still 99% Premiere as well after they just did their big transition only 5 years ago.

I'm not in the "professionals don't use it" camp, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with the claims of how widespread it is.

 

[winston1236]

On what are you basing these statements? Do you have factual information to back that up? Didn't think so.

On my own industry experience. Come on did you ready the article? He claims his new hires come in with extensive iMovie experience? Please point me to the film schools teaching editing in iMovie.

Check this article out:
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-product-placements-in-tv-and-movies-2012-8

I know it's Business Insider but you can find other articles about the same thing. This is marketing and nothing more. Hey, if it sells more Macs good for them, I wouldn't work on any other machine personally but at least recognize this for what it is.

Haha I bet they came in under budget because apple payed for all their hardware/software. In a world.... where renting a high end computer can host 1k-4k a week, lol shaving that off of your editing budget can be massive!

But in all honesty it's really not that big of a deal. FCPX was just used to assemble the film, and for them they found tagging the best. But all actual exporting happened from a Quantel system, all actual VSFX and green screening happened in another system, and all titles probably happened in a third system.

In all honesty, FCP is probably pretty decent for just assembling as mostly everything happens in the background, you just wouldn't want it as your finishing system.

Exactly! All free equipment and software, a huge savings! Studios are all about cutting cost right now too, as we see by the ridiculous number of sequels and a complete lack of will to make an original picture.

I'm glad someone here understands the business, I really don't like these blanket articles that make it seem like everything is so simple and completed in one program. There's a reason movie credits roll on for like 15 minutes, there's a lot of passing off files and teamwork.

 

[burnsranch]

There is a saying, that candle makers would never have invented the lightbulb.

The shift in the nMP is from a file based video editing system to a video database where editing is really only a small part of the process.

Todays editing functions are based on expensive videos, now that we have cheap video the approach will change. If you look at Buster Keaton's work the art was in setting up the perfect shot. If you look at todays cost of taking 100 shots of an event, you can see the skill is now in picking the best shot.

The larger professional issue is that cheap video and video databases will change how we approach most every thing we do. 20 years ago, a person and a camera produced a film on natural wildlife at a water hole. Today we can produce a video database of extended time and multiple shots and produce an infinite number of videos from one single video database.

I often wondered how many people kept trying to light the lightbulb with a match out of habit.

So did apple improve the candle or create a lightbulb? Hard to say at this point.

 

[linuxcooldude]

NBC/Universal is 99% Avid. Not sure where they're using FCPX. I'm pretty sure the BBC is still 99% Premiere as well after they just did their big transition only 5 years ago.

I'm not in the "professionals don't use it" camp, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with the claims of how widespread it is.

The BBC is going to be using it for their news shows.

I'm glad someone here understands the business, I really don't like these blanket articles that make it seem like everything is so simple and completed in one program. There's a reason movie credits roll on for like 15 minutes, there's a lot of passing off files and teamwork.

But in all honesty it's really not that big of a deal. FCPX was just used to assemble the film, and for them they found tagging the best. But all actual exporting happened from a Quantel system, all actual VSFX and green screening happened in another system, and all titles probably happened in a third system.

Well, the same with virtually every pro video editor out there. Visual effect, color correction, audio: Most are exported to different separate applications...Avid, Lightworks, Premiere Pro whatever.

If anyone who's actually read the article and supplied links it clearly shows: Final color grading and finishing was done on the Quantel Pablo Rio system, Pro Tools for audio editing...no secrets here.

 

[mikeandbecka]

That Honda video someone cut in X and shared here is BADDASS!!

Holding down the R key during playback too cool!!

https://www.youtube.com/user/HondaVideo/OtherSide

Oh but yeah.. not professional at all psh..

 

[handsome pete]

There is a saying, that candle makers would never have invented the lightbulb.

The shift in the nMP is from a file based video editing system to a video database where editing is really only a small part of the process.

Todays editing functions are based on expensive videos, now that we have cheap video the approach will change. If you look at Buster Keaton's work the art was in setting up the perfect shot. If you look at todays cost of taking 100 shots of an event, you can see the skill is now in picking the best shot.

The larger professional issue is that cheap video and video databases will change how we approach most every thing we do. 20 years ago, a person and a camera produced a film on natural wildlife at a water hole. Today we can produce a video database of extended time and multiple shots and produce an infinite number of videos from one single video database.

I often wondered how many people kept trying to light the lightbulb with a match out of habit.

So did apple improve the candle or create a lightbulb? Hard to say at this point.

I still have no idea where you're going with all of this database talk. How will this change how we approach most every thing we do? We've had this discussion on the Mac Pro board and you keep talking so vaguely about everything.

Are you comparing a Buster Keaton film to an event shoot? Because they're two entirely different things. Low cost equipment, speedy file transfer, etc. hasn't changed the amount of planning, set up, work, and attention to detail necessary for each shot of a narrative film.

As for your lightbulb comment, I doubt anyone tried to light one with a match. Just like I don't know of anyone that tried to insert a cassette into a CD player.

----------

The BBC is going to be using it for their news shows.

Interesting. I know they made a big deal about their Adobe transition just a few years back. Any idea of what extent they're using it? For just their field producers? Or in their studio workflow as well? Just curious since most news gathering agencies require a pretty robust shared storage/database system so it would be interesting to see if that's the case. I definitely see it being used in the field.

 

[rhett7660]

That Honda video someone cut in X and shared here is BADDASS!!

Holding down the R key during playback too cool!!

https://www.youtube.com/user/HondaVideo/OtherSide

Oh but yeah.. not professional at all psh..

Agreed, I had to re-watch it a few times while pressing the "R" key down. Pretty slick.

 

[StoneJack]

Well, the table of contents and stuff like that... you can argue that its better that you do it by hand, and that it takes an equal amount of time to convince M$ Word to make it work and that it crashes all the time... etc...

Frankly the next big thing I need to write I'm going to force myself on Pages. Last time, I switched to MS word, and was cursing it half-way through anyway.

I just checked and table of contents is great in new Pages. Super easy to generate with given heading styles.

I hate really Word in all its forms.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Interesting. I know they made a big deal about their Adobe transition just a few years back. Any idea of what extent they're using it? For just their field producers? Or in their studio workflow as well? Just curious since most news gathering agencies require a pretty robust shared storage/database system so it would be interesting to see if that's the case. I definitely see it being used in the field.

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1487-the-bbc-adopts-final-cut-pro-x-for-news-gathering

It looks like it could be also used in other departments as well from the look of it.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

The film looks grainy. Is that on purpose, to set the visual mood of the film together with the greenish tone it has?

 

[spockymoe]

FCP-X works great for cutting in FCP-X and pretty much nothing else. It will never be a professional program for one reason: it does not in anyway whatsoever offer a way to play nice with a professional post workflow.

Let's say you have just finished the cut of your film, commercial, etc. in FCP-X and are ready to go to sound, color, or any other post process. What's that? Your sound designer needs an OMF to properly bring the project into ProTools? Sorry, FCP-X can't do that.

Your colorist wants an EDL to bring the project online for coloring your camera originals? Nope sorry. We got rid of that in FCP7...

Long story short, Apple got rid of every single feature that makes FCP-X a professional functioning NLE. Sure it's great to cut in and has a beautiful UI, but forget being able to do anything outside the program in the pro world.

Instead, you are left trying to piece together half-working plugins to fill in all the gaps...

It's so frustrating... I loved FCP and even used to work for Apple, but this is just a sad excuse for a professional program. I've just cut my last project in FCP-X and will never go back unless they bring back the features that make this a real professional program.

 

[handsome pete]

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1487-the-bbc-adopts-final-cut-pro-x-for-news-gathering

It looks like it could be also used in other departments as well from the look of it.

Thanks. Looks like it is for field operations only and is taking over their FCP7 rigs.

However it also looks like it's making its way into some of their daytime shows. So that's cool.

 

[Morky]

But the way FCPX handles this data is bad for collaborative environments like ours.

I liked your balanced post, and the above is the reason that it's not yet really possible to use it for large-scale production houses. For small-scale production, though, all I have heard is that it is incredibly fast for editing. It remains to be seen if Apple is even interested in developing the collaborative infrastructure required for taking on Avid for big production feature films. It's not like there is a lot of money to made by doing so (tiny, tiny niche market), but from a prestige perspective and the creative DNA of the company, it might make sense for them to make the effort.

 

[haysoos123]

FCP-X works great for cutting in FCP-X and pretty much nothing else. It will never be a professional program for one reason: it does not in anyway whatsoever offer a way to play nice with a professional post workflow.

Let's say you have just finished the cut of your film, commercial, etc. in FCP-X and are ready to go to sound, color, or any other post process. What's that? Your sound designer needs an OMF to properly bring the project into ProTools? Sorry, FCP-X can't do that.

Your colorist wants an EDL to bring the project online for coloring your camera originals? Nope sorry. We got rid of that in FCP7...

Long story short, Apple got rid of every single feature that makes FCP-X a professional functioning NLE. Sure it's great to cut in and has a beautiful UI, but forget being able to do anything outside the program in the pro world.

Cool, another person jumps in and spews a bunch of stuff without doing any research whatsoever. How do you think any of the projects mentioned in this discussion got their finishing done? First of all, it's a $300 program, and its design is modular when it comes to exporting AAFs and EDLs. It uses well-supported third-party programs to do this, which 90% of people don't need. But you can get them if you do need them, and it will STILL cost less than the competition (Avid, and Adobe which is a rental model where you pay forever). Also, people don't realize that the third parties are actually more nimble and can more quickly respond to the rapid changes in workflows that we have today. So you can do everything you said you can't do, and it's actually better in some ways. Another good example is its peerless interchange with DaVinci Resolve, the most widespread color grading tool.

 

[Fortimir]

Bofus??!?

Well there are at least two of us that know the joke.

 

[Ploki]

I just checked and table of contents is great in new Pages. Super easy to generate with given heading styles.

I hate really Word in all its forms.

Guess they added that in the update! First version didn't have it. good to know.

 

[yoak]

Guess they added that in the update! First version didn't have it. good to know.

Why are you guys still debating iWorks in a thread about FCPX?