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

[ipedro]

Apple has nothing - Proof: The piece of junk named Photos.app. Don't know hwat the guys at Apple are smoking, but it appears to be bad stuff...

In the over a decade that I've been here, I've seen many people like you. People who didn't understand why Apple was making an MP3 player who were quieted when the iPod brought Apple into the mainstream. People who said that the iPad was just a supersized iPod were silenced when the iPad killed the netbook and ushered in the tablet era. Most recently, people crying about Final Cut Pro X are confused when major studios are using it to make multi million dollar Hollywood blockbusters.

You may not understand how Photos.app will work for professionals, but you might just become another one of those naysayers that we chuckle at in a few years.

 

[Funkmasta]

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.

I export XML and then build a self contained AAF with X2Pro, set desired handle length for the audio, and it builds a beautiful session that anyone can open, with or without the source media.

As for Color, we use Davinci, but usually Proxy to FCP for editing and then back to Davinci for Grading. If you've used Davinci lately its not a bad NLE itself anymore, if you want to do more inside the environment than just Color.

 

[linuxcooldude]

In the over a decade that I've been here, I've seen many people like you. People who didn't understand why Apple was making an MP3 player who were quieted when the iPod brought Apple into the mainstream. People who said that the iPad was just a supersized iPod were silenced when the iPad killed the netbook and ushered in the tablet era. Most recently, people crying about Final Cut Pro X are confused when major studios are using it to make multi million dollar Hollywood blockbusters.

You may not understand how Photos.app will work for professionals, but you might just become another one of those naysayers that we chuckle at in a few years.

You forgot the iPhone, that ushered in the keyless touchscreen...lol

 

[krazygoat]

You're totally right. The last time I looked at FCPX a year ago or so, it was not so flexible. I just spent the evening checking out the latest version, and indeed, you can pick different places for scratch disks for rendering, and it is more clear about the hierarchy of the system through which you work with clips.

I think the only things holding it back are now iMovie lingo and a lack of "folders" (in the traditional sense, anyway. I'm aware you end up making the same thing via tagging, but the lack of making folders/ flexibly arranging files in bins seems to really bother some of my coworkers).

Very interesting...

Folders are there too, I create shot bins with folders and organize takes within the shot bins.

 

[krazygoat]

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.

They may have been an issue 5 years ago but going to ProTools you use AAF which we do all the time from FCPX your roles gets placed on tracks in ProTools. This was described in the article. Going to grade we just export a XML, Davinci and Scratch and take it natively.

Like has been mentioned you are still under the price of CC or Avid. Honestly if anyone like a more traditional cutting workflow they are better off with Lightworks than either Premiere and Avid. It is an amazing classical editor and has the best project sharing features of anything. It is also dirt cheap. Not many people know about it outside of professionals. But it gets used a ton for features and TV. Scorsese's lead editor has always used it. We use Scott Hill who is another well known Lightworks editor.

I like specific things from both programs. But you can have both Lightworks and FCPX for less than Premiere or Avid.

When I FCPX first came out I hated it and all the complaints people had about it were valid. Didn't touch it again till last year and it is a whole different beast now. I was doing some on set work for Universal and we were doing realtime compositing with RED RAW 4K in FCPX. Premiere can also do it, in fact it was way faster doing it in Premiere than After Effects. But when it came to heavy multi-track work Premiere stared to chug and we would have to go to ¼ res for playback where FCPX just kept on singing along.

The biggest issue we ran into is Premiere was using a 32-bit quicktime engine and so we would run into render problems especially with MXF files.

Premiere is more flexible out of the box than FCPX. I think it is silly you can't just import your FCP7 projects into X. Some stuff you can do in Premiere you need 3rd party software for X. That said X is faster, X supports more realtime tracks, X is fully 64-bit with 64-bit Quicktime (The Foundry who make Nuke and NukeStudio just licensed Apple's 64-bit Quicktime engine). But the magnetic timeline just makes cutting so much faster, you will never run into sync issues. FCPX also works much better over a network than Premiere which gets REALLY buggy.

Avid, well you are WAY more structured than FCPX and if you want project sharing and network storage get ready to pony up huge money for Avid Unity.

And unless you are 100% MXF and DNxHD Rec709 workflow get ready for gamma hell. Also save often often often while working in Avid. It is easy to lose work.

Most editors I know can edit in anything and often change depending on the job, they have their favorites, but as long as they are getting their union rate they are happy campers.

 

[yoak]

The one thing that bugs me with FCPX is that I can't set the playback quality like in premiere. I can only set best performance and my old Mac Pro struggels with my 5K material.
We spent the fall editing a 5 series tv show on premier, and I find it really buggy. The finale straw was when we wanted to use Media Manager in the end to back every program up, it just fails every single time.
For a month the top half of the viewer went black every time we rendered. Nobody new what was wrong. Adobe was scratching their head and couldn't figure it out.
We are on HP workstation with 12gb video cards so it's not underperforming hard ware

 

[macjdfun]

Again - obviously 'true professionals' only live in LA or NY!

Don't be so sensitive. The majority of top creative content comes from those two cities, especially regarding film. Deal with it.

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it's required when all the haters bray (and get upvoted endlessly) without any sources or facts aside from their own cynical ignorance. every complaint about [XYZ] software is usually countered within 10-20 minutes by someone who knows wtf they're talking about.

99% of the time it's the user that's the 'problem' or 'deficiency'.. not the tool

Hmm...I just won the Super Bowl, not sure if that counts as "professional athlete". Give me a break.

FCPX is great for the people who can use it, namely those NOT sharing work with a dozen other editors and shipping off to numerous places for a finish. THAT is the argument from certain pros. And people like can't seem to get it. It's not about devaluing your work.

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Don't be butt hurt about the fact that FCPX is a great NLE used by some of the top professionals making some of the top movies.

This thread is muddied by idiots claiming FCPX isn't "cool enough" and you get bent out of shape about a "humble brag"?

One movie. Look Adobe Premiere was just used on ONE movie as well. It does't mean much other than they got paid to try it and give it press. A movie is also not like a post house where dozens of projects have to be shared quickly and easily. YOU sound butt hurt defending FCPX. If the end result is a good piece, doesn't matter what it was cut on. But a single editor at one computer is NOT representative of the many other workflows that other editors deal with daily.

 

[ipedro]

You forgot the iPhone, that ushered in the keyless touchscreen...lol

I left out the iPhone because people generally weren't skeptical about it. On the contrary, the iPhone was met with a "we're in the future" level of enthusiasm.

The iPod on the other hand wasn't understood at first and many predicted the end of the company as a result of their "loss of focus".

I'll come out and say it: some professionals want to use tools that are inaccessible to the general public. FCPX may have a steeper learning curve than iMovie but enthusiasts can both learn to use it pretty easily and afford it.

Photos is heading a step ahead of that philosophy in that there aren't two apps but only one that serves all demographics depending on how you use it. I predict that the other shoe has yet to drop. Photos for Mac is a good place to view your photos on a larger screen and do some editing at your desk but photo manipulation is best done directly, on screen. This is where the iPad Pro will come in to satisfy professional's needs for brushes and more in depth photo editing.

Apple is not abandoning professionals. They haven't in audio or video as we're now starting to see FCPX mature and they most definitely aren't going to abandon photography professionals which is a market significantly larger than the other two.

 

[burnsranch]

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.

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With cheap video, the computer becomes a research tool. You can build a historical database of subjects over years and research instantly.

Lets say you take 30 years of baseball games and analyze the changes in the shooting and the improvement is the accuracy. You might define the trend and from that research understand the next improvement.
From the same data base you can analyze the change in movements, the increases in injuries and develop a conditioning program so reduce those injuries in young players.

From that same database, you could flag different defense and compare the styles over the years and from different coaches.

The uses for one simple video database are endless.

 

[blackmoses]

I've used both FCPX and Premiere CC2014 on projects. On the most recent one, I used Premiere because (a) I was working with a friend joined at the hip to FCP7 and Premiere was the easiest jump and (b) I wanted to both use SpeedGrade and try Dynamic Linking my After Effects compositions.

Idea (b1) worked fine - SpeedGrade was a powerful, if crashy, color correction and grading application. Dynamic Linking of the After Effects files was...okay, though in the end in my cases I'd've saved time by just pre-rendering. Which is what I eventually did. I did end up using FCPX and Compressor for final formatting of my rendered files.

I use FCPX quite a bit for my own works - since the plugins are based on Motion templates, it's actually quite easy to modify existing ones and make your own, which is great. The editing style really doesn't bother me - I know a lot of people start from larger blocks of video dropped on the timeline and "whittle" their way down; how FCPX natively works is fine for me too. About the worst thing I can say about it is its portability issues, although the move to Library files over one big folder on each hard drive helps significantly. I could even use Divinci Resolve to color-correct next time if I desire. I'll think about it.

 

[superjew1492]

Hmm.........???

You sure it's not 64 bit? Last time I checked it was.

check again, unless you're accidentally looking at FCP X it isn't

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/3...bit-final-cut-pro-8-to-build-final-cut-pro-x/

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Not true.

It's used at Trim Editing (www.trimediting.com) by a lot of the editors on huge commercials. I used it to cut this www.hondatheotherside.com

here's a write up.
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/art...-the-other-side-was-edited-in-final-cut-pro-x

We like it because it's the best editor we've ever used (coming from avid and Final Cut 7).

Here's load of other work cut on it.

YouTube: video

YouTube: video

YouTube: video

YouTube: video

YouTube: video


My point is not to show off, but to demonstrate that the claim it's not used on big professional work is wholly untrue.

Cut with what you like. It's all about the quality of the work at the end of the day.

glad you stopped by…you SPECIFICALLY YOU were the only exception that came to mind when writing my rant. you single handled make me want to try X out when the other side came out and i read article on your experience cutting on it. and honestly, i do intend to give it a chance when i have downtime or someone forces an X project on me (likely the former will happen first) to see what different abilities it has compared to Avid, FCP 7, and Premiere so, should the right project come up for X, I can utilize it. I don't hate X. if it works for you and works well for your needs, fantastic. I just hate that it destroyed FCP 8 and on. I love your work, delved into it a bit after watching the other side when it came out and saw the jiggles for the first time today. masterful. the rant was less about professional use and more about the abandonment issues. I'm happy on premiere for any project that comes up and will deal with avid on any BIG BIG sized project or one that requires live sharing with editors over big networks and am on FCP because I'm editing a short that a director wants to work with, and he only understands FCP…so I use them all interchangeably on a daily basis...since i'm freelance i never know what system i'm walking in to i just have to work on it. I just am sad about the years of progress we lost in terms of the future of FCP and editing systems when FCP 8 was killed in the night and Premiere is only now getting to the point that I feel 8 would have been at out of the box.

 

[chirpie]

check again, unless you're accidentally looking at FCP X it isn't

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/3...bit-final-cut-pro-8-to-build-final-cut-pro-x/

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In his defense, when I read what you wrote, I understood it as no iteration of Final Cut has ever been 64bit.

But in the context of this thread, a minor detail.

 

[Ploki]

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

uhhh... i thought table of contents in FCPX. Yeah. Thats it!

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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.

By the way, Premiere Pro CC is balls with OMF/AAF export. Just doesn't work properly.

Premiere Pro >> audition? Good luck, it still can't make regions from single continues file (one take) and cuts it up into tiny bits and pieces. Decent and fast, but far from perfect.

Avid > Protools? Try getting from Pro Tools or from MC to anything more decent... Good luck, again renames regions and files into random names. Exports from AVID only open in Pro Tools, so you always need go to through protools.

OMF export are **** anyway, instead of giving you regions from whole files, they give you ****** pre/post roll so if you have common processing done on one cut-up clip you need to batch process them all... which is essentially impossible if your video NLE renames them all into nonsense... Yeah there's an option to have whole files, but it works... or not.

Also, AAF is pretty much successor to OMF, I haven't received an OMF a while because it has such a crummy compatibility.

You "real professional" just seem so stuck up in your own workflows that you're unwilling to change, its akin to "i'm not going to use a NLE, because I can cut film with a razor". Reality is, if you can't cut in FCPX, problem isn't in the software.

Also, there's the target demographic. Even if its not meant for large studio productions, that isn't the majority of production today. Someone needs to fill the void between super-expensive professional software for large studio, and crap like iMove and WMM.

I'm not arguing that its hard to change an existing big-house production workflow, but that doesn't mean its not suited for professional work, professionals at this point are just used to their workflow and it takes time to change that.