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Editors can be a fickle bunch. Many are technical minded and love to have the latest newest gadget. But they also don't like to mess with their livelihood and

Editors can be a fickle bunch. Many are technical minded and love to have the latest newest gadget. But they also don't like to mess with their livelihood and FCPX was too big of a learning curve while missing too many features. I personally think it was a great move by Apple, trying to push the paradigm of editing forward. That is difficult and time consuming to do in small steps so they chose a complete rewrite, losing a large percentage of the profesional market in the process. But what they lost, I'm guessing they gained back in consumers and as FCPX improves they will gain some of those back. What I've seen as the biggest gain are creatives directors and photographers. I know several who are masters of photoshop and after effects but struggled to get their head around Avid and FCP, who didn't have time to jump in head first, but took to FCPX like duck to water. These are highly paid individuals, heads of agencies. Which is what annoyed me when editors complained it wasn't professional. If the creative director of a billion dollar ad agency has found it suits his needs, it's hard to paint it as a toy. That's not to say the complainers didn't have a point, they did. But it's a complaint that's been with Final Cut since version 1. It was always necessary to find a work around, whether outputting for film, tape, or digital. My career was made because final cut was cheap to use, but didn't quite work as it should.

masklinn 15y ago
> But they also don't like to mess with their livelihood and FCPX was too big of a learning curve while missing too many features. I don't think the learning curve was the issue, these are people considering (or even implementing) switches to Avid or Premiere after years of FCP. From seeing the outcry from the outside, the issues seemed mostly twofolds: 1. lack of genuinely needed features (not necessarily intersecting from one studio to the next, but editors were understandably unwilling to tear down their whole production pipeline for the sake of FCPX) and 2. fear about the place of "pro" (as in medium-to-big-studios) editors in Apple's medium and long-term roadmap, boosted by a perceived iMovie-ification (real or not) pointing to a refocus on prosumer and lighter work. > If the creative director of a billion dollar ad agency has found it suits his needs, it's hard to paint it as a toy. That's nonsense, you said it youself: these are creative directors and photographers, they're not editing big-budget movies or TV shows, they're not dealing with TV stations or juggling with 30 cameras. You're basically saying Acorn is just fine for everybody because professional developers can draw with it.
- modfodder 15y ago
  >1. lack of genuinely needed features Features that they were told would be in future updates...they abandoned FCP because it was so different, otherwise they would have waited (and many have waited). >2. fear about the place of "pro" This fear is not unfounded, see Shake. But the idea that because FCPX looks similar to iMovie it's not professional is BS, the same thing that crops up with any new, inexpensive product (I've lived through it with DV, HDV, DSLRs, FCP 1, Premiere, Color, Nuke, and too many others to name). For me, the only feature missing from FCPX is OMF export, which is handled by a third party. Out of all the commercials I've made in the past 12 months (roughly 24 national spots), all could have been handled with FCPX without any foreseeable problems (all the spots had digital delivery so no need for tape layoffs). Same goes for the features I've handled in the past year (2). Final Cut made inroads in commercials and indie films long before the big features (and most of the FCP editing on TV is low budget reality tv shows, who were also ahead of the curve). And it's always lacked features, it was my job to get around what it lacked (and it's been very lucrative). While there was always a learning curve going from Avid to FCP, it was a relative small one that could be overcome in a day or two of intense editing. The learning curve for FCPX, even for experienced FCP users is much greater (and the kicking and screaming that editors displayed when having to move to earlier versions of FCP was bad enough). Just like before, it will be early adopters that push FCPX. But don't discount the power of a creative director coming to a post house with an FCPX project that he wants finished. The last 5 years of my career has been that storyline. Someone will call me and pay me good money to set it up and babysit the project. And considering a campaign with a 30 second spot is typically budgeted at 3million plus, it's worth spending the money to make the creative happy. >they're not dealing with TV stations or juggling with 30 cameras Very few editors deal with tv stations or juggling 30 cameras (and FCPs multi-cam has always been mediocre, if you have to deal with more than 3 cameras you're better off using Avid). Most big budget editors edit. Dealing with TV stations, delivery specs, or anything technical is left to assistants, conform artists, finishing editors, flame artists, hell even producers typically deal with that more than editors. And I don't see anything wrong with Acorn if it serves the purpose. Photoshop is overkill for most users, even many pro users. What is professional is what can get the job done well.
- nirvana 15y ago

masklinn 15y ago

> But they also don't like to mess with their livelihood and FCPX was too big of a learning curve while missing too many features. I don't think the learning curve was the issue, these are people considering (or even implementing) switches to Avid or Premiere after years of FCP. From seeing the outcry from the outside, the issues seemed mostly twofolds: 1. lack of genuinely needed features (not necessarily intersecting from one studio to the next, but editors were understandably unwilling to tear down their whole production pipeline for the sake of FCPX) and 2. fear about the place of "pro" (as in medium-to-big-studios) editors in Apple's medium and long-term roadmap, boosted by a perceived iMovie-ification (real or not) pointing to a refocus on prosumer and lighter work. > If the creative director of a billion dollar ad agency has found it suits his needs, it's hard to paint it as a toy. That's nonsense, you said it youself: these are creative directors and photographers, they're not editing big-budget movies or TV shows, they're not dealing with TV stations or juggling with 30 cameras. You're basically saying Acorn is just fine for everybody because professional developers can draw with it.

modfodder 15y ago
>1. lack of genuinely needed features Features that they were told would be in future updates...they abandoned FCP because it was so different, otherwise they would have waited (and many have waited). >2. fear about the place of "pro" This fear is not unfounded, see Shake. But the idea that because FCPX looks similar to iMovie it's not professional is BS, the same thing that crops up with any new, inexpensive product (I've lived through it with DV, HDV, DSLRs, FCP 1, Premiere, Color, Nuke, and too many others to name). For me, the only feature missing from FCPX is OMF export, which is handled by a third party. Out of all the commercials I've made in the past 12 months (roughly 24 national spots), all could have been handled with FCPX without any foreseeable problems (all the spots had digital delivery so no need for tape layoffs). Same goes for the features I've handled in the past year (2). Final Cut made inroads in commercials and indie films long before the big features (and most of the FCP editing on TV is low budget reality tv shows, who were also ahead of the curve). And it's always lacked features, it was my job to get around what it lacked (and it's been very lucrative). While there was always a learning curve going from Avid to FCP, it was a relative small one that could be overcome in a day or two of intense editing. The learning curve for FCPX, even for experienced FCP users is much greater (and the kicking and screaming that editors displayed when having to move to earlier versions of FCP was bad enough). Just like before, it will be early adopters that push FCPX. But don't discount the power of a creative director coming to a post house with an FCPX project that he wants finished. The last 5 years of my career has been that storyline. Someone will call me and pay me good money to set it up and babysit the project. And considering a campaign with a 30 second spot is typically budgeted at 3million plus, it's worth spending the money to make the creative happy. >they're not dealing with TV stations or juggling with 30 cameras Very few editors deal with tv stations or juggling 30 cameras (and FCPs multi-cam has always been mediocre, if you have to deal with more than 3 cameras you're better off using Avid). Most big budget editors edit. Dealing with TV stations, delivery specs, or anything technical is left to assistants, conform artists, finishing editors, flame artists, hell even producers typically deal with that more than editors. And I don't see anything wrong with Acorn if it serves the purpose. Photoshop is overkill for most users, even many pro users. What is professional is what can get the job done well.
nirvana 15y ago