Re: FCP X in enterprise-level television production

Hi Ronny,

More like 'big boots'. (g) Very impressive.

Thanks so much for both writing this and posting it for us.

I have sent this on to a number of 'friends' on both sides of the FCP fence. It is great to see some of the 'big boys' using FCP X and that it's working so well for them. Of course, for all of us 'little potatoes' out there, it works just as well.

Thanks again.

--ken

Hi Ken,

The article is just meant to show that FCP X is being used by many different people in a very wide range of editing environments. In my vision there are no big boys or little potatoes, just different people who want to share their stories using visuals and sound. I have the same respect for a soccer dad who faithfully records and edits his son's weekly game and puts it on Youtube, as for the "pros" who cut movies or television programs. Actually it's the "little potatoes" that have made FCP X become the most popular of all major NLEs today.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Ronny,

You said

"Actually it's the "little potatoes" that have made FCP X become the most popular of all major NLEs today."

Thinking back to 1999, when FCP 1 shipped, it was the small independent user (small potatoes) that started it down its road to success. I remember the first LAFCPUG meeting at Video Symphony when 1.2 was released. There were several Apple Reps there at the meeting. At that time FCP could only handle DV video. When the Apple Reps were asked about this they told us that Apple had no plans to expand the capabilities of FCP beyond DV.

My my, how things have changed, and how fast they changed.

"What a long strange trip its been."

--ken

Finally learned PP and felt right at home cause of the similarity of the interface of FCP .
Feels like what a professional NlE should feel like. 99 percent of all free lance jobs that me and my mate found in so cal where on avid or PP so if i wanted to continue put food on the table it was time to learn on what is actually being used on paying gigs. Yes, i know there are outposts for X and good for them, but good look if your a freelancer trying to find work unless you are fluent in PP or Avid.

Hi Peter,

As a freelancer you don't get to choose, unless you are so good that you can impose your choice. I agree California is absolutely falling behind when it comes to innovation. That's why the days that LA was the centre of the world for media production are long gone. But nothing ever stays the same. And if everyone would be using the same NLE, the editing world would be a boring place (-:

Best wishes,

Ronny

Just a blast from the past -- The vast array of plug-ins for FCPX from places like FX Is mind-boggling when you consider the low price that almost all of them are. I am an old-time editor for special events started as a hobby and make a pretty good living at it now. But when I started it took two timebase correctors at about $5000 dollars each and a analog mixer for several thousand dollars just to be able to perform a dissolved translation on a three-quarter inch u-matic machine, my how things have changed.

Yes things have changed a lot indeed, and we may expect many more big changes in the coming years.

I come from the old post-production and broadcast world where every single little piece of equipment costed two arms and two legs. Not to mention that you needed at least one full-time engineer to keep all that crap running smoothly.

I remember working on a multicam show called Night Of The Proms that we edited with 12 Ampex 1" machines costing $40,000 each + an 18-channel ACE analogue video mixer + an ADO for "special effects" (actually being able to zoom in and out + rotate) + an Aston III character generator + monitoring and audio mixing equipment. The total value of all that stuff at that time was around $950,000 if memory serves me right.

Today I do 20-angle multicam edits on a $4,000 iMac and a $2,000 Thunderbolt RAID using FCP X, much faster and at a much higher quality.

As to the adoption of FCP X in the professional world, I have to disagree with Christopher. The "big boot pros" have become an insignificant minority in the global professional media production world. They are not the market you want to cater for anymore.

I see a booming industry of smaller shops today, usually between 2 and 8 editing bays, that are rapidly taking over the media and broadcast production market. Many of these shops totally embrace FCP X and they don't care about the price of plugins as long as long as these plugins offer an added value to their specific workflows. The commercial success of highly specialized FCP X plugins such as SliceX/Mocha, Color Finale, Hawaiki, SyncNLink and MObject just to name a few, is a sign on the wall of how our post-production landscape is changing rapidly. Such plugins replace dedicated software packages that used to cost 20 to 50 times more just a few years ago.

In the next months I will be publishing more stories of high-profile studios that have adopted FCP X, and about how our post-production world will drastically change once again in the years to come. I can only say this: you ain't seen nothing yet.

Best wishes,

Ronny