NAB 1: Final Cut Pro X – rethinking the editing paradigm

nino film by Nino Leitner

I know NAB 2011 has been over for more than a week now already, but I’m busy traveling across the US and therefore had little chance to keep you guys posted. Apart from meeting all these amazing people – and that’s what it really was about – let’s dive right in and have a look at the major product that was introduced while this year’s show was taking place – Apple’s unveiling of their all-new Final Cut Pro X editing software

The sneak peek at Final Cut Pro X was one of the relatively few real innovations I found at this year’s NAB. They took over the Final Cut Pro User Group meeting aka “Supermeet” in the Bally’s Hotel and ousted many other sponsors (among them Avid) and keynote speakers (among them Philip Bloom) on very short notice. Of course they didn’t announce officially that Apple had taken over beforehand, but it was rather obvious that something was brewing … especially because Apple invited a select group of editors to an exclusive early preview of it a few months back to get their feedback. Most of them were amazed but they couldn’t talk about it.

Final Cut Pro User Group “Supermeet” taken over by Apple’s introduction of Final Cut Pro X

I attended the sold-out presentation at the Supermeet personally (with my friend and great editor Tej Babra and Kira MacAlpine) and it was great to be right there among so many talented and ambitious editors, all dedicated to the Final Cut Pro platform like me. It was staged like a typical keynote by Steve Jobs, but Randy Ubillos, Apple’s chief pro video software architect, was in charge of the presentation instead of “his Steveness”. read more...