Thoughts on Final Cut Pro X

Philip Bloom by Michael Friedman

FCP X or in the more unforgiving circles iMovie Pro has divided opinion. It has alienated many people who were die hard FCP 7 users, like me, due to the lack of key features and no backward compatibility with the older system. I have more of less moved over to Premiere due to increasingly impressive features (I am also eyeing the new Avid MC6 which has taken a giant leap forward with the new release, but more on that in a future post) but I am still checking out FCP X. I own it and would never dismiss something outright.

I have asked 7 professional editors (yes seven!) who are using FCP X why they are using it and to share their thoughts about it and the recent update which gave us, finally, multicam and various other features. Why settle for one when you can have a diverse group like this offering up their thoughts? Sit back with coffee in hand and see what these guys think! Big thanks to all the contributors!!

The backstory.

The core actions of non-linear editing haven’t changed much in 15 years.

Insert. Trim. Lift. Overwrite.

We’ve enjoyed incremental software improvements year to year, but rarely a giant leap forward. If anything. the trend was steadliy towards ever more features, at lower prices. Avid, Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere had far more interface similarities than differences, and they were eventually all priced within reach of anyone serious about editing for a living.

As recently as the Spring of 2010, I was asked to edit a primetime television show on an Avid Meridian editing system from the 90's. It was more of an ‘edit box’ that a full-service modern computer, but it worked perfectly. As television editors, we just make choices about picture, music and story. When the choices are complete, our assistant editors make EDLs for online and coloring and export OMFs for the audio mix. We suffer no consequences for using ten-year-old technology. read more...