A chessboard made out of 64 HD clips - all made possible with FCPX and a new Mac Pro. Svein Sund explains to FCP.co how he accomplished this massive project.
Here at FCP.co, we have experimented before with the power of FCPX and a new Mac Pro, but that's excatly what they were, experiments. So when we saw that Svein Sund from Gyro had used a lot of layers for a real job, we had to find out more.
Svein, thank you for taking the time to talk to FCP.co, what was the project for?
The Project was for The Chess Olympiad 2014 opening ceremony, which Gyro (the company I work for) produced. The Chess Olympiad is held in the northern city of Tromsø (Tromsoe), Norway and has the worlds best chess players from over 180 countries. With over 200 million viewers I had no objections taking the job as editor on this video, which was the opening video for the Olympiad. Though not the biggest project budget-wise, it was by far the largest audience I’ve ever made anything for and I was super stoked.
The director, Erlend Gjertsen, had a brilliant idea of making the video a collaboration with the players and fans themself and we got material from all over the world. We decided early on that we wanted to have fun with the chess format and therefore the 64 grids (Chessboards for those who don’t know the game). I must admit was a bit worried at first due to formats, resolution and overall quality. But it worked fine and got the "home made" look the director wanted. Must say that all credit to Erlend for just going for it.
Why did you choose FCPX?
Gyro is probably the largest media company in Norway to use Final Cut Pro X as our main editing software, most of us are certified and we have been testing the software since the very beginning. For my part I know the software pretty well and love the workflow. But we use Adobe Premiere as a secondary NLE in case some freelancers that come from that or Final Cut Studio. That way they can get the media imported or edit on that (I’ve removed all FCP7 from all of the Macs, just not worth the hassle anymore).
(Click for larger images)
Though Final Cut has catching up to do regarding built in support for MXF, to answer the question a bit more precise the alternatives were either FCPX, After Effects (hereafter called AE) or Premiere. As we all know, AE on the new Mac Pro is not ideal since it does not support GPU with the AMD cards, and working with sound on AE is useless, and so is grading when working with so many layers. Premiere in other hand, is the real contender but it has some major weaknesses compared to Final Cut.
Good crop layout in FCPX
Poor crop layout in Adobe Premiere
I must admit that going from Final Cut Studio to Final Cut Pro X was as hard for me as for anyone else, I think this is one of the UI elements that people use in their argument for calling it iMovie Pro, but I think it is one of the strong sides and it is perhaps the feature that makes you edit faster than on other NLEs.
What equipment did you use?
How did you use FCPX to build the project?
Metadata is king and I have a folder setup that we use on all of our projects at Gyro. Folders named after location or for the grids and we had subfolders with clips named after what they did, gender or color of the chessboard (e.g. Jumping_Man_White) I thereafter imported the folders with the videos and always have "Leave files in place" selected.
Any problems?
Nope. But getting control over a such amount of layers can be difficult at times.
Could this have been done on another NLE?
One could always make this on other NLEs, but at the same pace? Not a chance. Heres the thing; The thing that took the longest time was setting it up and arranging it the first time. That was a hassle to say at least. But that was because I had not prepared or done anything like this before. But the second and third time I made a new grid with different people it was done in a couple of hours. The way FCPX works with the new Mac Pro is amazing, that is not suprising since the Mac Pro is practically built for FCPX, and working with so many layers and formats without having to wait all the time was crucial.
So let's have the statistics of the project!
- The ability to color label/tag groups or single layers, just like in Logic or Nuendo.
- More functions for grading and a way to grade several clips at once with one setting.
- A way to make the layers thinner in the timeline. :)
FCP.co -A fabulous FCPX user story, many thanks for taking the time to share it with us.
Svein Sund is the Technical Director at Gyro, the largest Media Event company in Scandinavia. He is currently working on several exciting projects among them is a three to five year time lapse project using scripted solar powered GoPros which he is very excited about and with the rest of the crew at Gyro, making one of the largest floating arenas ever created for DNVs 150th anniversary. His favorite software tools are Final Cut Pro X, C4D, Adobe CC and Resolve.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
