It has been a long six years from that day in June 2011 when everybody opened up FCPX for the first time. Many updates, over 2,000,000 seats sold and a growing ecosystem later, things have changed. A lot.
A few things we can take as read. Final Cut Pro X was feature lacking and released too early, it could have really done with more time in development.
And then there was that suicidal launch, killing FCP7 dead lost Apple over a million users overnight. It also created bad feeling that to this day is the reason why some editors won’t even think of going back to FCP, such is the hurt.
But things have changed - as has the industry.
Apple has had a good Mac year. It has started to address the critics who have been saying they have abandoned the ‘creative pro’. Yes, the Apple haters have had a field day accusing the ‘phone company’ of neglecting us editors, designers and musicians. However, the last 12 months has resulted in future product announcements from what’s normally a very secretive company.
For FCPX, Apple has been pushing out releases on a regular basis. The 10.3 update last October reengineered the Timeline, simplified the GUI and gave Roles more functionality.
At the same time we got to see the new MacBook Pros at the FCPX Creative Summit. At first they were criticised for having USB-C ports. Now, as the industry seems to be adopting these as standard, it was the correct move by Apple. Not that you’ll see bloggers adding footnotes to their reviews confessing they were wrong. Yep, iMacs and floppy disks all over again.
On the 4th of April. Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, and John Ternus from Apple hosted a meeting in Cupertino where they talked about a new Mac Pro.
It will be ‘completely rethought’ with a modular design. We also learnt that there will be new displays and (maybe missed this relevance at the time) ‘configurations of iMac specifically with the pro customer in mind.’
The bad news was that the new Mac Pro and displays won’t be available until 2018. Just remember that Apple released the ‘trashcan’ Mac Pro only a few days before Christmas.
Then we had the staff ‘acquisitions’ On the 8th of February we found out that Wes Plate from Automatic Duck had joined the Pro Apps team to hopefully incorporate his Send to Motion expertise and more into FCPX.
On the 23rd of April, our friend and plugin writer Tim Dashwood joined Apple to bring his 360 VR know-how to the NLE. (It also shows our bad Photoshop skills and laziness!)
But what blew us away was WWDC.
Traditionally in the past the WWDC Keynote was where new Mac hardware had been introduced. The last three or four have concentrated on the iPhone, iPad and Watch leaving the average Mac user rather disappointed.
Not this WWDC. There were Kaby Lake processor updates across the board (apart from the air). There was also the announcement of external GPU support with High Sierra. They even specifically mentioned that Final Cut Pro X will be able to ‘edit within a spherical environment’
What stole the show was the iMac Pro. If ever there was a firm rebuttal to the critics, this was it. Too little too late? No, a lot and yes it could have been earlier. If you think it’s too expensive, then the machine isn’t aimed at you.
As we said in the WWDC article, it has also set the bar the new Mac Pro has to jump over.
And for a final note, we now know that our dear old light grey friend FCP7 won’t run on the macOS after High Sierra.
So to sum up, a lot has happened since FCPX’s 5th birthday, but we think that the next year just might be the most interesting yet.
Peter Wiggins is a broadcast freelance editor based in the UK although his work takes him around the world. An early adopter of FCP setting up pioneering broadcasts workflows, his weapon of choice is now Final Cut Pro X.
You can follow him on Twitter as @peterwiggins or as he runs the majority of this site, you can contact him here.
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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!
