We are in a very different and testing time at the moment. A lot of freelance editors are at home having had their work cancelled, some right up to September. They will be back at their keyboards hopefully some time this year, but the industry has changed.
I think when we look back at this time, we will realise it was a watershed moment in the TV broadcasting, production and media world. Not the fact that editors weren't working or had to resort to remote working, but by the fact that almost overnight a 'home-broadcast' industry sprang to life.
Living rooms became makeshift TV studios.
My home TV studio https://t.co/HDDmdyAsqE pic.twitter.com/X3lHhw9Xcm
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) March 26, 2020
I’ve done some interesting TV in my time. However, producing a 90 minute football show this Saturday, with 5 guests, none of us leaving our homes & my only crew member standing outside a window...will take some beating. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/fIaWnMKNcE
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) March 26, 2020
Granted they were 'live ends' fed into a regular TV show, but also overnight, 'self-broadcasting' sprang to life.
It sprang to life quite literally for Joe Wicks, a fitness instructor. He had an idea last week to run a half-hour 'PE lesson' for kids every weekday at 9am in the morning. His first live stream got nearly a million people watching and taking part. He's doing it to keep kids fit, although the YouTube income of approximately $10,000 per day must be helping to expand his Fender collection.
The excellent Mark Rober also presents a three times a week science class from his workshop. My kids wanted to watch just based on the YouTube video's title!
Many people realised that they could stream their business from home and continue to serve their clients. OK, maybe not on the scale of the above, but my family's life has been completely dominated by video since our enforced lock-in.
My girls have trumpet and flute lessons via video with one teacher and a school violin lesson via another. Also my wife participates in another fitness class that's moved from a church hall to Zoom. (The company that everyone wishes they had bought stock in last year!)
As for me, yesterday I had a video chat with my web programmer in Canada, another with my graphic designer in Spain. Then I had to wait whilst one of my friends (who used to drink with me in my local pub) finished adding percussion to his daughter's live singing and guitar performance on Facebook before we could settle into our second weekly 'Virtual Pint' live with other friends.
You have to love technology. But there is one thing missing here, broadcast television.
Many of the broadcast channels here in the UK have changed their output to replace live or episodic shows with repeats. But with the audience already moving away from linear programming to consuming box sets on demand, this 'filler programming' could be the few final quick nails in the traditional consumption of programmes.
There are two exceptions here, news and sports because they are live. An example to prove the point here is 27.1 million people tuned into terrestrial TV to watch Boris Johnson's recent address to the nation on the virus.
I go back to Joe Wicks. He has had offers from the BBC and Channel 4 to put his daily show online. Why should he? He doesn't need a broadcaster when YouTube already distributes his content around the world.
This is not just happening with live shows. Dedicated specialist YouTube channels and websites are producing popular content for niches that traditional broadcasters have ignored for more templated 'mass appeal' format shows.
If you have an interest in watching planes abort landings at Heathrow in a storm, a man trying to fire up a VW engine after 30 years of not being used, have an obsession with Fibonacci numbers or want to watch and listen to all media from Apollo13 in real time - There's specialised content waiting for you.
So why is this posted on site about FCPX? Well, as more video is being shot or streamed, the next step is for those newbie broadcasters to package up the content. The violin teacher might edit together a class that can be purchesed, the fitness instructor might have a membership scheme for extra content or the guy fixing VW's might produce a video 'Haynes Manual'.
And that's all going to need to be edited.
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!
