Monterey 12.1 was released today and along with it was a feature called SharePlay. Can you share your Final Cut Pro edit screen and audio?
The quick answer is yes, the long answer is yes and you can do a lot more!
Today's update of macOS Monterey to 12.1 brings in SharePlay which allows you to share a screen or the output from an app on your Mac.
It might be designed for sharing music, a photo slideshow or AppleTV with a friend, but what about Final Cut Pro?
The process to share your window or screen is very simple, first of all start your FaceTime call as usual from your Mac.
Navigate up to the menu bar on the right and click on the green SharePlay button.
You will see a dialogue box asking what you want to share, a screen or a window. (Thank you to Chris Roberts for being the SharePlay guinea pig at 10pm at night!)
Click on what you want and then the item or screen and that will start sharing. The person on the other end then has to click on the accept button (on an iPhone but it could be a Mac) to see the screen.
And it is as easy as that! The viewer gets a very good quality feed of the screen and also has the ability to resize the 'person window' to shrink it down or move it out of the way. The audio goes too, although we did get a bit of feedback, maybe one of us needs to wear headphones or AirPods. The sender sees the other person if they have their camera switched on.
We did test going fullscreen with the output mid-call and that worked as well.
Whilst I was on the call with Chris, I noticed a button on the far left of the FaceTime window, it was to add another person. We have a colleague who lives in New Zealand, so we called him up.
That worked too, so all three of us could see and hear FCP and we could see and talk to each other. Amazing! I can really see directors loving this being on the end of a call watching with an iPad.
The Zoom subscription will get cancelled in the morning, this is much better quality and it is free. With more WFH and another possible lockdown, SharePlay might prove very handy over the next few months.
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!
