Time for the second entry in the diary from our Final Cut Pro X newbie. Will the 'FCPX Force' be weak or strong in this latest update?
The FCPX Man Diary
WEEK TWO
Well here we are. Week two of my new life as part of the FCPX generation. Well when I say week two I actually mean month two. Since flying home armed with my new software (and the Editors Keys FCPX keyboard that was a last minute purchase), it has done precisely nothing.
I haven't even opened it: every time I flip the lid on my MacBook Pro it is staring at me from the dock with an accusing, yet colourful, eye.
But a combination of cowardice and inertia means that I have pulled back from the brink, citing all manner of excuses for continuing to open FCP7 instead. Corporate film to do: can't risk using a new edit system. Daughter's school project: too risky, what with her future at stake (and the fact that she would pick X up quicker than me, thereby making me look both stupid and old fashioned – both of which I actually am). And finally, those three shots of my dog running around the garden chasing a ball with a Go Pro strapped to his head: too flimsy an edit job with which to launch my new edit system.
But every man has a limit to his shameful and craven behaviour – politicians excepted - and I now have a project which demands I use FCPX. It is a load of behind the scenes footage shot on my Canon 5D Mkii at a sports event in the Pacific islands. There is no time pressure, no client pressure and nothing difficult at all from a technical or creative perspective. I am simply going to clip this material together in a logical order and send it to a friend who might find it useful. As he doesn't even know I am doing this for him it doesn't matter if I fail miserably and don't send anything.
So here goes. What follows will churn the stomachs of anyone with a modicum of knowledge of FCPX. In fact it will probably make anyone weep who values common sense, reason, intelligence and human decency.
I had taken my camera to Tahiti as something of an afterthought, as evidenced by the fact that I forgot both my battery charger and my card reader. But people being people there was someone to bail me out, meaning I could shoot more than 5 mins of footage and get it off the CF card.
But where to put it? Because, guess what, I didn't have any external drives either. Just one alternative really. Make disc images of the CF cards to my desktop and set the capture scratch to my hard drive. Yes, all incredibly stupid so far.
And then I opened up FCPX and got cracking. Fortunately the first thing I needed to do was import some material from one of the disc images on my desktop. That seemed fairly similar to FCP7. I remembered that I needed to set the Import Settings in my Preferences menu but couldn't 100% remember what my Obi Wan Kenobi guru had told me to do, so I clicked on the following options :
- Import folders as Keyword Collections
- Create Optimized media
- Create Proxy Media
- Separate mono and group stereo audio
- Remove Silent Channels
I opened the disc image and imported the clips. So far pretty easy.
I then gingerly started cutting them onto a timeline or whatever a timeline is called these days. Putting one shot in front of the next in a logical manner seemed pretty straightforward. After an hour of feeling smug I had cut out all the wobbly shots and had a sequence to export. I couldn't find anything that said File Export in the File dropdown but I did find something that said Share, which I know is the new, touchy-feely buzzword for Export, so I clicked it.
And at this point things began to unravel. All the options, apart from choosing a Destination, were greyed out. Try as hard as I could, double checking my in and out points and all the other technical checks I could perform (making tea and eating biscuits, pacing around the room etc etc), I could do nothing to remedy this situation.
This is probably a good point to tell you something about myself and my relationship with instructions and Help Menus. I do not sit at the slightly lunatic end of the scale that my wife occupies, where any instruction leaflet is roundly ignored, but nor am I at the other end with those poor lost souls who spend hours reading technical pamphlets - sometimes for equipment they do not even own - including the bits about battery disposal.
In the universe of instructions I see myself as more of a Luke Skywalker figure. Did the young Jedi prepare for his life-defining moment by reading the instructions for his new X-Wing fighter ? No sir, he did not. He sought the homespun advice of a small green creature with large ears and then listened to the voices in his head. That same approach has got me to where I am at this moment with my new edit system.
But I now have to admit that the Force is not with me. Rather than the FCPX equivalent of depositing my payload down a small opening (stop sniggering at the back) I am careering out of control like one of those expendable extras about to smash into the Death Star. I am, for want of a better word, buggered.
But for every one of life's crises, there is a Millennium Falcon lurking over the horizon (Ok, I know I have beaten the Star Wars metaphor with a big stick until it is screaming for mercy). Mine is in the shape of a series of video tutorials given to me by a colleague. I am going to have to watch them, because the first lesson has been learnt.
And that lesson is this. You cannot migrate from FCP7 to FCPX on instinct. Neither the Force, nor herbal remedies, nor native wit, nor beer (life's greatest panacea) can magically make you understand a very different way of editing. Sure, some of the basic premises are the same. But only in the same way that driving to the shops is the same as dropping a torpedo from a spaceship. I am going to have to expend some time and energy in learning this new system if I want to use it. But first I have to decide if I can be bothered.
To be continued.....
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!
