Strategy for using FCPX in feature documentary

Hi, I realise this question must have been asked multiple times before, but since technology moves on so fast I'd really appreciate any experiences or feedback anyone can give me on the following scenario:

I'm a documentary director with some editing experience. I use Final Cut Pro X only. So far, I'm also using Final Cut library manager and Boris soundbite, which I bought shortly after its release a few years ago.

I'm about to start shooting a 90 minute feature documentary about climate change, which will comprise approximately 50 to 60% interview, 30% archive film, 20% documentary scenes.

I estimate that I will have about 50 to 60 hours of interview material, and 20 to 30 hours of archive material at start of edit. I wish to do the first assembly myself, prior to bringing in a professional editor.

Three principal questions at this stage:

1. Hardware. I intend to get one of the new iMac retinas, 27 inch. Minimum graphics/CPU? Solid-state?

2. Drives. Thunderbolt needed? RAID necessary?

3. Export of first assembly to avid or Adobe premiere… Possible?

Additionally, any advice on plug-ins which might help the logging and first assembly task would be really appreciated. I'm hoping that FCPXTRA which I just bought may prove useful, ditto Boris soundbite. I've also spotted intelligent assistance lumberjack system, which also looks like it might be useful.

All feedback warmly received!

Bonjour Paul,

I'm sure you have read this interesting article on the making of the O.J. Simpson documentary. If not, you really should:

www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1723-f...aks-the-hidden-tapes

As to your questions:

I intend to get one of the new iMac retinas, 27 inch. Minimum graphics/CPU? Solid-state?

I just got a new one, for the same type of work. It's a beast!

- As you will have tons of clips and long timelines, fill it up with as much RAM as you can.
- Get the i7 CPU
- As FCP X will get updated to work with Metal, the 4GB VRAM GPU could become more important. But that's mostly for color correction and effects, which you won't be doing yourself. So the standard 2 GB VRAM GPU should work for you.
- Solid state for the boot drive makes a world of a difference loading projects. If this is possible for you, go for it. Otherwise the 2 TB Fusion drive also does a great job.

Drives

A large Thunderbolt RAID is an absolute must for this kind of work.

Export of first assembly to avid or Adobe premiere… Possible?

In theory everything is possible, in the real world cross-NLE workflows are an absolute recipe for disaster. Too many incompatibilities, too many problems, lots of wasted time and costs to make things work. Start and end a project in the same NLE and you will be very happy you did it.

There are many professional editors who work with FCP X, so I really don't see why you even would consider giving your project to someone who works on a different NLE than you do. I can get you in contact with professional FCP X editors in Paris or elsewhere in France, or in Belgium. If this is a doc about climate change I even would be willing to help you out myself. Or I can get you in contact with a friend of mine who just finished 3 feature-length docs for television in FCP X. He works with Avid and Premiere, but he prefers FCP X above anything else. As you see: plenty of options for professional FCP X editors to finish your production. Drop me an e-mail (I speak perfect French, I have worked for TF1 and A2 in Paris): ronnycourtens@mac.com

Other questions

- Boris Soundbite is a great tool but it has one major disadvantage: it cannot convert your dialogue bits into keyword collections. Lumberyard Transcript from Intelligent Assistance is a more powerful tool, especially when you work with FCP X. Patrick explains some of it in the article, but I can get you in touch with the developers if you want more information. Phillip and Greg from Intelligent Assistance are wonderful people.

- FCPXTRA is indeed a cool plugin. I have met Jan Willem, the developer, at IBC and he really knows what he is doing.

Hope this helps for starters, if you need more information don't hesitate to drop me an e-mail.

- Ronny

Hello Paul,

Ronny has enormous experience and insight into the hardware questions you posed and so I'll just add my anecdotal experience with Boris Soundbite and FCPXTRA. I've used both of the those applications on a feature length documentary last year. My experience with Soundbite was disappointing - in fact I was never able to fully, and more importantly reliably, get it to work with FCPX. In a few words, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. It may work better with FCP 7, I don't know. Boris support, at least for Soundbite, was helpful but they were never able to completely resolve my issues.

My experience with FCPXTRA was better although it too seems to have a few quirks - at least on my system: (late 2013) Mac Pro, 64G RAM. I believe the developer is very responsive and I'm keen on seeing how this plugin develops.

I haven't had the opportunity to use Lumberjack Transcript myself but the Intelligent Assistance folks are excellent and I use a number of their other applications for FCPX - they all work well and are excellently supported. I bet Lumberjack is a great product.

pxjenkins wrote: ...I estimate that I will have about 50 to 60 hours of interview material, and 20 to 30 hours of archive material at start of edit. I wish to do the first assembly myself, prior to bringing in a professional editor...new iMac retinas, 27 inch. Minimum graphics/CPU? Solid-state?...

I also work in documentary production, and I'm getting a 2015 5k iMac next week and will post my experiences. In general I'd recommend the top-end CPU and GPU. While GPU is mostly for effects and in your current envisioned workflow this will be handled downstream, you never know. Circumstances could change and the iMac will likely be used in later projects with different workflows. The GPU upgrade isn't that expensive.

Yes you should have a Thunderbolt drive array, plus IMO two separate backups at a minimum. I'd suggest a continuously-connected Time Machine backup array, plus an intermittently connected clone backup using Carbon Copy or other software. I personally use RAID0 backup arrays because they are less expensive than other RAID types and have higher capacity and performance than a single drive. Ideally you should also have yet another backup off site, if only critical files.

Since your media will be on a Thunderbolt array, you may as well get an SSD boot drive and obtain those advantages as well.

For your main media array there are many good choices. I currently use the Pegasus R4 but will probably get a 20TB OWC Thunderbay 4 since all our new 4k material is crowding my space: eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB2SRT20.0S/

As an experienced director/editor you obviously know the value of media organization, and it's fortunate FCP X supports that so well. I worked on a documentary with 50 hr of material which took two years in post production because of media management problems. This isn't uncommon. I think a volunteer-produced Nine Inch Nails documentary took a year in post, despite having an approx 12-person editing team. They also had about 50 hr of raw material.

The more initial effort is spent on media organization (tagging, keywording, etc) the faster the edit will go and the more creative bandwidth can be focused on artistic aspects.

For audio sync and multi-cam, we find PluralEyes very useful: www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/

It sounds like audio and coloring will be handled downstream, but we use Izotope RX4 (now RX5) which is great for fixing audio. During the assembly phase be aware of this capability and don't discard clips based on poor audio which can often be fixed: www.izotope.com/en/products/audio-repair/rx/

Even though it happens downstream, try to ensure proper finishing is done before release. It doesn't make sense to spend thousands of hours on a project, then rush the color/audio phases. CNN just released this news piece which had major white balance problems, yet they went ahead and aired it uncorrected: money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/technology/snip...ower-grid/index.html

Hi Paul
I agree with pretty much everything said here.
With that many resources, figuring out a meta-data system and workflow will really help find that clip you want. Too easy to lose the clip and spending lots of time looking for it. Fortunately, the latest FCPX10.2.x has some great whole library search/smart collections to make this better.

About RAID. Here is maybe the one and only place where I might or might not disagree with the excellent advice already given. I think it depends on the type of footage/codec/resolution/multi-cam/streams etc… on whether or not you will gain much from a RAID. If you are going to be pushing the bandwidth, then by all means get a RAID set-up. If you will be mostly doing single/duo stream 1080p footage, then there won't be any gain, so my advice is to give this a thought before spending the additional $$(or Euros).
Here is an article by Larry Jordan on configuring your system based on need… larryjordan.com/blog/configure-your-system/

Speaking of RAID, Apple in El Capitan; which your new computer will have, has decided to deprecate RAID in Disk Utility, so if you were planning on doing an Apple version of RAID, you should research this. If you are going for a hardware RAID this will not matter.
As Joema says, Back it all at least 2X. RAID no matter what configuration is not a back-up plan.

As to RAM, the iMac 27" has easy user access for swapping/ upgrading ram. (Not the 21") You can save yourself some money by going reliable 3rd party ram like OWC. Not sure about the price/VAT for France.

I would most likely recommend the flash based ssd not the Fusion. The latest iMac has basically doubled the speed as this is PCI based flash storage. I would recommend at least the 512GB size as I find my 256GB amount inadequate. YMMV, and I would like to hear from others on this. I share a computer with my wife, and keeping the drive lean and mean is a big challenge. Definitely getting a larger internal drive next time.

Likewise, if you can afford it, I would go for the top of the line GPU. The extra vram will become increasingly important in the near future. IMHO. If money is really tight, then the 2vs4GB only adds a small amount of spinning beach ball time and longer renders. I'm very interested in seeing how the inclusion of Metal will play out in the next release of FCPX 10.3.x
My own philosophy is to buy the best I can afford knowing that I will have the computer for a long while. I can't afford to purchase new equipment every year. You'll never regret having a better computer.

Let us know how it goes and look forward to seeing your film.

Hope this helps, Greg
p.s. Take Ronny up on his offer to help, immediately.

Hi Ronny,

Frstly, a big thank you for your response, and an apology for the delay in my response. The combination of full on dentistry and the various scheduling and organisational work for the production has repeatedly gotten in the way of me getting back to you quickly.

Have just scanned through the O.J. Simpson thread. Incredibly useful. Thank you.

Regarding the hardware, it looks like I might have to be patient because of the specific rules in France regarding production budgets. As director, it's not possible to get back the financial outlay on the editing hardware. Ludicrous, I know, but that's the way it is. Therefore, I'm having to look at a different plan to comply with the needs of the production, and my personal budget.

What this boils down to, is upgrading my mid 2010 iMac 27 inch rather than investing in one of the new beasts.

I've bought a Samsung SSD 850 Evo drive, that I will be fitting into the DVD Bay of the iMac this evening. Together with the 16 GB of RAM, I'm hoping that this will be sufficient to do the logging of the project, and perhaps even the first assembly.

As you probably know, the main limitation is likely to be the fact that the mid-2010 iMac does not have thunderbolt ports. This means, that I will probably have to work with a FireWire drive or for more than one FireWire drive to store the material being logged. Then, at some point, transfer the material over to whatever machine and system is being used for the actual editing.

Totally agree with you about keeping everything within Final Cut Pro 10. The issue will be the preparedness of the editor to work with it, and indeed to work in a situation where the logging and rough first assembly has been done by me. On the latter point, I'm thinking to allow one week for the editor to scan through all of the material, not just the first assembly, prior to proceeding to 2nd assembly and rough cut with the editor together.

Thank you very much for your offer to get involved yourself, or suggest someone else… As you probably know, the issue with French productions is that the production budget needs to be largely spent in France. I will send you an email later today so we can pursue this conversation.

Boris soundbite… That was kind of my feeling. I definitely intend to use lumberjack, especially the transcript mode, and am actioning the purchase of that today.

Many thanks, looking forward to talking with you further,
Paul

Hi think film,

Many thanks for your reply. Good to know that I probably ought to move soundbite down the priority list.

FCPXTRA - The main quirk I found so far is that if I have a text search term, all of the keyword ranges display in the search for the clip within which the text search term is found. If the transcript text in notes in short, this is not a problem, because it's relatively quick to identify the correct range. If, on the other hand, the search term is not displayed within the field visible in the event browser, it is a laborious process to identify the correct range/keyword for that particular search. I cannot immediately see a way round this, and unfortunately the developer has not left anyway of contacting support either on website or within the software.

I'm rapidly moving towards the lumberjack solution… With instructions to the transcribers to put time codes every 30 seconds, meaning that the whole logging process hopefully will be eased and speeded immeasurably.

Hi Joema,

Thank you very much indeed for your reply and advice.

Absolutely agree with your points about good organisation early on, and crafting the colour correction and audio at the tail end. I'm lucky enough to have the budget to do both.

Your advice on the media array very helpful… Thank you. I will look into it. The main issue is that the machine on which I will be logging the material does not have thunderbolt ports. Therefore, the issue will be whether these media options can talk with the FireWire/USB ports on a mid-2010 iMac, prior to moving the edit over to 1st assembly and rough-cut on a thunderbolt enabled iMac.

Everything needs to go smoothly once we hit the editing stage, because there is a maximum editing window of 10 to 12 weeks for off-line editing.

Hi Greg,

Thank you very much for your input on this. It's heartening to see the level of support given one to the other here in this forum.

Understood regarding the drives, and thank you for the Larry Jordan link. I'll check it.

Thanks also for your point about backing up beyond raid. Makes perfect sense.

I may end up investing in a top-of-the-line iMac… It will just have to be in spring of next year! Until then, for logging purposes, it'll be the mid-20 1016 GB RAM iMac 27 inch with the 1 TB of SSD that I am inserting in the optical bay this evening!

Cheers!
Paul

Hi Paul,

Reading you thread replies, I think you've made a good decision to start off with Lumberjack. I'm looking forward to using it myself on my next doc film and I'll be interested in hearing more about your experience with it.

Last word on Boris Soundbite, I know some other folks on this forum have used it and I'd be interested in hearing if they've run into issues with it as I did.

Bets of luck with your film.

Thanks!

I'm actioning Lumberjack this afternoon, and will feed back experiences in this thread!

Hey Paul,

You will be good with the upgraded 2010 iMac. As Greg correctly stated: as long as you work with single or dual stream 1080p footage you don't really need Thunderbolt. Of course it also depends on the codec in which the footage has been recorded. If it's ProRes 422 or XDCAM HD you won't have any problems with your iMac and a fast FireWire 800 drive. If it's some flavor of H.264 or the likes, you probably will need to optimize the footage or work in Proxy mode.

Lumberjack is definitely the way to go. I am sure Phillip and Greg will be happy to assist if you have any questions or problems.

Absolutely agree with staying in FCP X from start to end. I have seen so many disasters with cross-NLE projects that I never accept to participate in any such workflows. As to FCP X editors: I know quite a lot of media professionals in France, and I can guarantee you won't have any trouble finding very proficient FCP X editors for your online work.

I have received your e-mail, we can discuss all this in more detail over Skype or on the phone.

- Ronny