At one minute past midnight EST, Adobe published details about their new version of Premiere Pro CS6. We had the pleasure of a sneak peek a few weeks ago.
Why should an FCP based website look at a rival NLE? It is clear that FCPX isn't to everybody's liking and there are customers who have hundreds of FCP7 projects that need updating and won't survive the current transfer tools available. Adobe are clearly going after the editors and post houses that don't want to make the transition to X.
First of all, you cannot download a trial version of the new Premiere today, Adobe have published the information so that it can be showcased at NAB next week. We were lucky to be invited to a presentation of the new version and Adobe seem to have done a good job in tidying up what was a pretty messy GUI. The new dark design is the most striking change, you can give it a light grey skin if you've been used to working with the previous versions.
The GUI layout will look very familiar to FCP7 editors, they've stuck with the traditional two up window design although you can now preview footage with 'Hoverscrub' by moving the cursor over clip icons with shift held down. A very similar feature to skimming. One of the design briefs was to declutter the GUI but keep it flexible enough so that editors can customise the layout. There is a new button editor, the facility to show or hide controls and the addition of proper full screen playback. The new version will also support gestural controls from a trackpad, so pinching will zoom and you get proper ballistics when scrubbing with two fingers.
Multicam has been improved by offering 'as many angles as you want to try,' it can also handle different frame rates. Warp Stabilizer is built in to fix shaky footage and there is also a rolling shutter repair filter. The three way colour corrector does have a very familiar look to it and we welcome the addition of adjustment layers which have been designed to work in the same way as Photoshop. There has been little change to the plugin architecture so existing plugins should work. Audio control gets improved too, Adobe have utilised the same mixer controls from Audition.
Premiere benefits from using the Mercury Playback Engine, but what if your Mac's graphic card won't support it? Adobe have tweaked Premiere for use on certain MacBook Pros as they understand a lot of editors work on laptops. To get the extra performance the MBP must have the Radeon HD 6750M or Radeon HD 6770M with 1 Gig of video RAM, it also needs to be running Lion.
So overall we were pretty impressed, we think a lot of editors will think this is the FCP8 that they really wanted Apple to release. But has the whole industry changed and are Adobe skating to where the puck 'has been' with this update? No doubt it's going to have a lot of fans, Adobe have listened to customers and produced an NLE that for the meantime will work well for a lot of editors. Whether it will have the capacity to expand in the future to handle whatever new technologies comes along, we'll have to see.
Rather than post a list of new features, we thought we would link to some good Adobe webpages & publications:
Premiere Pro CS6: what’s new and changed A good quick list of features.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Edit your way A 16 page PDF with much more detail and screengrabs.
What's new in CS6 Production Premium? A webpage with videos for the whole Production Premium package.
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!
