Final Cut Pro X: What Does the Controversy Mean to You?
You've no doubt heard about Final Cut Pro X by now. About a week ago, Apple discontinued Final Cut Studio, it's line of professional video editing applications which consisted of Final Cut Pro 7, Color, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Compressor 3, and DVD Studio Pro 4. These six applications sold for $1,300 from Apple, and represented a standard in many professional video workflows. While Avid systems have remained the king of Hollywood and larger production agencies, Final Cut Pro and its sister applications were preferred by many for their (relative) ease of use, especially among independent filmmakers.
The new Final Cut Pro X throws out ten years of development and, despite the name, is an entirely new application. It borrows many features from iMovie, which was similarly-rewritten three years ago. It also misses many features that many professionals claim they need to do their job correctly. However, a small minority does have good things to say about the new Final Cut Pro X.
The purpose of this post is to examine the application from three different points of view – the video hobbyist, the film student, and the experienced professional.
The iMovie / Final Cut Express video hobbyist
If video editing is a small or large hobby for you and you have worked with iMovie, Final Cut Express, or even Final Cut Pro in the past, then Final Cut Pro X represents a strong investment for you. Priced at only $300, it is an affordable replacement for whatever video editing program you are using now. Despite the bad press, Final Cut Pro X does 95% of the things that Final Cut Pro 7 (the previous version) did.
Since you are not working in a pre-established professional workflow, it is unlikely you will miss any features in the new Final Cut. In addition, familiarity with iMovie is a huge plus as Final Cut Pro X borrows many elements from it. It is an entirely new way of working with your video, and will take some time to learn. But it will probably ultimately be a better application for you.
The film student / budding professional
If video editing is a part-time or soon-to-be profession for you, you may want to hold off on clicking the "Buy" button. While Final Cut Pro X is more full-featured than the press would have use believe, it's future is still uncertain. Many professional editors are claiming that they are switching to Avid or Premiere-based systems, as they feel Apple has abandoned the professional market. As someone who is wants to, or is already breaking into the video editing market, learning Final Cut Pro X represents an investment into an editing style and process that may or may not be valued, or even relevant, in five year's time.
This group, more than any other, should hold off and wait and see what happens. Apple has promised updates that will replace the most vital of features from Final Cut Pro 7, but whether or not this will be enough is yet to be seen.
The experienced professional
If you are an experienced professional who has integrated Final Cut Pro 7 into their workflow, I don't need to tell you what to do. If Final Cut Pro X is missing features that are key to the way you work, it is obviously not for you – yet. However, I would avoid suddenly jumping ship just because it is new and different. I suggest testing out the new Final Cut. Try it out at an Apple Store, or ask your employer to download it for testing purposes. The program is fairly robust, despite a few shortcomings, and it would be a shame to see the industry abandon it so soon.
Like people, applications take some time to get to know. Final Cut Pro X is a new program, a new person to work with. Let's not abandon it based on a bad first impression. We need to get to know people, new website or application designs, whatever, before we really understand them. And let's not forget that some of Apple's other products were introduced to lukewarm first impressions – the iPod, the iPad ("It's just a big iPod Touch!"), the Apple Store, and of course iMovie '08. I believe we should all give Final Cut Pro X a chance, despite its initial shortcomings. Apple has done this before, and they'll do it again. But most of the time, in the end, I think Apple does what it does best – it pushes the envelope and makes the hard decisions in application development for us.
I am experienced video editor, who was hoping that Final Cut Pro was going to be the future of editing, and after trying out Final Cut Pro X for a week, I have to disagree with what you have to say about it being so robust. Some of the new features are laughable for a high end post facility, like the magnetic timeline, and the lack of a viewer window quickly becomes an impediment when you move your events to a second monitor, and must scrub on one monitor and view on another. And not being able to open FCP 7 projects or export XML is just ridiculous, but those are not my biggest complaints. The more I use the program the more I feel hamstrung by it. Like they are trying to force us to work this one way, and so far I have found that it is in fact a way that not nearly efficient as my old way of editing. I would go so far as to say if you are an experienced professional, give FCP X a pass until they add some missing features and work on some shortcomings, and even then my 10 years with FCP may be coming to an end as I am moving to Premiere Pro (Which opens FCP 7 XML) and Media Composer 5.5.
I've been teaching editing in post-secondary for 8 years, using Final Cut Studio. Major critical limitations aside, one of the important reason we can't switch is that FCP X can't be used in a multi-user environment. I can just imagine the headaches with lost or overwritten footage with lab computers. Also, we want our students to work in a full-featured environment so that they are experienced before they get to the working world. Massive fail Apple.
I am what you might call a "video hobbyist" and I love the new Final Cut Pro X. I usually just use iMovie for my video editing and when I need to add something special, i export the iMovie video and upload it to Final Cut. But with FCPX, I don't need to do this because everything about iMovie is now a part of FCPX. The new magnetic timeline makes everything so much easier for me, and I can do way more with FCPX than I could with FCP 7. The tools are much easier for me to find and it is very user friendly. I can understand where the professionals are coming from because if you have used Final Cut Pro for years, you will probably have a hard time adapting to the new FCPX. But I don't think all the old features are missing (in most cases), I think people might just have a hard time finding them. Anyway, for the video hobbyist, I say give Final Cut Pro X a chance.
Well, I'm one of those "Final Cut Express video hobbyist" types, and that's because I want to eventually graduate to professional, track-based editing. Not back-pedal to a souped-up iMovie.
And that's why I'm looking at Avid and Lightworks (open source; Mac OS in late 2011).
For an artist moving to video 6 years ago, FCP-X is perfect! Much better than imovie or FCE, because of the magnetic timeline. Yes, a disappointment for professional editors but just what I need. I have been documenting a San Francisco family for the past 38 years. Made over 100 etchings and photoetchings of them, plus 20,000 still photographs. It is all about ease of use, and this is a good move by Apple.
As a professional trailer editor at a top trailer house, FCPX is simply not professional level software. Simply stated, we cannot produce a movie trailer in FCPX. In film post we must provide EDLs to finishers, OMFs to mixers, import layered Photoshop graphics, export Quicktimes directly from FCP, share projects between cutters and perhaps most importantly, utilize previous projects from years past.
The vibrant trailer industry through LA and NY is 90% Final Cut Pro, and unless Apple fixes the above the entire trailer industry will soon be 100% Avid. Final Cut Pro X is unacceptable from Apple, and a great cause for concern in our industry right now.
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I’ve been teaching editing in post-secondary for 8 years, using Final Cut Studio. Major critical limitations aside, one of the important reason we can’t switch is that FCP X can’t be used in a multi-user environment. I can just imagine the headaches with lost or overwritten footage with lab computers. Also, we want our students to work in a full-featured environment so that they are experienced before they get to the working world. Massive fail Apple.
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