Naik Media | Video Editing Cumbria & North West – Final Cut Pro X: Is it ready for professional use?

 

Opinion article by Adrian N. – There has been a lot of bad things said about Final Cut Pro X, but after many, many updates has it returned to the former glory once held by FCP7?  Warning: It’s going to get geeky.

I’ve had experience using Final Cut Pro 7 while training as a broadcast editor.  Apples software was always the renegade NLE next to Avid Media Composer.  Adobe’s Premiere Pro was severely frowned upon.  So of course that is why I had to choose that as my primary.

Fast forward a few (*cough*) years later, and Adobe has swept up a huge percentage of the market for professional editing.  Avid is still the stable and solid system it always was (hence remaining the Hollywood choice).  Final Cut Pro?  What was a brilliant media editor had waned into a what seemed like a hobbyist platform.

So much had changed: the importing, magnetic timeline, auto analysis.  A lot of control, which editors simply can’t do without (professionally or personally), had been taken from their hands.  Final Cut Pro X was just too different to be taken seriously as an NLE.  It had taken the renegade standing to a whole new level.

For our video of Ffresh Festival in Cardiff, we took the opportunity to revisit FCPX following the slew of updates.  So, how does it fare now?

Coming from an Avid/Premiere Pro background, it is an difficult learning curve.  A lot of what we’re used to has gone.  The single channel ethos takes some getting used to.  At first it didn’t feel intuitive at all, it felt clunky.  After time, muscle memory and experience with the system took over and it began to make more sense.  It still had some niggles, but the ease of manipulating individual clips made up for these.  Being able to copy all effects to multiple clips saves so much time (somewhat making up for lack of adjustment layers as seen in Premiere [EDIT: Adjustment layers are actually available in a plug-in for FCPX by Alex4D – A special thanks to the award-winning documentary film-maker Jonny Lewis for the heads up!] ).

What makes a good NLE?

What is one of the main tests for me is sound manipulation: we were always taught that to some extent you can get away with sketchy video.  Bad sound, however, is a deal breaker.  In some respects the sound in a video is more important than the footage itself (doesn’t seem right?  Test this theory out for yourself: how often do you notice bad sound quality the most in Youtube videos?).

This is one reason why Da Vinci Resolve just doesn’t do it for me as an NLE.  Über-powerful for colour-correction and grading; zero audio functionality.

Premiere Pro has seamless integration with Audition, which is amazing for noise reduction and audio processing; Avid Media Composer has Pro Tools.  Well, Final Cut Pro X makes use of Logic Pro X functions.  Some plug-ins that you have for Logic Pro can be used in FCPX too.  The noise reduction feature, while not up to Audition’s standards, works pretty well.

Are we there yet?

With any software that introduces significant changes, there are going to be challenging learning curves.  I’m excited about the new functionality.  It starts to make the manipulation of clips second nature, and very simple things which take several seconds per clip (e.g. soft start on audio) in other NLEs are done in a heartbeat.

It feels designed by editors – editors not concerned what other editors consider the industry standard, but rather what makes their lives easier.  A few seconds may not seem like much, but when you’re editing a feature, this ease of use and time-saving adds up to a much more enjoyable experience.  This is the kind of thing nobody can do anywhere near as good as Apple: it’s professional software, you’re a professional, your product will be delivered professionally – it’s the journey to that destination that counts, right?

Conclusion

Given the one off payment, which is unbelievably low for pro-software (there are plug-ins for FCPX that cost more than the software.  Ridiculous!) FCPX is just as good an NLE as FCP7 was, just different.  It’s a good alternative for those who are intimidated by Avid and it’s price, or refuse to fall in line with the money-tree scheme that is Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

Put aside the time to learn the program, make use of the 30 day free trial, and see if it works for you.

Want some advice: when you feel frustrated with it, push through.  Keep going.  The moment will come when it just clicks, and you’ll be smiling about that feature you just discovered which has made your life –that- much easier.  Imagine, that: smiling while editing.  I didn’t think it was possible either…

 

(One thing that will never stop being annoying: sideways scrolling.  There is only one speed – blazing – which means you’ll probably miss the point in the timeline you’re aiming for at least twice.  Ugh…)