Final Cut Pro X in Action

If you have read any of my comments on Final Cut Pro X, you already know that I have adopted the wait and see approach.  While the software is lacking a few important features, I do believe the application has many features professional editors will like.

At Creative Liquid we continue to edit our client projects on Final Cut Pro 7.  All of our edit suites also have Adobe’s Production Premium Suite CS5.5.  We also support one Avid Media Composer 5.5 seat.  Currently, we have Final Cut Pro X on one computer for testing and training purposes.

I recently decided to dive into FCP X to give it a test drive.  The project I took on was an update to our demo reel.  I selected this project for a couple of reasons, first, no client projects would be affected if I ran into problems, and second we pull demo material from dozens of projects.  It’s always a mess organizing all of the files we need and I wanted to see how easy it was to use FCP X’s new Event Library.

I edited on a MacBook Pro with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB of RAM.  It’s a 2011 MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt, although I did not use a second computer monitor.

While many editors have turned their nose up at the new user interface, I actually found it quite easy to get accustomed to.  By the end of the project I wasn’t missing the viewer window.  On a laptop it was nice to see one large window with my timeline and clips, the video that appears in the window changes depending on where you have your mouse cursor.  I think this is an efficient use of screen real estate.

Using the Event Library was a snap.  I don’t care for the film-strip view, so I used the list-view.  I also like that you can customize the size of the video clips.  I found myself using the search box frequently.  All of my clips were labeled since they came from other projects, so it made it easy to find what I needed.  This will make logging of footage a necessity.  As a production company we will need to set policies as to how footage will be labeled and brought into the NLE.  I don’t see this as a drawback, but as an asset since in the end we will be more organized.

I found it annoying that clips in the Event Library do not retain in and out points.  With that said, I did find it very easy to set in and out points and then “Favorite” that segment.  This essentially retains your in and out points and gives you another way to search for your clip.  I think this will become an effective way of tracking clips and will essentially speed up editing.

I was concerned about everything that I was reading about FCP X not supporting shared storage, but I was thrilled to learn this is actually a myth.  There are several workflow suggestions outlined on various forums and blogs.  It will still take some time to learn FCP X’s file management system inside and out, but I think the foundation is there for an excellent workflow.  It is much more powerful than FCP 7.

Editing in the timeline was easy.  I didn’t find myself missing or looking for V1, V2, A1, A2, etc.  I also like that clips and audio are married together.  This made editing our reel easy.  I first laid out our music track and then started plugging in our footage.  The sound from each clip stays with the clip and you don’t have to worry about misplacing or losing audio.  When I didn’t want audio on a clip, I simply pulled the level down right on top of the clip.  This is the exact same way FCP 7 works.  Just in case you are wondering, you can break apart audio and video if necessary. 

I like that there are no clip collisions in FCP X.  I found it easy to work with clips and move things to where I needed them to go.  The cut of music I was using had a few sections with a fast beat and I found it was simple to trim clips to the correct length inside the timeline.  Another myth of FCP X is that you can’t leave gaps in your timeline.  You can, you just need to create a black or blank frame.  This can then be extended to fill the space you want to leave blank.

There’s a lot to like, but I found two tools to be extremely helpful, first the slip tool.  When you select the trim tool (T shortcut) and hover over a clip you can click and drag in either direction to slip the video.  In your video window you will see a two-screen display pop up that shows you both the first and last frame of your edit.  This is very helpful.  I found myself using this tool frequently.

The second tool or feature that I really like is retiming footage.  I have always thought this was a clunky feature in Final Cut Pro, but now I really like how it works.  FCP X has some built in speed change settings, but you can customize your speed change simply by clicking and dragging the beginning or end of your clip.  If you want to ramp your footage or part of your clip, first use the range selection tool to select the portion you want to change and then apply the speed change.  I found this incredibly well designed and easy to use.     

To save screen space you now tab in and out of the inspector, effects, generators, etc.  This makes them available when you want them, but hides them when they are not needed.  I do like that you can hover over a filter or effect and FCP X will show you a preview on your footage in real time.  There is no need to apply the filter, play your clip and then decide whether to keep it or undo it.  In FCP X you can hover and scrub over an effect to see what it looks like on your timeline.  The text tools and integration with Motion are excellent as well.  Creating quick and simple lower thirds or titles that look good is now extremely easy.  Again, I’m not talking about armature graphics, I’m talking about graphics that you can use to present to your clients.

I won’t go into too much detail, but I also want to point out that I liked the background rendering.  I was editing mainly with ProRes and DVCPRO HD footage.  I was also happy to see my FX Factory plugins working seamlessly.

I’ve talked about what I liked, now here’s what I don’t like.  The list is actually quite short.  For some reason I was not able to export a Quicktime file from FCP X.  Every time I tried the program crashed.  This was the only thing that caused the program to crash.  I ended up exporting an image sequence and reassembling it in Photoshop.  I did a quick search online and I didn’t not see others complaining of this problem.  If you have experienced this and found a solution shoot me an email. 

There is no broadcast monitor support.  This is a big problem.  I see this being fixed in the very near future, but until it is fixed, we can’t roll out FCP X in earnest. 

Also, as others have mentioned, FCP X does not talk with Smoke, Resolve, etc.  There needs to be, and will soon be XML support.  This is coming, so I urge people to be patient.

Does the software have flaws, without a doubt.  Is it iMovie on steroids?  I’ve never used iMovie, but the tools and functions inside of FCP X are definitely not armature.  FCP X is just a different way of assembling your story.  I urge editors to actually work with FCP X before drawing a conclusion.  Don’t just tinker, actually try to edit a project and tell a story.  Once you see how it works it’s really a great application.