Re: FCP and Avid question.

I'm interested in what kinds of shows are never made on FCP.

I personally know of.. lets see.. home videos, weddings, corporates, TVCs, regional TV, cable TV, National TV, international TV, short film, low budget features, high budget features, TV documentaries, large reality shows, feature documentaries, 'sizzle' shows .. the BBC and ABC in Australia are on FCP, I've cut more than 300 half hour TV shows myself for national stations, as well as Fox Sports and Lifestyle .. people here cut for History channel, Discovery, Universal and more in dozens of different countries, so I'm not sure what genre you're saying no-one uses FCP for.

Seriously bro that's a whole other topic different from my original post and I don't want to turn the forum into an Avid vs FCP debate. I'm just an Avid guy that wanted to try to learn some things about FCP I didn't know from others. If you want an answer to your question than email me at ian@ianrichardson.net because this is not the place to have that discussion.

I think a light discussion could be good, but I'll split the thread so it doesn't clutter up the forum.

>I'm interested in what kinds of shows are never made on FCP.

From what I know, most shows in the higher end Hollywood industry are still cut on an Avid. There are quite a number of editors who edit at work on an Avid, and they have an FCP machine on their laptops or in their home computer. As far as I know, you don't use an FCP or an Avid machine because you need it to use it on a specific genre.

Probably the reasons for the dominance of Avid in Hollywood and many higher end workflows are: 1) familiarity with the software amongst older editors, 2) the Avid trim tool, 3) ScriptSync, 4) effects, 5) media management and Unity for project sharing between multiple seats, 6) requiring solely an offline machine. The reasons why FCP is the main tool in the indie circuits, are: 1) price, 2) the FCP open timeline, 3) the FCS integrated suite, 4) ease of hiring an FCP editor over an Avid editor in smaller markets.

I haven't worked on the Unity so I can't comment too much here, but Avid used to handle media in a very strict manner, and you don't have to be so actively 'hands on' when it comes to organizing your media. When you talk about sharing projects, you have the single Avid project versus a directory of FCP project files. I prefer the first, as you can "reveal master clip" back to your source master clip, versus having a master clip in another FCP project and being unable to call on that function. However, in FCP, there's the drag and drop function which is as much a blessing as it is a curse for some (the messy ones), and you have to be more aware about where your media is and how you are organizing your media. But once you have your media and workflow properly organized, you are pretty set to go.

In Avid, you are in trim mode, in FCP, you are in trim window. So in MC, you use less clicks to enter trim mode with more keyboard functionality. This is a due to the design. Script Sync is a unique feature to Avid, that I have been wishing was in FCP since MC 3 (along with an in-built audio transcriber that was in Premiere CS4). On the other hand, the FCP open timeline is very easy to understand for many people who are familiar with a computer- drag to insert a clip into the timeline, drag your clips around into a certain order, etc.. Then you eventually learn to mark in/outs, do ripple inserts, while still having that interactivity with the mouse.

Some effects are easier to pull off in an Avid, as Ian has noticed. I always find the title tools and keyframing in FCP to be a clunky affair. But my view is that if you really need to go in and throw on a pile of effects, create complex masks, and animate a lot of movement and keyframes, you are better off in PS, AE or Motion or other tools which are better designed for such purposes. It is on a very rare occasion that I use the FCP 3 way CC as a color grading tool for a project. I go on roundtrips to Color whenever I need color correction on a project, be it for a 30 second video or a full hour ep, because I have a lot more ease and control in a software that was designed for color work. Jeff Harrell had this analogy of a clumsy teenager going out on prom night and desperately trying to find his date's happy spot. That is essentially how I feel about doing CC in FCP.

Then you have folks who are familiar with a certain software and interface. And when you've edited on a system for years, you're in tune to how the machine works and its idiosyncrasies. When you switch to a different machine, it's like learning a new language, and a lot of editors get frustrated and start blaming the tool, while everything goes haywire because the machine is doing all sorts of things it's not designed for. And this is pretty common. Heck, I get that too. Today I was trying to get timewarp to slow down a shot in CS3, and when I got into AE, the only thing I remembered about it was that I needed to pre-comp the clip before I can slow it down to a certain duration or I will end up with black after the end of the clip. And the frustrating part was trying to figure out what the controls were.

Price is a factor when an independent house considers an Avid or an FCP machine. With FCP, you get FCS, with Compressor, Motion, Color and Soundtrack Pro. With Avid MC, you still lack overall functionality when you talk about trying to have a suite that "does it all", and adding those additional elements will add significantly to the cost. In some places, it doesn't matter- the colorist will be handling the color work, the graphics team will be handling the graphics work, the audio will be mixed in the post house, it doesn't even matter if the offline editor can't burn a DVD for the offline review or ingest the .svg file into the edit for the end logo page.

Availability of talent is one other consideration, especially in smaller markets where you get lots of FCP editors, partly because of the way the demographics play out.



www.strypesinpost.com

Oh, I thought you did want to bring it up cause you've said it about three times, and it piqued my curiosity. Also, I'm not a bro.

Not quite sure what the point of this thread is..... but I'll join in with some of my own thoughts.

The absolute biggest reason you don't see these big budget movies cut with FCP is the talent. Who are the people cutting these bigger budget types of movies? The people cutting these movies likely were around when film transitioned to non linear, or at the very least got in at that transition when Avid and Lightworks were the only game in town. Avid won, so that is what people used. There is no reason for these guys to change. FCP doesn't bring anything significant to the table. Not saying it doesn't do some awesome things, but groundbreaking theoretical differences don't exist between the two. There is no incentive to learn and change.

The last small studio feature I cut, (6m budget) I can not tell you how impossible it was for me to find a 1st that knew FCP well enough in a feature environment to make me feel good that was willing to work for scale. The directors insisted on FCP, so I obliged. The resumes I received were in large part fresh out of film school people, tv assistants, or good strong Avid 1sts that had no FCP experience and then there were those that were everywhere in between. But noone with a strong assistant background with FCP feature experience. It was great using FCP, and I would likely use it again in a similar situation.

The other thing is that Unity is the end all be all of perfect shared projecthood, at least compared to anything else on the market. It is easy to use and hard to screw up. Sure there are some small caveats, but it is by far the easiest way to have your entire crew able to collaborate in a timely fashion in a single project.

At the end of the day you could use iMovie to cut a feature.... would you then call it the best tool for the job?

Basically, when I start a show I put a little thought into what our needs will be and assess what tool will be better for the job. They both do the same thing at the end of the day, however I'm a big believer in working smarter not harder.

Jude;

This is the "LA" FCPUG, everyone is a bro or I should say brah. Don't get snarky. You are supposed to be a moderator not an instigator. It is entirely possible that others may know things you don't at least about trends in LA for better or worse. Asking something because you want to learn is cool, questioning the validity of someone's knowledge base with boots on the ground in the exact topic in which they are speaking, not cool.

Avid can do things that FCP cannot in terms of the journey and FCP can do things that Avid cannot in terms of the journey and that bothers some people on both sides. But it's true. Often times decisions on what systems to use in certain markets have nothing to do with the destination but the journey itself and in terms of that LA might be a little different than elsewhere at least at the current time.

The responses above are pretty much dead on.

>This is the "LA" FCPUG, everyone is a bro or I should say brah. Don't get snarky.

Dude, Jude's no bro. She's a lady.



www.strypesinpost.com

Btw, just in case you were wondering, that "Loren Miller" person... is a guy. So is Derek, despite his flowy locks.



www.strypesinpost.com

Ian, you don't know us too well, otherwise you'd know that Jude is one of the nicest people in here. Not snarky at all.

Now I'm off to audition for the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Rapunzel.


www.derekmok.com

LOL even in LA it is not acceptable to call a woman brah, my apologies to Jude. But some of Jude's posts did sound snarky or at least implying that I was full of it. I didn't imagine my last ten years in LA, it actually happened, I was there.

Later and good luck with your audition Derek.

Strypes:

I agree with all you said above, good points, except Avid does have an open timeline with drastically less rendering and sequences that are not codec specific. Also most Avids have Avid Production Suite ( why this is never mentioned I have no idea, it isn't well advertised. Comparing FCS to Avid was always kind of an unfair comparison but the Production Suite is a more even comparison ) which is all of the same stuff as FCS ( Motion = Avid FX which has 3D modeling similar to after effects it's like having photoshop and after effects in your timeline, DVD Studio Pro = DVD by Sonic which has better BluRay capabilities, Compressor = Sorenson Squeeze which has a better image at a lower bit rate ( but who really knows ) or so I hear from the assistant because I don't deal with that, etc ... but without the color and mixing tools because it usually gets sent out for that to Pro Tools and the Avid Symphony.

And in terms of "it doesn't even matter if the offline editor can't burn a DVD for the offline review or ingest the .svg file into the edit for the end logo page"

Never had anything missing in the offline or issues with end pages and burning DVD's is par for the course, even with a blu ray custom menu if you like all right there in the Avid.

And yes, genre wise, effect heavy, music driven clip shows in LA at E! and Vh1 and the like are all Avid specific because on some levels you don't have to but it's better to for the reasons you listed above and it is better to work smart than to work hard like Tim said if you have the money and they CERTAINLY have the money. Sometimes the difference to production companies in at least that genre money wise in terms of going with Avid or FCP is that the Executive Producer can have nine cars or ten and sometimes nine will do if that means he can get the show out faster and we can all leave everyday at 7pm without a hitch.

Overall very good post though, very thoughtful and dead on.

I wasn't being snarky. Like I said, I was curious, because you said several times that it wasn't used somewhere, and from my own list of people I know cutting, I can't think of anywhere FCP isn't being used. I'm pretty sure there is someone on this list who cuts for E! - I remember reading a question from them a while ago.

Also, I'm really pretty agnostic about Avid and FCP. For me, if your'e happy and comfortable cutting on any software (or hardware, for that matter) and there is no pressing need to change, then go for it. Editing is not software. Editing is communicating. You need to be able to sit down and do that job in a place where you feel at home and don't spend all your time feeling lost and awkward.

>except Avid does have an open timeline with drastically less rendering and sequences that are not
>codec specific

Yikes. I didn't mean open timeline as in open format timeline. I meant it as in trim cum segment mode, in FCP's case, it's more permanent segment mode. I probably mixed up the terms there.

I like that open timeline feature in Avid. Not so much FCP's implementation of it in FCP 6 (I've actually been throwing animation codec into my FCP timeline even before FCP 6). And I did put that in the feature request forum.

It's strange, I always saw Avid as a good offline tool with good media management and an established offline/online workflow. Then recently, someone told me that onlining in FCP was pretty crummy, and I agree. The title tool is clunky. If you're using Boris, and you want your text to fit into title safe, you need to go back and forth. Not so much the case with the Avid titling tool. For onlining in FCP, you need to go to Motion or AE (AE's not really FCP), and using AE means sending it to the other room, while Motion was quite buggy in FCS 2. The current Motion is probably the biggest feature in the current version of FCS though, and I heard many of the bugs that I hated about Motion has been ironed out.

I don't know how the Avid FX tool compares to AE or PS. But having an integrated and powerful compositing tool can be very useful.



www.strypesinpost.com

Quote
strypes
I didn't mean open timeline as in open format timeline. I meant it as in trim cum segment mode, in FCP's case, it's more permanent segment mode. I probably mixed up the terms there.

Of course, now MC5 has the smart tool which emulates FCPs touchy-feely timeline interface to a certain extent. Apparently people were asking for that.

Quote
ianedit
Compressor = Sorenson Squeeze which has a better image at a lower bit rate

I have to call BS on that. I've used both Sorenson and Compressor and in my opinion, Compressor is FAR superior. Squeeze has gotten better over the years, but it's overall quality is less to me than Compressor.

Finally, I have a friend who works over at E!. He works on FCP. I don't know if it's just his department (promos) or if the entire channel has converted, but he's not using Avid there.

Andy

Andy:

Did a show at E! last year. E! is using FCP for promos and development but Avid for shows. Most companies do that because promos and development usually run local drives, no need for Unity. It's really all about Unity. FCP's gotta step up to that. That would be a total game changer in a big way. It's not the drives themselves but the ability to have everyone working out of the same project and sending things back and forth without opening and closing "transport" projects all day long. The "I just sent you a bin at the top of the project just hit save and it will show up" is kind of the deciding factor on allot of shows in terms of speed. In terms of Compressor and Sorenson, I knew that would spark a debate, that stuff is so subjective but my assistants usually take care of that and I certainly wouldn't know the difference. Also, I hate the smart tools in MC5. They are so clunky, it's like they are trying to serve too many masters. Have you ever tried to please three executives with contradictory notes and it all just turns to mush? The smart tools in Avid are not as smooth working as the FCP equivalents. I think when one software tries to work like another it all just gets clunky. You can permanently deactivate it and that's what I do.

Strypes:

Avid FX is essentially AE in your timeline, shows up in Symphony online as is no translation needed fully tweakable by stepping into the effect.

"the ability to have everyone working out of the same project and sending things back and forth without opening and closing "transport" projects all day long. "

it's a different mind-set.

Avid can work that way, because a Project is a "Cloud" of databases.
an FCP project is one database only.
so you just create a "Cloud" of projects.

there are people around who have created ways to wrangle the FCP projects so they behave more like Avid bins.
with project locking etc.
one lot is Editshare [www.editshare.com]

and i'm sure i've seen another example recently, but the name escapes me.
ok Google IS my friend tonight. (Mike Horton said "you gotta see this":
[www.editdog.net]


the obvious problem with multiple projects in FCP is the inability to match-frame from a timeline clip in one project to a bin in another


nick

Nick;


I just did an editshare project and this capability if it is a capability wasn't implemented. I find this interesting. Please report back if you find out more info or any other examples of this being implemented.

Just watched the editshare video. Wow. Seems like the news isn't out though. Allot of companies do strictly go with Avid because of this ability. I don't even know of any post supervisor who knows of the editshare capability. I just worked on an editshare gig and it was setup in the typical FCP way. I stated just a few posts back that FCP needed to come up with something like this and it would be a game changer. Seems like someone else has. Why this news hasn't been screamed from the rafters I don't know but it seems to be a VERY big deal.

Not sure if you heard of Xsan.

[www.apple.com]



www.strypesinpost.com

I have been on projects with Xsan and it was setup with isolated projects, not sure it supports shared projects or all editors working out of the same project like Unity or editshare claims but I could be wrong. I was just on an editshare job and editors were still working in isolated projects. Odd. It was an Avid house with a wing of FCS setups. Either I am misinterpreting the editshare video or people aren't fully educated yet to it's capabilities. Ten editors working out of the same project is huge in the FCP world if that is the case but I have never heard anyone mention it. I always thought that technology would never be there because FCP has an issue with large project file sizes in general, this is one of the week links in FCP I think for long form ie; breaking things down into subprojects and not being able to keep them all open at the same time if the shooting ratio is high.

The problem with FCP sharing has always been one of how project info is stored. On Avid, projects are essentially folders that contains bins. In FCP, bins are contained inside project files. As I understand it, Editshare gets around this by creating multiple project files for each project. In effect, the FCP project files are like Avid bins. Since FCP can have multiple projects open at once, the workflow can operate very similar to Avid sharing with projects locked from tampering. The multiple projects also keep the file sizes down.

andy

Well Andy that in theory is genius. I'd love to see it implemented. That would be cool.

Not that I'm an expert on xSan or Unity but I have used them both and find Unity to be more user friendly and more geared for production work where as the xSan is just a SAN.

I like what both EditDog and EditShare are trying to do w/FCP, but I feel like it's such a drastic shift from FCP's SOP that getting it adopted by the masses is slim, IMO. Especially with editors that haven't worked on an Avid before in a shared user environment. The solutions also feel kinda clunky just because FCP isn't designed to be used that way. Final Cut Server has a check-in / check-out feature designed for a multiuser environment but it too feels less than stellar for the same reason.

I'm hoping that whenever FCP gets its major overhaul that this is one of the areas that gets a lot of attention from Apple.


-Andrew

This is one of the most informed threads I've read on this topic-- certainly it could only happen on a FCP-dedicated forum. Avid-only editors stonewall the topic. It's amazing how loyal people can be to a product.

I often use multiple projects. It's a workaround. I find it increases my crashes. This may have improved in FCS 3. But, in FCS 2 and prior, it could get pretty bumpy.

I've cut E! shows on both Avid and FCP. I may even be the editor that Jude is thinking of, because when I used FCP I had some major problems that I posted about here. The FCP shows I did were up at their Glendale satellite, at the Hollywood Production building up there.

Currently, I am cutting the G4 show "It's Effin' Science" on Avid. I have cut features and shows on FCP, as well. I jump back and forth between the software. I think of myself as relatively advanced on Avid, and very advanced with FCS.

Cutting a fast-paced clip show or stunt show on FCP is a pain in the ass on a couple of levels. One of them is definitely Unity-related. The other is the need to formalize and then frequently repeat layered effect transitions. You can accomplish this in FCP through workarounds. But, when you are turning around a show on a tight deadline, workarounds won't cut it. The ability to cut effects into the slug, and then copy that slug (with a sound effect and/or graphic) into a sequence that you can load into the viewer and lay into your composer, enables an editor to create and tweak sophisticated effects at a speed and with a flexibility that FCP in its current state simply cannot achieve.

Now, on the other hand, if Motion templating were improved so that it could be relied upon to be frame accurate through multiple renders, then it could outstripe Avid. The shows I cut up in Glendale had lots of comedians popping up in bubbles. In Avid, you have to copy and tweak those bubble mattes and fills and keys for each new joke. Using a Motion template, you should be able to cut that time in half. Unfortunately, what I found was that my comedians kept slipping out of sync, as soon as I rendered them. Now, this was late 2007. I have not tried it since. However, I have spoken with the Motion team since, and described the problem, and they have replicated it and claim to be working on a fix.

But, that's a very specific problem. The more common problem of the layered effect transitions should also be fixable through Motion, if it could be relied upon to not forget which frames are supposed to be in the template. If you could cut the last eight frames preceding your upstream clip, and the first eight frames of your downstream clip into a Motion template, and if that template could also carry a sound effect, then it would be more powerful than Avid because Motion can do almost all of the things that Boris and Sapphire do (film effect a notable exception) without the outrageous cost of those effect packages.

On smaller projects, FCP+Motion is, IMHO, more powerful than Avid as an offline editing system. And, on features and probably on less effects-heavy shows, it just really doesn't matter that much. Obviously, FCP is a cheaper solution. But, when you get into serialized, effects-heavy shows, FCP is slow to the point of stymying creativity.

Ultimately, FCP will win. Why? Because it is easy to steal. There's nothing less savvy then keeping your software out of the hands of young editors.

My two cents.

>I often use multiple projects. It's a workaround. I find it increases my crashes.

FCP does not play nice when you have too much heavy projects running simultaneously and eating into the RAM. It gets awfully slow and crashy, and they take forever to load up. Having a few small projects open at the same time is fine.



www.strypesinpost.com

<<Why? Because it is easy to steal. <<

I never thought of it like that. That's actually quite a brilliant point.

> FCP does not play nice when you have too much
> heavy projects running simultaneously and eating
> into the RAM. It gets awfully slow and crashy, and
> they take forever to load up. Having a few small
> projects open at the same time is fine.


Yes, it's a very limiting workaround. But, given the way FCP projects swell in size with multiple sequences, it's difficult not to run into this problem very quickly. Or you are constantly opening up some "old cuts" project to dump your backup sequence into, before you make changes, and that old cuts project becomes huge, and it takes a long time to open up and --

Ah, the benefit of saving bin by bin, rather than project by project.

On the other hand, I find the FCP autosave a lot easier to navigate than the Avid attic.

And, BTW, why can't FCP use a Time Machine sort of method of, in the background, adding to your project file the things that have changed, rather than stopping your work for a wholesale save?

Is there an obvious answer to this?

Benjamin Meyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And, BTW, why can't FCP use a Time Machine sort of
> method of, in the background, adding to your
> project file the things that have changed, rather
> than stopping your work for a wholesale save?
>
> Is there an obvious answer to this?

It increases the chance of file corruption. Also, the file format has to be designed with this in mind from the start or at least be flexible enough to cope with it, and considering that the Final Cut Pro file format was developed last century (literally) I imagine it would probably be a nightmare to implement.

I don't mind the fact that it does a full save but I wish Apple would redesign FCP so that all saving, rendering, etc takes place in the background so that no progress bar or dialog box ever interrupts your work.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

> Or you are constantly opening up some "old cuts" project to dump your backup sequence into,
> before you make changes, and that old cuts project becomes huge, and it takes a long time to
> open up and --

Why not use project files to backup your old cuts? If you have old cuts you want date-stamped -- and I think you should -- just go to the project file from that date. You can also use a combination of techniques. I do four to eight manual backups with complete date/time stamps per editing session. And when I have a cut locked, I make an extra copy of that particular archived project and add some information (eg. v200 Client Review Cut) on top of the date/time stamp. That way you have multiple ways of navigating your archive. Using one project to archive everything is precarious and time-consuming.


www.derekmok.com