Getting Started with FCPX

So you've bought FCP.

Where the hell do you start?

APPLE WORKSHOPS
The best thing to do is get your ass down to an Apple store and do one of their introductory workshops. It lasts two hours, you'll get a great overview and you'll be able to ask questions. It's perfect, however I will say that the tutor at the workshop I attended had problems answering some questions about FCPX and also had no professional experience as an editor.

PROLABS
If you're near the Covent Garden Apple store you might want to take advantage of the ProLabs series. This is an 8 hour FCPX course and it's absolutely free. I've just booked myself on the next one, so I'll let you know what it's like.

If you're not near an Apple store, don't worry, there are plenty of great online tutorials:

LARRY JORDAN
Larry is probably the most knowledgeable of all the FCPX tutors I have watched. He knows everything and is very good at describing every minute detail of FCPX. I love Larry and you could do a lot worse than watch his tutorials if you want to get into FCPX. My only criticism is how long he takes to get to the point!

LYNDA
Comprehensive and well executed set of tutorials.

IZZY VIDEO
There's a pretty good set of free tutorials Izzy's website.

FCPX Free Trial

Apple are offering a free 30 day trial of FCPX. I don't think Apple have ever offered a trial of any their software before.

I'm guessing it's because many previous FCP users asked for their money back after paying 200 quid for something they didn't understand.

Whatever the reason, it's a great opportunity for people wanting to test the water.

The best thing to do with a trial like this is to use it to actually produce a finished project. Don't just download it and press a few buttons and do a few online tutorials. Actually shoot some footage and start using FCPX to make something. This will force you to solve problems and really get to grips with the software. We both know that the best way to learn is on the job, so do exactly that.

Sure, choose a simple project or one that doesn't matter if you balls it up, but treat it like a proper project and you'll gain a lot more from the 30 days of free FCPX use.

The Real Cost of FCPX

One of the great things about Final Cut Pro X is the price.

At 200 quid it's a quarter of the price of fCP7 or premiere and £2000 cheaper than the hilariously priced Avid Media Composer.

Unfortunately that 200 quid isn't the end of it.

Compressor - £35
Motion - £35

and

OpenCL compatible video card - £200

I have 2 machines I use for editing: A first gen Mac Pro [2007]. And the very cool, black, Intel Macbook [2008]. Why Apple never made a black anodised, Aluminium MacBook Pro I don't know.

These machines are pretty amazing and they both rock FCP7 real hard. Fuck ProRes, I was using the MacBook to edit H264 while on a tour bus on the Usher tour in 2011.

However, neither of them will run FCPX despite being very capable Intel Machines.

FCPX requires a video card that supports OpenCL. From what I can gather OpenCL allows the graphics card to be used for non graphics stuff.

There's a list of compatible video cards on the Apple website. I opted for the ATI Radeon 5770, which cost me £200 from ebay. This is a very good card that not only seemed to speed up my computer, but also made it quieter and cooler.

So that's £470 for FCPX.

Over twice the advertised price.

It doesn't stop there.

My MacPro has 6 gig of ram, which FCPX frequently gobbles up leaving me operating sluggishly if I am running any other programs.

More RAM - £200

So we're at £665, which is practically the price of FCP Studio. And I've still go to replace my laptop for £1500.

FCPX sounds cheap, but it's not.

Is it worth it? Yes.

Events and Projects

In FCP7 we had Projects and Sequences, which made sense.
In FCPX we have Events and Projects....which...doesn't make sense. No, I don't care what you say, it doesn't.

To make matters worse the equivalents are deliberately confusing:

Projects are now called Events
Sequences are now called Projects

It's a fucking stupid and pointless nomenclature change, but there you go. Get used to it. FCPX also creates separate events and projects folder on your hard drive, which I find immensely irritating and messy, but there you go, get used to it.

Larry Jordan provides some great tutorials on his youtube channel. They are often a little wordy and sometimes you do want to yell at him to 'get on with it', but stick with him. He knows what he's talking about.

In this video Larry explains the importance of Events and Projects.

FCP v1.0

With all the debate about FCPX I'm getting some very odd feelings of deja vu.

When Final Cut Pro first came out it was rubbish. It lacked features, crashed a lot and wasn't really usable until v2. The professional editing fraternity branded it as a joke and no one took it seriously.

But I loved it. I was a young aspiring film maker and I saw the critics as fuddy duddy old school editors refusing to embrace the future.

So when FCPX was released and I heard myself complaining about it's lack of features and instability I was shocked to realise that I had now become that fuddy duddy old school editor.

For those of you keen enough to want to relive the past there are some great articles from the FCPv1 era over at Urbanfox.tv. There are also some nice videos over at FCP.co with people talking about their love for FCP back in the early days.

One of the big names back then was Michael Wohl. He was one of the designers for FCPv1.0 and he was one of those people you just couldn't ignore at the time. Here is a great interview with him talking about the development of FCPv1.0 including some interesting information about it running on Windows!

Entretien avec Michael Wohl Part1 (VOSTF) from YAKYAKYAK.FR on Vimeo.

Entretien avec Michael Wohl Part2 (VOSTF) from YAKYAKYAK.FR on Vimeo.

Here are the system requirements for FCP1.0:

■ Power Macintosh G3 266 Mhz (300 Mhz required for DV)
■ Mac OS 8.5 or later
■ 128 MB of RAM ■ CD-ROM drive
■ 6.0 GB AV rated drive
■ Color display
■ ATI built-in video support on G3 models (required for DV)
■ QuickTime-compatible card for capturing video
■ FireWire or device control cable

Don't be afraid of change

Soon after the release of FCPX Evan Schechtman gave a talk at a Tekserve event in New York. The main thrust of his talk was simple: Do not fear change.

Evan gives a very passionate and direct speech about how the industry has changed over the past 10 years and how we, as professionals, have had to embrace new ideas and new ways of working. FCPX is just another one of these changes and it won't be the last.

It's a very convincing display of faith in FCPX. Watching this hour long video will certainly reassure you as well as give you all the skills you need to get up and running with FCPX.

If you've been using for FCP for a long time and you're a bit scared of FCPX then you should watch this video.

One of the things I really like about this lecture is the timeline of all the key moments in video edit history over the past ten years. I've recreated it here with a few of my own additions:

- 1998 -
Sony vx1000 [first prosumer camera with firewire].
G3 Powermac Desktop
Hard drive size - 37gig
Targa dv2000 rtx video card

- 1999 -
FCP v1.0 released [v1.2.5 allows 16.9]
G4 Powermac desktop
This was when I did my first editing [using premiere on a pc]

- 2000 -
Pinnicle cinewave card.
This is when I first used FCP v1.0 on a G4 desktop and fell in love.

- 2001 -
OSX
FCP v2
DVD Studio Pro
FCP v3 - Finally FCP works on OSX!

- 2003 -
DVCPro HD
HDV
Lumiere HD allows HDV editing in FCP
FCP v4 - 32 bit processing - xml interchange
Livetype, Soundtrack, Compressor
Extreme RT

- 2004 -
FCP HD - Native DVCPro HD editing
Broadcast quality HD export over firewire.
Motion

- 2005 -
Xsan
Hard Drive size - 120 gig
FCP5 - Native HDV. Multicam.
Final Cut Studio released

- 2006 -
Intel
Panasonic hvx 2000 solid state camera. p2

- 2007 -
Prores

- 2008 -
Canon 5D mk2
Red 4k

- 2009 -
FCP7

- 2010 -
Hard Drive size - 3 TB

- 2011 -
FCPX

Please do watch the video. It's very interesting and there are some great tutorials on the basics of how FCPX works.

At the end of Evan's speech he nonchalantly asks, 'does anyone feel any better about fcpx?'. There is a resounding and intensely heart-felt 'yes' from the crowd.

Larry Jordan on FCPX

Prior to the FCPX release, Larry Jordan gave a speech to the Los Angeles FCP Users Group.

If you don't know who Larry Jordan is then it's time you found out. Larry Jordan does fantastic FCP tutorials on his website. Although you have to purchase these tutorials there are plenty of excellent free tutorials on his youtube channel.

Larry's talk to the LA FCP User Group is a very interesting introduction to the world of FCPX and some of the fundamental changes to the way we'll need to edit. For me there were a couple of very important points to take home:

1. Apple's v1 releases are historically a bit rubbish, but they get better. So let's not panic or have unrealistic expectations on initial release.
2. You don't need to abandon FCP7 just because of FCPX.
3. This is a new paradigm and the hardest thing will be forgetting what we already know and relearning everything....but it looks like it will be worth it.
4. People without prior knowledge of FCP7 will probably find it easier getting to grips with FCPX
5. Apple is very good at reinventing stuff.
6. Don't worry.

So here's the full speech in 4 parts.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Everything Just Changed In Post

It was pretty mental when FCPX came out.

Considering it's just video editing software it's amazing the amount of anger that it generated. A lot of people were furious. Many editors, myself included, felt betrayed. I'd been using FCP since v1.0 and I'd invested my professional career in the software. If I wasn't going to be able to use the software I use to do my job, then what the fuck was I going to do?

Well, the answer was simple. Use something else.

In some respects is was a wake up call that should have come a long time ago. Like many editors I had become entrenched in my ways and assumed that FCP was the ONLY video editing software out there. I'd even started turning down jobs that used AVID because I didn't like using it. I'm an editor for gods sake. Who cares what the software is. At the end of the day all you need to know is IN, OUT and PUT IT IN THE TIMELINE. The rest of the skill is in your knowledge of story-telling and pacing.

Your legacy projects are fine because you can continue to use FCP, but from now on I would start all new projects using something else. FCPX, AVID, Premiere, whatever you want, but I'd start moving away from FCP as soon as you can because one day it really will be left behind and become completely obsolete.

So it's time to say goodbye to FCP. It's time to start using something else.

I'm going to start using FCPX because despite it's foibles the idea of not rendering and not saving sounds good to me. And I'm pretty sure all the missing functions will be added in later versions.

I do have faith in Apple. They are usually right.

The FCPX moniker is EVERYTHING JUST CHANGED IN POST. It has indeed, well, for FCP users anyway.

No Need to Save....Ever

Everything. Saved. All the time.

WTF?!

Surely you have to save stuff?

No it happens automatically, all the time.

What? Like autosave?

No, not really, this saves everything, all the time. You never need to press save and if you have a crash, you don't lose anything.

It's fucking awesome!

Final Cut Pro X: WTF?

Remember the FCPX preview?
Wasn't it just so exciting?

64BIT // MAGNETIC TIMELINE // NATIVE H264 // POWERFUL GRADING // AUTOMATIC CLIP ANALYSIS // KEYWORD ORGANISATION // COLOUR BALANCING // CLIP CONNECTIONS // AUDITION //AUDIO SYNCING // NO NEED TO USE COLOR - WHICH IS THE SHITTEST, MOST IRRITATING PIECE OF APPLE SOFTWARE EVER // IT'S CHEAP // IT LOOKS COOL // IT'S A NEW PARADIGM // COMPOUND CLIPS THAT ACTUALLY WORK // NO SILENT CHANNELS // AUTOMATIC AND CONTINUOUS SAVING // BACKGROUND RENDER AND EXPORT // YES // YES // YES! //
Oh yeah and NO RENDERING!

Fuck off!

No seriously, no more rendering. No more render wanders. No more excuses to smoke or make some tea. No more excuses to fondle the wife or play with the kids if you work from home. No more excuses to do anything other than editing. Fantastic!

It sounds fucking awesome doesn't it?

Which is why I bought it on 22nd June 2011. The day of release.

Boy was I excited. Today everything changes. Today this could be, the greatest day of our lives. Stay close to me.

There was only one problem. It was all bullshit.

It didn't work. Nothing worked. The magnetic timeline was irritating; the colour balancing didn't work; audio syncing didn't work; it crashed a lot; it was slow; no xml; no EDL; no OMF; no multiclip; no Red support; no backwards compatibility; you couldn't export in the background; you couldn't even run two displays.

It looked and felt like a fucking children's toy. In short, it was shit...

...wow. What the fuck just happened? Did the sky just fall?
I haven't felt like this since Episode 1:

I wonder what happens if I add all the effects to a single clip. Surely it'll need to render...

...no. No rendering.