NAB 2013 Distilled

NAB 2013 Distilled:

all press covering the show on video, were cutting their reports on laptops using FCP X.

(Via digitalfilms)

Of course, Oliver goes on to say:

Although Premiere Pro “next” feels like FCP 7.5, that appears to be what users really want. The direction, at least, feels right. Apple may have been “skating to where the puck will be”, but it could be that no one is following or the puck simply wasn’t going there in the first place.

I'm not convinced by that. I'm more than happy that people wanting FCP 7.5 have Adobe to turn to, and I suspect the market represented by NAB will continue to be well served by them. The question, I guess, is what proportion of total video production is represented by broadcast and feature films, and in particular how that's changing. There's already been a revolution in terms of quantity of production. If that starts to be reflected in money terms too, Apple's bet may turn out to be a winning one after all.

Momentary flashes of clarity and terror

We snug the belt down over our hips, feel the thin leather creak around our fists, watch the needles climb into the red as the lights glimmer and flicker towards us. Beside and before and behind and surrounding us machinery spins and spools and clunks and festers, waits and lurks, screams and strains.

Our teeth clench around the toothpick, chin dips as eyes narrow into the mercury glare burning through the thin-slit screen ahead.

New.

Fucking.

Project.

…and the world drops away beneath us.

Tempo-locked music edits

It's relatively straightforward, for many music tracks, to calculate the tempo. Many mp3 tracks already store that information in metadata anyway. So why doesn't the edit software we most enjoy swearing at offer a 'lock edits to audio track beats' feature? 'Snap to bars' would be a tremendously useful tool when cutting montage… so long as you could toggle it off quickly.

Presets

Speaking of inane presets that make your finely-crafted work look like utter crap via the most efficient route possible, Final Cut Pro X has this to offer:



What.

The.

Frack.

Were.

They.

Thinking?

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.