By Lawrence Jordan
If you’re an editor working with Apple’s Final Cut Pro, you’re probably well aware of the controversy and debate surrounding its latest release, which the company has dubbed Final Cut Pro X. If you haven’t heard about all the drama, pull up a chair and, in this temporary departure from the normal Tech Tips format, I’ll fill you in on how Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his minions in Cupertino seemingly tried to pull a fast one on an entire industry in an effort to make the craft of editing easier and more accessible to a new generation of media creators.
Read the rest of the story at the Editors Guild Website.
I’m not sure how they’re “pulling a fast one” but Apple are most definitely making ” an effort to make the craft of editing easier and more accessible to a new generation of media creators.”
That, and making it faster, was the primary design goal for FCP X because that’s where the market is now, as you well know.
That’s what scares him into writing this hubris, Philipp.
Come’on Phil,
Ask Richard Harrington or Walter Biscardi how they pulled a fast one!
Apple said they were giving us an update to Final Cut Pro, not a new program based on iMovie. This is what really has people ticked. Editors and others who built businesses and careers on a product, which for over a decade enabled them to accomplish industry standard tasks required in professional (and many semi-professional) editing environments. THEY’RE the ones who had the rug pulled out from them! They were essentially told by Apple; “our way or the highway.”
Imagine if Adobe decided to remove the layering functionality from Photoshop? Well that’s pretty much the equivalent to what Apple did by dropping multi-cam out of this release. Sure, they tell us it will come back, but to put it lightly, it was short sighted at best to release FCP X with LESS features than FCP7
As the article clearly states I believe the software is filled with interesting innovations and features. However, they in no way make up for the omission of features end users need and had come to depend on.
Best,
Larry
Just a correction – from July 2009 to June 2011 is only two years, not the three you put in the Editor’s Guild article.
I don’t consider the incremental upgrade from 2009 adding support for RED anything more that just that; incremental. Users had been clamoring for other, more important fixes for much longer.
Wow, what a streaming heap of paltry click-bait. You’re THAT scared?
Sorry, you already lost me at the point of the polemic “Steve Jobs and his minions” idiocy. Quite obviously reeking of some self-important “the sky is falling and I’M here to save YOU!!” nonsense. I’m sure you clapped yourself on the back for this brilliant piece of keyboarding, one we’ve only seen from about 9000 other clueless jerkbags in the last two months. “Dude, iMovie Pro!!! I AM A FRICKIN’ GENIUS!”
Not to ruin your exercise in extreme obtuseness, “LJ”, but there are those of us that have not only LEARNED to use X but actually HAVE used FCP X and that in a “pro” (there’s that word again) environment, as quite obviously you HAVEN’T before drawing up this literary turd that isn’t even researched beyond the level of a MovieMaker user. Hell, if we can’t just blindly trust an “A.C.E.” to know everything and save us from our pathetic lemming existence, then who CAN we trust… or what’s your logic behind this hubris?
Just skimming over it… “Über-engineers”… really??! How old are we exactly? Oooh, and “Skimming [...] deemed unusable by professionals” being the sure fire sign that you have no clue what you’re talking about (let alone any clue as to the functionality of the skimmer) but are only out to ride that frothy wave of some moronic fallacy that one is somehow FORCED to use the most current with every (somehow NON-deactivateable?!) feature, whether your stale mind-set will allow or not.
You come across as just another Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud. (http://bit.ly/qSDMlm)
Whatever, dude. Keep patting away, but do the actual pros (BELOW the age of 50) a favor and don’t claim that your shibboleth is somehow in THEIR NAME. You represent what… TWO percent of the industry?? If you actually read what others have written and weren’t so caught up in diabolically smirking over your own literary tirade you’d have actually caught that others are reasonable and pragmatic about X and not running around like a chicken without a head because they just don’t get it are scared shitless and start BLOGGING about it.
There’s not even the slightest POINT to your ramble, aside from just being plain TIRED after two months of X. Or are you just another one of those trying to clarify things for us sad idiots that are of course only enjoying X because we’re some mindless Mac scruffs panting at everything Apple all oogely-eyed, right? Thank god we have you and your kind to straighten us out, eh?
Seriously, what is with these scolds who feel the need to lecture people about how that thing they like is really terrible and, mark their words(!!!), it’ll come to no good!?
Don’t worry, I could give you a list of names of the ones that will now commence is hailing the deep truth of your words here, so feel free to brush me off as some insignificant “fanboi”.
Toodles,
A
Ouch Andie,
It seems I really hit a nerve. Are YOU that scared?
I never once said that professionals couldn’t work with FCPX. I just said they wouldn’t want to in it’s current incarnation. That’s just a fact. I also expressed my hope that Apple would take some of the initial feedback on the software and incorporate it into future releases. As an editor of over 20 years and having been a consultant on editing products from Radius, Adobe, Avid and Final Cut Pro — BEFORE it was at Apple, I feel fairly confident in my opinion of the product and its suitability for the majority of professional editors. Even Apple has (at least partially) seen the error of their ways and made FC7 available for purchase again.
Your lack of knowledge of what’s required to accomplished the craft of editing as practiced by the readers of the Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine, this website and other professional film and media makers worldwide is laughable at best and pathetic at worst. I wouldn’t have minded if you had refuted the article with some valid, salient points, but you didn’t have anything even close to constructive to say. As such, you resorted primarily to personal attacks, which when puked on any Internet forum, reek of being nothing more than a rant from some insecure shmuck.
Good luck with your editing career.
“LJ”, A.C.E
Andie, I take it by “hubris” you mean “as long as it doesn’t apply to Andie’s writing style.” Your missive fits the definition of hubris.
Great article, I totally agree that FCPX is a much more powerful product than it’s predecessor, iMovie. It is not FCP, it is iMovie for professional use. Anyone that says this is the new upgrade to FCP7 is delusional. All analogies aside, FCPX can be used by pros but it’s not FCP8.
Dave