FCP X Rush of Success!

[Bill Davis]

As many of you know, I've been studying X and learning it in my off time.

I finally had "crunch time" come this past week. Two high profile, short deadline projects. One for a biotech company in SoCal, the other for a big national restaurant chain.

And I found that, much to my surprise and totally while I wasn't paying attention, FCP-X has spoiled me.

The Biotech piece had a reasonable deadline. So it allowed me to fiddle and explore. The results were outstanding. I shot it with a 5dMkii, so it was a perfect match for X. It was a very satisfying experience - but didn't push the software very far.

The restaurant project came with an INSANE deadliine. It also arrived via a FedEx'd hard drive with selects started in FCP-legacy. It even came with Capture Scratch files intact so there was no digitizing.

However, one of the first things I did was start working on the opening, where I needed to composite some scenes on top of Motion Graphic backgrounds. And I discovered I simply could no longer tolerate waiting for FCP-7 to render my composites. The frustration was so intense that inside half an hour I found myself dumping 7 and pulling everything into X.

What a relief! I could get started making creative decisions immediately. Once in X, I kept looking for a reason to go back to 7 - but never found one. Considering the "layered" nature of the project, I suspect that I would have spent at least a third to a half of my working time waiting to see the changes render as I worked.

Oh, and I cut both projects entirely on my MacBook Pro. My tower system and FCP-7 sat idly by.

The investment in learning X has been pretty intense. But for me, there's no going back, not after what happened over the past week.

Speed and agility have beat feature depth in my brain as of today.

For what it's worth.

[Ben Fullerton]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

The investment in learning X has been pretty intense. But for me, there's no going back, not after what happened over the past week.

Speed and agility have beat feature depth in my brain as of today.

Awesome report, great to hear!

I'm right there with you on the part I quoted! I'm fully aware that X still has some issues and legitimate concerns for some types of editors/projects, but for me, there's no going back. Not that I keep looking for reasons to go back to 7, but I wouldn't find any. As far as the scope of projects I'm working on, any gains that 7 has don't come close to outweighing the speed, efficiency and joy of use I find in X.

In fact, I'm about to start working on a long term project with two friends, and they want to cut it in 7 since it's what they know, but I'm going to fight pretty hard and make a strong case that we do it in X.

Glad to hear success stories from the field!

[Craig Parkes]

Sounds like exactly the sort of job that FCPX is right for.

[William Hohauser]

I am frustrated by the fact that the work I am doing now are legacy projects in FCP7 and I am not getting new work to do in FCPX.

[Sigmund Reboquio]

Hi Bill,

any tips on syncing audio with video that is separate?

the only thing that is holding me back from using this is the syncing of audio. i wish pluraleyes will come up with this quick

[Ben Fullerton]

Sigmund, X essentially has PluralEyes built in, but a proprietary version, of course. It can sync dual system files as long as the video has decent audio. Then it combines them into a new files with the video and the new audio. Works well, I've used it a few times already.

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Sigmund Reboquio

Hi Bill,

any tips on syncing audio with video that is separate?

the only thing that is holding me back from using this is the syncing of audio. i wish pluraleyes will come up with this quick

Find your two clips (video with audio & external audio) in the event library, select the audio clip, then command click the video clip (so they are both highlighted). From the 'Clip' menu (in the top bar) choose 'Synchronize Clips'. A new clip will be created in the Event Library called 'Synchronized Clip: *whatever your video was called*' It will have a compound clip type badge. Select that clip and bring it in to your timeline. By default the original video audio will be prioritized.

Once the clip is in your timeline you can click on the compound badge to open up the audio layers - you should see the waveforms have been matched visually.

In order to disable the video audio (and prioritize the external audio clip) just open your audio inspector and have a look at the 'Channel Configuration' tab. You will see both waveforms are there with tick boxes next to them. Just uncheck the video audio and then the external audio will take over. Seems to do a good job, and requires no tweaking.

And yes, in reply to the original poster, I'm not going back, FCPX is just too efficient once you get in to it.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Simon Wood

In order to disable the video audio (and prioritize the external audio clip) just open your audio inspector and have a look at the 'Channel Configuration' tab. You will see both waveforms are there with tick boxes next to them. Just uncheck the video audio and then the external audio will take over. Seems to do a good job, and requires no tweaking.

Or if you don't want to leave the compound clip itself, just double-click it to open the compound, then drag the volume bar to zero on the camera audio. Done.

[Caleb Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

Oh, and I cut both projects entirely on my MacBook Pro. My tower system and FCP-7 sat idly by.

The investment in learning X has been pretty intense. But for me, there's no going back, not after what happened over the past week.

Speed and agility have beat feature depth in my brain as of today.

For what it's worth.

Could you post or pm me the specs on your MacBook Pro?

[Bill Davis]

15" MacBook Pro
2.8Ghz i7
8G ram.
One model prior to the "Thuderbolt" introduction.

[Michiel van Baasbank]

Same here!!

Coming from Premiere, with some experience in Final Cut Express (not FCP 7), I follow the online tutorials at Lynda.com to get me up to speed, and I'm really starting to like the speed and efficiency of X.

Not that it's free of some annoying quirks and bugs (losing focus on the timeline when zooming) and some minor stability issues, which hopefully are solved when I put 16GB of RAM in my iMac...

I think it can only get better and better, so I'm glad I boarded the X-train, and meanwhile I can really finish projects with it too!

[Sigmund Reboquio]

Originally Posted by Simon Wood

Find your two clips (video with audio & external audio) in the event library, select the audio clip, then command click the video clip (so they are both highlighted). From the 'Clip' menu (in the top bar) choose 'Synchronize Clips'. A new clip will be created in the Event Library called 'Synchronized Clip: *whatever your video was called*' It will have a compound clip type badge. Select that clip and bring it in to your timeline. By default the original video audio will be prioritized.

Once the clip is in your timeline you can click on the compound badge to open up the audio layers - you should see the waveforms have been matched visually.

In order to disable the video audio (and prioritize the external audio clip) just open your audio inspector and have a look at the 'Channel Configuration' tab. You will see both waveforms are there with tick boxes next to them. Just uncheck the video audio and then the external audio will take over. Seems to do a good job, and requires no tweaking.

And yes, in reply to the original poster, I'm not going back, FCPX is just too efficient once you get in to it.

Simon and Ben,
Any links to tutorials of these? i really thought that you have to find each clips sync point(slate mark) to combine them and it is still manual and hard to do. Is this really the same as plural eyes where you take the clips, drag to the timeline ,drag the audio, then it wil do the rest for you?

thank you for your advice, I hope we have links tutorials for this

[Steve Rosen]

I wish I was as enthusiastic as you all are.. I learned editing on an upright Moviola in 1964 and have been through every variation of the process since - and I really do want to like X - but personally I find it extremely awkward and unintuitive. I've watched a ton of tutorials and read lots of articles touting the media handling and magnetic timeline, etc...

But there are serious problems, not the least of which for me is the ability to import layered Photoshop files.. I do that in every film I've made since FCP v1.0. And when editing a long (60+ minute) film, the prospect of managing audio tracks is nearly overwhelming - well, not nearly, it IS overwhelming.

I think it's probably fine for short films, but as it is, I'd hate to have to cut a documentary feature on it. I truly hope Apple shines a little of their light on the hard-core professionals that are so disappointed by this "whole new paradigm".

[Ben Fullerton]

Originally Posted by Sigmund Reboquio

Simon and Ben,
Any links to tutorials of these? i really thought that you have to find each clips sync point(slate mark) to combine them and it is still manual and hard to do. Is this really the same as plural eyes where you take the clips, drag to the timeline ,drag the audio, then it wil do the rest for you?

thank you for your advice, I hope we have links tutorials for this

There's no manual syncing needed unless there is really bad audio on one of the source video files. All you do is go into you event library and select the two clips, then right click and choose "Syncronize Clips". It's that easy. X will line up the clips based on the waveforms, and automatically generate a new file.

[Ryan Douthit]

I've noticed that since the recent FCP X .1 update the built-in audio sync is working much, much better. Previously, I had to manually adjust all clips that didn't have perfect camera time matches. Now, hardly ever.