the first word on final cut x

handy resources for the fcpx curious

[briandevilish]

My backpack-friendly editing system is now an 11” MacBook Air (Mid 2012, 2GHz i7, 8 GB RAM) and a few USB3 bus-powered drives. Editing 720p, and even 1080p, from those tiny little drives is a breeze. If the project is small enough, working straight from the flash drive is a dream.

In other words, it is more than capable of editing for some. Results will vary depending on what you are wanting to do. I originally purchased my MBA so I could stitch together a few GoPro videos while on vacation. For small edits it is the perfect machine, for anything more serious, no so much. To be fair though I didn’t max out the specs on my 11” MBA.

I can honestly say though that the MBA is by far the best laptop I have ever owned. Highly recommended, but max the RAM and CPU if possible.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Anything backpack-portable is supercool.  I'm picturing tossing my own pack over my shoulders and hiking out to some remote exotic location!

[briandevilish]

The Dissolve on dissolves: A video essay

The dissolve is the oldest type of transition between shots, according to three film scholars from Cornell University, who assembled a useful, accessible 2011 study on the technique.

and

The first director to do this was Georges Méliès, with his 1899 film of “Cinderella.”

Fascinating, who would have thought that Cinderella was the first movie ever to use transitions between scenes?

Anyway, this is a terrific piece on dissolves and well worth the read. Enjoy.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

i never thought so much could be said about the crossfade, or dissolve transition.  editors take heed!

[briandevilish]

A really useful site for learning all of the key commands used in FCP X. Be sure to click on the different options on the left such as “editing 1,2,3,4” and “Share and Tools.” You can also learn the shortcuts for other programs not just FCP X by using the drop down on the top left!

[firstwordfinalcutx]

useful!

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Phillip Hodgetts has compiled in this article a whole bunch of quotes from professional editors who claim to be editing faster now with FCPX.

Some highlights:

‘I think its because its so visual, you really fell like you are in it’.

FCPX is incredibly fast at organizing huge swaths of data, extremely easily.

X is just too fluid and fast for me to ignore.

Skeptics should hang in there though.  If all of this saccharine fawning is giving you a toothache, keep reading because there are some skeptics--or at least some tempered opinions--in there too:

Oliver Peters continued his skepticism. (I have a lot of respect for Oliver even when we don’t always agree.)

"While I believe some people are faster on X, I take all of these claims with a HUGE grain of salt, based on my own experiences. Especially when you consider total ingest-to-deliver times. It can be a fun editing experience or extreme exercise in frustration, just depending on your workflow, style and expectations."

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Nope no error mesg & I don't really wanna use any transitions that would noticeably shorten my project. Okay so first off I tried to click and drag them from the tab but all that shows on the screen is the circle with the line trough it. (Like a no smoking sign) and automatically puts the transition and the end or beginning of the audio. (Which is like 4 rows below) Even hitting add a transition through the edit tab doesn't work.. I hope that was specific enough. I don't know how to describe.

I've never gotten that symbol before while working in Final Cut X, this is a new one to me!

Here's another question for you--how did you lengthen the clips?  You said you lengthened them before after reading my first comment.  It seems counterintuitive, but the problem I was describing would actually require you to shorten the clips.  In any event I don't believe that is your problem, since you would've gotten the error message I quoted to you, but maybe.

Can I try publishing your question to followers of this blog?  We might be able to come up with an answer with more people looking at the problem and thinking about it.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

What happens when a drive fails on a Pegasus Promise R6 RAID?

(article from fcp.co)

Or any drive for that matter?  It is my firm belief that planning ahead is the best strategy against losing important footage and files.  It is best to back up all important media in external drives or even better, on LTO tape.  

That said it's often expensive to do so and I'll be honest, I'm definitely guilty of failing to do this sometimes.  So what happens when you need to recover files from a corrupt drive?

In this article and the above video, Phillip Johnston of HDWarrior explains how he dealt with the problem.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Final Cut Pro X gets updated to 10.0.9 with stability improvements and bug fixes

It doesn't seem to be the huge update that 10.0.8 was, but 10.0.9 is here!

[firstwordfinalcutx]

What Logic Pro X tells us about the future of Final Cut Pro X

In April 2011 Apple surprised the world of post production when they showed a sneak peek of Final Cut Pro X at the NAB Supermeet. It was obvious that the next version of Final Cut Pro after version 7 was going to be a completely rewritten application – thowing out all previous code and many of the concepts that had worked well for Apple over the previous 12 years.

[...]

Last weeks’ Logic Pro update provides us with some  clues about the future of Final Cut Pro. Remember that although features appearing in Logic Pro X may show that Apple aren’t against them in principle, the same features may never appear in Final Cut Pro X.

[...]

The quality of Logic Pro Xs import of Final Cut Pro X XML isn’t anywhere near perfect yet. It doesn’t properly import very complex projects. There’s no support of Final Cut Roles. We know this is possible as X2Pro Audio Convert recognises Roles in Final Cut Pro XML.

It is more like a statement of intent – it is currently the kind of workflow connection Final Cut Pro Classic used to have with Color for colour grading.

As long as you know how to prepare your timeline for the kind of export Logic X can handle, you’ll be OK.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Heyyo! It's FirstWord's First Birthday today!

Happy day y'all!  1 year young baby woot

Fun Fact: 

Did you know that this blog was started in another location, as a secondary Tumblr?  It had to be moved to its own site in order to give it full Tumble capabilities.  All of the previous posts were backlogged into the current version's archive so that users could still access old help posts.

So there it is and here we are, July 19th.  Official FirstWord Day.

xoxo everyone.  see you soon

like the man said:

i’ll leave the last word for someone else, for now here is 

the first word on final cut pro x….

[latestreleases]

Final Cut Pro X

Completely redesigned from the ground up, Final Cut Pro adds extraordinary speed, quality, and flexibility to every part of the post-production workflow. Revolutionary Video Editing • Assemble clips in the Magnetic Timeline without clip collisions or sync problems • Use Clip Connections to attach B-roll, sound effects, and music to the timeline • Reduce clutter by grouping clips into a Compound Clip. Easily expand it back to single clips • Perfect your pacing right in the timeline with the Inline Precision Editor • Cycle through different shots, graphics, or effects at one place in the timeline with Auditions • Edit multi-camera projects with automatic sync and support for up to 64 camera angles Powerful Media Organization • Work natively with a broad range of formats including RED, AVCHD, H.264 from DSLRs, and more • Content Auto-Analysis captures camera metadata and analyzes shots in the background • Choose analysis options for stabilization, rolling shutter correction, and audio enhancement • Create and apply custom keywords on the fly as you select ranges in clips • Smart Collections let you dynamically organize content and find any shot in a few clicks Incredible Performance • New 64-bit architecture uses all the RAM in your system for larger projects and richer effects • Final Cut Pro taps the GPU on the graphics card and all the cores in your Mac for speed • Background processing lets you keep working without interruption • A ColorSync-managed color pipeline produces accurate, consistent color across applications • Broadcast quality monitoring lets you route video and audio through third-party PCIe and Thunderbolt I/O devices (Requires OS X v10.7.2) Compelling, Customizable Effects • Preview effects to see how they look with your footage before applying them • Change the look of titles, transitions, and effects using intuitive controls • Control effects with precision using a keyframe editor that appears directly in the timeline • Adjust the Ken Burns effect with simple onscreen arrows for start and end points Integrated Audio Editing • Expand and edit multichannel audio files directly in the timeline • Let Final Cut Pro repair significant audio problems such as hum, excessive noise, and more • Sync DSLR video with separate audio in a single step, with instant audio waveform matching • Enrich your soundtrack with a library of royalty-free sound effects and audio effect plug-ins Intuitive Color Grading • Improve the look of any clip with the single-click Balance Color feature • Apply the Match Color feature to match the looks of two clips shot under different conditions • Manipulate color, saturation, and exposure with the Color Board • Fine tune color for a specific color range or area of the screen using keying and masks One-Step, Optimized Output • Deliver projects for playback on Apple devices and websites such as Vimeo, YouTube, and Facebook • Use themed menus to quickly author and burn a DVD or Blu-ray disc • Export customized audio and video stems using Roles metadata • Import and export XML to support third-party workflows System Requirements: 2GB of RAM (4GB recommended), OpenCL-capable graphics card or Intel HD Graphics 3000 or later, 256MB of VRAM (512MB of VRAM recommended), display with 1280-by-768 resolution or higher, 2.4GB of disk space. OS X v10.6.8 or OS X v10.7.5 or OS X v10.8.3 or later. Broadcast quality monitoring requires OS X v10.7.5 or later and compatible third-party device. Some features require Internet access; additional fees may apply. Blu-ray recorder required for burning Blu-ray discs.

What’s New in Version 10.0.8

• Support for Sony XAVC codec up to 4K resolution • Option to display ProRes Log C files from ARRI ALEXA cameras with standard Rec. 709 color and contrast levels • Resolves an issue where some third-party effects generated green frames during render • Resolves performance issues that could occur with certain titles and effects • Time reversed clips render in the background • Ability to use key commands to adjust Clip Appearance settings in the timeline • Ability to view reel number metadata located in the timecode track of video files • Mono audio files in a surround project export with correct volume levels • Drop zones no longer reset to the first frame of video after application restart • Fixes a performance issue which resulted from selecting multiple ranges on a single clip • Fixes an issue where the Play Around function did not work properly on certain clips when viewed through external video devices

[firstwordfinalcutx]

yes please final cut x.  i dig the buzz

[firstwordfinalcutx]

The key to good editing in FCPX is organisation before you start. We are familiar with Keywords, but what's the quickest way to label up your clips? The usual duo find out...

In this episode of MacBreak Studio, Steve Martin shows Mark Spencer a few quick ways of organising your media within FCPX. We have talked to editors who use FCXP who didn't realise that you could even use keywords, let alone range based ones, so we are sure that some of the advanced tips here will help everyone.

follow the link for the video tutorial.

[thefcpxeditor]

Happy day! Apple releases Logic Pro X and it supports FCPXML import! The Apple Production suite is back - Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, Logic Pro X and Compressor 4! 

[...]

Logic Pro X has been designed with a modern new look while preserving and expanding the power and features that professional users rely on. The streamlined interface provides access to advanced tools and functionality for more technical tasks, or can be hidden to allow musicians to focus on being creative. Flex Pitch helps users fix out-of-tune vocals and even change the melodies of recorded audio by manipulating individual notes within an audio waveform. Track Stacks lets you organise and collapse multiple tracks into one, or can be used to create rich, layered instruments. Smart Controls allow you to manipulate multiple plug-ins and parameters with a single move for quick and powerful sound design. An improved Mixer helps manage mix sessions more efficiently, with increased visibility into signal flow and dynamics and faster ways to manipulate channel inserts. 

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Big News today!

Holy Smokes, that's a lot of good snazz!  thefcpxeditor covers it all in the linked article.  Check it out on the Apple site here.

[precioustoasty-deactivated20170]

thanks for the advice FCPX

[firstwordfinalcutx]

I don't know which is cooler, the story behind this video or Tom Thum, the beatboxer featured in this Audi ad edited on Final Cut X.

Check out the article, here.

Perry Childs of Pyrmont Productions tells the tale, on fcp.co:

Tom Thum (the Beatboxer) provided the fully mixed sound track for the piece, however on set Tom found it difficult to replicate the entire track for the different takes & camera angles. This made the edit process slightly more difficult as there was more freestyling than perfect sync plus it eliminated the possibility of editing a Multicam clip. Footage was shot in an old warehouse on Canon 5D III and a GoPro and supplied on a portable drive [...]

[popupproductions-blog]

The Life and Times of a Editor

I’ve got to be honest with you, Final Cut Pro X is not that easy to work with.

Being an Communications Major with a focus in film one would think that I would have been taught how to work with editing software, but the fact of the matter is, I’m learning as I go.

Add in the fact that I have a minuscule USB (1.5 gb) and an SD card that refuses to let me copy anything onto it, I’m struggling to get the clips that I need to the Mac Lab at my college library.

However, if I have learned anything, it is that figuring things out on my own without being told how to do it is a much more rewarding experience. Which is why I will be headed to the local Best Buy in search of a new USB. And a “Final Cut Pro X: For Dummies."

-Andrew

[firstwordfinalcutx]

A response to Andrew's post, including USB is not fast enough to run Final Cut X!, 1.5GB is not enough space! (and more!,) below.

The original post:

My friendly response:

Andrew: please visit this page for some Final Cut Pro X resources.  There, among a spattering of resources, you will find a link to this page, a more in-depth list of FCPX and general postproduction resources online.  Visit my blog and search for any Final Cut X-related topic that comes to mind: I've tried to cover all of the bases for making the site searchable by tagging religiously.  This blog is in no way able to offer a comprehensive set of resources, but it is a jumping-off point.

Most of all,

by all means please feel free to send me any questions directly!  I'd love to try and help!

And, last but not least, regarding your storage setup:

1.  You will need a FireWire-connected (or better) storage device in order to edit with Final Cut Pro X effectively.  Repeat, USB is not* a fast enough connection to run this software!  Get a FireWire 800 or Thunderbolt-connected device.  

2.  Make sure the storage device is bigger than 1.5GB.  The price point going from 250GB to 1TB is not huge and is only going down.  When editing with the default settings on FCPX you can expect to use somewhere in the range of 3X** the amount of storage the original source files (from your video camera etc.) used.  You can push that number down with some tweaking, but I won't get into that here.

Hope this is some help!

Best,

Eric

~~~~~~~~~~~~

*  I've had sales clerks at Apple, Best Buy etc. claim that USB 3.0 is faster than FireWire, but don't have any personal experience with using those devices with Final Cut.  Use at your own discretion!  Or look it up in the forums online!

**  This has to do with the fact that FCPX, via factory settings, is making two additional copies of footage upon import to the software.  As I said, this is an easy fix by just unchecking those options, but there it is.  Further, all of the edits, edit history and render files all add to the size of FCPX projects.  When I first got FCPX--(and understand that at that point I'd been using Final Cut 7 for roughly 8 years)--I was amazed at how quickly I was able to fill up my pre-installed 1.5TB drive.  It took one week!

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Understanding Motion's Camera Controls, Part 1

Using cameras in Motion can be amazing. Moving them through and around objects, switching from one to another camera... so many options. In part 1 of 3 we'll cover the basic camera controls.  In part 2 we will cover the depth of field controls. Then in part 3, I’ll run through some hands-on exercises.

[firstwordfinalcutx]

Making FCP X Work For You

Final Cut Pro X is steadily gaining numbers among professional editors as Apple integrates more features in response to users'€™ needs. Unlike the previous iterations of Final Cut Studio - where everything was integrated into a bundle of Apple applications – FCP X relies more on an ecosystem of outside developers who have brought a number of useful tools to the table. This means that you only buy what you need and fill your toolkit according to your own specific workflow. Here are some tips on getting the most out of the FCP X.