Final Cut Pro X vs. Premiere: Part 1 (Layouts)
I’m not sure how many video editors are going to read this, but I’ve wanted to do it for awhile now, so I decided to just go for it! Plus I sometimes get “so what program do you like better? Final Cut or Premiere?” - this “series” will fully answer that question.
For reference:
FCP X = Final Cut Pro X (latest version)
Premiere = Adobe Premiere (latest, or second latest version.. I might not have updated yet)
So in this part, we’re going to look at the layouts. Let’s start with Final Cut Pro X, because it looks prettier.
FCP X’s layout is NICE. Flat design has done FCP X a lot of good. Things look simple, and that’s hard to pull off in a complicated editing program. For any previous iMovie users out there, FCP X immediately looks familiar. For any Premiere or FCP 7 (the previous version of Final Cut) users, FCP X looks either too simple and/or really, really different.
Because I feel like FCP X is used less than Premiere, I’ll explain FCP X’s layout a bit more in-depth than I will with Premiere. FCP X uses two types of blue boxes - a big one for footage, and a small one (usually underneath the big one) for audio. The blue can sometimes combine footage and audio - you’ll know if you see audio peaks underneath the preview picture. There is ONE main track, called a “Storyline”, and you can create additional story-lines above footage, but they don’t create a whole new track, it just sort of hangs there (see photo). Another big change is that FCP X also moves whenever you delete something - for example, if you delete one piece of footage in a long row of cut up footage, the rest of the footage in front of the one you just deleted will automatically shift left. If you want to have space between two pieces of footage, you have to insert a gap. Overall, the timeline change is HUGE, but it might be the only biggest change. The rest is pretty familiar. You have your “Library” window (Project window equivalent to Premiere), where you can find all of your libraries for any project, and projects (Sequences equivalent in Premiere) and footage within those libraries. You have your effects window, which is basically the same, but FCP X allows you to preview each effect before you use it, and you have your “editor” window, which allows you to adjust certain effects and keyframe.
I could go on, but then Part 1 one would go on forever, so that’s a brief description of FCP X’s timeline. Now, onto Premiere...
Compared to FCP X, I find Premiere a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. Buttons, options, sliders, big bulky boxes - it’s a lot to take in. FCP X is better. There’s still some text, but it looks cleaner and a little more inviting with the nice colours. HOWEVER - Premiere’s layout is reminiscent of other Adobe products, and if you actually take the time to learn Premiere, you won’t be disappointed. People who have learned other Adobe products will have a basic understanding of the Adobe “language”, and might find this type of layout vaguely familiar. Premiere also looks a lot similar to other video editing applications out there. You have multiple tracks in your timeline, footage doesn’t automatically shift, and your tool bar is on the left. Premiere also uses recognizable colours - blue and green, and then adds a few more colours for other things. Blue is for footage, and sometimes for audio that was connected to the camera. Green is for just audio. Pink is for text, yellow is for transitions, and sometimes you’ll see red if you use Adobe Dynamic Link. Red and yellow are also used in rendering. The best thing about Premiere is it’s customizability. Once you get into it, all the options are literally right in front of you. Seemingly every part of every effect can be changed, edited and/or animated. Your keyboard can completely change in the program if you want to set up hotkeys (e.g. I want my “r” key to be the blade tool, instead of “c”), and there are a lot of options for key framing. As you can see in the diagram above, besides the timeline, there are similar boxes for the Project Viewer, Effects, Effects Controls, etc. like FCP X. Overall, Premiere has a steeper learning curve if you’re a beginner, but if you invest some time into it, it totally pays off.
That’s it for part 1! For the rest of the parts I’ll probably put in a “winner”, but for this I’d probably give it a tie. It really depends on what your skill level is.
