Producer’s Best Friend from Intelligent Assistance, an awesome program for archiving and sharing information via spreadsheet about your edits (think music cue sheets, notes, revisions, etc.), just introduced a really interesting new feature called Layouts.
Basically, it allows you to choose custom layouts that feature user specified amounts of information on just about any criteria from an XML a user can specify into a spreadsheet.
In English, this means that you can specify the information you’re sending out to someone into a custom layout so they’re only seeing the things you want them to see.
So whether you’re delivering for music, VFX, GFX, etc., if you know how to tag things in FCPX, automated custom reports for people is pretty simple and straightforward now.
Simplified reports. Editing continues to become easier.
The biggest ones were people asking whether they should get a Mac Pro or the new powerful machine from (insert random PC vendor).
The answer to that question depends on what’s important to you.
If you value pure horsepower, crazy amounts of speed, and the ability to do things with hardware the like of which no one thought were possible… you probably should get the high end PC.
If you need to get work done… you should buy the Mac Pro.
It’s the fundamental difference in perspective that I feel is prevalent in the industry.
So many places tout the number of features they have in the hardware/software. They never quite mention when those things are half baked, more trouble than their worth, or the fact that the whole system runs on a poorly designed operating system, etc.
For me… the question is… does the thing work? Can I get from point A to point B in a clean, pain free way?
I don’t care if my PCI 3.0 bus is faster than the the Thunderbolt 2 bus if the apps/hardware I’m running everything on are always infected by malware and need constant upkeep/maintenance/drivers to do what I need to do.
If I need ninety different apps/passwords/licenses to replicate the functionality I get across my devices that the App Store/IOS/iCloud/OSX provide… I’m just not interested.
Sure, your tricked out Linux PC with 7 graphics cards (yes, that actually exists) can run Resolve like nothing you’ve ever seen… but what’s the workflow from pre production to post to get you into the finishing room where that matters (good luck with that prores workflow you wanted to use)… and how much time is a machine like that really saving you?
Also… what happens if there’s a problem with one of those GFX cards/Linux/random other things? Who do you call? And what’s easier to diagnose… that or an issue with the Mac Pro?
Plus… the Mac Pro fits on your desk and there’s no PCI cards necessary.
The truth is that it’s no longer a question of… can my App/Computer/Connection/Bus/technical thing do a given task? The question really should be, can my random piece of technical stuff complete the task in a pain free way and allow me to work within my larger ecosystem/not detract from the other aspects of the work I do?
Specs matter a little bit. Workflow matters much more these days as we are asked to do many more different kinds of tasks on our machines.
And really… how fast do you need to go anyway? Most raids can’t even max out the Tbolt 2 spec in the first place… so whether that PCI bus is faster or not doesn’t matter unless you have the associated hardware (and software) that is designed to take advantage of your amazing tech specs.
What practical use case that the average editor runs into (including VFX and Color) can the Mac Pro not accomplish?
If you can’t answer that question… well, then you should probably buy the Mac Pro. You’ll have fewer problems with it.
In terms of the real question you should be asking yourself when you buy something… the question should really be:
Will the piece of gear i’m buying suit my overall lifestyle?
p.s – Yes… we sell the Mac Pro at FCPWORKS (as well as just about any other post gear you’ll ever need)… and if you do run into problems with your gear/workflow… if you buy your gear through us, you’ll have someone to ask if you actually have a problem with something.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Just in case you’re not listening to it, if you’re really into FCPX workflow, there’s a podcast you need to start checking out called FCPX Grill.
Hosted by San Francisco editor Chris Fenwick, it is maybe the best way there is to stay on top of how editors are integrating FCPX into their workflows.
A recent podcast you need to check out is from Mike Matzdorff (@fcpxfeatures), who goes in depth about the workflow on the mythical studio feature we worked together on that there were so many conspiracy theories about. Between that and the LACPUG event I mentioned yesterday… well, the thing was real, guys. Anyway, here’s a link to the podcast… Mike drills a little deeper into some of the specifics on the grill than he does at LACPUG:
Additionally… you should check out the recent episodes from Michael Glass and Scott Simmons. I worked with Michael to help get TED up to speed in X and it was a blast. In my opinion, FCPX Grill is the best podcast there is for FCPX users (and maybe post in general), and Chris Fenwick is a good guy and great host.
And if you want to hear more from one of our team, check out the episode with Noah Kadner. Some interesting talk from behind the iron curtain at Apple….
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
So… that whole FCPX Feature Film Workflow studio thing that my name got dragged through the mud on… not a lie. It happened, we worked on it, and it’s great to see Mike Matzdorff filling the world in on how it was done in this recent LACPUG presentation:
We’re still not going to give you the name of the movie out of respect for our client (when they’re ready to officially talk about it, they will), but the truth is that a lot of really smart people worked on this, and it’s nice seeing some of them starting to talk about it.
If it wasn’t already obvious, FCPX can and will continue to be used at the highest levels… anything else you hear is basically just FUD.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Some of the most interesting FCP X related stories to emerge out of IBC this year came from the broadcast world. Great news included EVS showing ProRes recording and edit-while-ingest connected to FCP X and of course we all know that the BBC have decided to use FCP X for news-gathering. To me, that shows some real momentum in the broadcast world for a fast, easy to use video editor and now some of the more well known developers have started taking interest in how deep their integration can go with FCP X.
Between the lack of transcoding with FCPX, options like Tools on Air, Softron and SIENNA– which can do amazing things for ingest and playout on off-the-shelf Macs, any modern broadcaster should take a close look at what’s happening.
Norwegian graphics powerhouse Vizrt have taken it just that extra bit further. First of all they released a very low cost MXF plugin for FCP X, but they also previewed an amazing piece of integration of their graphics system running inside FCP X. Just that by itself is amazing; Viz One is not a toy, it’s an ultra high end graphics system for broadcasters that’s been in use for years. Viz One is a really big step forward for FCP X as a serious broadcaster’s tool:
It basically works by presenting templates from their graphics system inside FCP X (complete with previews) and you can position the graphics layers anywhere you want on your timeline and preview what it will look like. That’s all well and good, you say, you can in fact do the same thing with regular Motion templates which essentially turns FCP X into a live production system.
However, the real magic happens on export. Instead of burning in the graphics onto your finished package, the system inserts timecode-based metadata into Vizrt’s database. So, when the time comes to play back the clip to air, the system knows exactly when to trigger the graphics based on your edit decisions from FCP X. This means that exports are much faster (no need to render those graphics) and also modifications can be made up to the very very last moment before going to air! Spot a typo? No need to go back to the edit bay to fix that, just do it from the news system even after the edit is finished!
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
If you were curious about learning a little more about how to take advantage of the Thunderbolt busses in the new Mac Pro, I did a Moviola Webinar on September 30th, 2014 on the subject:
In general, it’s all about how to take advantage of the ports on the MP to make sure you’re getting the most out of it, and getting the largest bang for your buck. This is a follow-up to the article I wrote for FCPWORKS a little while ago- http://www.fcpworks.com/thunderbolt-bus-mapping-new-mac-pro/
Here are some tips for mapping out your thunderbolt devices across the individual buses from that piece:
Do not attach more than 2 displays to a thunderbolt bus. If you do, expect to see problems.
You can connect up to 6 Thunderbolt/mini displayport displays (2 on each bus) to the new Mac Pro.
You can connect up to 3 4k displays (1 each on buses #1 and #2) and a third through the HDMI port, which connects to the third Thunderbolt bus.
On my setup, I have my ports configured this way: my two desktop monitors are on bus #1. My Promise R8 and some additional thunderbolt storage is on bus #2. My Ultrastudio 4k for video I/O is on bus #3, and I’ll connect additional drives/peripherals when necessary to this bus.
We did a nice Q&A afterwards. Take a look, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Whether you’re shooting 4K already or not yet, the arguments against its coming arrival as the default new delivery spec are officially moot, with the release of the $499, 4K-capable GoPro Hero 4:
When you’ve got a $500 camera doing 4K at 30p the argument against a delivery falls apart. Whether or not your your camera does that may be open for debate, but the idea that 4K and beyond is where everything is going isn’t.
It’s become so possible now to shoot and edit in 4K there’s no reason to not have clients ask you to finish at that resolution as well. The good news is that at least in the short term it will be a nice premium deliverable you could charge for (or be paid extra for by distributors) as there is currently a shortage of quality 4K content being delivered… and there’s all these TV’s being manufactured that need content.
I believe that the HD vs. 4K argument will look back at this GoPro announcement as pretty much the final nail in the coffin. 4K is not going anywhere… not at that price point. 4K will not be the next 3D. It’s now to HD as HD once was to SD. The format you have in your camera and the workflow you want to learn for post. We’ve been in these waters for a while now and are happy to help, drop us a line.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Don’t shoot the messenger, but I was listening to a recent podcast of FCPX Grill with Austin Flack who is a professional Avid editor, and he’s talking about what he does and how he does it. There came a point in the interview when he literally said that (and I’m paraphrasing) “he has no idea how his assistant does his job and how his files get prepped”.
I’ve been on a lot of those jobs where the editor I’m working with doesn’t know how his assistant does what they do or even really how to turn their computer on. They only know how to cut and trim. It’s going to become harder and harder to find jobs where that’s going to be acceptable. The budgets just aren’t there to have a “creative” editor who doesn’t know the how the tools they’re working on fundamentally work… or even worse, the rates for those jobs of “creative editors” are going to drop dramatically. They’re going to become commoditized as editing continues to become demystified for the masses and turnaround on the typical job continues to shrink..
I will admit that one of the primary advantages of being an Avid editor is that once you figure it out, you get to do the Wizard of Oz thing a little bit because there is such a steep learning curve with the app. It’s hard for producers or directors to check your work, and people tend to be a bit at the mercy of the editor they’re working with as they can’t actually make the changes themselves. Rates stay higher for Avid editors on many jobs as scarcity persists, and the status quo stays enabled.
The main problem with all of this is that directors are figuring out how to edit, and so are grandmothers. The standard excuses of why things are taking so long or why certain things can’t be done are not working as well anymore.
For me, the number one thing that allowed me to get clients/jobs that I had no business getting with FCP7-Color was the fact that I was able to do the whole widget. I could bring the media in, put it together, edit it, color it, do some GFX, and even a basic mix… and if there was a hardware problem, I could even replace the RAM in my Mac Pro if I had to… I was able to be a one stop shop where I could reasonably deliver an entire piece for a client from beginning to end, and do each of the parts of the job as a reasonably high enough level where they could just let me do the whole thing. I’d make more money and they’d spend less. It was a win-win.
That was a few years ago, where that type of service was a bit of a bonus. Now, I think it’s largely expected. For most projects, especially new media/internet, it will be expected of the editor/filmmaker/whatever to be able to get the shoot done, put together an edit, do the basic mix and color, and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll be able to bring it to someone else to do a polish and some of the finishing… producers/clients/companies will be/are expecting post to deliver more in dramatically less time. If you’re only able to do one thing really well… you’re not nearly as useful anymore.
The truth is that between the FCPX-Resolve ecosystem, and what can be done with the cloud apps, there’s really no reason that a producer shouldn’t expect this anyway. The tools are that good now. The question is simply whether the producer has had the opportunity to work with people who know what’s possible with these tools… and once they find someone like that, that person is going to keep all of that client’s jobs.
The era of the specialist is coming to a close. For most projects in the future, I think the average editor is going to be expected to know how to do a little bit of everything. The strange thing though is that while the “jack of all trades-master of none” quote still rings very true, because of how great the post production tools have become, it’s way easier to master a whole lot more things these days. You’re no longer limited to only having time to become really good at one thing.
Instead of being a master of editing… you can now become a master of post production… and I think that’s what clients are going to be looking for from the people they hire… or at least, that’s what they’ll be looking for out of the people they’re willing to pay a lot of money.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
I’m trying to make Quicktime 7 EOL in my workflows and this is really the only thing left that I’m still using Quicktime 7 for.
Anyone out there know of anything that can do this?
If Edit Ready from Divergent Media did it, I’d just break down and get it already as it seems like a really useful piece of software that I can’t quite convince myself to buy yet (I already own Compressor that does most of what it does), even with the recently added MXF functionality. Ironically, Divergent Media has another piece of software called ClipWrap that will “wrap” other codecs, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything like that for Image Sequences.
Anyway, if anyone knows a good way to do this on a non-extinct piece of software, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Yet another reason to get a Tangent Element. A long running problem has been the bizarre mapping of the Tangent Element buttons with Resolve and how you couldn’t modify any of it. This was the Resolve team’s fault, and was a continuous source of angry forum threads and conspiracy theories.
Anyway, they finally gave the Element Mapping a once over and some much needed love with the 11.1 release of Resolve and it’s a HUGE improvement. Some of my major gripes have been addressed, like being able to now quickly switch from the Primary to Log tabs right from the Element. It’s a pretty big timesaver.
While I still really wish Resolve allowed for custom mapping… the latest update fills in a ton of holes and was much needed.
When you throw this in with the fact that the Element also supports FCPX and Premiere mappings now (but not sliders and color wheels), if you’re an editor looking to buy a control surface, it’s clearly the one to own (BTW, shameless plug, but FCPWORKS is a reseller for all Tangent and Blackmagic Design products… and buying them through us helps keep the lights on and these fingers typing… and gets your support questions answered).
On a side note, I just did a custom element mapping for Motion as well, and I’m getting ready to update the FCPX one for the element. If you get your element/have purchased your element through us, I’ll send those your way. More details on that custom mapping over at FCP.CO.
I can speak from experience… having a control surface with mappings for all your commonly used commands is a huge timesaver with the only real drawback being if you’re stuck on a machine that doesn’t have a control surface… you really start to miss it.
Anyway, thanks Blackmagic. The 11.1 Resolve release made me really happy.
