Ryan Charles
Editor
Ryan Charles is an editor and filmmaker from NYC. He has cut numerous features-- scripted and doc-- and his video essays and articles on post-production have ran on sites such as JoBlo, The A/V Club, The Playlist, No Film School and the Frame.io Blog.
You can not beat FCPX in terms of speed, reliability and intuivity (I made that word up). Happy (quick) cutting, Noah!
Hey Max. Thanks for taking the time to respond! Just to throw some well-intended responses your way though... It of course makes sense that you would feel at home in Premiere from FCP7 since Randy literally designed both of them. I have to say though I don't understand how a single one of the issues you pointed out are a problem in FCPX-- or at least any more of a "problem" then in other NLE's. Not precise? FCPX has sub-frame audio capabilities, that's fairly precise. And it goes frame by frame just like every other NLE with snapping features, nudging etc. "Weird bulbs around your take", I don't even know what that means. Do you mean secondary storylines? As far as the audio issue goes all you need to do is "expand audio" or "show in audio lanes" and you are good to go on J and L cuts. And there's nothing wrong with using a fill clip to attach a piece of audio to. It's the nature of the magnetic timeline-- which in my humble opinion is far superior to the "track" way of doing things. That is a new way of thinking about things that FCPX angered people with-- but hey, you gotta change with the times. I think a lot of people dove in thinking you didn't have to put a little elbow grease in to learning how the program works. I get it. It's an NLE and we already know the OTHER NLE's. I was lazy for the first few years on FCPX too and went back to Premiere. Once I finally made a point to actually learn FCPX properly from scratch though I've never gone back. It's PAINFUL when I go back. Happy cutting!
Brad indeed says he uses Resolve in the interview but you're right-- how DARE someone have a piece of hardware on their desk they're not using at every moment! Also, that featured image clearly has the director of the film in question editing on the NLE that the article is about so please explain to why it doesn't make sense? And I am quite well versed in FCPX and quite a nerd and did not know those details about Randy, iMovie and Steve Jobs. Appreciate your feedback though! Always nice to see people engaging with the content.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment so far and also find X to be the most fun, most productive and by far the fastest NLE out there-- and the only one catering to the future of content creation. And I also just wanted to point out that ProRes RAW and the iMac Pro's are two great indications that Apple is in no way abandoning their pro- user base-- in fact, quite the opposite.
For sure, Mike. I love controversy though! Premiere also has a morph dissolve transition I know. What are the other features available in Avid though? Is it the replace text and audio hold functions? I know Avid decently-- but am no expert on it by far. Always love to learn new tricks across the board though. Thanks for the feedback!
Hey Gustavo. As far as FCPX goes you are forced to make proxies inside the program (there is a hack for it but I don't recommend it. Your workflow will depend on a few things. For starters, are you going to be doing your color grading in FCPX on your Red RAWs? Or are you going to finish it in something like Davinci Resolve? That's important to know first. Essentially though you should import your Red RAW files into FCPX and create proxies upon import. Then you sync your audio with the video (the Red footage) via "synchronize clip" per usual. Then when you want to edit, switch over to 'Proxy' in your viewer. When you want to export/color, switch back to your original camera files. If you are going out to Resolve later I'd have to run a quick test to see if changing the clip name in FCPX via synchronizing actually changes the file name and would confuse Resolve on the xml import-- or if you can rename your synchronized clips to your heart's content without worrying about problems re-linking later. But again, I'd need to know more about your workflow to answer the question beyond a doubt.