That "archaic work flow methodology" gets work done every day on TV and in feature films, and much of that work cannot be replicated in Vegas.

Horses for courses:

If you work alone and don't have to deal with high end formats, Vegas is an absolute no-brainer for many people, especially if complemented with After Effects.

If you work with other people, it frankly doesn't matter one iota how "archaic" that workflow is, FCP is what other people use, and you will get into a whole world of pain if you try to interoperate that with Vegas

So why do these seemingly top people in the industry use "an archaic workflow?"

Because it may look archaic, but the extra steps are there for a reason. Every single one of them.

You look at a car saying, "My God, that old clunker is so much heavier than my bicycle. And it needs to be filled with expensive gasoline all the time, which my bicycle doesn't need. Why would anyone bother?"

Cliff, you surprise me with this. I don't recall you having poopooed other people for making different decisions, without giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Here you haven't done the latter. You're only saying, "FCP doesn't work like Vegas, so it must be crepe."

Did it ever occur to you that there could be reasons for some of the design decisions in FCP other than, "We just can't think of a better way, because we're ignorant and stupid."?

I guess in all fairness Cliff is talking about multimedia content creation. This is a totally different ball game to being an editor. As a cuts only editor Vegas is pretty low down the pecking order and that's not my opinion, that's from people who are paid by the hour to work as editors. I'd also add they're none too fond of FCP either.

Bob.

"Because it may look archaic, but the extra steps are there for a reason. Every single one of them."

Yup... Perfectly planned right Course ;)

Sorry... just teasing you. It must be a real stab in the heart to hear some one speaking of FCP this way..... dam you Cliff!

What reason BTW?

fcp suite is garbage. Even people who do use it as their main suite say so. It is a suite of 1/2 assed apps that nobody serious should be working with, but it's a case of following the crowd, as it is with most things in life.

Garbage is the best description for FCP suite, like it or not.
It contains a 3rd rate NLE, 4th rate compositor and a 2nd rate audio editor. Why do you think the whole bundle costs around $1200, because it is cheap crap.

Here's the gist of my original post:

Content is going to be streamed directly to TV's (LG announced internet enabled HD TV's running a mini-distro of Linux to connect to Netflix Streaming Video on Demand), mobile devices, laptops, desktops - the realm of content creation is going to require lean and mean shooters/editors that will find niche audiences that will want content in 5 minute chunks - that's considered the average attention span for someone watching content online. The average viewer is watching over 5 hours online (and growing) while broadcast TV viewing is dropping off. If one can shoot and edit efficiently and quickly, then one has a chance in this ever increasing competitive market.

Vegas is by no means a perfect tool - but I've worked in some capacity with just about every major NLE as a solo shooter/editor - both on laptop and desktop - and Vegas still rules the roost when it comes to cuts, dissolves, basic compositing and editing audio on the timeline.

deusx was a little more blunt about it than I was, but I believe SONY is carving a niche market of shooter/editors that will be its mainstay

My POV anyways...

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

fcp suite is garbage. Even people who do use it as their main suite say so. It is a suite of 1/2 assed apps that nobody serious should be working with, but it's a case of following the crowd, as it is with most things in life.

So that's why you feel a need to buy an NLE that nobody else is buying, so you can't be accused of following a crowd. :O)

Like Groucho Marx said: "I would never join a club that would have me as a member!"

Seriously, most people buy FCP because they have seen other people do with it whatever they need to do with an NLE.

Don't underestimate the power of seeing something actually do a paid job in the hands of working professionals.

Of course FCP users complain. And Avid users. And Liquid users. And Vegas users...

And sometimes users ask for features that are already in the product, because they just didn't take the time to learn their tool enough to know everything it could do. This is quite common actually.

Deusx doesn't seem familiar with what's in the FCS package. Where is the compositor he's talking about?
What about Motion, the motion graphics tool? Is it not as good as After Effects? Actually, they each have their strengths. Motion is vastly easier to learn, with a focus on high level behaviors rather than low level keyframes up the wazoo for example. And DVDSP, that is advanced enough to create most DVDs in Hollywood today. These highly paid people are such lemmings! They could have any tool they want, and they pick FCS! Actually, what other choice do they have? Certainly not DVDA, which can't do even 10% of what they need for Hollywood DVDs.

3rd rate NLE? Well, FCP certainly isn't perfect by a wide margin, but in many cases it really is the optimal choice. In other cases, it might be Avid, or Smoke, or Vegas. And there are no perfect choices here.

I've said many times both here and elsewhere that Vegas blows the doors off the competition for those who can live within its limitations.

It's a truly truly great product for what it is designed for.

I have no stake in the success of Apple, Avid, Adobe, or SCS, but I have their NLEs and am glad to have a choice.

There are many times when I have reached for Vegas immediately, because with that I could do the job in half the time.

Other times I had to reach for FCP, because of its ability to handle high-end professional formats.

I'm also learning Avid Media Composer, because I love editing and I always felt Avid had the best what I call "elbow editing" which is a bit like making music. Its cuts and trims curl my toes (so to speak :O).

I have been vocal here in the past about my hatred for FCP. My experience was primarily centered on video that was cut to either go on PC software titles, web promotion videos for said PC products, or a commercial DVDs that were basically the same educational content as said PC products. As a single person editor, FCP sucked wind. I loved the output side of Compressor, but simple things like creating a new compressor profile and applying it to a couple of hundred files that you already had in que in compressor were a nightmare. There are many legacy Mac GUI standards in the FCP suite that made me want to put a bullet in the head of the designers that worked on it. (You know, things that date back to the era when PCs ran under command lines and they were still a superior solution to what came out of Cupertino!) In my recent unemployed time, I have been reading up on the workflows used in studio movie production, and have a better understanding for the arcane workflow they are trying to emulate. While I say arcane, I should probably say legacy instead. It is apparent that the old Hollywood model was a distributive work environment that has a lot of back and forth. (Looks like workflows designed by union management.) In this context, I can understand some of the design choices made in FCP. What I can't understand is the outrageous price and the terrible, and I do mean terrible, audio support. I was frequently exporting and working in Vegas and Sound Forge on my own notebook to make apologies for FCP suite.

Joe

There are many legacy Mac GUI standards in the FCP suite that made me want to put a bullet in the head of the designers that worked on it.

I hear the same in the forums for every NLE. When Avid updated some legacy UI things, people immediately cried foul, and where they didn't change, other people cried foul.

Command lines are coming back, thanks to Unix which never dropped them. They may seem inefficient to a tabletop computer user, but there are many cases where a command line is the fastest UI by a wide margin, for geeks of course.

It is apparent that the old Hollywood model was a distributive work environment that has a lot of back and forth. (Looks like workflows designed by union management.)

No, they weren't designed by union management, but the unions are fighting to keep these "archaic" workflows in the face of assaults by noob producers who are asking how come in this day and age one person can't do it all, at great savings to the producer's budget.

Well, the answer is that one person can do it all, but the end result will have a fraction of the quality that can be had when every team member is tops in his field (editor, assistant editor, fx artist, dialog editor, sound editor, sound mixer just to pick a few that you would like to compress into one position, without loss).

Outside Hollywood, we've seen news budgets everywhere compressed, so stations have been asking field journalists to do sound also, and in some cases even video. "Our" Cliff here is at the spear end of that effort, I hope he educates himself well about lighting and sound, as it's not easy to make sure that your reporting is the best it can be while simultaneously having to chase outlets and look for reflections and outside noise sources, check all batteries, etc.

What I can't understand is the outrageous price...

People complain about Avid Media Composer costing $2,500 when the FCP Suite is half of that, and Avid counters that they offer $3,000 worth of professional plug-ins in the box (a full Boris Red properly integrated into the NLE, Boris Continuum Complete, Sonic DVDit Pro HD to make DVDs and BR, etc.), that it costs money to keep up with changing codecs, etc., and that any pro who actually makes a living with video can make the cost of this package back in no time.

When I look at the codec list in FCP, I feel like I got value for money. I work with high end formats, so I need these codecs.

When I look at the SD&HD ProRes codecs that are included, I feel like I got real value again, because they give me picture quality indistinguishable from uncompressed at a fraction of the disk load. Over several generations even. In Vegas, you'd have to spend more than the cost of the entire Final Cut Studio Suite to get Cineform's large frame codecs.

FCP also gives access to several universes of really great plug-ins not available elsewhere, including those using the Apple FxPlug architecture that provides real-time, GPU-accelerated, 32-bit float support for both FCP and Motion.

The media management is much complained about in FCP, but it is quite a few notches above what Vegas offers. Even Avid, which has the best media management of all, gets complaints about the "@#@$% media management," usually from people who are working without an assistant editor.

...and the terrible, and I do mean terrible, audio support.

Coming from Vegas, I am certainly not thrilled about it, either. But it's good enough for the BBC and many others, and it already comes with built-in Noise Reduction a la Sound Forge's NR2. Hollywood certainly doesn't use it, there ProTools still runs the roost (although more and more people are looking at alternatives).

The top NLEs have similar functionality, so it becomes an issue of what you are willing to compromise on, and what features you cannot compromise on because you can't do your work without them.

And it's OK to use more than one NLE to cover varied needs.

Although I have really warmed to the Mac, and love it as much as Windows now, I have to say that I wish Vegas was available for Mac OS. Final Cut does feel outdated to me in terms of design and interface.

I have to agree with Curse here. FCP does feel superior to Vegas. I know lots of people here are one-man-bands so Vegas' abilities is all fine but whenever pro world comes into play where more then one person has to deal with the files then you will see how superior FCP feels to Vegas. Curse's also mention something superb about FCP - it's codec support. You just shot something with with HVX200 or any other p2 camera -- bring it in; you just something with HDV camera and need to transcode to a superb codec (ProRes) go ahead. On top of that a Mac can play files way more efficiently then a comparable in specs PC. Vegas has its advantages too (the way it edits audio for instance), still if i'm doing a pro job i'm not the one doing audio. It's sent to a pro audio mixer working with ProTools.

If there's a FCP strong point, it's the codec support as suggested by Pat. Motion is a nice touch for FCP packaged. But what production house runs FCP without AE, PS?

Nuke has be kicking more doors down, god knowns there is a ton of specialized 3d apps for studios that crush FCP in the "money" world. FCP /Apple deserve its low-end market spot because of its marketing and "marketing". ;-) Maybe someday Vegas will replace FCP, if Sony seriously packaged a 64bit pipeline Vegas with A Cell core with real 3 party accessible plug-ins, ie PS, AE plugins... it could catch on.... maybe..... ;-)

"People complain about Avid Media Composer costing $2,500 when the FCP Suite is half of that..."

Punisher: War Zone. Cost of gells, $65,000. Kind of puts things into perspective.

I wish more people at our level worried more about the skills of editing than the tools. My first edit was done with scissors and sticky tape. After all the advances in technology since then a bad cut is now even easier to make and I see way, way too many of them.


"Well, the answer is that one person can do it all, but the end result will have a fraction of the quality that can be had when every team member is tops in his field (editor, assistant editor, fx artist, dialog editor, sound editor, sound mixer just to pick a few that you would like to compress into one position, without loss).'

The same applies even before you get to post. The airline industry, now, after way too many lives were lost, has CRM, Crew Resource Management. The number of disasters I hear of that befall low budget productions during the shoot says to me we need to factor in the limits of humans more during production. I take some heart from the latest bunch of young students from the local film and TV schools. They have someone assigned to each of the traditional roles on their shoot. Sure they're all wet behind the ears, the DoP might well know less about lighting than the guy / gal whose going to be the sound recordist but they do get shots logged, they don't loose tapes and someone does make certain everyone on set has enough food and water.

Bob.

Steve must have heard you, iMovie '09 adds automatic wobblecam detection and correction.

Bob.

I learned film editing on a Moviola.

It had one feature that remains unsurpassed to this day in any NLE regardless of price:

Fast Forward and Rewind with full clarity.

I think you have to see it with your own eyes to appreciate it.

Some day someone will surely start thinking about how this could be replicated on a computer.

Not easy to do, will need changes in a lot of places.

iMovie '09 adds automatic wobblecam detection and correction.

...and easy J-cuts and L-cuts.

...and drawing a route on a map like in Indiana Jones (or just about every PBS documentary), this feature has deep functionality well beyond drawing a line.

iPhoto's Faces and Places (facial recognition and geotagging to automatically group photos of your friends and the places you've been to) is pretty cool also.