Tour de Final Cut Pro X for Collaboration

It has been three years since Apple launched Final Cut Pro X. Although they marketed it as a new version of their venerable Final Cut Pro application, it was a completely new video editing software.

As the months and years go by, Final Cut is being used on more and more high profile projects.

Here’s the next milestone in the history of Final Cut: how a team for UK production company VSquared used four edit suites and a 70TB SAN to produce 21 days of TV highlights shows for the 2014 Tour de France using Final Cut Pro X.

Producer James Venner:

There were some big hurdles to cross, the learning curve would be steep for the editors, EVS would have to be removed from the record path because they showed no inclination to make their files compatible. On the plus side we’d be doing something new, I wanted an edit system that made us re-examine our workflow; rethink why and how we did things and hopefully inject some new creativity. I wanted something that would grow with us over several years.

I didn’t want a system that just let us keep doing the same old thing. Time to roll the dice.

Read the full report on how it was done over at FCP.co

More than a “What we did this Summer” report

Some Avid editors will take refuge in the fact that the kind of collaboration available in Final Cut isn’t up to their standards of shared content available to multiple editors. Apple’s development of Final Cut Pro X isn’t about directly competing feature for feature with Premiere Pro and Media Composer as soon as possible. It is about adding features and workflows to Final Cut as flexibly as possible – allowing for years of future improvements to a system that is just starting out.

Apple and third parties can learn much from case studies. Stories like these can be used to close deals when selling post solutions and as a guide for how to set up workflows. Another interesting use is to help Apple and third parties choose what to concentrate on developing next. Some third parties weren’t ready to support a Final Cut Pro X workflow whereas new suppliers provided support and more:

We must thank Pierre Chevalier from Softron for not only providing excellent product support, but for also adding a few tweaks to the program which helped us a lot.

Depending on how well Final Cut Pro X does in TV post production, third parties will be wise to ignore it or to invest in supporting it.

As production companies get used to these kind of workflows – better in some ways than the Avid equivalents – Apple can then make the necessary improvements to their applications, operating systems and hardware that will satisfy more and more post professionals.

It is easier to understand how a new feature in Final Cut Pro X 10.1.6 fits into 2015 TV production if the workflows are already there.

Last night a very talented team edited the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Their workflow no doubt included Avid Media Composer. This Tour de France case study puts Final Cut Pro X one step closer to being at the centre of high-end live event TV post production.