Visit the Apple Campus for a Final Cut Pro X presentation on June 26
It seems that after years of very little access, Apple is opening up a little more. On June 26 members of the public will be visiting Apple’s offices to get an update on Final Cut Pro X. The kind of access that usually granted only to a favoured few is available to attendees of Future Media Concepts’ FCPX Creative Summit:
FCPX Creative Summit attendees have the unique opportunity to visit the Apple Campus in Cupertino and hear directly from FCPX product managers! You’ll get a unique perspective on how this video editing software has changed the industry and how it continues to innovate today.
Get an update from Apple Product Managers on the current release of Final Cut Pro X, exciting customer stories, and the thriving ecosystem of third-party software and hardware.
Representatives of Apple’s ProApps team have appeared at professional events over the years, but this event marks the first time a large group of professionals have been invited to visit Apple.
Future Media Concepts is a company that runs training courses in media production in the USA, Canada and online. They also organise post production events such as the Editors Retreat, After Effects World and the Creative Cloud Masters conference.
Livinia Smith, Future Media Concepts’ event marketing manager for the FCPX Creative Summit says that after running events for Adobe and Avid users for many years, recent improvements in Final Cut prompted them to turn to Apple’s software. The weekend of June 26-28 is just over four years since Final Cut Pro X was launched. Did that factor into the timing? “Future Media Concepts approached Apple about hosting an event dedicated to this platform. We both decided the date for the conference” says Smith.
Smith went on “Regarding the visit to the Apple Campus, when we pitched the idea to Apple, they saw value in directly interacting with this community of FCP users and they agreed to host a talk with the conference attendees in a lecture room at Apple.”
Peeking out over the parapet of a besieged castle
Although Final Cut Pro X and its companion applications Compressor and Motion have been very successful over the years, Apple hasn’t seen the need to publically involve itself with the user community. Compare their activities with those of Adobe and Avid – companies whose video editing applications were the traditional competitors of Final Cut Pro.
As well as constantly updating their websites with Premiere Pro and Media Composer case studies, their online activities include blog posts, tweets and Facebook updates with named staff members. They run support forums that feature contributions from software engineers. If a small user group somewhere in the USA gets in touch with Adobe to say they’re organising a meeting about Premiere Pro, there’s a good chance product manager Al Mooney will appear to give an entertaining presentation on his baby.
In recent years parts of Apple have been interacting a little more with the wider world. For example last year’s launch of Swift, a new programming language for developing OS X, iPhone and now Watch apps was a big surprise. Apple going on to launch a programming blog on Swift is even more of a surprise.
Anyone who visits the online forums discussing Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro X know that the harshest critics of most applications are those who use them every day for their livelihood. The combination of a long-established culture of Apple not sharing much information and the rabid nature of online power user debate means that it will be hard for the Final Cut Pro X team to change how they interact with the wider Final Cut community.
On the way towards a professional application community
Hopefully the ProApps team will be able to more directly support a Final Cut Pro X community. Online support would include
- A buyers guide for third-party hardware and software
- A consultants network
- Continually updated training materials
- A job board for employers and job seekers
- Forums and discussion groups where the developers of the application itself can take part
- Regular conferences so people can learn from each other and network
The majority of Final Cut users are individuals don’t need to set up complex workflows and never need to call on consultants. However, knowing that there is a robust community standing by makes trying a new complex application that bit less daunting.
Although this kind of community might seem at odds with the way Apple works, they have a model of their own they can look to: FileMaker. FileMaker is Apple’s professional database system. The FileMaker website has all the features I listed above.
It is interesting that Apple refers to FileMaker as a platform – as it is made up of an authoring tool, a server product and software that runs on Macs, PCs, iOS devices and in web browsers.
Perhaps the ProApps applications might end up as a platform/ecosystem too. I hope June’s FCPX Creative Summit is a step on the way.
Disclosure: I’m happy to say I’m presenting a couple of sessions on Apple Motion at the Summit.