Top 5 Tips
FCP is not and will never be Avid (and vice versa). They are different systems with different philosophies. Understanding this is the first step to FCP enlightenment!
Take some of the money you saved by choosing FCP and use it to add increased functionality. Buy a bigger monitor. Buy an extra laptop for digitizing. Buy more storage. Buy the fastest internet connectivity you can afford. All of these things will make your editing much more efficient.
Avoid the temptation to remap the keyboard so it closely matches Avid. The advantages are you’ll be less likely think of FCP as an Avid (see tip 1) and will be able to edit at any FCP system, even without your settings.
Change the RT setting to “Unlimited RT”. This will give you more flexibility to preview effects and transitions rather than having to render everything that FCP cannot play in real time.
Remap F9 and F10 keys to “Insert with sequence content” and “Overwrite with sequence content”. This stops FCP from nesting when editing from one sequence to another and doesn’t affect editing from regular source clips.
Comments
March 14th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
How the **** does a bigger monitor, more storage, or a fast internet connection make me more efficient?
I might be interested in the “Avid vs. FCP” aspect of this website if it wasn’t so blatantly obvious that it’s just a place for FCP people to bash Avid and feel good about themselves.
March 14th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
The makers of this site have clearly put forth that this is not about Avid of FCP bashing. And from what I’ve read, Nowehere can I see this …
it’s just a place for FCP people to bash Avid and feel good about themselves
The point the author was making is considering that buying an FCP system will save you some money, you may consider putting some of it into these things.
A bigger (or two) monitors, more storage, or faster storage, anothere networked Mac (even an iMac) will definitely help you work more efficiently.
Have you tried acquiring any of these and found that it hampers your creativity? If not, then its probably unfair to say it does.
Neil
March 15th, 2007 at 11:29 am
You don’t think a bigger monitor makes you more efficient as an editor? Ever tried editing with one 15 inch screen?
Same with storage - never ran out of storage space before?
Ever tried editing on a system without broadband to post QT movies for approval or download temp graphics/video clips?
Just what type of editing do you do?
There has not been one word of Avid bashing on this site so far. But you seem to jump at the first chance to bash FCP. Look who’s being unfair.
CHL
March 15th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
I don’t agree with not remaping the keyboard to closely match the Avid. In Avid there are many things that you accomplish with a single key that in a regular FCP configration requires to add a modifyer key, map your keyboard like an Avid and you will be able to edit faster due to single keystrokes actions.
Anyway, that works for me
March 15th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Nobody is bashing AVID, till now. FCP and most other edit programs are so much user friendly, drag and drop easy, slid your clip anywhere and on any layer, no 4 key strokes to do 1 thing.
Avid enginers have blindfolds on and need to update and compete with the others ease of use.
Most Avid users don’t understand cause that’s all they know. Once they try a differant platform they will say DAM I should have switched a long time ago. You will also say Avid is so over priced.
One more note. It’s not the platform that make you creative it’s the operator.
Avid is so old school. Time to change. Whatever software you go with.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
FCP is one sweet program. I’m in High-School and it’s a breeze. I love it. I’m glad that Apple made it; if anyone else had, it might not work as well. Never tried Avid, but I don’t want/need to. I even bought an iMac for FCS. I know, some of you are laughing at me using an iMac, but it’s all I need. No 2hr films here. Yet…
March 15th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
I don’ twant to sound like an FCP basher or an Avid fanatic, there are still just a few things left that I think Avid does better than FCP and I posted those comments before reading the FCP wish list. So appologies if I sounded like the Avid fan coming to talk crap on FCP, far from what I was trying to do.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I would switch to fcp, but you cant cut a sequence into a sequnce without all your clips being nested. I’m not into copy and paste method. FCP is user friendly but not client friendly. We need to keep everyone in the room happy. I have yet to meet any big name editor who loves FCP. The truth is that every rock star editor loves the avid.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
ok, I figured out how to cut a sequence into another sequence. I take that back. My next issue is working in a HD sequnce and cutting SD material into it. You have to render everytime. Avid you dont need to do that. Tell me why please
March 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Because FCP5 doesn’t offer RT mixing of codecs or HD/SD in the same sequence. So sure it’s an Avid advantage at the moment but how much longer before FCP has it? I don’t know (and if I did know then I couldn’t tell you). We’ll have to wait and see what gets announced at NAB.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:04 am
Healymonster,
I’m not certain who you consider a big name editor but with at least one of my shows being broadcast each week I can tell you that I am a professional.
I work with both FCP and Avid for broadcast and I find that there are often times when I wish I was on the opposite system while working, as each has its pros and cons.
However, when it came time to purchase my own system, I found that FCP was so much more affordable that I simply couldn’t justify going with Avid, a company that I grew up with. The price for FCP was less than the customer support agreement that I would have had to purchase from Avid just to get upgrades. Upgrades, I might add, that Apple gave out for free.
Now I don’t know how things are today, as far as Avid practices are concerned. But I can tell you this: My client with the greatest number of Avids (over two dozen) is still using machines that are a couple of generations old because of the cost of upgrading. And while it certainly speaks to the robustness of the systems, it also means that one has to work more slowly with fewer features than those of us keeping up to date with the most modern software.
All things being equal, I don’t regret my choice at all. I also find that many smaller shops, that don’t have to worry about upgrading two dozen systems at a time, and don’t have several editors working on the same project, are facing the dilemma of whether to upgrade existing Avid systems or simply replace them with FCP.
I’m not only an editor, but also a businessman. When my clients ask for my advice, I will most likely tell them Final Cut. Then they’ll still have money to put in my pocket instead of paying off huge leases for Avid.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Hi all great site;
As for Avid V FCP bashing, I look at it this way. Snow skiing once was all there was then along came Snow Boarding.
I have been lucky! I learnt both
Mike
March 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Hmm… “Rock Star” Editors on FCP. A few names for starters:
Walter Murch (”Jarhead”), Angus Wall (”Zodiac”), Billy Fox (”Black Snake Moan”), The Coen Brothers.
Sincerely,
Oliver
March 28th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Trying to stay on-topic: “avoid the temptation” to remap the keys? I do mostly Avid and am not yet familiar enough with FCP - does it hurdle migrating users or keyboard maps? If so, it’s a serious drawback on FCP’s side.
I keep my settings on my flash drive, and whenever it’s not available or I encounter a new version, spending the 15 minutes to re-map is a well-worth investment.
I agree, editing on Avid or FCP shouldn’t be approached the same way, but keyboard mapping has been around since the dawn of computing and is an extremely effective tool for more efficient, creative work.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Relating back to the earlier discussion about productivity and monitor size… I though this study was interesting. Found it mentioned on the Apple site:
http://tinyurl.com/mnnez
Sincerely,
Oliver
April 12th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
the keyboard issue relate back to Tip #1: FCP is not avid.
FCP is TOOL based,
and re-mapping your keyboard to an avid layout means losing direct access to some of your FCP tools.
of course they can be re-mapped to other keys, or modifiers, or you could pick them p from the tool pallet to use them,
but it does slow you down a little, IMO
nick
April 14th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I tend to use each application with the default set of keyboard commands. It’s like learning a foreign language by total immersion.
The big aid it to use a color-coded keyboard. This not only serves as a reminder, but encourages you to explore some of the other functions that you might not be aware of. The same it true for the keyboard mapping.
By looking into the keyboard layout (tools) and checking out what’s mapped under all those modifiers, you end up finding quite a few functions that you might not have known FCP could do. That’s how I found the edit “with sequence content”. That’s a biggie that I always remap to the non-modified F9/F10 keys, so I can cut sequences into other sequences without nesting.
Sincerely,
Oliver
April 16th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
For Healymonster, FCP 6 will now mix SD and HD in the timeline without rendering. As well as different frame rates, like PAL and NTSC.
And it has a nice new codec called ProRes 422 that looks like a killer. Very scalable, HD footage at SD file sizes.
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