Switcher Stories: Mark Raudonis

To understand why I switched to FCP, you have to have experienced v1.0 of Media Composer Adrenaline that Avid introduced to unsuspecting users back around 2002.

You’ve heard the claim a million times: “Our product can withstand the pressures and punishment of “real world” operation!” In my case, I have the unique opportunity to make manufacturers prove their “real world” claims…literally. As the VP of Post Production for Bunim-Murray Productions, I oversee the post production of our hit show for MTV, “The Real World”. If your product works in our shop, I can honestly say that it works great in “The Real World” ☺.

We had been happily using Avids since v4.5. Two Unity systems were running with almost 50 clients. Not the biggest installation in the world, but we were quite busy creating hours and hours of reality TV programs. With a new show on the horizon, we contemplated upgrading 24 of our Meridien systems to the newer, cheaper, and supposedly more capable Adrenaline systems. To make a long story short, the Adrenalines were not an “improvement” on the existing Meridien systems that we already had in operation. My interaction with Avid management on this issue is best described as “less than cordial”.

Cut forward to one year later

I’d heard through the grapevine that Apple was about to come out with their answer to Avid’s Unity called Xsan. For me at that point in time, FCP’s lack of a networked workflow was a deal breaker. If FCP had a viable alternative to Unity, I could seriously consider switching. At NAB that year, I wrangled an invitation into the beta program for Xsan. Apple knew what we did and frankly were reluctant to allow us into their testing program. Fearing a failure like the Adrenaline systems we experienced a year earlier, they cautioned , “No mission critical data, please!”, as they turned over the super-secret beta software. “Of course not”, I promised. “We always practice “safe computing”, with multiple back ups”.

After six months in beta, Xsan v1.0 went public. Apple asked me to do a little testimonial video for their website. I did, and it went into heavy rotation on the screens at Apple stores around the country and on their website. Aside from phone calls from old friends I hadn’t spoken with since high school, I would get calls from colleagues in the industry. “Is it true?” “Does Xsan really work as well as Unity?” “How much money did you save?” This last question is a worthy of another whole article, but the quick answer to all of the above is YES!

Sneaking in the Back Door

So far in my story I have NOT focused on FCP itself. The reason is that I already knew that the FCP interface was ready for primetime. We’d had FCP in the building since v2.0, using it for smaller, less pressured projects. Our story departments were the first to adopt FCP, considering it a vast improvement over the linear VHS to VHS editing they’d been using to do “first pass stringouts”.

When we made the decision to switch to FCP, it was because finally, with Xsan, FCP could stand toe to toe with Avid’s proven, shared storage workflow. A year later, FCP introduced multicam, definitively putting to rest any “deal breaker” feature comparisons.

Many people think we made the switch “because it was cheaper”. Duh! Of course that was part of the equation. But from an operational and workflow point of view, we made huge improvements, nearly doubling the amount of seats and storage available. We also engineered access to the SAN for people and departments that never would have been able to access the media before. So for me, the switch was about workflow, not interface.

Looking back now to my switch, I’m reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Mark is the VP of Post Production at Bunim-Murray Productions in Los Angeles, California. BMP is the company that literally invented “Reality TV” with the premiere of MTV’s “The Real World” back in 1992. Mark is old enough to have “touched film” during the editorial process, but young enough to have pioneered a companywide switch to FCP and Xsan a few years ago.

© 2007 Mark Raudonis