Switcher Stories: Victoria Parks-Murphy

I started out in broadcast journalism in 1997 editing tape to tape for a little over a year until we got an Avid. After cutting half-hour news magazines on tape, the whole concept of non-linear editing was pretty impressive. My lair quickly became the Avid suite while in a caffeine and sugar induced frenzy I attempted to learn all I could. The ease of use for straight cutting mixed with the possibilities for effects and graphics was a huge leap forward and I wasn’t about to look back.

An Upgrade

In 1999 I started working in a post-production facility for national ads. We had three in-house Avid suites and I was working as an assistant for the head editor. Part of my job was the intricate care of the machine and the projects. My jobs were backing up, moving drives around, minding the patching system and sitting quietly behind my editor learning everything that I could. When smaller projects came in I worked in a free suite on rough cuts sent to another editor for fine-tuning. It was during this time that I began working on my own documentary project. I wanted an affordable, at-home edit suite and discovered Final Cut Pro. My family has a long history with Macs as an SEII was the first computer our family owned, so upgrading to a graphite G4 tower and monitor with FCP v1.2 seemed a good step forward.

Portability

The days were in front of the Avid and evenings were spent with FCP. I had the Visual QuickPro Guide written by Lisa Brenneis and was giving myself a crash course while working through a project. That book saved me so many times! I wish there had been the availability of training on FCP back then like there is now. I soon began to realize that my little FCP system was actually quite robust and impressive. Where I had been blown away with the capabilities of Avid as a non-linear workflow, FCP seemed to refine many of the more clunky aspects of Avid’s timeline and tools. In fact, the more time I spent cutting on Avid during the day, the more besotted I became with FCP’s tools and easy-to-use interface. By September of 2000 when I traveled to Ireland to start my Master’s degree in Film Production, my G4 had the final cut of my documentary on board and had earned itself a trip overseas as my carry-on luggage for the plane trip. My first portable editing system!

Not Just a “Back Room” System

Working in Ireland for the past 7 years as an editor and FCP/Avid trainer has been a fascinating experience. While FCP seemed to be really taking off in North America starting in 2002, it was only beginning to come on to the post scene in Europe at that point. I had many conversations with post-production facilities in Dublin who were using Avid, asking them if they had seen FCP or tried it out. The answer was the same almost every time. If FCP was in-house, then it was considered a “back room” system. Clients who were paying thousands per day for post-production work didn’t want to walk into a room and see a system that only cost a couple thousand in total to buy.

The Switch

Finally with the outbreak of digital and High Definition, FCP started to gain ground and began to be taken seriously. Cost had a lot to do with it, but in the end the open workflow started to play a bigger part. The ability to preview FCP QuickTime media files in the OS, select an HD or SD card from a variety of competing 3rd party vendors (therefore keeping prices reasonable), and “send to” other software packages within the suite gave a FCP a big edge over Avid.

Industry Standard

Working as an editor in Ireland and the UK, being adept at both FCP and Avid is a great advantage. Avid has a very solid presence in the post industry. However, the one thing that I can not abide is a professional editor scoffing at FCP or saying “but it’s not the industry standard.” The post-production industry is truly dynamic and if the history of technology has shown us anything then it is that standards never stay the same for long. In today’s market Final Cut Pro is certainly in a position to compete for the title of “industry standard,” and is on fairly equal ground with Avid. Long may the debate continue! At the end of the day the important thing to remember is it’s an editor who tells the story and not the machine.

Victoria Parks-Murphy is an Apple Certified Trainer and Training Mentor with Apple Europe for FCP, Motion and DVD Studio Pro. Before her enlightenment circa 2000, she used and taught Avid and was even forced to cut on a Steenbeck at one point. Vicki also moonlights as a film producer and is a co-founder of the Dublin Final Cut Pro User Group in her not-so-spare time.

© 2007 Victoria Parks-Murphy