Apple updated FCPX, so I figured I should update this blog...

A new year. A new Final Cut Pro. A new machine to pair it with. More editors trying it out and beginning to take it seriously.

And yet... I haven't posted since October!

I underestimated my ability to edit a feature film on deadline while also teaching part-time AND keep up with what I initially imagined was going to be a week-to-week blog. In a single image, I can sum up what kept me away:

I'll clean up this timeline, promise.

Excuses, excuses.


But we met our submission deadline and are about two-thirds of the way through this process, I'd say.  I'll get into my thoughts on how it was to work with FCPX in a high pressure environment in a future post. I'll also continue writing how FCPX works in a feature workflow, which is still not something written about in great detail. FCPX still caters to a single editor handling multiple jobs at once. But I think it has demonstrated it is a great fit for long form editing.

Just before the end of 2013, Apple finally made the Mac Pro available to order. Shortly thereafter, Final Cut Pro 10.1 was quietly released in the App Store at no extra charge (I had been fretting an upgrade charge but was pleasantly surprised there was none this go around).

We broke for holiday vacation from the doc, so I was able to upgrade my system (not the doc's system) and play around with 10.1 a bit. Pretty quickly I realized how the features that received an overhaul or a tinker mirrored many of the ways I had been forcing 10.0.9 to work. I wish I had kept those blog posts flowing, but alas, I had to put editing first.

So, in future posts, as I go over our workflow, I'll do a little compare and contrast between how we've been doing things in 10.0.9 and how I might do it differently in the newly released 10.1 (or how 10.1 now does something for me). I have yet to update our documentary to 10.1, as you typically want to avoid updating until you're finished, but I'm looking toward trying a roundabout way of testing an update to make sure it goes over well.

I'm excited about 10.1. There are features that would come in handy right now on the doc. I think if you've been skeptical about giving FCPX a try, now is the time. As I'll get into in future posts, they've brought back a few features from Final Cut Legacy, and they've done away with some features no one really enjoyed but worked around during the first two and a half years of its dot-oh phase.

I'll do my best to keep this blog going again as I am passionate about working in this program and exploring its virtues as well as its limitations. We're out of the woods for a few weeks, but we will be hitting crunch mode again soon enough.

In upcoming posts I intend to address:

• The third party tools needed for a feature workflow
• How the update to 10.1 affects or improves my current workflow
• I'll get into more details about how I've used FCPX's unique features throughout editing the feature

Here's to FCPX leading me through the forest toward picture lock...