Final Cut Pro X: The Bold And The Brave, The... Wait, You're Not Serious Are You?

“Final Cut is dead.”

That said - there is curiosity and skepticism mixed with FCP’s decade-plus worth of history in independent film productions. Hence why I feel it deserves the attention of a blog diary such as this.

That’s all I’ve heard since Apple unveiled a re-imagining of their flagship editing program. Hell, even I said it after I sat down for five minutes looking at version 1.0...er... 10.0.

“This looks like iMovie.”

“What the hell is a magnetic timeline?”

“What do you mean no tracks?”

Two years later, skepticism remains high and rampant. When I attended the Sundance Doc Labs this summer, the wise veterans of the doc world declared over and over that Final Cut was dead and we had better learn Avid if we hadn’t already. (For the record, I have cut on Avid... though not nearly as much as I've cut on Final Cut.)

Final Cut Pro was the first professional NLE I came in contact with. My high school film teacher handed me v.1.2 and said, “Here, learn this.” Neither of us knew what kind of impact it would have on my future or my career.

I edited shorts and eventually features on Final Cut Pro. Over the course of a decade, I came to know it inside and out.

So... though even I had written off Final Cut Pro X (is that a number or a letter?) upon its initial release, I'm also one of the faithful deep inside. I had grown up with this program. It shaped my filmmaking career. Like I said: I’ve worked on Avid. I could (and should and will) learn Adobe Premiere. I still firmly believe each program is just a separate hammer for your creative toolbox.