 |
| www.cctvcambridge.org |
Editors can be a whiny bunch. I know because I’m an editor and I whine all the time. In a sense, we're paid to whine, whether it's out loud or to ourselves.“Who shot this? The eye lines aren’t right!” “We locked that scene last week. What do you mean you wanna open it up again?” “That’s not what I would do but, hey, it’s your movie.”
There was a whole lot of whining back in 2011 when Final Cut Pro X was released.
At the time, editors were anticipating something like a jump from Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro 8 - same interface, same shortcuts, but hopefully a 64 bit makeover and a few more bells and whistles. Nothing that would upend what had become a reliable, versatile and affordable alternative to Avid.
Instead, Apple released what was essentially a whole new editing program with a whole new interface and a whole new way of managing media and projects.
Initially, the easiest insult lobbed at Final Cut Pro X was to call it “iMovie Pro.” I’m guilty of this myself. I fiddled around with it for about five minutes before declaring, “I’m out!”
Professional editors across the industry balked. It looked different, it behaved differently, it introduced a new timeline, there was this annoying thing called a Skimmer that no one knew how to turn on or off. Plus it didn’t include multicam editing or XML support.
Walter Murch - who single handedly gave Legacy FCP legitimacy and respect when he used it to edit Cold Mountain - famously declared, “I can’t use this.”
