FCPX Third Party Tool Belt

One of the biggest complaints about Final Cut Pro X when it was first released was a lack of professional features that had been built into FCP Legacy for years. It appears when Apple re-wrote the program they tagged some features as "niche use." Why write in a feature that only a small segment of your customer base needs when the market has shifted toward editors who don't need those features?

That's certainly a discussion for another post, but as a result, many perceived holes in FCPX have been filled by third party developers. When you decide to embark on a long form project using FCPX, With FCPX having been around now for 2+ years, many third party programs have become reliable additions to a "third party tool belt."

But how much will it cost to fill gaps that other NLEs fill internally? Let's take a look at programs that I think are must haves when you are readying your feature film workflow on FCPX.

FCPX to Pro Tools (for sound editing/mixing)

In post, you always want to build your workflow from the end backwards. Before I began editing the doc feature, one of my biggest concerns was how we would get our soundscape out to Pro Tools for editing and mixing once we lock picture. One of the holes in FCPX is that there is no native export to OMF or AAF file formats.

There are two (maybe three) ways to get your sound out of FCPX and into Pro Tools:

1) Use X2Pro to export your sound edits as an AAF. How does this happen in a trackless work space? FCPX uses a feature called Roles to tag sound elements. X2Pro translates those Roles into tracks. There is a light version and a pro version.

X2Pro: $149.99

X2Pro LE: $59.99

2) Use Xto7 to convert your FCPX project back to Final Cut Pro 7 (or even to Premiere, I think). From there you export your sound to Pro Tools like you're used to. But this is the method we'd like to avoid since it involves an intermediary step to get our work to Pro Tools.

Xto7: $49.99

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.

Assembling Your 3rd Party Tool Belt: Two Key Questions

It's been well documented how many features were missing when FCPX was initially released. Apple has done a decent job of adding many features back that editors clamored for before they would remotely consider using X.

But Apple has still left many holes it expects third party developers to fill. It's possible Apple will eventually replace or modify features that editors live by in broadcast or feature environments. There's no telling really. I have a hunch that, from here forward, Apple will continue to let developers take on the features that either a) Apple still deems part of the "old workflow" or b) that Apple would like to have us think FCPX can take care of itself (a good example of this is color correction. FCPX's color correction tools aren't bad, but I wouldn't necessarily grade a feature with them).

Before launching into a feature film with X, we needed to determine we could take our edit to the next two stages of the post-production workflow: Export for a professional color correct and export our sound to Avid Pro Tools for a professional sound mix.

The first question was answered fairly quickly: Da Vinci Resolve can import FCPX's new XML file format natively. I've read in forums that there are have been a few issues that have come up for folks that have utilized this workflow, but that overall its fairly smooth.

Less straightforward is how to get your sound to Pro Tools. In FCP7, the editor would (ideally) organize the soundscape by placing different sound elements in designated track assignments. Then you would export directly out of FCP7 to OMF. Sometimes if a feature's soundscape is complex, it would require several, well-labeled OMFs to get the job done.

You can't export OMFs out of FCPX. Not without a little help.

The decision to go X

For the music documentary I'm editing in FCPX, I was introduced to the director Jesse Lyda by producer Jason Wehling. Jason and I have known each other for a few years now and had worked together on a previous project, but this was the first time I met Jesse. We hit it off and shortly afterward I was hired.

Jesse left the decision for which NLE to cut with up to us, but he did say that he had already bought a copy of X. I don't know how aware he was of the backlash against it at the time, but Jason and I were.

When Jason asked me what I thought of working in X, I lit up. "You're probably the only producer in town right now crazy enough to consider it," I told him.

We had to weigh the pros and cons carefully. I told him about my experience working with FCPX on a short profile I made about one of my film students. This video was something I made on my own specifically to see if I could adjust to X's new ways of working.

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.