I use fcpx for most of my projects now - and all of my new ones - but I work with other editors who haven't (or won't) make the switch to X and are leaning more towards Premiere. One person said to me "I'll switch to Premiere unless Apple comes to their senses" which I took to mean that they would go back to their old platform (I think ignorance drives the sentiment more than anything else). That's not going to happen obviously. I personally wouldn't want to ever go back to 7 because - to my mind -X is so much better, but I can't collaborate with editors who don't make the switch to X. I don't normally collaborate and can do most of my work using X, but I hate to think that I'm part of a small community using X and wind up being the equivalent of a Sony Beta Max user who has this great under appreciated product. I'd like to think that TV Production schools are churning out young people who have embraced X, but I have no way of knowing that. I know on this forum most of us are converts, but what are the numbers - does anyone have any idea of how X is taking hold out there?

I hear you man.

There was a time most indie editing job descriptions would include "must be comfortable with FCP7", but I don't think I have seen any that say "must be comfortable with FCPX"....

A few years back having a good handle of FCP was a wise career move for breaking into the industry; most small post production companies had a number of FCP seats.

These days that niche market seems to heading the way of the bigger post houses (Avid) or migrating to Adobe. These days its beginning to look like Premiere might be a wise career move for breaking into the industry.

Now, no doubt a number of people on this board will disagree with this, and point out the number of FCPX seats sold, and perhaps point out a couple of shows and post houses that use FCPX.

But it aint' what it used to be. Hopefully that will change soon.

Otherwise we will end up being like Sony Vegas users (great program, but out in the cold).

7toX should take PPro XML export into FCP X.

In the past fifteen years our editors have had to learn many different systems, and they did this without much trouble. We started cutting non-linear with Avid, in fact we bought the very first MC7 bays in Europe. When I decided to switch to FCP some six or seven years ago our dinosaur editors weren't very happy with me. But they adapted and in a very short time they were as familiar with FCP as they ever had been with Avid or Quantel. I never regretted the switch. Since last year 60% of our broadcast work is done in FCPX and this transition has also been extremely smooth. Starting next month everyone will have to learn Smoke for Mac on top of this .

So my point: if you are a professional editor you should not have any trouble learning different systems and working with them. The client does not care at all on what kind of soft- or hardware his production will be cut, he only looks at the result. And the editor will always be much more important than the tools he uses. The choice has never been so rich. So just use the right tool for the right job. In our facility Premiere still does not make a chance, simply because it does not offer anything we cannot find in the NLEs we already use. But if you can get an extra job by learning Premiere, then just do it. It's extremely easy.

@Parkerhqj what does it matter if you're part of a small community of users or the 1,000,000,000th user? If FCP X winds up getting EOL'ed in the next ten months or the next ten years will that be the end of your career or will you move onto some other platform?

Are you able to use the software to make great work? Can you get paid for it? If the answer is yes to both questions, I say Command - N and get to work on your next project.

@simonpwood I think the best way to break into the industry is to go out and make some films/videos. The days when just knowing how to start up a copy of COSA's After Effects or knowing how to create bins in Avid scoring you a job are long gone.

Knowing how to use Avid (or Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro) can definitely help broaden someone's marketability but 9 out of ten times its trumped if you can bring a superior attitude and quality piece of work to the table and can say "I made this."

With respect Grailz,

I think you're missing the point a bit. I broke into the industry years ago; I worked in broadcast with number of tv stations back in the 90's. I started editing news stories on a Sony PVE linear tape to tape machine. Since then I used the first incarnations of Avid, Premiere and FCP (and a number of other dead programs, one called Speed Razor I think, and one from Corel I can't remember it now).

Anyhow, I got out of the industry, and these days I have my own business (unrelated to film & TV) that allows me time to indulge in this as an expensive hobby (though I still get paying jobs).

The point is if I had to do it all again I would obviously choose to be current it a tool that is predominant throughout the industry. I mean there is nothing wrong with Sony Vegas; its actually pretty good. For doing your own projects it gets the job done; but if all you know is Vegas then you're limiting yourself in the industry as a whole because its not a widespread tool.

Not so with FCP a few years back; you could get any number of independent jobs with it. I believe this has changed somewhat.

Certainly a lot of people I know who were diehard FCP supporters have started to drift off to Adobe and Avid. That would have been inconceivable to them a few years ago because FCP was at the cutting edge, and someone with skills in FCP was very employable (more so than someone with skills in Sony Vegas for example).

Now I believe in FCPX. I've bought it, an I have continued to upgrade it with 3rd party plug ins (Magic Bullet, Neat Video etc). It does everything I need it to for my own projects, and its actually the most efficient editing tool I have worked with. But it doesn't seem to carry the same reputation in the overall industry that its predecessor had. Thats a shame, and I hope it comes back around.

I guess if the export of FCPX to Premiere (or Avid) & vice-versa via XML is seamless, then it won't matter. I just don't want to fork over the money for Premiere and go to the trouble of learning it if I don't have to. Maybe I'm just being lazy (and cheap). Before, I mostly collaborated with FCP users so it never came up.

It's coming around...

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/in-action/

If editing is your carrier you might want to know more then one editor program.
Imagine you get your dream project and it's on another NLE that you know...

But besides of that I think if we see a update or something new on the workstation from Apple then I can imagine more will take Final Cut Pro X more serious and give it some time... many are taking back there prejudgements.

I wouldn't go so far as to say editing is my career. I have to know how to do all this stuff - camera, sound, lighting, editing , writing, etc. I don't know how many others are in my boat, but I'm not really in a position to learn multiple editing platforms any more than I can know the ins & outs of multiple cameras. I have to choose my tools carefully and master each of them well enough to be able to tells stories. There's always going to be a tradeoff when you don't specialize in any one area. For those reasons, I'd like to stick with one system. If I had to switch again, I'd certainly do it, but it's not just adding a new tool for my editing kit when I do that - it's sort of a big deal. Does that make sense?

(sorry for my bad english! )

One year ago, I was amazed by the new fcpx and started learning it. Few little personnal projects later and a looooooot of different troubles, i began to have confidence in it, so...

I use FcpX now for 3 or 4 months for my work. I'm using it on three different tv shows, some little making of... I am the only one who use it right now. So for now 7toX and Xto7 are my best friends. I know i lost some times converting projects between differents final cut pro but i also win so much time editing with X. I like this way, going back to fcp7 is really a pain in the ass.

Now, i'll soon edit three of ten episodes of a new french funny war series. I'll take my chances with fcpX. The three other editors stick with fcp7 (one don't like fcpX, one likes it and uses it sometimes, and the last one wants to learn it). So i need some extra works and more preparations to protect me from any bad fcpX problems who could happen. I need to run some tests with X2pro and the mixer before editing. It's experimental in a certain way, i am glad they let me try it. I hope to prove that fcpX is a wonderful editing software.

I am 100% with fcpX, it's certainly future for me. I know how to use avid, fcp7 or Premiere, but i never felt so comfortable with a editing soft. I eagerly await the next update although I know that I must wait until the end of the series by security in case of really bad bugs.

Pazu wrote:
Totally agree.

but i never felt so comfortable with a editing soft.

Same feeling here. I think that's about the best description of FCPX that I've ever heard.

I remember back in 2000 when I first started using FCP at our Avid house. No one took it seriously. Initially we got it because we were doing more and more web work and it seemed stupid to use a Media Composer for that work.

The more I used it the more I realised it was actually way better than Media Composer. That the developers actually understood editing way more than Avid did at that time.

We sold all our Avids for a tidy profit in 2001 and rekitted with FCP. Our peers thought we were mad. We proved them wrong. I feel EXACTLY the same way about FCP X.

When these people finally figure out how good it actually is they will be behind the eight ball and the early adopters (like us) will be riding the wave.

I've no doubt what so ever that is going to happen. As it's happened so many times before in my career.

Film to Tape
1" to Betacam SP
Tape to Computer Non Linear.
AVID to FCP
FCP X on tablets and whatever is coming neXt.

simonpwood wrote:
I think you missed my point Simon. If you only know one NLE app then you're limiting yourself in the industry as a whole. If you only know AVID but can't find a job because all of the jobs around you are looking for Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro editors, how are you being served? I think the most important thing is knowing how to edit and being able to show that you can.

I say this with the disclaimer that I have not worked in Hollywood at the major studios. I have worked in smaller boutiques post houses and mid market television stations in the midwest and know from experience that many of the folks that got hired, were hired because they had a reel that showed they knew how to do more than just operate the software and/or they had pretty good social skills and were able to convince someone to give them an opportunity. I realize that breaking into the industry in via the network route or studio route may differ greatly.

I love discussing this topic, I've done it a lot over the past year and this is what I think.

First, full disclosure, I work for Apple, but just in retail and I am not an obsessive fanboy, when I quit my job there, I will probably never clap my hands together again.

I decided to start learning about editing in May of 2011 (interesting timing), I have never used FCP 7 and I am very happy about that because if I had spent time learning it I would be annoyed to have to learn something new. I've spent the past year editing very few projects on FCPX, but I already know enough to get the job done.

Most of what I've done this past year is study editing theory and techniques, because really, it's not about the software, it's about the cut you make. 2001 A Space Odyssey was edited by physically cutting film and putting it back together, could you have done a better job on any of todays software? Our technology spoils us and seems to distract from what's most important, the cut.

One of the most important things I learned about editing is that an editor needs be be open minded and explore all the options with the footage that is presented to them. Because of the way they work, editors have to be able to try new things, but it seems that when it comes to technology they don't have the same mind set. I understand upgrading and changing workflow is expensive, but a lot of the negative feedback I've heard about FCPX comes from people who really haven't even given it a chance and don't want to, they are just closed minded about the change.

Now to really understand the future of FCPX you have to understand two other things, the way Apple works and the future of content consumption.

First we'll start with Apple. They have $110 billion dollars in the bank, they can do anything they want. One of the things they do is look forward and they have no problem abandoning anything that doesn't work with their future plans. They refuse to hold on to dated beliefs and business models. Even if they have to alienate some customers they will do it because in the long run everything will work out fine. In general, people hate change of any kind and apple knows this. The only way they can get people to change is to force them to change, and with FCPX they are forcing people to use it or go to something else. Do you think they care if you use other editing software? No, they don't, they have $110 billion in the bank. And on that note, does AVID or Adobe have that kind of money? $110 billion dollars is a lot of money, and that means they have a lot of money to continue to invest in FCPX to make it the best editing program ever made. And when I say best editing program ever made, it will be the best in the eyes of Apple.

FCP 7 is a very dated program and it was never an Apple program to begin with, they bought it from Macromedia. It's a 32bit program and it never really caught on in the movie industry anyway.

FCPX is an Apple product designed from the ground up to run on Apple hardware. It's 64bit and it's extremely powerful, the autosave function makes editing stress free. I don't know if it will ever gain any market share in the movie industry, but that's what AVID is for, if you're going to become a film editor AVID is the way to go. And that brings me to my next point.

The future of content consumption. The iPad (and other tablets) are going to be one of the main ways people consume video content, possibly through Apple TV too. Look at what Apple did with the music industry, they took away power from the major companies and gave it to the musicians. It's very easy to record an album and digitally distribute it and many bands (if they work hard enough) can make a living without a label because of digital technology. The video industry is going through the same change now. The television industry is about to be hit hard by YouTube and Netfilx. All the television industry has right now is original content, but YouTube and Netflix are changing that. In five to ten years, most of the content we create will go to places like YouTube and Netflix. There will be no need to green light a show, series or idea, put it on YouTube and if it makes money everyone wins, if not then YouTube loses nothing, there are no time slots. You don't need a lot of money to make something successful, look at Epic Meal Time, how much production value does that have? But it's still not clear how much money can be made from YouTube.

I believe that FCPX has a very strong future because of where content is headed. The $300 price point is also going to help because Adobe products are too expensive for most students and licensing is a pain in the ass. Anytime I get a new computer, I just open the Mac App Store and redownload FCPX and it's on my computer. All my plugin installers are on dropbox so I can easily install them on a second computer.

I never used FCP7 so I can't say anything about the plugins, but it seems to me that there are a lot of companies that are making some great plugins for FCPX and I see the potential for it to really add a lot to FCPX. Previewing plugins in FCPX is so easy and fast, could you select a clip in FCP7 and then mouse over all the different plugins and instantly see how it looks?

But honestly, in the end it's all about the cut. If great movies we made by taping film together then what's the problem with FCPX? Use whatever software you want, but don't be close minded about new things. And really, if you don't know why you're making a cut or understand what you're doing the software won't matter.

If any of you have read "In the blink of an eye" then you know that when all of the cuts were averaged out, Walter Murch made an average of one-and-a-half cuts per day on Apocalypse Now. He spent most of his time thinking about the cuts and all his different options.

The software doesn't matter, your storytelling skills do.

Ugh...

Wordy.

I think we all know that it's just a tool. Hey most of us from what I can gather have been doing this for quite some time.

Myself personally I'm now in my 30th year of professional editing. WOW!
I've been there at the bleeding edge more times than most of these young guns have had hot dinners.

The perception right now is that FCP X is iMoviePro. No one is adopting it in my neck of the woods. But I'm hoping that will change. If it doesn't well so be it. Their loss.

I've done a lot of work to promote this software. Pushed editors to try it. Offered to cut at home for free etc. But now it's Apple's turn to step up to the plate.

Time for 10.1 FCP Serious.