I get all itchy when people start railing against a brand based on some new product announcement. Hearing “Apple is dead to me,” causes me to twitch. I break into a cold sweat whenever I hear someone claiming one platform is the best there is and everything else sucks. It makes me ill enough to want to leave the conversation right away.

Are people really basing their loyalty to a brand or product on an announcement of a yet-to-be-shipped product? Seriously?!? So, the newly announced MacPro won’t allow you to make use of the PCIe expansion cards you are using today? Even though you are working on a 4-year old platform? With a 6-year old technology in PCIe? Even though not a single third party software or hardware developer has announced what their plans are for working with the new platform? Well, Grant Petty from Blackmagic has good things to say, so we’ll have to see if others will follow.

I’ve watched this industry struggle through some significant changes and this argument, while changing topics, remains constant – people can’t stand change. I read it best in the comment on the Blackmagic thread above, “it’s really just the case of people wanting a bigger horse instead of a car.”

Someone asked me, after voicing my hatred of platform wars, why I continued to bother participating. I had to stop and think. I replied, “its in my nature to seek out & keep as many tools in my kit as possible. I have to stay informed and up-to-date on the latest info and trends. While it may make my skin crawl, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let knee-jerk reactions and opinionated bloviations win the day.”

“Oh my god,” came the response, “could it be possible that you’re going conservative in your old age?”

“Exactly the opposite,” I replied,” I embrace change. I love learning all this new stuff. Bring it on.”

As promised, here are links to some of the items I presented:

Presentation Slides - my slides on Backup Plan and Project Asset Management

The slides on HD formats were taken from a presentation I gave back in 2007. Here is a PDF of those slides. There is more in the PDF than what I covered and (thankfully) most of it is still valid even 5 years later.

Here’s a direct link to my Generic Assets Folder Template. And the post where I explain it all in more detail along with many other Asset Management techniques is “Man Crushed Under Weight of 34Terabytes.”

Thank you Mickey & WIFVers for putting this event together. Thanks to those who attended. And keep your eyes out for info about upcoming events like this, there will be more!

We got hit with a “base64 hack“. It infected every single PHP file on the server that hosts buttonpusher.tv. So its been a pain to get everything re-installed. The only back up I had was from just after the infection hit on March 15. It did give me a chance to clear out a bunch of old theme and plugin files, but what a hassle.

The site is back online and it looks like I didn’t lose anything important. I did discover that my favorite theme – K2 is now only sporadically updated, so I may be in the market for a new WordPress theme later this spring.

Mostly just posting this to see if everything is back in working order. Thanks.

Very impressed with this first effort though. An editor for $5 that can send projects to a professional desktop editing app…wow.

UPDATE: So it only sends projects to the PC-version of Avid Studio. But its a step closer.

Educate yourself. Watch this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Visit killsopa.org – The EFF’s clearing house on what to do to help stop these bills from becoming laws.

Contact your representative and make them aware that you don’t want these bills to become law.

And check back tomorrow, because we’ll be here. We aren’t going dark. We’ll be posting part 2. Maybe in all that extra time you’ll have *not* surfing Reddit or Wikipedia, you can drop by here!

With all the the recent advancements in cameras and acquisition technologies, the expectation is the process of media production should become faster, easier and more stream-lined. We associate improvement with advancement, right?  If it’s new then it must be better. As I mentioned in part one of this post, though, as media production has moved into the digital space, it has become bogged down by the plethora of choices available to creators. The work  feels more complicated and time-consuming, and it doesn’t necessarily result in a better product.

Why? Why is it like this?

I blame free-market capitalism. No, really. It’s all about who invents a system, who gets that system patented, and who profits from the licenses of those technologies. It is a free-market system into which millions of marketing dollars are pumped every year. Everyone involved is doing their best to get you to use their system or their workflow. There is very little concern for the long-term impact of the changes these technologies force upon us. There doesn’t seem to be much concern about the long-term viability of these systems, either.  Nor does there seem to be much care given to making this any easier to deal with. But, these companies can’t keep developing new stuff if there isn’t a market. And making stuff that works with the old stuff means you’d end up spending less and less over time. That can’t be, so free-market capitalism has formed this happy relationship with the tech companies to keep it all humming along. It seems to be working just fine…for them.

But as a user of this technology, I have to ask if we are really better off. Do the endless technological options and advancements lead us to create more successful products for less money and less time? Or does it just create ten new problems for every one it solves?

Let’s look at digital high definition as an example of things can get very complicated very quickly.

Now in Digital High Definition

Even though corporations drive the development of media technology, until recently, they were subject to some very specific and narrow regulations on what passed as Broadcast Quality. The FCC (in the US) and the EBU (in Europe) had very narrow definitions of what qualified as “broadcast safe“. NTSC and PAL were mandated by those bodies and anything you wanted to put on the airwaves had to meet those one of those standards. Both of them came in just a few varieties and there was little question if something met specs or not. And because it just wouldn’t make economic sense to create two-tiers of products, the Broadcast Standards drove the market. (i.e.- the market for video gear that didn’t work with existing gear was/is very small, hence it never took off).

Along comes HD and a switch from analog over to digital and a need by the governing bodies to re-define specs and standards. The governing bodies, however, aren’t a bunch of engineers. They are career policy wonks. Additionally, this all came at a time of massive deregulation and relaxation of governmental oversight. In the face of this, the FCC & EBU turned to the technology companies themselves to define the HD standards. On the surface, it seems like a really great thing to let the companies who will build the products define the standards because they know their own limits and boundaries. But . . .

In the U.S., the FCC formed the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service in 1987. Out of that came the Grand Alliance – a group of technology companies with a vested interest in creating the new standards for what would become High Definition as we know it today. Eventually, the HD specs were codified into the ATSC Standard. When you factor in screen-size, interlacing vs. progressive, & frame rates, there are 79 different possible formats that fall under this standard (57 for HD alone). And of course, once again, North America is on a different standard than much of the rest of the world. For us, it’s ATSC. For Europe and much of Asia, it is Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). Thankfully, both standards can accommodate each other’s frame rates, so it isn’t as bad as before.

Basically, a bunch of vested parties created a seat at the table (some would argue they created the table itself) and then proceeded to squeeze in a large number of “standard” formats. Expanding the number of standards has only served to confuse matters. In the days NTSC/PAL, you could be fairly certain that material sent to you would work in your show. Today’s world of mixed resolutions and frame rates, while certainly possible technically, is very messy. I don’t think the intent was to create a mess, but that is what we have. While it isn’t always a given that, as technology advances, things become more simple and efficient; generally that’s the case. Often there can be unintended effects that ripple around a given advancement.

The Microwave Effect

80 years ago, if you wanted to boil water, you started a fire or lit the stove and you waited. Then, starting in 1970, the microwave oven turned that several minute wait into seconds. It was, undoubtedly, a time saver. The microwave oven has had an unintended effect on its user’s psyche as well. Back in the days of waiting to watch a pot boil a few long minutes wasn’t that big of a deal. Today, we find ourselves getting impatient while waiting 30 seconds for that cup of hot water to come out of the microwave. It has eroded our patience. I call it The Microwave Effect. We need instant gratification. This subtle little change to our ability to wait has far-reaching impacts. It reaches right into the world of Media acquisition. Let me explain.

Tapeless cameras have made it possible to shoot hours and hours of footage. It’s easy. It’s simple. There’s no tapes to load or lug around. There’s no film to load or process. Just shoot and copy it to a hard drive. It all gets recorded as files. Files are what the editor needs to work with to create a show. The editor needs footage, and these cameras can shoot a lot of it. Over shooting is commonplace because there’s such a low upfront cost. There are costs, however. These costs are hidden or delayed, but they are still there.

Here’s a hidden cost: more footage means the editor needs more time to go through it all. But the editor doesn’t have more time in today’s world. In fact, they have less time because schedules are tighter and turn-around times are shorter. You get the double whammy of more footage, less time, and a demand that the final product be cranked out very quickly. It is The Microwave Effect in full force.

Here is an actual conversation I overheard that sums it up pretty well:

Producer, on a conference call with a prospective editor: “So you’ll get 2 weeks to cut the show to roughcut stage…”
Editor, voice wavering: “When I cut for you last season, we had 3 weeks per episode.”
Producer: “I know. But the network wants a faster delivery this season, so you’ll just need to cut fast.”
Editor: “OK, I guess so.”
Producer: “But, this time around we’re using tapeless cameras! We’ll have 3 cameras on most shoots, instead of the one or two we had last season. You’ll have so much more footage to choose from. It should be a piece of cake!”
Editor: “More footage? Is an AP going to log it in advance?”
Producer: “Hmmmm, I guess we could get an intern on that, but it should all go really quick because it’ll already be Quicktime files. You can just bring them in and start editing right away!”
Editor: “In two weeks instead of three. With more footage per episode. All logged by an inexperienced intern…Sounds awesome.”

In my memory, I can just hear a microwave beeping in the background right after the editor finished talking.

And what about that editor?

Now, to pile more problems on top of the Multiple Format Standards and Microwave Effect problems – media acquisition has migrated responsibilities around a bit. What used to be set in place by choices in the field, has now been unceremoniously foisted off to someone else down the line. In the olden days of 2002, you would shoot to tapes. Someone would go through those tapes and load all the best takes and you’d be ready to start editing. There weren’t many options because NTSC was just NTSC. You, as the Editor, might even do that loading yourself, because that would give you a chance to  watch the footage play back, in real time – A brief pause to collect yourself and get your head around this pile of stuff before setting down to craft something out of it. Ah, the good old days.

You may have heard a new term for a crew position lately: Media Wrangler. This is the person who is responsible for making sure all the media is being backed up and transferred to systems which can interface with the post-production part of the process. Media Wranglers are often younger, less experienced folk who have gained a foothold with their ability to work with computers. They have much to learn, but mostly they are eager and quick to pick things up. But any Media Wrangler who has talent also demands to be compensated. Most budgets don’t factor in another crew hand, so often the task of wrangling media falls on the Camera Operator, or Audio Operator, or Producer, or a Production Assistant. Because these folks are often doing media wrangling as a second, third, or even fourth duty, the attention to detail and careful consideration of how their work could be creating more work for someone who will come along later often goes by the wayside. Then the task of figuring this out falls on the editor, the one person in this process who already has the biggest responsibility (see below) for creating a polished and professional product. The one person in this chain who is in the least in need of being given more responsibility.

The editor is the person with the second biggest responsibility behind the producer or director or line producer or whoever is actually responsible for making the show. (See? It’s even gotten so muddled that you can’t figure out who makes the decisions half the time.) What’s clear to me, having been in the editor’s chair and the show creator’s chair, is that the editor is often The One Who Makes It All Happen. The editor is going to have to figure out how to get all these formats and frame rates and elements to go together and come out as a technically & creatively acceptable product on the other end. It falls to them. And, far to often, blame falls on them as well. Blame for a show that fails to perform. Blame for muddled writing, poor performances, or rough transitions. I’ve seen editors be the scapegoat for another team member’s failure to deliver. So, in my mind, the editor is often the one who puts their butt on the line when it comes to bringing a show to completion.

As an editor, I often find myself taking on the following responsibilities: log the footage, edit the show, find the music, conceive/create/design the show graphics, VO talent or engineer, scriptwriting…well, script-tweaker, footage/stills researcher.

For those of you keeping score, that’s seven primary responsibilities, a couple of which are full time jobs in and of themselves. You need to be a good listener, a good conversationalist, have an open-mind to try new things, and be able to make many decisions very quickly. It is a challenging position. And this list could easily double or triple in size. My point is that, as editors, the last thing we need to be worrying about is how to convert the 57 different types of footage in to a format that is compatible with our systems. Well, we need to worry about it, but we shouldn’t be the ones who are forced into dealing with preventable problems from the field. (In other words, call us before you shoot!)

All of that above has left us with the mess we have today. More footage. Less time. And the pressure to deliver immediate results.

And this is where I feel things aren’t working out quite correctly. I’m not opposed to new technologies and finding new methods of doing things. Some of these new cameras are amazing. Some of them are not. I just haven’t decided yet if the way things are playing out is really the best for everyone. It certainly seems, to me, that this stuff is sufficiently complicated that we all may be painting ourselves into a corner without even realizing it.

Next time we dive back in with a look at some of the pitfalls of tapeless acquisition from an archival/historical perspective…

Take acquisition. I’m talking about capturing material in the creation of a program. It can be whatever kind of show you’d like. Developments in digital acquisition have exploded in the last few years. We have such cool toys with which to capture events in 2D or 3D – Red EPIC, Phantom, Viper, DSLR, P2, XDCAM, F3, AF-100, 5D, 7D, C300, GoPro – the list goes on and on.

The image quality cannot be denied for many of these new cameras. They are amazing. If you had told me I would be working with HD images at 5K resolution just 5 years ago I would have doubted you. The detail and latitude these new devices provide are incredible. But there’s a downside to it all. A downside I don’t think anyone really thought through as these new technologies were being proposed, designed and invented. It’s a downside that many production people don’t see or even think about. It’s a downside that foists responsibility onto the last person in the chain of program creation that needs more responsibility.

I mean no criticism of any individual production company or producer by laying this all out. I see this as a problem of formats, incompatibilities, and vendor choices more than a failure of individual choices. This is the reality many editors face. Something doesn’t sit right with me about it all. In the midst of all this advancement, the workflows, job descriptions, and mentality surrounding dealing with media hasn’t kept pace with reality. It is creating problems down the line and these issues are so complex that I don’t think many comprehend the trouble we’re about to come up against – trouble that translates into dollars and time wasted in a market where both things are drying up.

Let’s take a look at a single show (yes, a single show) I’ve recently been involved with: This program is an hour long nature documentary. It was shot over the course of 6 months. It got its start as being both a broadcast show and a theatrical release. When the proposition of theatrical release failed to materialize, the show’s production budget had to be tightened.

What started as a Red EPIC 5k shoot with some Phantom, DSLR & GoPro footage had to switch to a variety of HD cameras: HDX900, 5D, 7D, XDCAM, HVX-200, DVCPRO-HD & CineFlex. This switch seemed to be predicated primarily by what camera operators were available to shoot and when. It went from 4 formats to 10. When all of the camera original backups were delivered it came on 25 external drives. Thankfully most of those were master/backup pairs, so realistically I’m dealing with 15 drives. Still, that’s about 20 terabytes of material and it is all over the place.

To start there’s the issue of resolution – it’s a mix of 1080 & 720 now. Obviously, the Red, Phantom and DSLR’s are capable of higher-than-1080 resolutions, but 1080 is all that is required for broadcast delivery, so that becomes the sweet spot. And of course, there’s a frame rate issue. Network deliverables call for 1080i60 master. That means 29.97. Much of the above footage is shot at 23.98, but not all of it. Standard fare these days. So, everything is being converted to Apple Pro Res 422 1080i30 (or 1080i24 depending on original frame rate). The show will be cut in FCP7 on a 1080i30 timeline.

“It’s always something,” is one of my dad’s sayings about dealing with technical issues. It’s become a mantra of mine when dealing with these kinds of projects. “It’s always something,” I find myself repeating as I have to manually organize files or build complicated Terminal batch files via a set of hoop-jumping steps in a text editor.

After getting it all sorted and figuring out what needed to be done to what & in what order, I set to work. The show will begin editing soon and I think all the footage will have been converted to a format that should make the edit go smoothly. I’m really good when it comes to sorting out ways to solve media conversion issues, even if I do say so myself.

At some point in the process of working through all this footage, I thought, “why? why is it always something?” I know a large part of that is the nature of the beast. Media production of any kind is fraught with issues to be resolved and problems in need of fixing. But a portion of this problem is fabricated. It is created by the technological changes to the process of acquisition our field has gone through over the last 5 years. I’m not sure we have landed in a better place. Higher quality? Yes. Lighter gear? Yes. Faster gear? Absolutely. Cheaper? Yes…more or less. (there are hidden costs of both money and time). More choices? Yes…but that’s not always a good thing.

I remember a funny story I heard from a college friend after I had graduated and begun editing on Avid/1 (as it was called back then). He was working with a small production group as an assistant editor. It was around the time they had finished their first show on an Avid:

“Yeah, Avid is cool and all,” he said, ” but it really isn’t helping get this show done.”

“Why not,” I replied. I was thinking they just didn’t understand how useful this editing tool was.

“Well, in the same time it took us to cut a similar show last year on the flatbed,” he said with the wistful look of a masochist…I mean…film-editor who missed his splicing block and processing chemical cologne,” we cut 4 versions of the show.”

“Wait,” I said, ” you cut 4 versions on the Avid in the same time it took to cut one on film?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “now everyone’s fighting over who’s version is better.”

And that, right there, is exactly the problem we face: As media production moved into the digital space, it became bogged down by the plethora of choices available to the creators. It’s a wonder anything ever gets created at all.

Join us next time as we explore the question of “why is it like this?”

The answer is, it depends.

It depends on what kind of work you are doing. Final Cut Pro X is not an unusable editor for many folks. Undesirable for some, but it is capable of editing programs together. People who are editing for the web or for DVD delivery, are probably going to have very little cause to think about switching away from FCP-X.

That being said, there’s alot of stuff that FCP-X does differently than FCP7. It is different enough that, for all intents, it *is* a different NLE application. There will be a learning curve. There will be new ways you will have to learn to handle tasks in a different fashion. Some tasks just don’t work the same way as they did before. From little things like setting In & Out points on a clip to big things like media management, FCP-X will be a new thing for whoever picks it up.

So, while the main premise of my previous post doesn’t completely apply to smaller firms (Go big or stay small), I think that there needs to be some serious consideration given to the kinds of work you are currently doing and the kinds of work you might be doing in the near future. You will need to factor that in to your decision. FCP-X just isn’t going to have the same kinds of support FCP7 does. You won’t be able to send an FCP-X project to a post-house and have them work with it as-is. Once they receive it, they are going to need to run it through some extra steps in order to get a timeline exported for use in audio or color in an efficient manner.

On the other hand, both Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro support many of the same import and export paths that FCP7 does today. So, if you are looking for the closest non-FCP match, then you may want to explore those platforms. Also, FCP7 is probably going to remain a viable editing application for a few more years. It won’t be updated, but it could probably remain serviceable for some time. What we don’t know, is if some future update to OSX or to Quicktime will break the functionality of FCP7. If that happens, then in order to maintain an FCP7 system, you will need to have a older installation of OSX and Quicktime running to make it work. In my opinion, that’s a temporary solution and not something I’d trust as my primary production platform for very long.

The issues of drive space and hardware purchases are certainly more financially driven than anything else. So if it is a case of planning for upgrades or for planning new purchases for your operation, I think you need to do your research about FCP-X, Avid, Premiere Pro and anything else to see what the future might hold for you if you make a choice to go down a certain path.

Avid today announced that renowned television production company, Bunim/Murray Productions, has selected Avid Media Composer® 6 and Avid Symphony® 6 editing software for all of its programs beginning in early 2012. Bunim/Murray joins a growing number of professional users who have returned to using Avid solutions from Final Cut Pro to meet their production workflow requirements. Additionally, as part of this implementation, Bunim/Murray also plans to deploy an Avid ISIS® 5000 shared storage system to effectively store and share media across its organization.

On the surface it seems like a no-brainer. Apple has forsaken the broadcast editor to release an application that is more in line with the company’s minimalist approach. In doing so, they have effectively removed the application from consideration by many editors who need things like: deck control, import and export of interchange formats (omf), manual media management and self-determined timeline configuration (i.e. manual assignment of tracks). Editors who don’t need those things have a very fine tool at their disposal. Editors who do need them, are looking elsewhere. FCP-X may deliver those things in time. Certainly there are third-party solutions that make it serviceable enough now, but that’s not acceptable to a large operation like Bunim-Murray or to most professional editors, who don’t want to have to “roll their own” features.

Hence a huge production company like Bunim-Murray is going to drop FCP in favor of Avid Media Composer. It’s going to start happening more and more. FCP-X just can’t fit into existing workflows for delivery of broadcast material. More companies are going to switch. Many will go to Avid. Some will go to Premiere Pro. There are some production companies out there, however, that won’t be able or willing to make the switch. And this is the history-repeating-itself part, this switch is going to kill those companies off.

Keep in mind that this is all speculation and prediction on my part, but I think after spending 5 years in Post Production Management and nearly 25 years in the business, I can see how it is going to play out.

It has happened before: the switch from Linear to non-linear, the upgrade from Avid Nubus to Meridian systems, and the FCP vs. Avid debate earlier this decade (this would be the event that resulted in so many companies constructing an environment based on FCP and XSAN). {Cue Shirley Bassey singing here} These changes have eaten companies or forced them to dissolve, and the people behind them to move on to other ways of staying in the business (or leave the business entirely). Companies that couldn’t afford to upgrade their systems or wouldn’t upgrade, often found themselves falling out of the running for contracts to produce the shows the networks need to stay on air. The news above about Bunim-Murray’s switch is very telling about how the dominoes are about to fall. FCP-X will be only a small part of professional post-production workflows at large facilities. Sure, it will still be used by many smaller firms or one-person operations, but for the large operations, FCP is getting knocked off the hill.

This has some deeper significance than it appears at first glance. There are financial and technical issues that will help to enhance the business-killing aspect of this switch. These aspects will greatly affect how things proceed into the future. I suspect that there’s a good chance, that the kind of revolution that the rise of FCP (pre-FCP-X) brought about won’t happen again for a long time, if at all.

To set the scene, you have to understand the flimsy foundation that most modern production companies are built upon: basing 100% of your business revenues on income from broadcast cable programming is an unsustainable premise. The executives of these networks know this to be true. They watch companies try and try to make it work, knowing full-well that it isn’t sustainable. One of them even told one of my bosses that very thing: “we know our shows aren’t profitable for a company like yours, but we string you along long enough to make us look good and when your company tanks, there are 3 or 4 more new ones waiting to fill the gap…and at half the cost per half-hour show.” The companies that have survived have often branched out to include over-the-air broadcast or other areas of diversification, but many haven’t and they are no longer around. More will follow in light of this switch.

Several of the successful companies have based their infrastructure on Final Cut Pro and they did it at a time when Final Cut Pro made it artificially affordable.

In the few years prior to FCP’s dominance, a non-linear editing system cost, in the neighborhood of $30,000-$50,000. That was an Avid system, capable of uncompressed with enough storage to edit a medium-length program. That price didn’t include a broadcast video deck, which ran you at least $5,000 for a used BetaCam-SP or $60,000 for a new Digital BetaCam. New HDCAM decks (released in the late 90′s & early 00′s) could run over $100,000.
Then, along came Final Cut Studio. Only $1,000 for the application. I put together my first FCP system, capable of uncompressed and with more storage than the Avid system mentioned above AND a J3 Digital BetaCam Player for $25,000. It was a revolution. Take out the Digital BetaCam deck and you could get the system under $15,000. Purchase fewer drives and you could get a system under $10,000. All of which could do the same thing as a $50,000+ Avid system. Sadly, that undercutting hurt Avid, which struggled for a few years. Happily, it meant that the cost of entry to broadcast editing was cut by as much as four-fifths. It made it super-affordable for production companies to rapidly expand and bring costly pay-by-the-hour editing in-house where it could be paid for at (effectively) flat rates and the costs could easily be amortized over several series.

So, the story thus far, is that broadcast cable networks need production companies to churn out ever cheaper work and cost-of-entry into post-production dropped by 80%. It was a perfect storm of opportunity for cable to get what it wanted: cheap shows that delivered record profits & production companies to fool themselves into thinking that buying a system on the cheap meant that they had solved the problem of meeting the technical requirements for broadcast delivery. It was (and still is) a sticky situation because a) technology isn’t static & b) as the old saying goes, “the bitterness of poor-quality lingers long after the sweetness of low-cost has faded.”

FCP is great editor right out of the box, don’t get me wrong. It has a great interface, a good suite of tools, and easy media management (compared to the alternatives at the time, yes it was much easier to manage). But there were certainly things that didn’t work properly from the start. Things that could be related to a corrupt media file, or the size of your FCP project file, or even the speed of your media drives. Many of these items often were attributable to user error and Apple was loathe to offer support for something so quirky and variable as an FCP system with a bunch of third-party add ons. However, it did about 80% of what it needed to do really well. The other 20% is where it completely failed. (I find, this formula applies to most apps in the editing/motion design field.)

Now along comes this speed-bump: one NLE application has given up on the features that The People Who Edit For A Living need in an attempt to force a complex task like editing into the Apple-centered view of things. It’s perfectly evident when you apply this Johnny Ive quote to the approach Apple has taken with FCP-X:

“Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.” -from “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson

Sure he’s talking about the design of physical products, But if it’s a company-wide philosophy to make things more minimal and simpler, then that is really what they’ve tried to do with editing. I don’t see how it can work though. Everything is either going to look exactly the same or very, very basic. Simplifying editing is like painting any kind of scene only with one set of stencils – technically it *is* still painting. Now imagine giving the same set of stencils to Titian, Renoir, Picasso, Van Gogh, and Banksy.

So the people who require complete control over their editing environment now are faced with a decision – where to go next? The companies that hire them are faced with the same decision.  Where it goes will depend on the financial fortitude of those folks to upgrade and switch. It isn’t a simple prospect and it will certainly be the beginning of the end for some companies.

Previous iterations of FCP were so attractive because of their low-cost and that they did about 80%-90% of what needed to be done in your given realm of editing (for broadcast, web, or internal use, etc.). But that low-cost has created a situation where there now isn’t a fully-formed infrastructure in place to allow for a change of direction.
Any company thinking of switching away from FCP, must consider these (potentially) hidden issues that could make a mess of things:

1. XSAN & Avid Media Composer are not compatible….well, not in a simple way. Avid MC wants to use the entire drive for its media files. XSAN gives each user the entire drive. That’s the problem. Each Media Composer accessing the XSAN volume is going to try and manage it as though it were only attached to that specific MC system. There would be a constant battle of media files database creation by all those systems. The only way I see that it could work would be to run your XSAN more like a Unity system – creating volumes that only one Media Composer system can access at a time.

2. Third-Party capture cards not fully supported. This is changing, but it will still create problems for some. Until there are working drivers for all cards on the market to be compatible with Avid & Premiere, some companies that invested in the unsupported cards will be forced to replace those cards with ones that work.

3. Learning curve for FCP-only editors. There’s a cadre of editors out there that have grown up editing on FCP only. They are going to have trouble switching to Avid. Maybe this will be short-lived, but at least the older editors who used to be stymied by knowing Avid instead of FCP will get more work. Of course, Avid MC and Premiere Pro can be configured to have the keyboard work the same as FCP, but that’s going to limit your abilities with the new program – the FCP Way isn’t the only way.

4. Compatibility of older FCP systems and media. Again this is becoming less of a problem, but still requires people on-board who understand the desired end goals and the limitations of the systems. Files will need to be converted. Projects will become inaccessible for future revisions (at least to work with the original media).

5. Insufficient technical knowledge from the top-down. For some companies, this won’t be a problem. They’ve acknowledged that keeping up with the tech is best left to someone they can hire. They’ll be fine. The companies that are in the most danger in this area are the companies who consider their existing FCP/XSAN environment to be “good enough” and they forego upgrading or switching. Owning equipment is a roller coaster ride. Once you step on, you cannot get off without a major upheaval. Companies and people who (at any point) think that they’ve got just what they need today, will be crowded out by the companies who stay current with tech trends and stay on top of where things are going. (You might be one of those stay-on-top-of-it-people if you’ve made it this far into this post. )

Who is going to come out on top?

After things settle a little bit, I’m not sure who is or isn’t going to come out of this successfully. Obviously, companies like Bunim-Murray have the capital and knowledge to upgrade their way through sea-changes like this. Other companies can’t or won’t be able to make a shift. My advice would be to get smart about this now. Learn about it now or hire someone who can educate you about where you should be heading.

If you are thinking of starting or growing a production company, I think you have two options: 1)Go Big. Really big. You’ll need a huge SAN, multiple systems. You’ll need a large centralized facility with adequate power and cooling to handle a medium-sized server room and multiple suites. You’ll need to bring in-house, all the gear you need to deliver content to your clients (that includes the fiddly broadcast bits like waveform/vector scopes, legalizers, and decks). Oh, and hire the right people (and enough of them) to keep it all running. Or 2), you’ll need to stay small. Keep your technical footprint minimal and farm out your work to many of your favorite editors, who are setting up single suites in their basements or small offices or revisit a relationship with a post-production facility. Let someone else worry about staying up in the technical side and work out a rate structure that is favorable for you both. Make sure everyone understands how to work remotely – it can be done. Of course, you’ll need to hire a few technically knowledgeable people to co-ordinate all the media management and standardize content delivery. If you go small, you will be decentralized and less dependent on a single vendor’s only NLE application. You need to be flexible and savvy about technology and stay on top of trends in cameras, computers, and digital content delivery.

Wherever it all goes, I think it’s going to look different than it does today. FCP had a good ride. Apple has decided to go a different direction. And, as Bunim-Murray’s decision shows, that’s fine, as long as you can afford to make the switch.

(And the link in case the embed doesn’t work)