A week later and the information from a packed WWDC is beginning to sink in. The move to Apple Silicon will bring advantages to FCPX such as speed and resource use, but what about new possibilities with new technology?
It was a curious clash of dates, the keynote presentation from Apple's World Wide Developer Conference happened a day after Final Cut Pro X's ninth birthday.
We all know that Apple have repeatedly said that a 10-year plan was drawn up for FCPX during development. The Pro Apps team's road map must be getting slightly dog-eared by now having been regularly thumbed on the journey.
But was the Arm-based transition ever on that map?
For the last couple of years, yes, and it's grown bigger in the view through the windscreen taking all the attention from a big update. Transitioning to a Universal App that runs on Intel and Apple Silicon together must have utilised many of the engineering resources that would have gone in to a major release.
What is more interesting though is that the move to Apple Silicon has unfolded another road map, a much larger area to navigate, with wider highways and faster cars.
OK, enough with the driving analogies. You only have to take a look at the State of the Union presentation at about 14 minutes in to realise that the move to new chips will have a huge impact on us video editors.
I'm sure you all saw that automatic labelling of ranges on clips isn't that far away. This is where FCPX will really dominate the other NLEs.
The 2011 relaunch was painful, but it gave us a new framework with up to date technologies that can be expanded on. Adobe, Avid and Blackmagic will find it hard to lever technology back into their NLEs.
You might say Adobe is ahead with the auto-reframing of objects for the creation of different aspect ratio deliverables. You would be correct, but anyone who works both Premiere and FCPX will tell you that being able to do something, and being able to do it well without problems or work-arounds are two different things. I'll mention multicam as a decent example to measure the differences between the two.
Apple gave us a quick flash of reframing in the Keynote, but that's not what's getting us excited, this is:
Every iPhone developer will now be able to write or port their apps for macOS. Having done the hard work of harnessing AR or ML on the phone, they will be able to incorporate all their knowledge and resources into apps or plugins to run with FCPX.
This will start off a whole new sphere of plugin and app development. Here's a few ideas that sprang to mind:
Voice to Text and Translation
Yes, there are app and plugins that do this already, but this would happen on the machine in realtime.
The next 10 years is going to be an interesting ride. If you have any ideas for cool plugins, why not post them in the comments below.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
