Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Apple's Animal Farm: Why does FCP want to be Avid?

Final Cut pro has received a new update to 6.0.2 and the on-line talk is of how this set of tweaks and features moves FCP to being 'more like Avid'.

I'm dismayed and astounded...! What the fuck happened...?

In the beginning there was Avid.
It was big, powerful and expensive.
Then there was Premiere.
It was small, light and competent.
From a dissident part of the Première tree (called Keygrip) came Final Cut Pro.
It was light, efficient, flexible and effective and a profound impact on the culture of filmmaking.

What people loved about FCP, what they saw in this fledgling little application that was so exciting, was that it was NOT Avid... That it was different, possessed a different internal logic, that it re-considered some of the expectations of what an editor was 'supposed' to do and how they were 'supposed' to work. Along with Première, as a software-only NLE not in need of dedicated hardware, FCP commoditized editing and removed the exclusivity about what it took to be an editor.

What went wrong?

Success it seems is to blame. For in every version since those early days, with every point release, FCP has taken a small step closer to Avid. With every evolution in FCP's development it has become more and more like Avid. It seems the more Apple sniffed a modicum of success in stealing some of Avid's market share the more they wanted to 'be' Avid and have All their market share. The debates that continue all over the web re: Avid vs FCP are, frankly puerile drivel, as the two applications have become so similar in paradigm and conceptual structure that identifying significant differences requires a fine tooth comb and a divining rod. If you want to see a Non-Avid-Like NLE - an NLE that presents new thinking and new ideas about what editing can be and how editing can be under-taken - you no longer look to FCP you look to Premiere, Vegas, Edius, Liquid, all of which are not at all trying to be Avid but instead are persuing different paradigms that appeal to new breeds of editors born of the digital planet.

I look at FCP now and am dismayed.... I am sorely lamenting the loss of that fresh-faced NLE I once knew, that daring scoundrel that kicked doors and asked 'Why Not?' Where did he go?  Everything that was released in v6 of FCP was either a catch up on features all the other NLE's had on offer years before (mixed resolution timeline, 24bit 96k audio, GPU acceleration) or were specifically aiming to emulate Avid's lauded offerings (ProRes, AJA hardware integration, Color). There simply wasn't anything 'new' in FCP 6, just the closer pursuit of becoming a cheaper version of Avid. And now we have FCP 6.0.2 and sites such as TheEditBlog and HD4Indies are singing the praises of more Avid-like features.

What happened to the people who loved FCP because it WASN'T Avid...? Surely I wasnt the only one?

I cannot help but be reminded of George Orwell's Animal Farm. A commentary on human nature and the socio-political habit of reactionary cultural revolutions ultimately and unavoidably becoming the establishment they sought to over-throw. In Orwell's book the Animal's rise up against the Farmer and take over the farm for themselves with a new social sensibility.  In the end, the principles that founded the revolution have been mis-aligned and the differences, once so stark, are rendered imperceptible.

?The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.?

I cant help but see FCP in this light. What began as a dynamic revolution of re-action, where the point-of-difference with Avid was the major attraction, we now have a very stale and un-imaginative software application that seems almost wholly focused on becoming what it originally reacted against.

Posted at 12:00AM Nov 19, 2007 by Mike Jones in video  |  Comments[4]