February 21, 2009

Latenite Final Cut Studio 3 Predictions

Chris Hocking has some Final Cut Studio 3 Predictions that are similar to those the ideas of Stu Maschwitz for After Effects in What Should Adobe Do With Premiere Pro?

It would be good if AE at least had better previewing, disk caching, and rendering (make feature request at Adobe). After all Apple is looking for a Video Editor Product Designer, Pro Apps with "Expert-level knowledge of editing, motion graphics, and finishing suites like FCP, Avid, Smoke, Luster, etc."

Hopefully higher-end tools will continue to filter down to the desktop (see Flame & Smoke in action). A lot of these ideas were in the air after the Apple acquisitions of Shake & Tremor and then Final Touch/Color, but especially since a Think Secret article before NAB in 2006. Here's a flavor of Chris Hocking's wish for FCP & pro apps:

"So what will make this new FCX so different? Well, it’s our prediction that most of the Final Cut Studio (i.e. Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Color, LiveType, etc.) will be merged into the one application. We predict a MAsSIVE interface and workflow overhaul. No longer will you need to Send to Soundtrack Pro, or use XML workarounds to get your timeline into Color. Everything will be in the one “box”. In typical Apple style - we predict they’ll make things better, by making them substantially simpler.

So how the hell will this actually work? We believe the key is a new Universal Timeline and a set of different Rooms.

The Project Room will be the “hub” of your project. Taking media management to a new extreme, this will be were you can manage different versions of your project, keep track of scripts, storyboards, and other pre-production information. Taking on board features find in other packages such as Celtx, we predict that FCX will have a big focus on ALL stages of the film-making process, including Pre-Production."

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