Review: Final Cut Pro X

Film editing technology is constantly changing. Companies that create editing software, such as Apple and Adobe, are always setting the bar against each other with new features to their editing softwares. Editors desire software that allows them to organize their footage and clips as they want, be able to control the formatting of the videos they import and export, be able to edit together clips from different camera; the list goes on. Essentially, editors desire software that makes their job as not complicated as possible while working in a world where technology is advancing so quickly.

There are many different kinds of editing software out there. The editing software I've been trained on is Final Cut Pro 7 by Apple. It is a non-linear video editing software that allows an editor to transfer video onto a hard drive and then edit and export it into various formats.

Final Cut Pro 7 timeline in standard set-up.

In June 2011, Apple released Final Cut Pro X. It wasn't an update of the most recent edition, Final Cut Pro 7, but rather a re-visioned software. Its release was met with some controversy as many important features that editors used in Final Cut Pro 7 were not present at all in Final Cut Pro X. Even its design made users angry because it was somewhat modeled after iMovie, which is not by any means a professional editing suite. iMovie is essentially the Windows Movie Maker for Mac computers.

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Editors have found many things wrong with Final Cut Pro X. It is not compatible with projects that were edited on previous editions of Final Cut Pro. Any project that I've edited on FCP 7 would not open on FCP X. There is no multi-camera editing. The timeline is much more difficult to work with. The list of things wrong with and/or missing from it goes on and on.

However, since last summer, Apple has given FCP X a couple of updates. The latest update, 10.0.3 has brought back some of those missing features, such as multi-camera editing and better control of the "chroma-keying" feature that is used when editing green screen shots.

The release of Final Cut Pro X put something of a damper on Apple's reputation as a provider of high-end editing software, but if future updates bring back the features that were cut, or makes them more accessible, perhaps the company will gain back some respect in that field.