Final Cut Studio 2 Newbie Part 2

At the end of the last article I was just about getting to grips with Final Cut Pro 6.  Before I go into detail about more of my findings, I would like to bring up the subject of curves adjustments again. Due to good reputation I invested in Graeme Nattress' Box Of Tricks plugins. These include a curves adjustment, but they still do not have the full control of a true curves filter. This is something that I feel is hugely lacking in FCP. Levels filters, and brightness and contrast adjustments do not in any way give you the control that curves do. With a decent curves filter I can adjust, precisely, every tonal range in the picture. I shouldn't have to go to Color to make such rudimentry adjustments! Rant over.

The Final Cut Pro timeline
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That said I have been working a lot with Final Cut Studio 2 over the past few months, getting to know both its plusses and minuses. I have also had one or two jobs using Vegas too, so I have had the opportunity to go back and forth between the two.

One thing that I have discovered is that one of Final Cuts strengths is also one of its weaknesses. Using a suite of programs that interact with one another to produce a final result is a great workflow. The only trouble is that you must be on the ball with your data organisation. If I am not careful I can find files scattered all over the place. I would highly recommend Creative Cows "Getting Organised With Final Cut Pro" tutorial DVD if you are new to the system. It certainly explained a lot for me. Currently I save all my EDL's in a folder on my main system drive (this is backed up by Time Machine automatically as well as via my own backups). I keep my video files on a seperate video drive, and I also have another drive that I output renders from Color etc to. Although I still find it tricky sometimes to keep track of where FCS2 will place certain files!

As far as actual editing is concerned I really do like Final Cut Pro itself. Keyboard shortcuts are intuitive, and the way it is designed makes making alterations to existing edits very easy. What I love especially is the way multiple versions of an edit can be kept stored within one project. I do still miss the ability I had in Vegas to apply effects on both a track, clip, and video event level. I would like to see this implimented in future versions of the program.

Multicamera editing is pretty good. You need some processing oomph in your machine to handle a lot of high def footage streams simultaneously. But there is a lot of versatility once you have managed to figure out how it all works. This mode isn't the most intuitive in the world, but it does its job.

Apple's Color
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Working with Color is a boon. This program is nowhere near as frightening as it may seem at first. What seems like a counter intuitive interface actually has a lot of reasoning behind it. Some say that it is un-Apple like, and that it should be similar to Final Cut Pro and the other programs in the suite. This would be to miss the point however. The interface in Color has been designed for colour correction purposes. It looks like it does for very sound  technical reasons, and as a result it would be a big mistake to make the interface grey like the other programs! I wish I had Color for the last feature production I worked on.

Special mention must go to the Effects room. What appears to be a limited collection of filters turn out to be incredibly powerful once you realise how they can be made to interact with one another. Something else that is impressive is the way in which you can assign multiple grades to a picture and switch between them. These sorts of features will of course be second nature to dedicated colour correction artists. For many desktop users though, these sorts of abilities will offer a power not available before at this level, and at this price point.

Soundtrack Pro 2. Intuitive, but very buggy.
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In the course of using the Final Cut Studio 2 suite I have had one bad experience. Soundtrack Pro is fine for adjusting single audio files. It would be great if it could integrate with existing projects, and auto conform etc as it is supposed to do. Sadly however each and every time I have tried working on a multitrack project exported from Final Cut in Soundtrack Pro it has crashed on me, failed to render out sound properly (sometimes ignoring complete channels. And yes I had set the rendering options correctly!) For some bizarre reason what you hear while playing back the timeline in STP2 is not what you get when you output a final render. Quite often I would tell it to use Channel 2 from a video clip, but it would render out Channel 1, the on board camera mic! So frsutrating is my experience of STP2 not doing what it is told to that I have all but given up on it.

This is a real shame because it has so much to offer. Working on projects could be a dream if it functioned properly. But there is nothing worse than spending a week on a sound mix only to have the final output completely ruined and no obvious way of solving the problem. Reading the various forums on the web it appears that I am not the only one suffering these issues. Although most who complain are branded liers, or finnicky (as in what do they expect for the price!!) The fact is we just want a program that works. Soundtrack Pro as it stands, does not.

Luckily the rest of the suite makes up for this. Unless you have an equivilent to Soundtrack Pro your audio editing will be limited. But you will have most of the other tools at your disposal  to create great visual experiences. Next time I'll take a look at Motion, Compressor, and DVD Studio. 

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