Currently right now I'm working in Final Cut Express which I've been using since late 2009 and its always worked well for me! Recently however I've been thinking about upgrading to Final Cut Pro X but now some are telling me to use Avid! Which one should I use? To all you professional editors out there, which one would you recommend using? I've also used Adobe Premiere in the past and that worked out well for me too!
Post-Production : Post-Production! by Robert Pfeiffer
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Just switched from FC to Adobe. It took a little adjusting, but so glad I made the switch, if for no other reason than the fact that I can edit in native format without having to re-code everything, and/or render during the editing process. If you're going to drop real money on something, I think Adobe is going to be the long-range winner in this race, and Final Cut is on its' way out...
Every pro in the British Film and TV Industry uses Avid. But essentially its a cutting programme. use whatever gets your job done. hope this helps.
Knowing now that many big film production companies use Avid, I want to get Avid but its out of my price range. I've been also recently looking at Adobe Premiere again. This is a tough choice!
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Many big film companies use Adobe, Avid, Final Cut, Fusion etc. I even know some that use Sony Vegas. It always depends on what it is you need to do. There is no industry standard and knowing a bit of all of them, and one very well, will be good enough. They all do more or less the same and the audience would never see the difference. Adobe has become a really good and professional tool, used by big studios - especially with the great work flow. And the things you can do in the new AE? Amazing! FC X? Terrible! Avid? Meh... Which software to use, boils down to personal preference.
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Premiere Pro CS5 and later will do all that you probably need to do. Avid is the benchmark as is Hasselblad to the still camera or Ferrari to the sports car but many pros do not use Hasselblads (I never did) and many drivers do not drive Ferraris. There are a lot of pros that use Premiere Pro and it is a little less damaging on the bank account.
Thanks for your input guys I really appreciate it! Yeah right now my 3 main strong points in film is working as a DP (I own a Canon t3i DSLR camera which I just got 2 months ago) assistant director and I love editing! I'm still working in Final Cut Express which at times can have minor hassles like rendering a lot. I've heard many good things about Avid but straight up, I can't afford Avid. A film friend of mine out in LA said all the big production companies are using Avid. I lasted used Avid 6 years ago and I didn't like it. I have used an older version of Premiere Pro. I loved it but it took up too much space on my old PC and slowed things down! Have a Mac now and I absolutely love it! For the longest time I've been wanting to get FCPX but now I'm leaning away from it and I almost feel like I want to get CS6 now just because I've heard so many positive things about it! Its a tough choice for me and in the end I guess it does boil down to personal experience.
I've been years on Final Cut up to 7, which I still use primarily, especially on projects where it will need to be sent out for color correction, sound mixing, etc. I have recently done a couple of projects in FCPX and had a fairly pleasant experience with it. I would recommend it only for projects where you are going to be finishing and delivering yourself as it still has some input/output issues (though third party products are fixing a lot of that). Given your experience with FCE, there might be a lot of familiar aspects to it that could be helpful. Regardless of what you decide, I would definitely check out lynda.com for a tutorial. You can get a basic rundown of any of these programs relatively inexpensively. They each do the same things very differently sometimes (and often have multiple ways of doing the same thing) and a basic rundown can save a lot of frustration. A new editing program can be intimidating, so having the knowledge of where things are and what they do can be huge. Good luck!
Not an editor, but as a director and producer, I will say that sitting in on the editing process AVID is the industry standard, and Adobe is a very close second... and both are much more user friendly than Final Cut, in any incarnation.
Robert - What type of work do you mostly edit? If you are doing mostly scripted feature, or documentary work, that is not motion graphics heavy I would go in the Avid direction. For just straight cutting I don't think it can be beat. If you are doing more corporate type work or commercials that require a lot of After Effects then Premier would be the best choice. This due to it's integration with After Effects which is quite amazing. Finally where the learning curve is concerned you will find it easier to transfer your FCP knowledge over to Premier CS6, it is very similar to FCP Classic. Good luck making the move, many of us are in the same boat, Mike