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Final Cut Pro Is Used For Professional Editing, But Not On Very Many Hollywood Films
By Frey | July 18, 2007
There is a list running around the internet that is not completely accurate, and therefor wrong. It’s a list of feature-length Hollywood studio films edited with Final Cut Pro. I’ll post the list here to help dispel the myth, but DO NOT take it as gospel (and especially don’t repost it again somewhere else). Although some of these films were definitely edited with Final Cut Pro, the list as a whole is inaccurate and, therefore, the reason why it was removed from Wikipedia. Here are the films:
The Rules of Attraction (2002), Full Frontal (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Napoleon Dynamite (2003), Open Water (2003), The Ladykillers (2004), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Super-Size Me (2004), Michael Moore Hates America (2004), Corpse Bride (2005), Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005), Happy Endings (2005), Jarhead (2005), Little Manhattan (2005), Hoot (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Zodiac (2007), Reign Over Me (2007), Youth Without Youth (2007)
There are definitely more than a few features that have been edited with FCP, but please don’t trust the above list as 100% gospel! FCP was used somewhere in production and/or in post on most of those films (and on many other Hollywood films), but it wasn’t used to cut all of those films together (this is a major problem I have with the internet and especially the openness of wikipedia - someone gets a fact wrong, posts it, everyone finds it, and they repost it, and it slowly becomes a fact somehow). Another thing to point out is that several of those films were independent films, before being sold to big Hollywood studios (upon their completion). I don’t think that can honestly be defined as a Hollywood studio film using Final Cut Pro.
Joel Cox, Clint Eastwood’s editor, uses Avid and he edited both ‘Letters From Iwo Jima‘ and ‘Flags of Our Fathers‘ with two Avid Film Composer XL systems (which were Mac based systems). See:
http://www.avid.com/profiles/061016_flags_unity.asp
I read somewhere that they did use FCP at one point, but just to import the Sony Z1U footage that was used in the film (yep, believe it or not, several Sony Z1U’s were used in shooting the movie for cut-away shots - HDV cameras are in a lot more places than you think, and the Z1U footage was used in a handful of shots in both films). The reason they used FCP to import the footage, from what I understand, was due to Avid, at the time, didn’t support the 1080i50 HDV format that they shot the clips with (it does now). FCP imported it and converted it over to what they were working with and it was then ingested into the Avid timeline.
I’ve heard that Full Frontal wasn’t cut with FCP, but a ‘third party’ NLE (not sure which one). I could be wrong though (can anyone verify this?). They did use ‘Cinema Tools technology’ (at the time, it was its own stand-alone product. It now comes with Final Cut Studio) to work on getting the telecine footage to 24fps. Check it out:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/apr/05cinema.html
Please do not view this as a “Final Cut Pro versus Avid” thing. It is not. Even though Avid was used to cut a few of the above films, the big picture of where FCP really stands out is usually overlooked: FCP is absolutely great for television commercials and other shorter works. You know, “the money makers” - where rendering isn’t a big deal. Those smaller TV Commercials are where Final Cut Pro really shines. A handful of studio features are cut together with FCP, but most are cut with the big editing machines that do 100% real time editing, since the editors have a deadline and waiting for a render costs a lot of money. But a good many TV commercials are cut together everyday with FCP, since they are small and quick and very easy to slap together with FCP - and it can be done on a laptop between shots.
FCP is used by a lot of people and especially in a lot of lower-budget films - go to any film fest and it’s very easy to find movies edited with either Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express (as well as Adobe Premiere and iMovie).
I’m definitely not implying that FCP is a bad program - it’s just the opposite. FCP is a very good program and it has made money for me over the years. I’d have to compare FCP to a nice Pontiac Solstice versus an Avid which is more like a 4-door Ford F350 pickup truck. FCP is fast and fun, but it wouldn’t haul very much of a load. The Ford F350 would haul around a heck of a lot, at any time, and without much effort - but you’re not going to get a date with it. Okay, I know it’s not the greatest comparison, but you get the point…
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Topics: Post Production, editing |
3 Responses to “Final Cut Pro Is Used For Professional Editing, But Not On Very Many Hollywood Films”
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July 28th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Corpse Bride was edited with Final Cut Pro. That advertisement on the Avid site says all those people used Avid OR Digidesign. They mastered the audio using ProTools as most people do. But the picture was locked with Final Cut Pro. Avid needs to make misleading ads like that because with Final Cut Pro they now have competition.
July 28th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
http://www.stopmotionworks.com/articles/cbrdstrpdbare.htm
You are wrong. Sorry
July 28th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
The article has been edited.
I’ll agree that Avid has some competition with FCP, but Apple uses similar advertising, so that’s not a good example of Avid’s business hurting.
Final Cut Pro is also not the only contender to the NLE market - take a look at what Adobe is doing. Adobe After Effects is used on just about every film, and they tie Adobe Premiere very closely to After Effects, so you can smoothly go back and forth between the two (you can do this with FCP and/or Avid, but you need Automatic Duck). Premiere has definitely come a long way over the past few years…