Last month, in this space, I reported on editor Chris Duke, who is one of the first Final Cut Pro X users to come out and say great things about the new editing software. Well, that apparently was just too much for some of our readers to handle. How dare I! What are they paying me?! Absolutely outrageous!!!
One of them was Allen Williams, who operates E.motion Productions in Las Vegas, which specializes in local and regional commercials, music videos and even independent film trailers. Williams was one of the first to voice his opposition and strong opinions regarding FCP X.
“When I see someone say something nice about Apple, I get angry!” says Williams. He’s got good reason. An editor for 30 years, Williams has worked with Avid NLEs, Autodesk’s Flame and Smoke, and for the past nine years Final Cut Pro. He had great things to say about the previous Final Cut releases and how it blows away other manufacturers’ attempts at NLE systems because of its intuitiveness and much more affordable price. When he had a chance to preview FCP X earlier this year, he was excited.
“I was jumping up and down with joy,” he says of the initial presentation. “I was so happy. This demo looked good. I thought, ‘This is great. They are changing the face of editing.’"
He later got a hands-on demo. “I almost fell over!” he recalls. “This is the dumbest, most useless and horrible editing system I have ever used! They only showed what seemed to be the good things. They didn’t let you know that there wasn’t a source window. They didn’t tell you [what] was missing. They didn’t say that there were no tracks! I was on the timeline in the demo, and I actually lost where I was?! I’ve never gotten lost, ever!”
So, he’s switching to Adobe Premiere Pro. (The Premiere Pro 5.5 interface is pictured) He’s already cut a few of his personal projects on it, as well as his first client-attended session. It’s not Final Cut, he notes, but “it’s getting there.”
He feels that Apple has abandoned the pro community and that companies like Adobe deserve support. “If every pro walked away from Apple, it wouldn’t matter. If every professional walked away from Adobe, they would go out of business. So, don’t we want to support the people that support us? I think that’s important.”