There’s a Robert Rankin joke about someone not being heard from for a few chapters, but I’m sure I’ve used it before, so I’ll just plough on…
I’ve just had my first holiday of the year and man did I need it. I’ve still been tinkering with some side projects which should earn me some extra dosh for a HD Camera, but on the whole I’ve avoided editing or writing or any work whatsoever. Nice. Back to the grindstone now though…
Final Cut Studio 2 is proving to be a worthwhile investment. On the surface Final Cut Pro 6 itself seems pretty much the same, but under the bonnet it’s clear that a lot has gone on, not least an more refined link between the Studio products and the introduction of Pro Res 422. The most obvious improvements are elsewhere – the new Color program, which I’ve yet to get stuck into, the cleaned up interface of SoundTrack Pro and the big kahuna – Motion 3.
I love Motion 3, it’s a lovely bit of software. The 3D stuff is just so much fun. I’ve barely scratched the surface of it really, but I’ve come up with a very pleasing opening sequence for Greetings. My only qualm with it is that on my top spec (for how much longer?) iMac – it’s a bit slow. I watched some demos Apple did at NAB, courtesy of FreshDV, and it’s clear that they are using some seriously pokey Mac Pros for that.
It looks like they’ve nabbed the bits of Shake that most people used – 3D compsiting and timeramping – and moved them over into the main production bundle. I’m actually wondering if I’ll need Shake for my planned bluescreen experiments later this year…
All in all, for the price, it’s well worth upgrading. I had no problems upgrading the FCP projects, though as with anything like this that could go pear shaped, it’s best to keep backups of the FCP5 versions, just in case!