Getting a 16 Episode Gameshow to Rough Assembly in 30 Minutes With Final Cut Pro X

Brian Cassin goes in to great detail about how he efficiently edits a gameshow on FCPX. By using Final Cut Pro X and Lumberjack to pre-edit a season of High School Quiz Show, he saves hours, if not days of edit time.   I’ve had an animated version of this conversation with any producer or editor who will listen to me: What if I told you that within 30 minutes of ingesting my footage I had all 16 episodes of this show cut down to rough assemblies, all of my pick-ups for each show organized, any issues flagged, and any other meaningful things like room tone or applause organized. Would that be something that would interest you?” This article is for all of the editors and producers out there doing it the hard way. I used to be just like you. Prologue Four years ago I set out to learn FCPX so I could intelligently discuss why it was so bad at my local Avid Users Group meeting. I never made it to that meeting, and haven't attended ever since. That's because I’ve been using FCPX almost exclusively from that point on. Occasionally I'll go back to Avid or Premiere because I believe in being “multilingual”. It’s good to try out the latest innovations from other NLEs and sometimes a client requires it. So far, all this has done is remind me how much farther into the future FCPX is. It’s the Tesla of NLEs. The broadcast market in Boston is largely made up of shows from WGBH like Frontline, NOVA, and American Experience for example. My experience from working on a few NOVAs and National Geographic shows is that the market is predominantly Avid-centric (It helps that Avid’s HQ is just outside Boston). Since discovering FCPX 4 years ago while running an ad agency’s post production department, and acting as lead editor, I've been dying for a chance to put it through it’s paces in a high stakes broadcast situation. So when I got the opportunity to work for WGBH in 2016 on the gameshow High School Quiz Show (HSQS) and was given carte blanche on the post produc... Read more