We had some attention grabbing demonstrations for Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premier Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro X each of which raised plenty of questions.
Paul Owen from Gorilla (formerly Boomerang and Mwnci) gave a great insight into some of the tools and functionality of Media Composer, showing off a promotional video produced for a PS3 title with lots of cuts and fast paced action as well as demonstrating the Colour Grading abilities of Media Composer.
Questions that came up were related to the formats that Media Composer can handle (everything it seems!) and Multi-cam was another (one limitation is that MC can handle multi-cam for differing resolutions but not frame rates, they all have to be the same)
Alex Macleod was next, Digital Media Training Adobe Premiere Pro trainer and producer with amacfilms.com. He covered a quick and easy edit from footage shot only 15 minutes before the event started! The footage was an interview with Paul Hawke-Williams from Digital media Training on a rough green screen (basic 2 lighting set-up, not a flat green background). He ingested, cut and keyed in front of the audience eyes.
Members of the audience raised questions about export options for web and Alex mentioned that Adobe Media Encoder comes with the production package and that can handle all sorts of file formats.
Last but not least was Final Cut Pro X, demonstrated by Paul Hawke-Williams, Apple Master Trainer and producer at corporateHD.tv and a long time Apple fanboy and FCP user.
Lots are lots of great things that FCPX can do... there are also lots of things missing! Since there were quite a few Broadcast editors in the house, questions were raised regarding tape ingestion and output which aren't fully implemented in FCPX at this time (soon to come or use third party capture and print tools for now). There is also no Multi-cam so despite AVID's small limitation in this area there is still no comparison (literally!)
Some of the great things that were showcased were the excellent Colour Grading and Keying features,much to the delight of some in the audience.
So thats just a brief overview of a successful event, the feedback so far from delegates has been very positive. Thanks to AT Computers from bringing along a few Mac's with FCPX and Premiere Pro as well as The Picture Exchange for bringing along some Avid kit too.
Also we would like to thank Charles Manalesque from Digital Garage who brought along some JVC cameras and Ninja HDMI recorders too.
The purpose of this event was to compare the latest post production editors in what is an extremely volatile market-space at present. Whether it is switching to a new product, or upgrading an existing one, training is an essential part of any transition. The presenters from the event are the actual industry trainers who provide the training at Digital Media Training. So please get in touch and let us help you get the very best out of whichever application & workflow you choose.
For the people who attended, we'll be notifying you of the winner for the Avid Media Composer prize kindly donated by Avid, check out twitter and Facebook for details of the winner and updates to dates and courses available!
