I have covid at the moment and feel like doggy do do,
but Apple just showed some interest in Final Cut users and I can’t not address it.
Apple has announced that Final Cut Pro will be coming to the iPad and it’ll have a slightly
different UI and some new features. Before I quickly talk about what things I think are cool,
I want to mention why this announcement is important for Final Cut users as a whole.
I, for one, don’t plan on editing on an iPad. At least at the moment. Partly because I don’t even own one. But
what does have me excited is the fact that this is a sign that Apple has not forgotten about its
editing software. It’s been too long since Apple has given us an update and this is one step in
the right direction, especially considering some of the machine learning features they’ve added.
So let’s start with an important point. The iPad version of FCP is a subscription.
That’s probably a bummer to a lot of you, but luckily it’s not that outrageous of a
cost. It’s about $5 a month or for the annual subscription it’s $50. Which is less than a
lot of plugins. Whether Apple is going to make the Mac version of FCP a subscription model,
I’m not sure. I hope not, but I’d kind of be down with $50 a year for the Mac version,
as long as that ensures that we get all the features we’ve been asking for.
Just looking at the UI of Final Cut on the iPad, you’ll notice that it’s not an identical twin of
the FCP we know, but more like a little brother. It has a different layout because it’s obviously
catering to the form factor of the iPad AND it’s designed to be intuitive for touch input.
How smooth this touch input is going to be, we’ll see, but the example videos impressed me. For one,
you can use your Apple pencil to write and draw directly on your video content
and have it animate. That’s beyond neat and something that could be cool for music videos,
infographic videos, promo videos, you name it. They’ve also added this jog wheel which
from what I gather, allows you to quickly and precisely move and adjust media. That’s pretty
freaking cool. I bet once you get good at using it, you can blow through edits.
Like I mentioned, the other reason this announcement gives me hope for the future
of the mac version of Final Cut are the new machine learning features that are
added to this version. I would imagine that these features will be transferred over to
the Mac version of FCP in the next couple months. Maybe around WWDC. One of features
is the ability to quickly remove or replace backgrounds without using a green screen or rotoscoping
with the Scene Removal Mask. This is like the plugin Keyper from FX factory,
however that plugin only allows you to cut out people. This appears to be more like the Magic
Mask in Davinci Resolve because you’re able to select whatever you’d like and mask it out.
They’ve also added auto crop which quote unquote, intelligently adjusts footage for vertical,
square, and other aspect ratios so you can deliver your videos to multiple destinations
with ease. This is pretty cool because they used the adverb, intelligently,
so I assume that means Final Cut will be able to identify what part of your shot should be
center frame and it’ll move your shot so your subject fits within that vertical aspect ratio.
That way you don’t have to set keyframes and adjust the position of your shot as
your subject moves. If that’s true, that would be really incredible.
We also have voice isolation on this version of FCP as well. I also kind of like how quick
it would be to adjust the pan of a sound or the volume. From what I’ve seen, a lot of
the user interface allows you to quickly adjust things which should help speed up editing a lot.
It also seems to have new graphics, effects, and audio, including HDR backgrounds, and animated
patterns. So basically a new library of built in presets that you can use in your videos. It also
gives you soundtracks that automatically adjust to the duration of your video,
which is pretty neat. I assume they’ll have to be the soundtracks provided to you by Apple though.
Another thing that’s cool for creators who want to film something quickly and get it into the
software, maybe you need a bit of b-roll that you forgot to record or maybe you’re a creator
who doesn’t have access to camera equipment, the Pro Camera Mode allows you to record with
your iPad in ProRes RAW, which will give you uncompressed video in really high quality,
and you can adjust camera settings while filming like white balance, exposure, and focus. Then
you can just import the media from your files or photos app directly into FCP. This makes me stoked
because if someone wants to create a video, they have everything they need to create it,
just by owning an iPad. I realize iPads are not cheap, but it’s a great alternative for
those who can’t afford a camera and a Mac. For me personally though, it would be really nice
to use to film some extra b-roll that I need and quickly bring it into Final Cut Pro to start editing as fast as possible.
This iPad version of FCP also allows you to do multicam editing, which is awesome,
and hopefully, you’re able to use different plugins in this version. It seems like it’s
something they’re including. This afterall, is a title from a MotionVFX plugin actually,
so I assume things should be able to be adopted over.
The other feature that’s nice is the ability to transfer your project to Final Cut Pro on your
Mac. So for example if you’re editing a project on you iMac and you have a flight to catch, you could
just transfer your project to your iPad, edit on the plane, and transfer back to your iMac when
you get home. This would also make coffee shop editing a possibility if you don’t own a Macbook.
Some people call Final Cut Pro, iMovie on steroids. And while I don’t think that’s true,
it’s probably true for Final Cut Pro on the iPad. That’s not necessarily a bad thing
though. I think having Final Cut on the iPad will be an amazing tool for creators because
it gives more flexibility to when and where people can create. It’ll also be great for creators who
don’t need all the bells and whistles that the Mac version of Final Cut offers, but who still
need an efficient editing software. And this announcement is also a much needed one for
Mac Final Cut Pro users because it shows us that Apple has not forgotten us. All the new features
are bound to transfer over in the next couple months and hopefully, Tim Cook includes more.
Thank you guys for watching and have a great day!