John,
FCP X is not ready, it's a glimpse of what we can expect in future NLE usability, but it's full of hassles.
Therefore, despite tempting, doing a serious stuff on that software was very risky.
Video pipeline is messy and complex enough so we really want stability and reliability. The consequences are way more tragic than for stills and IMO there is no room for
things that aren't ready, even if they present a better usability for the people like us photographers who are not willing to eat long and complex learning curve.
There is IMO no short-cut. Motion is another planet and I think we should all meditate about that fact. As photographers, we tend to want motion "the easy way", wich is not a bad idea,
but I don't know any serious production house here that has embrassed a FCPX. Mostly photographers and indy videographers can afford that, but then
the price to pay doesn't last long to show-up. We want fast results, easy learning curves, cheap and intuitive softwares according to our criteriums and being operative in a few months,
when it takes years to the pros of motion to be just average. I'm afraid this is not the way it works here. We'll get to it in the future I'm sure, but today not yet.
We should call a cat, a cat: motion requires a lot more dedication in softwares training and very stable and proofed workflows and money.
I read so many times in Creative Cow that the guys who learned Smoke (for ex), had quite a bad time in the learning curve, but then, they work 10 time faster and certainly faster and
more reliable than with a FCPX. They suffer first, and have fun then, but we want to have fun first and then we end to suffer later.
We shouldn't beleive this mystic that motion can be so easy, if we want to do it seriously it's damn demanding, in all the pipeline involved, softwares included. I'm not saying that for you, because I'm aware you know it,
but for all the people who want to do the step and think that a 250 bucks FCPX is going to save them the harsh learning and investment the pros in this industry have been through...well, they might have a surprise when go deeper into it.
I saw that with myself. More than once I've been feeling frustrations on the Avid's particular (non-intuitive to me) implementation and the fact that the consequent learning is harder than Premiere Pro, but it's only when I really progress that I realise how it is a time saver later and how efficient it is. First I said: "what the hell"...then, ah ah...
There is no mystery why Avid runs the TV and Hollywood rooms. It's very unfriendly to learn but it works damn well. Nuke is the same etc...
Any kid takes a Premiere Pro and starts immediatly to edit. With Avid, no, and if you don't practise regularly you forget it. But if you do practise regularly, if it's your job, you go faster and secure (and I suspect even faster than with FCPx).
Cooter, who first was hostile on FCPx, then saw its potential, never stopped to warn us here about not doing any serious project on this software for the moment.
Your post confirms that fact, as many have experienced since its birth.
Apple beta test live with users...not very kind but truth.
