Final Cut Pro for Mac - Workflows (2024)

Holler

Making the cut for the world’s biggest companies.

How FinalCutPro is helping a London corporate video team work faster and be more creative from import to upload.

Overview

In the highly competitive world of corporate video, you’re only as good as your last job. Time is money, and clients are focused on the end result. London marketing agency Holler knows this better than most. Its award-winning work for top global companies has to impress, and FinalCutPro has been at the center of Holler’s business from the very start.

Workflow

Holler was founded in 2011, the same year FinalCutPro 10.0 was released. Intrigued by the new platform’s innovative features and fast performance, the company built its workflows on it. Today the editing team at Holler relies on FinalCutPro across the company, centralizing projects and media on shared storage for maximum efficiency.

A range of professional cameras are used to shoot, from full-frame DSLRs to the Sony FX9 and ARRI Alexa. The post-production team uses the FinalCutPro import tools to apply metadata during ingest and get to work fast — even before the footage has finished copying to the server.

To meet a demanding delivery schedule, the editing team completes all its work in the FinalCutPro timeline. Using built-in color correction tools combined with the Object Tracker, editors are able to color grade, create dynamic looks, and fine-tune their work with precision. A final audio mix is achieved using Logic-based effects included in FinalCutPro. Creative filters and plug-ins from MotionVFX and CrumplePop further enhance the look and sound of their projects.

With Frame.io’s native workflow extension, the team can effortlessly share projects and receive feedback without leaving FinalCutPro, exceeding client expectations and finishing jobs in record time.

Jenn Jager, Plum Productions

Teach. Edit. Deliver.

How a small business owner uses FinalCutPro and Motion to grow her customer base and YouTube following all at once

Overview

Jenn Jager is the founder of PlumProductions, a fast-moving media company that creates content for dozens of clients in South Florida. She’s also the host of two YouTube channels where she covers trending topics in video production and tips for starting a new business. Jenn’s team relies on the speed and efficiency of FinalCutPro to produce hours of high quality videos every week.

Workflow

At Plum Productions, producers collaborate with the client to develop a concept that best meets their needs. Filming takes place with Sony cameras set up in a pair to capture multiple angles, with audio recorded on Sennheiser and Sony microphones. The team deploys a DJI Mavic 2 Zoom drone for dramatic exterior scenes, and an iPhone14Pro is essential for those hard-to-get shots in tight spaces.

The editors import their media into FinalCutPro and quickly get to work assembling a project. They then rely on Motion to generate dynamic custom effects and titles, as well as powerful tools like Continuum FCP with Mocha tracking and masking from BorisFX. “In one evening drone shot, we used BorisFX’s BCC+ Sunset to enhance the sky and the result was pretty eye-popping,” comments Jager.

Jenn then turns to her YouTube channels, capturing live 4K footage while simultaneously recording her Mac’s display with Telestream’s ScreenFlow. Syncing both videos in FinalCutPro, she can quickly color correct and adjust timing. Prebuilt graphics and effects are created with PixelmatorPro and Motion, and Jenn uses Smart Conform to make a vertical version of her video for TikTok or Instagram in one easy step. Exporting pristine 4K files for delivery is blazing fast with MacStudio.

FinalCutPro’s power and ease of use has allowed Jenn to reach her ever-growing social media audience, while also managing a successful production company.

OurLastNight

One band. Billions of streams. And counting.

How a hard rock band uses video to grow their fan base

Overview

Trevor and Matt Wentworth started their band OurLastNight in 2004 when they were just 10 and 15 years old. Three years later they were signed to a major record label — but then in 2013 they decided to go independent. The band started to use video as a way to market themselves and grow their fanbase. FinalCutPro gave them the speed, ease of use, and power to create amazing music videos to promote their tracks.

Workflow

OurLastNight releases around 30 music videos a year so they need a fast workflow capable of keeping up. It takes 2 hours for them to film a video on a Canon c70 together with lighting elements from Aputure and Nanlite. After filming Trevor can offload the footage onto his 14in MacBookPro and begin editing immediately in the studio. The performance of FinalCutPro on Applesilicon allows him to edit in full resolution and view material without the need to use proxies or render.

FinalCutPro’s simplified workspace allows the band to edit their videos together without getting bogged down by complex menus or multiple windows. The detailed audio waveforms make it easy to sync multiple takes together with the mixed music track. Once the edit is complete Matt will color grade using a plug-in from ColorFinale. The ability to layer the color tools in a single effect allows him to dial in the look he is looking for. As a final step he uses an OsirisLUT from color.io that gives the video a professional film look.

Using FinalCutPro has helped OurLastNight to grow their audience to over 2.45 million subscribers with over 2 billion streams and counting.

Knut Hake

Blood Red Sky.

A transatlantic Netflix thriller.

How an experienced editing team used FinalCutPro to deliver a Netflix Original feature film.

Overview

In director Peter Thorwarth’s new Netflix film Blood Red Sky, a woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists tries to hijack an overnight flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Veteran feature editor Knut Hake turned to FinalCutPro to tell this unique story. With its amazing performance and flexibility, FinalCutPro gave him the freedom to explore many creative options for the film.

Workflow

Award-winning director of photography Yoshi Heimrath’s initial filming took place on a soundstage in Prague, where the digital imaging team created ProRes LT proxy files from ARRI RAW camera footage. These assets and the original audio recordings were uploaded to the Netflix Content Hub and shared with Hake’s editorial team. They used Sync-N-Link X to quickly create audio-synced multicam clips, and LockitScript to add detailed on-set script metadata to FinalCutPro.

Hake and his assistant, Sam Plümacher, needed to craft an editing workflow that allowed them to collaborate in separate locations — while also accurately tracking the stunning visuals being created by the effects powerhouse Scanline VFX. Dividing the film into four reels, they used the collaboration app Postlab to edit sections of the project simultaneously, and leveraged the powerful roles feature in FinalCutPro to identify and track visual effects shots. The team exported FCPXML files to automate organized shot lists for Scanline VFX using EDL-X and Producer’s Best Friend.

After picture lock, Hake sent frame-accurate edit lists to the post facility WeFadeToGrey in Cologne, Germany, for final conform and color grade from the camera-original footage. They also used X2Pro to generate files for audio post, and tracked last-minute film shoots with Change List X, keeping the entire finishing team in sync.

Thanks to the flexibility and speed of FinalCutPro, a robust ecosystem of professional supporting apps, and a lot of hard work, Hake was able to deliver his edit ahead of schedule.

Joel Viertel and Steven Moyer

Banking on AppleTV+’s first film.

The making of The Banker

Overview

The first theatrical release by AppleTV+ features a powerhouse of acting talent: Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Mackie, Nia Long, and Nicholas Hoult. Based on real events, The Banker tells the story of two African-American entrepreneurs (Jackson and Mackie) and the challenges they face as they launch a real estate empire in 1960s Los Angeles.

For this groundbreaking project, editor Joel Viertel assisted by Steven Moyer needed a unique and innovative editing app. They chose FinalCutPro for its powerful organization capabilities and timesaving background rendering and exporting. Its unique audio features also allowed the editors to differentiate dialog, sound effects, and music sources, as well as keep the timeline organized without having to patch tracks. During the offline edit, the team worked in surround sound, which gave an added level of polish to the film.

Watch The Banker on the AppleTV app

Workflow

The film was shot on 35mm film; low-resolution proxies were made available quickly via a video tap on the on-set camera; and 2K proxies were available later via Kodak and Technicolor. To begin editing immediately, Viertel used the lo-res proxy footage to create a multi-cam clip for each take. When 2K proxies arrived and were ingested, the multicam clips automatically updated and the new higher-resolution footage was available on the timeline — instantly.

Moyer used Shot Notes X to add extensive metadata, including script notes with keyword ranges, “burning in” edge code from the film, and more on-lining data such as gamma, aspect ratio, and color information. He also added dialog keywords from the final script so Viertel could search the notes to easily find the correct takes and scenes for editing. To organize audio elements and visual effects the duo used Roles. And to track the version of VFX clips in the timeline, they generated a spreadsheet from FinalCut’s powerful metadata using Producer’s Best Friend. Using the two utilities meant they could quickly generate a spreadsheet with customizable columns and a wealth of time-based information, which saved hours that would’ve otherwise lost to tracking shots by hand.

For quick turnarounds, Viertel and Moyer used X2Pro Audio Convert to convert FinalCut XML into AAF files with embedded audio to use in Avid Pro Tools. Being able to use FinalCut and Pro Tools seamlessly allowed the editors to map specific audio roles to tracks in order to organize sessions for sound designers. Finally, they completed turnovers for finishing using EDL-X by Rainer Standke to create a traditional Edit Decision List (EDL), a longstanding standard in the film industry for moving edits between systems.

In a surprise ending, Apple decided to leverage the quality of the 35mm film and deliver the project in 4K instead of 2K, as originally planned. Even though they were deep in post-production, the team was able to rely on FinalCutPro’s incredible proxy workflows, quickly switching out the shots in the project, making adjustments, and, most importantly, delivering the film on time.