Switching edit software – FCP to Premiere

29th December 2012

First up, a techie warning. This is a pretty geeky blog post, covering edit software, so apologies if that’s not for you but if it is your thing I hope it’s helpful.

Along with many other video production companies we’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether to move away from our tried and tested Final Cut Pro workflow to the bright new world of Adobe Premiere.  For many years Premier has been the cinderalla of video editing and even 3 years ago, any suggestion that it would become the “go to” professional choice would be laughed out of the room.

But here we are and how times change. Apple has turned its back on the professional market and moved to the consumer focused FCPX, and Adobe has risen to the challenge with a market leading piece of software.  With native integration of Red Epic footage and other 4K formats, native DSLR editing and a massive range of integration with motion graphics through After effects and other CS6 software, it has a huge potential.  This integration is especially important for video production companies like us as it’s suited to the fast turn around environments of marketing films, motion graphics, corporate video and branded content.

Before asking our team to make the leap to Premiere I thought I should get to grips with it myself, so did some tests and background research. There are thousands of articles and videos out there, some have been helpful, some not. I thought the most helpful thing I could do here is give run down of the best resources for those looking to switch.

A good place to start is with the almost legendary Philip Bloom who has made a great little film summing up the main issues.

It’s also worth having a quick watch of this one before starting:

Finally, if you are ultra hard core and want the real depth – this is the review for you

Once you’ve decided to get up and running, the first thing you will want to do is get an existing FCP project in to Premiere to see what happens – this video will show you where to start.

Once I got underway the thing I struggled with was how Premier handles trimming differently from FCP, and as this is at the core of most editing, I found it pretty frustrating. But then I found this helpful little vid from Paul Joy.

Once you do get going there are a few issues that can tangle you up – here’s a vid to warn you of the biggest ones. It’s worth watching to avoid hours of head scratching.

So, I’ve got you started but what if you want to make the leap and move a whole video production company to Premiere – well, you wouldn’t go far wrong by getting hold of a book called “Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro”, it’s got everything you need to know.

Good luck!

 

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