My interest in video and editing started with a Canon Elura 100, purchased from Circuit City. I edited using iMovie on the eMac (ATI Graphics), which we later cracked open and overclocked to 1.33 GHz. I remember being amazed that I could kinda browse the Internet while capturing from miniDV.
Fast forward to 2011 and I found myself at Texas State University shooting with the Canon EOS 7D and editing on the 2009 Mac Pro. It had two quad-core Xeons and felt unstoppable. I also bought a used 2009 MacBook Pro for $400, maxed out the RAM and put SSD in it.
I discovered journalism could be fascinating or a rush of excitement, and I can still remember how exhilarating it felt to run toward the site of a bomb threat. I realized the iPhone could capture and transmit the video to DropBox using LTE, I could tell this technology would change the world forever.
After graduating, I moved back to Dallas and found myself at Wigs.com an online retailer for… you guessed it. The company wanted to transition to Magento and stop serving their videos from Amazon S3, because they realized YouTube had become a search engine.
My job was to sift through all the old Final Cut Pro 7 files, relink the assets, export in HD, and upload all of it to YouTube. They asked me to edit one video in Final Cut Pro X to see whether I could do it before they hired me. That was my first time using the new version and I was anxious, but I did it!
I’ve always enjoyed automation, so I built Compressor workflows to upload to YouTube and export a local copy for archival. There were 11 TB of wig product videos and I uploaded ~400 videos. I also designed automated workflows to convert images in preparation for the web site.
The Wigs.com offices were located in the old Observer building at Maple and Oak Lawn, next to the famous Grapevine Bar. I commuted using the DART rail and bus. I enjoyed the office because there was a reason to be there.
I loved editing commercials for new season releases. This commercial resonates in a new way because Rachel Welch died in 2023. I did not expect to work in the cosmetology industry. It is both serious and hilarious part of my past. It is a fun fact.
A few years earlier, at Texas State, I fixed a guy’s Mac. Years later, I looked him up on LinkedIn and found out he had landed a job at Apple. I wanted to work for Apple for about half my life. He referred me. I eventually supported Final Cut Pro X, Compressor, and Motion at Apple. I spoke to thousands of Apple customers about how they used Final Cut Pro X and advised them based on my professional experiences and education.
The release of Final Cut Pro X was controversial. And despite many improvements, much of the market already abandoned it in favor of Adobe Premiere Pro. Unlike Final Cut Pro 7, the new version was rebuilt with Cocoa, optimized for 64-bit, and could manage files on its own in packages called Libraries. It could perform some “real-time” renders of text and animations, perform full renders and export (or share) in the background, and it introduced the magnetic timeline. But it was initially missing important features that film studios wanted. And then Randy Ubillos left Apple.
The typical Final Cut Pro X user was allegedly no longer a “professional,” but a “content creator,” primarily targeting YouTube. Although optimizations like Intel QuickSync Video allowed it to surpass the performance of more expensive systems running Premiere Pro, the other changes to UI were overwhelmingly unpopular. Apple’s treatment of the 2013 Mac Pro didn’t help, either. It was nicknamed the “trash can” and since it lacked QuickSync, Final Cut often ran better on the 5K iMac for thousands less.
I’ve continued to explore Final Cut Pro X and other editing software using new cameras and techniques. In 2017, I became certified in Final Cut Pro 10.3. Although it’s no longer possible to become certified, I consider it a great honor to have taken and passed the exam at the Apple campus.
My more recent explorations involve unconventional cameras like the gimbal-stabilized DJI Osmo Pocket, 360° cameras like the Insta360 One X, and more recently HDR with the Sony ZV-1, a camera that can perform skin smoothing in real-time. Specialized cameras allow for shooting in new and exciting conditions. It’s important to try new devices.
The future of video is many things all at once. It can create awe and ambience, or inspire a quick laugh. I’m a huge fan of expanded color spaces like HLG, Dolby Vision, and Rec.2020 and Final Cut Pro X had early support for these video features. Check out my latest article about AV1 video encoding.
