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Avid vs. Final Cut Pro — The Battle in the Job Market
By Mike Flanagan | June 25, 2008
The competition between Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer reminds me of the zeal and occasional rancor caused by the Mac vs. PC debates of the 1980s and 1990s. Both Final Cut and Avid have their fans. Some have switched from one to the other and are very happy with the switch. Others have switched and then switch back again. Experienced editors claim that Avid’s user interface enables more productivity. Others claim just the opposite.
The battle will rage for some time. And no doubt, Final Cut Pro is cutting signficantly into Avid’s market dominance. Avid totally ruled Hollywood for over a decade, but the Avid kingdom has seen some damage the past few years. Nonetheless, I proffer a few “rules of thumb” about how the Avid vs. Final Cut plays out in the video editing job market that I believe to be generally true. Times change, of course, and so will these. But these can help you now to make good choices:
- Knowing both Final Cut Pro and Avid well makes you the most employable. This, of course, is obvious (but provides a good starting point for this list).
- Hollywood is still an Avid town. If you will only know one system, the one to know is Avid. Few major feature films and prime time TV shows are edited on Final Cut Pro. Because those shows are at the pinnacle of esteem in Hollywood, Avid has earned much respect and admiration over the years. Many editors, well-known and otherwise, insist on Avid, viewing it as a step down on the esteem ladder to use Final Cut. That’s because Avid’s reputation precedes it and because Avid is more highly esteemed sometimes solely because it is (still and has been) more expensive.
- The rule above applies most of the time. Final Cut Pro reigns strong in select genres, such as indpendent, low-budget feature films and documentaries (indies). Final Cut is very popular with filmmakers on a shoestring. If you plan to start your career on low-budget work, for example, your better bet for a system to know is Final Cut Pro.
- Avid jobs pay better than do Final Cut Pro jobs. Companies and shows that are better-heeled are more likely to go with Avids. They pay higher rates than those that go with Final Cut Pro.
- Avid shows will have larger editing staffs. Those shows tend to have higher budgets. And Avid has been widely perceived as more advanced with its shared storage system (i.e. Unity/Isis), though this too is changing. The bigger the show, the more networking (of the system kind, not the human kind) is needed, and that’s been more Avid’s domain.
- One Avid system begets more jobs than does one FCP system. An Avid system is more likely to be networked, on a higher-budgeted show, with multiple shifts of workers. It’s quite common for one Avid to be shared among two or more editors or assistant editors, one working a day shift and another a night shift. Shift work like this is less common on Final Cut Pros, partly because they were historically cheap by comparison with Avid so did not require sharing to make the economics work. It’s also less common to have assistant editors working on a Final Cut Pro show because low-budget shows often dispense with the role of assistant editor.
This means that if you read a few years ago about New Wave Entertainment buying 40 Avid Adrenalines to add to what they already had, you can reasonably estimate that more than 40 editing jobs are being created to power those systems. If New Wave added 40 Final Cut Pros, it’s not as likely that they created more than 40 jobs. - The Avid editing “ecosystem” is much larger than is Final Cut’s. By ecosystem I mean all the 3rd party vendors that cater to the industry, such as equipment resellers, rental houses, post facilities, and technical service providers. Avid rode into Hollywood almost a decade before Final Cut Pro was a glimmer in its creator’s eyes, so more companies became entrenched with Avid than with Final Cut Pro. Therefore, your chance of getting a related job is better in Avid than in Final Cut Pro.
I hope these Avid vs. Final Cut Pro rules of thumb help you where it really counts, which is in the work force. What you choose to use for your own projects is really a matter of personal preference (and possibly some cash considerations), as they are both highly capable systems.
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Topics: video editing, avid, final cut pro, the hollywood industry |
sparky Says:
AVID’s great for its media managment, unity. And I agree more established companies tend to use AVID. but in the situation such as in the bay area, if you can’t get into those few established production houses, you’re outta luck and have to make sure you know your FCP and pretty much the entire Studio Suite so you can get those smaller gigs.
To me FCP is more intuitive and less clunky when doing actual editing, but i’m not exactly in that AVID generation. However, I enjoy that AVID is a fairly self-contained program and once you know Composer you’re set and no need for “soundtrack” or “livetype” or “motion”, which are great programs, but still they’re extra programs.
Its just so frustrating to try and learn all these extra programs when really one will do.
anyway this industry is always changing, and I say learn both. Definitely. Stay with one, and you’re missing out on a lot of jobs.
TRD Says:
I think that Quantel’s announcment of total online conform and DI from FCP will be a game changer in Hollywood. And being able to hang FCP on Quantel Servers may also change the way business is done.
Jim Says:
I know this is sort of between Avid and FCP, but I thought I might throw in my two cents. I personally prefer Final Cut over Avid, and Adobe Premiere over Final Cut. I know professional editors may deem Premiere beneath them for some reason, but I prefer it because of its built-in ability to integrate seamlessly with other indispensable adobe software such as Photoshop, Audition, Soundbooth, After Effects, and Flash. Since Premiere is designed to work together with those programs while Avid and FCP are not, it cuts way down on your sitting around and waiting for something to render so you can bring it into After Effects or something, thus making you more productive.