Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Premiere Pro, but for starters the CS4 version, which the article refers to, hasn’t even been released yet. This obviously precludes it from having been evaluated by professional editors. What I find more remiss is the failure to mention the real tools of choice for the majority of professional editors such as offerings from Avid Technology and their Media Composer, Sony, with its hugely popular PC editing package Vegas or Apple’s Final Cut Pro.

Anyone with even a peripheral knowledge of the professional editing tools market knows Premiere is not “the pro’s choice”. And while it does offer professional level features, it is certainly not as widely used in professional circles as products from the vendors mentioned above. This is reflected in the reader comments, which turn out to be the most educational and frankly, most entertaining part of the article.

Information Week should stick to subjects it knows best, otherwise it might become known as “Bad Information Week”.

The more significant change applies to integration with Final Cut Server, a 50MB download which has been updated to v1.1. The FC Server update, which also requires an upgrade to Quicktime 7.5, addresses several issues. The first pertains to the checking in and out of Final Cut Pro projects. Server v1.1 now provides an FCP binary file (as opposed to XML) which solves several issues, including corruption of project preferences that have intermittently been known to occur when a project is checked in or out.  A second change enables automatic updates to FC Server assets when changed in another application (i.e. Final Cut Pro). This applies to the other apps in the Studio suite, however media files for Motion, DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack Pro still have to be uploaded manually.

A final note; all Final Cut Pro workstations accessing Final Cut Server v1.1 must be upgraded to 6.0.4 and be running quicktime 7.5 in order for these changes to take effect . All edit proxy files will also need to be reanalyzed and recreated after the upgrade.

I agree with him whole heartedly, and feel that many software and hardware vendors have contributed to the problem by calling their products “editors”. As if human editors don’t have enough of a problem garnering respect, they now have to contend with advertising and marketing copy professing that it’s the software or hardware which does the editing, not an actual person. This is one of the drawbacks of the digital filmmaking revolution. The perception that technology obviates the need for the person, or that any person will do once you acquire a certain piece of technology.

Editing is and always has been a highly technical craft, but it is also an art form. To quote wikipedia, it is “the only art that is unique to cinema and which separates filmmaking from all other art forms that preceded it.” As editors, I think we need to start asserting ourselves more as artists. Yes, our work requires mastering a complex skill set. But this is only part of what it is to be an editor. The reality is, it’s not until we have some mastery of the technical aspects of our craft, not until they have become second nature to us, that we can become truly immersed in our work. This is the point where we have the ability to get in “the zone” and enable ourselves to let our imaginations and instincts run free.