For the first time in years, I won’t be at the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit. If you’ve never been but always toyed with the idea of going, try attending at least one Summit. It could change your life.

For great coverage before, during, and after the event, I recommend following along with Chris Hocking at the FCP Cafe: https://fcp.cafe. Since Chris loves FCP and Everyone Loves Chris, we’ll all win.

If you are going this year, here are a few tips to make your visit more enjoyable.

Apple’s House, Apple’s Rules

I’m not FMC, but coming from the world of live event production and coordination, I can only imagine the hoops they have to jump through every year to convince Apple to let a group of strangers into their house.

So if they ask you to sign the NDA, do it. If they ask you not to post pictures on the Internet, don’t do it. Good guests are invited back.

Give Apple Fuel For New Ideas

The Pro Apps team will be there for a Q&A.

They know a bunch of people want a Roles-based mixer. Believe me, they do.

So stop asking about it during the Q&A. That time is precious.

Instead try asking about something new like:

1. OpenTimelineIO support? https://opentimelineio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
2. Taking the Video (or Audio) Animation tool out of the timeline and making it available in the Inspector?

A related item…

Stop Asking Apple the Same Thing

“Is Final Cut Pro going away?”

Someone asked the Pro Apps team that after Apple:

1. Invited attendees to a special presentation hosted at Apple Park for the first time in years.
2. Unveiled brand new releases of Final Cut Pro for macOS, Final Cut Pro for iPad, and Logic Pro with a soup-to-nuts workflow showing all of it in action on the same piece.
3. Showed those brand new releases running on the latest releases of Apple silicon for Mac and iPad.
4. Confirmed Final Cut Pro for iPad was the culmination of five years of work and that updates for Final Cut Pro for macOS would be released much faster now that Final Cut Pro for iPad was out there.
5. Showed us the new scrolling timeline.

🤦🏽‍♂️

Don’t Ask Apple About Stuff You Know They Can’t Answer

At this stage, I don’t know what those questions would be, but I’m always amazed at the patience the Pro Apps team has when they attend these events and someone tries one of these Stump The Chump questions on them.

And now for something completely different…

PostLab 2.0 – It’s Come a Long Way, Baby

If you’re not using PostLab 2.0 with Final Cut Pro, you’re missing out. It replaced PostLab Classic in September and it’s the way forward – whether you’re working alone or playing in a band.

If you’re still not convinced, check out PostLab 2.0’s Releases page: docs.hedge.video/postlab-2…

You’ll see increased support for more apps beyond Apple’s Pro Apps, but they’ve also done some serious under-the-hood work starting with PostLab 2.0 24.0.12 that includes:

• File verification on uploads using the same world-class engine OffShoot uses
• Additional database backups for each upload.

Also, there’s even more Bring Your Own Storage options. More accurately, if your storage isn’t qualified for PostLab 2.0 yet, ask the team at Hedge about it and they’ll work with you on it.

Although I no longer work with Hedge, I believe in PostLab 2.0 with every fiber of my being. Jasper, Tim, Taco, Simon, and others on the team keep putting in the work to make PostLab 2.0 a first choice for Final Cut Pro users, and really for any creative professional.

Try it. You’ll love it.

How the FCP Creative Summit Changed My Life

I attended my first Summit in 2017. I met great people like Ryan Welborn and David Tillman and marveled at meeting others I’d only seen on YouTube or heard on podcasts about FCP.

That was also the time I met a pre-Adobe Frame.io team which led to being invited to write for WORKFLOW.

When I included PostLab in Chapter 3, Jasper Siegers noticed as did the rest of Hedge.

In 2020, I started working with Hedge and the PostLab team.

Later that year, I found myself co-presenting PostLab at the Summit as the only viable remote workflow solution for FCP teams during the pandemic.

And in 2023, I returned to the Summit to debut PostLab 2.0 and its core breakthrough: Event Locking for Final Cut Pro.

I can draw a direct line between that first Summit in 2017, meeting the best-of-the-best in our industry, and experiencing some of my greatest professional achievements.

Again, if you’ve thought about going to the Summit but never been, you should go at least once. You never know what may come of it.

Have a great time at the FCP Creative Summit and best wishes to all the organizers and this year’s presenters. I write a lot more about other apps these days, but using Final Cut Pro with PostLab 2.0 reminds me I’m still part of the worldwide “Rebel Mac” unit.

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