November 13, 2009
Key companies are completing workflows and adding useful features to leading editing systems.
By Philip Hodgetts
In April of 2001, when Automatic Duck created tools to allow projects to move between editing and compositing applications smoothly and transparently, it has became obvious that small software developers can resolve workflows or add missing features to NLEs — instead of waiting for companies including Adobe, Apple, Avid and Sony Creative Software to do so.
For third parties to add functionality to an application, it must have a way of communicating with the application. Apple made a very smart decision to open Final Cut Pro via XML export and import. Media Composer is somewhat more limited but can use Avid Log Exchange (ALE) to import metadata and has limited XML export capability but does support (along with Adobe Premiere Pro) the Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) for project exchange. Unfortunately AAF is a much more complex specification than the plain text of XML, so many more developers work with XML than with AAF.
I asked five developers — XMil, Spherico, Digital Heaven, Intelligent Assistance and Video Toolshed — about their software tools, how they came to start developing them, where they get new ideas from, how they feel about customer features requests and how they promote their business.
In the fairness of full disclosure, I’m half of the development team at Intelligent Assistance, and the people running the other four I would consider friends.
XMiL Workflow Tools
Los Angeles-based XMiL’s founder, Rainer Standke, started by dabbling in programming while working as a film and television editor. With the assistance of another of our featured developers – Andreas Kiel, of Spherico – Standke discovered he could create quite powerful tools with AppleScript and full Macintosh GUI. XMiL’s software tools revolve around Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Server and the XML those apps can export and import. As an experienced editor, Standke has a pretty good sense of what is missing in Final Cut Pro and the corresponding workflows, and tries to fill those gaps.
Ideas for software tools come from his own frustrations, from customers and from suggestions from people in the industry. For example, XMiL Songster was suggested by an editor-friend of Standke’s who works at one of the bigger trailer houses in L.A. They now have it of every Final Cut system in the facility.
When asked about customer feature requests Standke responded: “Customer requests are great, because they help you understand what the needs are out there. I try to be as responsive as possible, because the customer is who we need to like the product, and buy the product.”
Like all of the developers XMiL finds marketing a challenge relying on their Web site, presentations to user groups and contributions to industry email groups to build word-of-mouth publicity.
Digital Heaven
Martin Baker’s Digital Heaven showed Multicam more six months ahead of Final Cut Proand their BigTime Timecode display was out three years ago! Now, U.K.-based Digital Heaven offers 14 plug-ins, five applications and two utilities that enhance and expand the capabilities of Final Cut Studio. Their products are designed to improve workflow by saving time or making a process easier. For example, AutoMotion allows the batch creation of Motion titles and Loader simplifies the importing of audio tracks and graphics files into Final Cut Pro.
Their earliest products were “selfishly designed to solve our own problems!” as a postproduction facility. They started with a range of Final Cut Pro plug-ins and moved on to developing stand-alone applications. They closed the post facility at the end of 2005 to focus on software design and development full time.
Most of Digital Heaven’s ideas come from within the company and they have generated a long list of potential applications. Colleagues suggest some ideas, like Final Print. Baker echoes a common sentiment among this group of developers: “Generally speaking, if another developer already offers a particular solution we don't see much point in replicating it. Being first with a solution can generate more buzz, so we prefer to create original and innovative products. “
For Digital Heaven, feature requests are an important part of the development process and are used to shape future development. A focus on usability and interface design sometimes leads to a rejecting a feature that would add complexity.
Digital Heaven has the most innovative approach to marketing their products, with two marketing strategies. The first is to give some products away for free and the second is to develop Web sites that appeal to their core market where they advertise their own products. Avid2fcp.com and finalcutters.com bring a sizeable chunk of incoming traffic to their main site.
Video Toolshed
Based in the Netherlands, Bouke Vahl’s Video Toolshed creates tools “that mostly are needed in my [editing boutique]” or to a specific client demand if there are likely to be others with the same need. Vahl’s tools tend to focus around Timecode as he is a self defined “Timecode Geek.”
Video Toolshed was born out of “pure need” for Subbits, their subtitling tool and the lack of subtitling support in DVD Studio Pro v1 or a suitable alternative. Since then ideas have come from a personal need or a need of his editing customers with the primary goal to “automate boring stuff, or get the work outside the edit suite.” When asked how he responds to customer feature requests, Vahl responds enthusiastically: “I LOVE it.” He believes that feature requests, bug reports and rants make the final product better. Vahl also feels that it’s important to continue to be a working editor because “if you’re not in the trenches, you can’t develop custom tools.”
Intelligent Assistance
Along with Digital Heaven, Burbank, CA-based Intelligent Assistance are the only full-time developers profiled here. Intelligent Assistance’s software tools are developed by Dr Gregory Clarke with user interface/functionality input from myself.
Intelligent Assistance started creating workflow tools by “accident” when a “hobby script” Clarke was working on for a technology demonstration of the use of “artificial creativity”. When he added the ability to read and write Final Cut Pro XML and built a Cocoa (native OS X) interface First Cuts was born.
Since then, Intelligent Assistance has created a range of workflow tools to help producers and editors using Final Cut Pro. There are a variety of tools - from creating the first cut of a sequence to reporting clips in sequences to synchronizing dual system sound. According to Clarke, what they all have in common is that they save producers and editors time and money.
Like the other developers, new software ideas come from in-house needs or suggestions from workflow clients. According to Clarke, “Final Cut Pro's robust XML export/import workflow gives us a lot of options for reporting about items in a Final Cut Pro project and for creating new items.”
Intelligent Assistance also reflect the positive attitude to feature requests because the programmer is not the person using the software, so they rely on feature requests to know what users want the software to do. Like Bouke, Clarke has the attitude that “there’s probably other users who would want that feature too,” citing the rapid development of Sequence Clip Reporter.
Intelligent Assistance also relies of presentations and demonstrations to user groups and word of mouth. Fortunately, producers like to share time-saving ideas with each other.
Spherico
Andreas Kiel’s Spherico, like the other companies mentioned in this article, creates “tools that close gaps in the workflow or extend/complement features of tools like Final Cut Studio” that are “all about workflows”. Based in Germany, Kiel started using Filemaker Pro in conjunction with Premiere to build tools for 360 degree video when there were no similar tools. Starting early with Final Cut Pro, he created film workflow tools using Applescript, QuickTime Player and Final Cut Pro.
Kiel was the first to integrate BWF files into Final Cut Pro with correct timecode, now a standard part of the software. Since then new ideas have come from personal work or projects he’s hired for. Current and potential customers provide more ideas than can be worked on as Kiel has a “real job” where he makes his primary income.
Spherico find requests fall into three broad categories: the feature is already there, “Wow, how could I forget to add that,” or a suggestion to add something additional to what is already there. For example, Spherico’s P2 Flow was recently modified to add the “shooter” metadata to the Final Cut Pro project at the request of a Chicago-based customer.
Like most of the developers, Spherico gets publicity from e-mail list members or “shameless self-promotion,” combined with hints for solving actual problems. Certainly, all the developers in this article will cross-promote if they think another’s software is the solution to a problem.
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