Apple has released an update for Final Cut Pro on iPad that adds support for a new camera app on iPhone, editing projects on external drives and an awesome new live multicam feature.
The most exciting to me is the new Final Cut Camera app on iPhone or iPad. This app gives you full control over the camera hardware on your device including the white balance, stabilization, codec and more. While the regular camera app does give you some of these options as well, they’re mostly buried in the Settings app. The new Final Cut Camera app keeps everything in one app making it much easier to lock your white balance or change your recording format between SDR and HDR or even Apple Log.
I’ve yet to test it thoroughly, but it does appear to be easier to understand than the popular Black Magic camera app. That said, more and more apps are launching in the pro iPhone camera space to keep competition in the space tight. Fellow Canadian Tyler Stalman was a big fan of the new app Kino at WWDC.
That said, one of the key features of the Final Cut Camera app is that it allows you to record Multicam footage that will wirelessly sync to your iPad for editing in Final Cut for iPad.
The new Final Cut Pro is available and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on it!⁰
Live Multicam on iPad pairs with the new Final Cut Camera app on iPhone to let you connect & preview four cameras at once. And new AI features on Mac will assist with your workflow. pic.twitter.com/WLwu3vb7GD— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) June 20, 2024
For anyone unfamiliar Multicam is the act of recording one event from multiple angles with multiple cameras. Traditionally, you would use the clap of the slate to sync all these clips up on your timeline and edit through them all manually, choosing when to cut your close-ups and wide-angle shots. As computers have gotten smarter over time, we’ve been able to sync clips automatically based on audio and they’ve been more organized on the timeline by nesting.
With the new camera app and Final Cut update, you can record a Multicam session with just a few iPhones, directly into your iPad. And it all happens wirelessly. There are a few limitations, but if you’re just starting your content creator journey or have a setup that could be slimmed down by using iPhones, this feature is really hard to beat. I even think teachers trying to record remote lessons could get a lot out of having one camera set up stationary to talk into, and another in their hands or set up above them in a top-down angle to help explain things or show notes. Being able to switch between these angles, or adjust settings on the cameras right from the iPad is really handy and means a lot of creators won’t even have to edit in post.
You can learn more about Final Cut Camera here.
Updates to Final Cut on iPad and Mac
Beyond the ability to control your multi-camera setup, Final Cut for iPad is finally getting the ability to edit video projects right from a drive. This was something that was missing from the original release and makes working with the software a lot more convenient. To upload files to Final Cut Pro on iPad you previously needed to load all the files into Final Cut. Now since you can work from a drive you won’t have to wait a super long time for all your files to import.
On the Mac side of things, there are new AI-enhanced tools to help smooth slow-motion footage or enhance the light and colour of a shot. There are a few other updates, and you can read about them all on Apple’s Newsroom.
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