Okay, it’s not really an official day as declared by whatever power out there that declares official days but it is one frustrated editor’s attempt to make a statement about his dissatisfaction with Final Cut Pro X. Mike J. Nichols is probably best known as the guy behind the recutting of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace into The Phantom Edit. Today he’s also an unhappy FCPX owner who’s trying to organize “X” Terminator Day – International Final Cut Pro X Refund Request as a day for those who aren’t satisfied with FCPX to band together and ask Apple for a refund. If you want to hear just how dissatisfied Mike is with FCPX, give this recent episode of That Post Show a listen (it’s also a very interesting discussion of FCPX overall) and you’ll get an idea. Mike has outlined the steps one needs to take to actually ask Apple for a refund on his website.

A lot of people have been asking for FCPX refunds and some have gotten them. Personally, I’m going to keep my copy of FCPX with the hope that it does get better. Truth be told I actually recommended a friend buy his own copy of FCPX the other day (as opposed to using Final Cut Express) when he was asking for help with a small DVD project. It was a three-camera shoot and he couldn’t afford to hire an editor; I offered to help him set it up and finish it at the back end. He is going to edit the program himself and it was a perfect job for FCPX: auto-syncing multiple cameras at a staged event, stabilizing a shaky camera, matching the consumer camera colors, doing the camera switch and sending that to a DVD. I guess since FCPX doesn’t have multicam it’s not perfect for the job but for someone new to editing (who had used iMovie and Final Cut Express a bit) it should be easy for him to learn. That’s part of what FCPX is all about, ease of use. We’ll see how it goes as he gets into it.

“X” Terminator Day – International Final Cut Pro X Refund Request day is scheduled for August 29, 2011. If you’ve been thinking about asking for a refund, that day is probably as good as any. Even if a lot of people participate it won’t be blip on Apple’s financial radar. If nothing else, however, it would be symbolic.