An Introduction to Final Cut Pro

Transition Year Teaching Programme 2012

Post-production

Final Cut Pro

Video editing software developed by Macromedia and Apple inc.

Allows users to log and capture, edit and output video footage to many file formats

Over the last number of years, it has become more popular with film and television editors

Getting Started

Final Cut Pro is found in the applications folder on a Mac computer

On the Desktop, Click GO –Applications

Double click the icon

Final Cut Pro Interface

Importing a Video Clip

Importing files into Final Cut Pro is a similar procedure to other programmes.

Go to File, Import, Files (Select your files to import)

The Browser Window The Browser

Window displays all clips imported into Final Cut Pro

Gives basic information about each video clip

The Browser Window

The Browser Window also holds many different effects that can be used in an edit

By clicking on the “Effects” tab at the top of this window, you can chose from different types of effects for your film

The Browser Window The “Effects” tab

displays an array of all useful effects that may help your narrative

Basically the user “drags and drops” an effect onto the beginning or end of a clip in the Timeline

The Viewer Window

You can view each clip stored in the Browser Windowthrough the Viewer Window This is done by double clicking the video file

The Viewer Window

The Viewer Window also holds a tab for different features.

The motion tab allows for changing many features of the video including rotation and scale.

The Viewer Window The Viewer Window

displays the entire clip

When editing, we may only need to use various sections of the overall clip

In order to do this, we need to divide the clip into smaller clips

Dividing clips on the Viewer Window Click on the Viewer Window

Press “I” where you want your clip to begin

Press “O” when you want it to end

These stand for “In” and “Out” Points and determine the length of your divided clip

Timeline

The selected clips from the Viewer Window are dragged down onto the Timeline to begin editing

The Canvas Window

The edited clips on the Timeline are viewed in the Canvas Window

The Tool Palette

Different types of tools are used to help edit video footage.

These tools are found in the Tool Palette

The audio levels are located beside the Tool Palette.

The Blade Tool One of the most popular editing tools

Click anywhere on a clip on the Timeline to divide the clip

Reselect selection tool on the palette, select unwanted clip and press backspace to delete

Editing on Final Cut Pro

This is the basic knowledge that you will need to know to edit video footage on Final Cut Pro

There are many other advanced techniques available to achieve different edits

If there is any other technique that you would like to use during post-production, just ask!