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!