TECHNOLOGY - SOFTWARE

Final Cut Pro - Final Cut Express

Final Cut Pro comes as a suite of applications known as Final Cut Studio. This consists of Final Cut Pro for video/film editing, Soundtrack Pro, for audio mixing/sweetening, Motion for creating animated motion effects, and DVD Studio Pro for authoring finished projects to the various DVD formats. It also comes with a number of 'helper' applications for creating high-quality credits and compression software. For this tutorial I will focus on just the editing application Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Pro (FCP or FCP HD) or Final Cut Express (FCX or FCX HD), its sister application for editing DV and HDV formatted footage, is now the world's best selling editing software (by numbers sold). It has revolutionalised the availability of high-end editing software for the masses. Editors can now work on a low-budget DV project and then on broadcast quality High Definition (HD) TV formats, or 35mm feature films, without changing applications or spending time learning new ones.

Over the next few pages you will be introduced to the main interface elements of the FCP/X environment. This is intended as a quick reference or overview before proceeding with tutorial material, and remember there is a copius amount of help available in the FCP/X manuals as well as the Help menus. Also check out the 'Link' Section above for other support services such as forums etc.

The main difference between FCP and FCX is that FCP (also referred to as FCP High Definition or HD) is intended for high-end formats such as standard definition (SD) broadcast television as well as High-Definition television or HDTV as well as feature film work, whereas FCX works only in the DV/HDV realm and both are priced accordingly. FCP has a few more 'helper' applications than FCX, but there is very little difference between both from an interface point of view.

Brief Overview of FCP/X Interface Elements

FCP/X consists of several 'windows' which are used to carry out various tasks. The Browser is for organising media files, the Viewer is used to examine and edit individual video, audio or graphic clips, the Timeline to edit the individual clips together, and the Canvas for viewing the finished sequences. There is also a small Tools Palette, which offers a number of editing capabilities, and a stereo Audio Meter to monitor audio levels.

N.B. from now on, for brevity and unless stated otherwise, I will use FCP to denote the capabilities of both FCP and FCX.

N.B. For a quick tour of the four applications contained within Final Cut Studio visit:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/quicktours/