Book Image

Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing

By : Iain Anderson
Book Image

Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing

By: Iain Anderson

Overview of this book

Final Cut Pro (also known as FCP, previously Final Cut Pro X) is Apple’s efficient and accessible video editing software for everyone, offering powerful features that experienced editors and novices will find useful. FCP is the quickest way to transform your raw clips into a finished piece, so if speed is important, make this a key tool in your editing arsenal. Final Cut Pro Efficient Editing is a comprehensive best practice guide for all editors. You’ll not only learn how to use the features but also find out which ones are the most important and when you should use them. With the help of practical examples, the book will show you how typical footage can be assembled, trimmed, colored, and finessed to produce a finished edit, exploring a variety of techniques. As you progress through the book, you’ll follow a standard editing workflow to get the feel of working on real-world projects and answer self-assessment questions to make sure that you’re on track. By the end of this Final Cut Pro book, you’ll be well versed with the key features of this app and have all the tools you need to create impressive edits.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section 1: Importing and Organizing
7
Section 2: Rough Cut to Fine Cut
13
Section 3: Finishing and Exporting

Understanding and applying Roles

Roles provide a way to categorize your video clips based on how they will be used in video or audio terms: Music, Dialogue, Sound Effects, Titles, or Video. You can go crazy and define your own Video and Audio Roles, or you can use the built-in Roles that I just listed. Each Role can be further split into Subroles, so a Role named Dialogue could have Subroles named for each of the languages you plan to support. Even more amazingly, if you have a high-end, multi-track audio recorder with iXML support, you can name its inputs on the device and they'll be mapped to Roles automatically — magic:

Figure 3.35: The default Roles include the basics — add more if you wish

Figure 3.35: The default Roles include the basics — add more if you wish

The power of Roles is seen during the editing process, where the Roles decide the color of each clip. Audio is deemed more important than video here, and the color of a clip's Audio Role takes precedence. Therefore, if a clip has usable audio...