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

Selecting part of a clip

To date, we've been working with entire clips — whatever the camera recorded — but editing is about selecting just the best parts. The Browser is a great place to do that because your choices will be automatically recorded. First, we'll select ranges on clips, and next, we'll rate.

The selection process has a few subtleties, so make sure you're working with clips that haven't been partly selected already, and follow these steps carefully:

  1. Switch to Filmstrip view, not List view. (While these steps can mostly be performed in List view too, we'll use Filmstrip view here.)
  2. Click on the background, which is the space between clips.

    This will deselect any clips that have been fully selected, which makes the next step simpler. To select part of a clip, it's now easy to click and drag.

  3. Click on a blank, unselected area inside a clip, then drag forward to another point in that same clip, and release...