Book Image

Final Cut Pro X Cookbook

By : Jason Cox
Book Image

Final Cut Pro X Cookbook

By: Jason Cox

Overview of this book

As technology becomes more and more accessible and easier to use, we are expected to do more in less time than ever before. Video editors are now expected to be able not only to edit, but create motion graphics, fix sound issues, enhance image quality and color and more. Also, many workers in the PR and marketing world are finding they need to know how to get viral videos made from start to finish as quickly as possible. Final Cut Pro X was built as a one-stop shop with all the tools needed to produce a professional video from beginning to end.The "Final Cut Pro X Cookbook" contains recipes that will take you from the importing process and basic mechanics of editing up through many of FCPX's advanced tools needed by top-tier editors on a daily basis. Edit quickly and efficiently, fix image and sound problems with ease, and get your video out to your client or the world easily.No program gets you from application launch to the actual editing process faster than FCPX. After covering the basics, the book hits the ground running showing readers how to produce professional quality videos even if video editing isn't your day job.The recipes inside are packed with more than 300 images helping illustrate time-saving editing tools, problem-solving techniques and how to spice up your video with beautiful effects and titles. We also dive into audio editing, color correction and dabble in FCPX's sister programs Motion and Compressor!With more than 100 recipes, the Final Cut Pro X Cookbook is a great aid for the avid enthusiast up to the 40-hour-a-week professional. This book contains everything you need to make videos that captivate your audiences.

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Final Cut Pro X Cookbook
Jason Cox
Oct, 2012 | 452 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Final Cut Pro X Cookbook
Final Cut Pro X Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Importing Your Media
Importing Your Media
Introduction
Importing from a tapeless video camera
Importing MTS, M2TS, and M2T files
Importing DSLR video
Importing music from iTunes and GarageBand
Importing still images
Importing data from a tape-based camera
Importing and working with layered Photoshop files
Importing iMovie projects
Importing Final Cut Pro 7 projects
Working with your already organized media
Relinking media files
2
Customizing Your Workflow
Customizing Your Workflow
Introduction
Getting acquainted with the Final Cut Pro X interface
Customizing the keyboard
Adding keywords to your clips
Marking clips as favorites and rejected
Creating a Smart Collection
Working with a second computer monitor
Working with a broadcast safe monitor
Customizing the Event Library and Event Browser
Batch changing clip names and other metadata
Editing efficiently with optimized and proxy clips
3
Basic Editing Mechanics
Basic Editing Mechanics
Introduction
Appending, inserting, and overwriting clips to a storyline
Working with (and without) the Magnetic Timeline
Creating connected clips
Replacing a clip
Splicing clips with the Blade tool
Using the Trim tool, part 1 — trimming and rippling
Using the Trim tool, part 2 — rolling
Using the Trim tool, part 3 — slipping and sliding
Creating and working with gap clips
4
Enhancing Your Editing
Enhancing Your Editing
Introduction
Making a three-point edit
Creating additional storylines
Trimming audio and video separately with a split edit (also known as making a J or L cut)
Grouping clips together as a compound clip
Adding markers and to do items
Auditioning multiple shots or takes
Editing in beat to the music
Using the Precision Editor
Multicam part 1 — getting your media synced and prepped
Multicam part 2 — making the live cut
Multicam part 3 — fine-tuning your multicam edit
5
Sweetening and Fixing Your Sound
Sweetening and Fixing Your Sound
Introduction
Reading and understanding the audio meters
Lowering your music during speakers
Lowering a loud, unexpected background sound with manual keyframes
Replacing bad audio with a cleaner recording
Sound effects, part 1 — browsing, connecting and panning
Sound effects, part 2 — animating with keyframes
Sound effects, part 3 — working in a surround sound space
Removing unwanted audio channels
Unlinking audio from video
Using FCPX's auto audio enhancements
Recording a voiceover
6
Practical Magic a.k.a Useful Effects
Practical Magic a.k.a Useful Effects
Introduction
Adding an effect and changing its parameters
Animating parameters of an effect over time with keyframes
Adding a watermark or logo to your video
Downloading and installing more effects
Blurring out a face or logo
Disguising a voice
Copying and pasting effects onto multiple clips
Going green (screen) part 1 — the basics
Going green (screen) part 2 — improving your key
Going green (screen) addendum — using the mask effect to cut out unwanted parts of an image
7
Titles, Transitions, and Generators
Titles, Transitions, and Generators
Introduction
Adding transitions to clips
Adjusting the transition's parameters in the Viewer, Inspector, and timeline
Creating counters and countdowns
Adding a timecode overlay
Inserting a placeholder clip
Creating a text style template
Creating a credit sequence
Creating a video-in-text effect
Creating a custom animated title
Creating and reusing show intro
8
Get Your Movie to Move
Get Your Movie to Move
Introduction
Making freeze frames and speed changes
Creating speed ramps
Showing an instant replay
Using the Transform tool
Cropping or trimming a clip
Panning and zooming over a photo or clip with the Ken Burns effect
Creating a video wall
Making your image move by keyframing in the Viewer
Moving clips in sync with compound clips
Changing keyframe timing in the timeline
Customizing motion paths with Bezier handles and modifying interpolation
9
Altering the Aesthetics of Your Image
Altering the Aesthetics of Your Image
Introduction
Stabilizing a shaky shot
Automatically balancing color and/or match color to another shot
Manually color balancing with the Color Board
Picking a color look or creating your own
Fixing the exposure and adjusting the contrast with help from the Luma waveform monitor
Adding secondary color corrections, part 1 — shape masks
Adding secondary color corrections, part 2 — color masks
Adding secondary color corrections, part 3 — combining color and shape masks
Keeping only one color in your image
Spotlighting an object or text
10
Getting Your Project Out of FCPX
Getting Your Project Out of FCPX
Introduction
Exporting an archive-quality version of your film
Exporting for Apple devices and computers
Sharing your video on YouTube and other video sharing sites
Burning a Blu-ray or DVD
Roles, part 1 — labeling clips with Roles
Roles, part 2 — exporting selected Roles
Sharing large files over the web with Dropbox
Sharing your project with other applications using XML
Duplicating or moving projects from one drive to another
Archiving a project for possible future editing
Conclusion
Working with Motion and Compressor
Working with Motion and Compressor
Introduction
Getting acquainted with the Motion interface
Enhancing title templates with Motion
Creating a custom Lower Third
Publishing a template to FCPX
Publishing parameters to a template
Getting acquainted with the Compressor interface
Adding chapter markers in Compressor
Burning a Blu-ray or DVD with chapter markers
Creating your own Compression preset
Creating a droplet based on a preset

Customizing the keyboard

Final Cut Pro X's keyboard shortcuts are greatly revamped and remapped from Final Cut Pro 7. Or, if you're coming from a different editing suite, keyboard shortcuts are going to be very different anyway. Luckily, FCPX has an easy-to-use keyboard shortcut editor.

How to do it...

  1. 1. Click on Final Cut Pro in the menu bar and select Commands | Customize, or hit Command + Option + K on the keyboard.

  2. 2. The Command Editor window pops up. To learn what each key is capable of in FCPX, click on it and look below the digital keyboard in the Key Detail box. Every possible command with every possible modifier key is listed! Additionally, the command list at the bottom provides you with a list of every possible command in FCPX and which, if any, keyboard shortcut has been applied to it.

  3. 3. FCPX doesn't let you modify the default layout, so we must create our own copy first. Click on Default in the upper-left corner of the window and choose Duplicate... Enter in a name for your...

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