So yesterday, I was editing in Final Cut for a project I’ve been working on which requires a lot of various special effects, photoshop, etc.
It never ceases to astound me just how versatile this program is. I remember when I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to use the darn program. One day, a friend of mine challenged me to a film competition. We each had 24 hours to shoot and edit a two minute special effects short paying homage to Japanese shows like Power Rangers etc. Fortunately, I could only do so much in Imovie, and I was forced to leap to Final Cut in order to make the edits and visuals I wanted. After about 24 hours straight of slaving over this project, I got it done. Afterwards, it dawned upon me just how much I was able to do with this one program. To think that not too long ago, we were all editing on vhs players stacked on one another.
When I was a kid, and I used to make my short movies, I’d always have to put the machines on top of each other and time things perfectly, otherwise I’d accidentally erase too much and have to start over. Now, with all the digital programs and hardware available, it’s only getting more user friendly. It’s astounding whenever I think about it.
-E.
That’s a pretty funny story actually because I used to be in the same boat. I never really got extended training in sight and sound I but after sitting down with final cut you start to figure out and explore the program for yourself. I found the same to be true with motion, soundtrack pro and livetype as well. For the most part, if you just have time to sit and experiment you can learn the ins and outs of final cut studio fairly easily. Whenever there is something I am not sure how to do I always google how to do it because there is always someone else who has had the same question before. Such as when I wanted to have to split images in the same frame. It was much easier than I thought it would be and really just involved cropping the video on the timeline.