STARTING FINAL CUT PRO
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Double-click on the Final Cut Pro Icon

The first screen you'll see is the Final Cut Pro Desktop Layout:



The top left window is called the browser.
The browser shows two tabs: the project tab, which holds the files you will work with, and the effects tab, which holds video and audio effects.
To the right of the browser you will see two windows: the viewer and the canvas.
Both of these screens view your content, but in different ways.

The viewer is used to view the original source clip, while the canvas shows your work on the timeline (what will be exported).
Below these sections is the timeline.
This is where you will drag your video clips and assemble them into the main project.
Here is where you will apply effects, edit, and position clips nonlinearly in your project.
To the right of the timeline is a toolbox, which gives you various tools to move, edit, and tweak your work on the timeline.

BASIC NAVIGATION

Some important keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro that will help you navigate within the timeline window are:
(L) - Play Forward (pressing again will speed up the play speed by 2X)

(J) - Play Backward

(K) - Pause

(spacebar) - Play or Stop

By holding down the K key and pressing L key or J key will cause the position indicator to play at 8 frames a second.

Starting a new project.
Under File - select "New project."
Name and save the project in a new folder.
To do this, click on "File" then select "Save As"
Type the name of your movie project in the "Save As" text box.
Create a new folder to save the project to by clicking on the "new folder " button.
Type in a name for the folder and click "OK"
Click the "Save " button to save the project.

LOG & CAPTURE

At the top of FCP, use the menu bar to select File > Log and Capture.

This opens up another window called Log and Capture.

The Log and Capture screen is where you will view and import the clips on your source tape to the computer's hard drive.
The left window pane contains a screen for viewing the footage on your tape, device control to play, stop, ff, and rr your digital tape and mark in / out buttons.

The right window pane you'll see the name of your project and you can give a specific name for what you are going to be capturing. You can name the tape you're about to capture here.

When you see the message "VTR OK" in the left pane, under the picture from your video, you are ready to proceed. (unless it's a VHS)

Two Types of Capturing - the whole tape, and selected sections of the tape (what's called Batch Capturing).

For Capturing the Whole Tape
1. Begin playing the tape using the play button on the DV/SVHS recorder, or use the play button in the log and capture screen on the left side pane (by the way - Final Cut Pro needs about 5 seconds to get the tape to speed and start recording).
2. Click the "Capture Now " button on the right hand side at the bottom to start capturing the video and you'll see the content of your video playing while the computer is importing the tape.
3. Press the escape button on the Mac keyboard, to stop the capture, and press stop on the DV/VHS player. See below for instructions on saving (#4)

Batch Capturing
1. Use the device control on the left pane to queue your tape to where you would like to start capturing the video. Once you have located the starting point for capture, click on the "mark in" button (or the "I" on your keyboard) to record the timecode (the tape's position) for the in point. Then, move the playhead (via the keyboard, buttons, or playhead located directly below the screen) to where you want the captured clip to end. Press the "mark out" button (or the "O" on your keyboard).
You can also use keyboard shortcuts to run through your tape. Use the spacebar to play or pause the tape.

Use the "J" key to rewind (tap once for 1x, twice for 2x), the "L" key to play normally (tap twice to fast forward), and the "K" key to stop the player.
2. Once you have your in and out points, click on the "Log Clip" button located right of the device controls.
You will be prompted to name your clip.



Type in a descriptive name for the clip and select OK. Repeat the logging process until all the clips on your tape have been logged with in and out points, and named.
Once this is completed, you will notice that you can see your clips in the browser. They will show with a red line through a clip icon to the left. This means that your clips are offline, or not yet captured.

Offline means that you have entered the timecodes for the clips, but have yet to actually capture the data to your hard drive.
To do so: --click the "batch" button in the bottom-right corner of the Log and Capture screen.
A menu will pop up.

From the top drop down box, select "All Items in Logging Bin" then select OK.
The computer will then automatically move to the first position marked and start capturing the film to the hard disk.
Take this time to relax, take a break. FCP will capture all the clips you have created for you without any assistance. You'll notice that the red line in your browser for the clip has gone away.

4. Now save what you've captured.
Now that you have imported the clips you wanted, close the Log and Capture window
You can also import files into a project. These files can items like extra video, images, or audio.


To import files - like still pictures, songs, etc.
o Go to File > Import > Files...
o Use the finder to select the file you wish to use
o Click on what you want to import or Click and hold the SHIFT, or the COMMAND button to select more than one file
o Select Choose
Your files will now appear in the Browser alongside your video.
o Save what you have imported.

EDITING VIDEO CLIPS
Vocabulary: Marking
In editing, when making a selection:
to either copy or delete, you need
to tell Final Cut Pro where the
selection begins and where the selection ends.
Marking a frame means placing a special "mark"
onto the clip at a specific point You place one mark
to say "this is where the shot I'd like to select begins"
and another mark to say "this is where the shot I like
ends." An In mark says "this is the beginning."
An Out mark says "this is the end."

A. Briefly, I'll use the timeline to explain this and then do again with the Viewer Method.

Select and drag the entire clip to your timeline by clicking on the icon next to your movie clip in the Browser and drag it into the Timeline.

You'll see a ghosting box of your movie move as you drag the clip to the Timeline and when you position the dragging to the right of the V1 you'll see the ghosting box become bigger and rectangular and this represents one track of video and two tracks (L&R) of audio. When you release the mouse button you will see the one track of video locate itself on the V1 line and the two tracks of audio fall on the A1 + A2 lines. Hit Save

Just above the timeline there is a little yellow arrow - this is called the playhead

..
This marks where you are in your movie.
You grab the playhead with your mouse and move it to where you want to put a mark in, and hit the "I" key on the keyboard - this puts a mark-in mark where the playhead is . Do the same now to tell Final Cut Pro where to end this selection by again moving the playhead to an end point and hit the "O" key on the keyboard to put a mark-out .
(An alternate way of placing the playhead instead of dragging the yellow arrow is to simply click your mouse in the timecode area where the yellow arrow is and this will move the playhead to a new spot)

Now you can hit the delete key to remove the selection or,
to copy the selection - select "copy" under the Edit menu then move the playhead to where you want to paste the selection into and the select "paste" under the Edit menu.

B. Now for the Viewer Method.

Begin by double clicking the clip's icon in the browser so that it appears in the viewer.
Then use the mark in and out points ("I" and "O" on your keyboard) to define the area you want to use.
Then click in the center of the viewer and drag down to the Timeline. Hit Save.

ADDING TRANSITIONS
To the right of the browser tab with your movie name is the Effects Tab.

If you click on the Effects tab, you'll see a list of effects and transitions



Double click on the icon for the Video Transitions folder, select a transition, like cross dissolve, and drag that between two clips on your timeline and release your mouse.

Hit Save.

To change the parameters of a transition, double click on the transition effect in the timeline window. This will load its contents into a separate tab within the viewer window.
At the top of the effects parameter window there is:



You can lengthen the time of the transition from one second to something longer by typing in a new time in the time duration field and hit enter.. Next to that is how the transition plays: starting at the cut, in the center of the cut, or to end at the cut.
Note if you try to lengthen the duration of the transition, hit enter, and the time doesn't take your new time, it is because there isn't enough footage available for the transition so it will not apply.
Hit Save.

CREATING TITLES

The Generators menu button is located just below the viewer window and it's used for creating bars/tone, colored backgrounds, and titles. Click on it and you will see:




Select one of the text options and click on it.

Now you'll see:



At the top of this window, click on the Controls tab next to the View tab.

Click in the Text Field with the "Sample Text" in it and type in your text. And lower in this window you can change the font, font size and color, etc.
To see what this looks like click on the "Video" tab.
You can click back on the Controls tab to get back in and make any changes. ** But be careful if you want to change text click in the text area to turn off the highlighting first
- otherwise Final Cut Pro deletes it and you'll have to start over.
From the Video tab you can drag your title into the timeline or drag it to your Browser (where you can name it) and then drag a copy of it to the timeline.

Hit Save. Then go up to the Sequence Menu and select Render => Both (FCP will now digitize your title), and hit Save again.

Last two quick steps before sending this movie to tape:

1) Under the "Sequence Menu" select Render, and slide over to All -- Final Cut Pro will now digitize your edits and your transitions.

2) Save your movie.

PRINT TO VIDEO COMMAND

Under the File menu select "Print to Video" and the Print to Video window will appear:

Here you can add color bars, tone, black lead at the beginning and the end, a countdown, etc.

1.) Click on the "preview" and you should hear a tone -- this will tell you that the connections between the computer and the recorder are talking to each other.

(if not, you'll have to make sure the record deck is on and is set to F-1 (with either both DV buttons or the left DV button and the right VHS buttons have been pushed, and that under the View Menu, the External Video choice is set to "All Frames" )

2.) Click the OK button and you'll be prompted to start the recording on the record deck (use the remote and press the play and record buttons simultaneously), and then click the next OK button on the computer screen and you'll now be printing to video.