Have you ever looked at a interview, short film or movie and wondered to yourself,
“Where do I even begin?”
Even if you’ve used iMovie or Windows Movie Maker before, you may be looking for software with a little more capability.
Final Cut Pro could be a great next step.
In today’s video tip, we show you a quick overview of the video editing machine that is Final Cut Pro.
Do you use FCP? What kind of content do you edit with it?
If you’re looking to learn more and aren’t afraid to go old-school, Apple training has a great paperback on learning Final Cut Pro that I highly recommend. Lynda.com is always a great resource for learning Final Cut Pro and has a 7-day free trial.
Yeahhh, I use FCP, woot.
Testimonies/stories
short films
title packages
editing cool clips of my son
Currently we use Edius (an old version) but we’re in the process of moving to Final Cut Express. I edit our sunday preach for our website and we’ll start doing interview type stuff.
Nice! Actually never heard of that program…is it for mac or pc?
Edius (http://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_5) is for PC. I think we’re using version 3.
If you’re looking for a little beefier editor but can’t afford FCP, you might look into a couple different free and open source projects, Kdenlive and Blender. I’ve used both with great success in several editing projects.
Blender is a huge multimedia suite more akin to Maya and After Effects than FCP, but it also has it’s “video sequencer” mode. The usability is admittedly very different than anything else out on the market and therefore has a very long learning curve, but I can attest to it being very efficient once it has been learned. The new version (2.5) that should be out this summer (it’s out in alpha right now) has updated much of the usability and therefore, should be much easier to use and learn. Still, it’s a massive program and will take a while to wrap your brain around.
Kdenlive is more like FCP or Adobe Premiere, but is Linux and Mac only. If you are on Windows you can also use VirtualBox to install Linux. KDEnlive even has VirtualBox images on their site with everything pre-installed. Kdenlive has some really nice editing tools that cover 90% of what you do in editing, but the more advanced functionality is still in the works. However, once you figure out the Composite transition (it took me a while and a couple of online tutorials), you can do lots of more complex animation and compositing.
Best of luck,
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Personally we use sony vegas movie studio platinum for our sermons and web announcement videos. http://vimeo.com/graceinauburn
I have been using FCP for my church since about 2002 or 2003 (i can’t remember for sure). At first, mostly used FC and didn’t really get into Motion until about 3 years ago.
I have used it to do just about everything: Prep movie clips for sermons, edit video interviews, create video announcement loops (like PPT on steroids when you use keyframing), edit video announcements, just plain fun projects (home made super bowl commercials for super bowl party), edit small group DVD curriculum, etc… All for the church.
We just upgraded to the newest version of the suite, and i must say that Motion 4 rocks! I love the 3D capabilities. Great for animated announcement loops… And the integration between Motion and FCP is so much better now.
Love it!
Good comments so far guys. Loving this content. What format video do you capture?
I’m MiniDV NTSC…
We’ve just bought a Sony HVR-HD1000E so we can capture our interviews etc in HDV 1080i
Sermons are still captured in DV PAL
Good quick video.
What you did in this video, you can also do in Final Cut Express. FCE may be a much better step up for a church or ministry instead of jumping straight into Final Cut Pro. The cost of FCE is much less than FCP and you can do a ton of stuff with it as well.
I have done a stuff in Final Cut Express… interviews, sermons, promo, fundraising videos, etc. and is a good jump from iMovie to it without killing your budget either.
I’ve got FC Express, FCP is expensive and I can’t afford it
I’ve loved FCP ever since I completed my media degree.
My most recent usage of it has been to create a set four of montages of my churches 25yr history. I could have done it with iMovie but not with the flair and polish that FCP applies to it in terms of granularity, effects, etc ….
People are still amazed at how much time it took to gather, search, edit and assemble the footage for four montages that cover the last 25yrs… so be warned folks … you get into using FCP or its ilk and you could disappear for months
I use FCP. Rendering is annoying.
For those interested, I did a video tutorial similar to the one listed here only using the free, open source video editor Kdenlive. It might be worth a look especially if you’re on a budget:
http://opensourcechurch.com/2010/04/kdenlive-quick-start/
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
btw, open source just got a new professional video editor. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like this summer. Looks like it cooperates with FCP. For more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightworks
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Cool – thanks for the heads up on this.