Final Cut Pro 4.

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Basic Editing Tutorial

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Final Cut Pro Basic Tutorial Description

Final Cut Pro Basic: Prerequisite(s): Familiarity with the Macintosh platform, have a basic understanding of video editing, and have used iMovie. Apples Final Cut Pro is a high-performance real-time digital video editing application. It provides users with a precision editing tools, and works with the widest range of input formats available. It can export video to a range of QuickTime formats as well as to iDVD and/or back to videotape. Objectives: Import and edit media Add basic transitions, titles and effects Create a final movie

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Alternative Media Statement and Nondiscrimination Policy

This publication is available in alternative media on request. The Pennsylvania State University is committed to the policy that all persons shall have equal access to programs, facilities, admission, and employment without regard to personal characteristics not related to ability, performance, or qualifications as determined by University policy or by state or federal authorities. It is the policy of the University to maintain an academic and work environment free of discrimination, including harassment. The Pennsylvania State University prohibits discrimination and harassment against any person because of age, ancestry, color, disability or handicap, national origin, race, religious creed, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status. Discrimination or harassment against faculty, staff, or students will not be tolerated at The Pennsylvania State University. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to the Affirmative Action Director, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901; Tel 814-865-4700/V, 814-863-1150/TTY.

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Contents
I. Basic Digital Video Editing A. Sequences B. How FCP Manages Media C. Creating a Clip from a Master Clip D. Basics of the Timeline E. Inserts and Overlay Editing F. Creating New Tracks G. Locking Tracks H. Creating Subclips I. Enabling Tracks J. Timeline Viewing Options K. Target Tracks L. Close Gap M. The Razor Tool N. Basic Transitions 1. Dissolves 2. Fades O. Titles P. Using Effects Basic Digital Audio Editing A. Importing Audio Media B. Waveforms C. Keyframes D. VU Meter Final Steps A. Exporting Your Project B. Printing to Video

II.

III.

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I. Basic Digtial Video Editing

A. Sequences
The sequence is the visual workspace in the Timeline where you place and edit all of your video and audio. You can have many sequences within one project. Should you have more than one scene or have a long project that may need to be broken up, using more than one sequence is one of the many beneficial aspects of non-linear editing. 1. To name your Sequence, double click the text of the name Sequence 1 (not the icon.) The name should become highlighted. Change the name to and hit Return.

B. How FCP Manages Media

As you work with your footage and media within the browser, be aware that as you create new clips and subclips you are not actually adding or creating new media. Your project file is what you see when you work within FCP. As you work within this interface you are creating the instructions for the program on how to make your movie with the media that you have captured on your hard drive. (You can duplicate a 3 Gigabyte file that you have digitized 50 times within the Browser, but you are not multiplying the amount of disk space that you are taking up on your hard drive.)

C. Creating a Clip From a Master Clip

In this section you will learn how to create smaller clips and subclips from your original footage. In doing so, you will also learn the basics of setting IN and OUT points that will make video capture more effective and efficient. 1. To begin, double-click a captured clip to select it in the Browser. The clip will open in the Viewer. Note: The Viewer, Canvas, and Log and Capture windows have similar controls. As in most editing setups, there are shuttle and jog functions. In the Viewer, the Shuttle control is the left
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slider bar and the Jog control is the right rolling knob. By sliding the Shuttle bar right and left you can fast forward and rewind, being able scan your footage. By placing your cursor on the Jog rolling knob, you can roll it to the left or right and go through your footage with much more precision - even go frame by frame - to ensure better accuracy and fine-tuning. 2. In addition to using the Jog and Shuttle features you can also move through your clips by simply sliding the yellow playhead underneath the viewer. 3. Use the mark in and out buttons to set in and out points of the video clip. 4. A black arrow with a blue bar will appear on the viewer timeline. This is your In Point and is where this clip will begin to play. Now, go to where you want this clip to end and click the button on the right. Another arrow, reversed, will appear. You can click the markers and slide the in and out points to play your clip from the In to Out points. Use the player button underneath the viewer.

5. In order to name and save your captured footage, click and drag the clip to the name column in the browser. You will see two clips named with the same name. Go ahead and rename the one that is highlighted.

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6. You can change your clip name to whatever you want, but it is helpful to keep at least the first part of the name that of the master clip. Further on, should you have lots of media and clips, this will help you keep track of where your clips came from originally. 7. Now that you have made a second clip from the master clip, you will notice that both clips have the same in and out points in the browser. Next, open up the master clip. 8. Remove your marker points by going up to the Mark > Clear In and Out. (Remember that you must have the Viewer window selected for this option to appear in the pull down Menu.) You now have a smaller clip from the master that you can work with in the Timeline and Canvas, and you can start building your project! 9. To do so, you must get your clip into the Timeline. There are three methods of placing media into the Timeline. The easiest and most accurate way of importing clips is by clicking on the clip in the Browser and dragging to the Canvas window to either Superimpose or Insert. Note: Superimpose edits place footage in the timeline by covering or replacing the footage and/or audio that is already there, or place titles or other clips on empty tracks. Only the topmost track will be visible after choosing to superimpose. Insert edits separate the footage in the timeline at the point of insertion and displace the footage afterwards to the right in the timeline. With insert edits, no footage is overwritten or replaced, only moved. These basic edits can also be used to add an entire sequence into another sequence. 10. The Source Track specifies which track will receive newly added video or audio clips. You can choose which of your tracks is the Source Track by clicking in the middle column, as shown below.

D. Basics of the Timeline

When clips are in the Timeline, you will view them in the Canvas. The player buttons in the Canvas work similarly to the Viewer. However, you can use the player bar in the Timeline to view and scroll through your entire project as well. As you make more edits, you will be able to see exactly all the parts of your project as the play bar plays through the project. 1. If you double click the clip within Timeline, it will open up in the Viewer window. This is helpful as you perform edits directly on the timeline, such as using keyframes to adjust audio and video, as they appear exactly the same in the viewer.

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2. The clip will become highlighted and your arrow cursor will turn into two parallel arrows facing right and left. 3. Click on the clip and hold down your mouse. Drag the end (or beginning) of your clip to the left or right to extend or shorten the clip.

I. Enabling Tracks
Another important feature that you will want to get used to working with are the tracks. You can turn any track on or off to be viewed or heard. You may want to do this if you have many audio tracks and want to hear just one track as you play the sequence. If you choose to turn off a track, you will lose all of your render files for that specific track. To do so, click the video button to the far left of the track.

L. Close Gap
To make sure there are no gaps between clips, select the timeline and choose Mark > Next > Gap.

M. The Razor Tool

One of the most useful tools for editing is the Razor Tool. It basically allows you to cut video and audio tracks. The cut will split the clip into two clips exactly where the cursor is. 1. First cue the sequence and place the Playhead at the point where you want to make the cut. 2. Select the Razor Tool from the toolbar. Line up the Razor blade cursor with the playhead. Click your mouse. You will now see your clip separated and the cut line indicated by a line and two opposing red arrows. Picture! (?)

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N. Transitions
Dissolves A common transition that you may want to use is a dissolve. A dissolve fades two clips together to create a subtle transition between the two. Dissolves are often used to end one scene and begin another scene. Another instance where a dissolve may be used is to show the relationship of one image to the following image. 1. To create a dissolve, select the point between the two clips that you want to add a dissolve to. 2. Select Effects > Video Transitions > Dissolve > Cross Dissolve. A dissolve tab will appear at the point between the two clips. In the Canvas, you will see the first clip into the second clip.

3. To adjust the length of a dissolve selecting the dissolve drag either end of the dissolve to shorten or lengthen it.

4. You can also adjust the length of the dissolve by double-clicking on the dissolve to open it within the Viewer. 5. Here you have more details about the dissolve, including its exact length.
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6. Audio is covered in the next section, but while on the topic of dissolves, it is important to know that a dissolve can be added between two audio clips to create a much smoother audio transition.

Fades Another transition that you may want to use is a Fade. A video clip will usually fade in from a black screen or fade out to a black screen. Sometimes you may want to fade from a color, but usually you will be working with black screens. Fades are traditionally used to indicate the beginning, end, or break in a piece. 1. To create a Fade In select the beginning of a clip in the Timeline which is not attached to another clip by means of an edit. Any clip that you place on the Timeline, is going be attached to black on the timeline. 2. Once you have the beginning of the clip highlighted, select Effects > Video Transitions > Dissolve > Fade In Fade Out Dissolve. An effect tab will appear at the beginning of the clip and will fade in from black.

3. To adjust the length of the fade, just select and highlight the actual fade tab on the timeline, then extend the clip TOWARDS the clip the distance that you want.

O. Titles
1. To make Titles, go to Browser > Effects Tab > Video Generator > Text or locate the titles button in the lower right corner of the Viewer. 2. When you click the button, a pull down menu will appear. Select Text > Text. A checkered text window will appear in the Viewer window with Sample Text written on it.

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3. To change Sample Text to what you want your title to be, select the Controls tab in the Viewer. This tab allows you to change the attributes of your titles, such as Font, Font Size, Positioning and Color.

4. Once you have changed your text, select the Video tab to view changes made to the title.

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5. It is important to make sure that your titles and image stay within the parameters of the screen you will need to use the Title Safe feature. (This is important when saving video onto DVD.) 6. Select the viewer window then select the View > Show Title Safe. You will see two blue squares appear on the image in the Canvas. a. The outer square is your NTSC safe area. Anything outside of this square will be cut off when viewed on a TV monitor. b. The inner square is your Title safe area. When making any kind of title, you must make sure that your text is within this square. Make sure titles are within this square or they will be cut off at the edges of the TV screen. 7. When making a title, you are making a clip that you will need to bring into the Timeline. 8. You should drag the clip into the Browser. Text will be the default title, change the default text file name to something more useful to you. In the example below, the name is (Text: My Cool Movie.)

9. The icon for a text file is the same as that of a video clip. Therefore, to help differentiate between a text file and a clip, it is helpful to add a label to the text file, which will color the file icon. First, hold the control key on the keyboard and select the text clip. Select Label > Good Take, from the menu. The text clip color will change to gold. The color labels can help organize your clips according to your preferences for your project. 10. After saving the title clip in the Browser, drag the clip to the Timeline. If you want the title to appear over black, place it on the Video Track 1. If you want to have your title superimposed over another clip, place it on the Video Track 2 or whichever track is above the video the title is to be over.

Rolling Text
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Select the titles button. 1. From the pull down menu, select Text > Scrolling Text. A checkered text window will appear in the Viewer window with Sample Text written on it. 2. Change the text in the Controls tab. To make your text roll, type in your text and make sure there is enough space in between each text line. Select the play button in the Viewer to see how it will look. Use the In and Out marker points to speed up or slow down the scroll rate. Extend the marker points to extend the clip and slow down the rate. Remember that this will create a longer clip and need more space on the timeline.

P. Using Effects
Many effects, such as dissolves and fades, work in real-time. Others, such as video filters and special effects, must be rendered. When the program cannot perform an effect in real-time, it must create a new video file that can perform the task specific to the effect that you are using. Because these video files are large and the effects are quite sophisticated, renders are required. The render process can take a good deal of time depending on the render. 1. Select a clip to add an effect in the Timeline. In the Effects pull down menu, select Video Filters > Distort and the effect you want.

2. You will notice that a red bar appears over the clip in timeline. This indicates that the effect that you have chosen must be rendered. (For audio renders, you will hear a beeping as you play the track in addition to seeing a red bar)
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3. The clip with the effect will not show if played. You can see the effect if you scroll with the play bar or if the player is stopped on a frame.

4. Effects can be added from within the Browser. 5. In the Browser window, select and open the Effects Tab.

6. Click and drag the icon up to the viewer. Unlike the Timeline, the clip will play in preview mode, though it will play fragmented and slow.

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7. If you open up the Filters Tab in the Viewer, you will see an assortment of options that you can adjust specific to that filter. In this tab, you see all the attributes that apply to that filter. Hopefully, you will not have to use a lot of effects and filters, so you probably will not be working with this tab too much, or at all until you are more familiar with the program and have begun to experiment. 8. To render the effect select Sequence > Render Selection. An estimated time bar will appear on the screen indicating how long it will take to render.

9. After the render is complete, play it in your sequence. Note that if you move the clip around within your Timeline, you may have to re-render the effect. Therefore, it is best to add effects after the clips are in their final position on the timeline.

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IV. Basic Digital Audio Editing

A. Importing Audio Media
1. Import audio from a CD. 2. Double click on the CD. (In this example, we will be using Traveling Without Moving.) 3. The CD track names will open in a Finder window as .aiff files. (You can use other kinds of files such as .wav, .mov., or .mp3. However, you may have to render these files once they are on the timeline.) Note: AIFF files are the least compressed audio files and sound the best. Therefore, they are recommended over other formats.

4. Keep this window open. Navigate to your project folder and create a new folder and name it Imported Music. Click and drag audio tracks from the CD to the Imported Music folder; you want to save them for use in your project. You can now eject your CD.

5. Go back into FCP. From the File pull down menu, select Import > Files. A Finder window will appear. Navigate to the track to import and select Choose. The file will appear as a speaker icon in the Browser with the name of the file. Audio clips and subclips are created in the same manner as video clips, therefore, you may want to label this clip master as well.
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B. Audio Waveforms Explained

1. Double click on the audio clip to open it in the Viewer. It will appear as an audio waveform. The audio waveform is the visual representation of a captured sound wave. 2. In the example below, there are portions of the waveform that are shorter and portions that are higher representing softer and louder portions of the sound, respectively. In this example, the beginning of the song and the middle of the song are softer than the rest of the audio.

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Audio Clips and Subclips 1. To create Audio Clips and Subclips you must click and grab the grabby hand located at the top right of the Viewer:

2. To see the waveform up close, use the Slider Scroll Bar at the bottom of the Viewer window. You use this bar just like the gray bar in the Timeline. The more that you zoom in, the wider the waveform becomes, allowing you to see fully the sound wave moving up and down.

3. Go ahead and play through a section of your song looking at how the waveform corresponds to the sound of the song.

C. Keyframes
A keyframe is a point of reference that you can work with within a track. When working with Audio, keyframes are an important tool for manipulating sound levels. Below are some examples of how keyframes can be used.

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1. To create a keyframe, select the Pen tool from the toolbar. 2. In the Viewer, click on the red gain (volume) bar. It will make a red dot, which is a keyframe. 3. Click the red bar a few more times. In order to see how a keyframe works, you must have at least two keyframes. Now drag one of you keyframes up or down. Then move it right or left. 4. Play the audio. Notice that the volume of the audio is softer or louder according to your keyframes. 5. Continue adding keyframes in the viewer and experiment with changing the audio levels. 6. After you have finished editing keyframes, click on the grabber hand and drag the clip to the Timeline. 7. You can also make any fine tune adjustments when the audio is in the Timeline. Many times, it is easier to adjust the levels within the Timeline especially when layering many different audio tracks. For example, if you have both a narration and a music track you can determine audio adjustments much easier by working with your levels within the Timeline, 8. To delete a keyframe, hold the control key on the keyboard and click on the keyframe that you want to delete. Note: Use the same method to create audio sub clips as you did for creating video sub clips.

d. VU Meter
The VU Meter is a simple tool to monitor audio levels. 1. The VU Meter is divided into three colors - green, yellow, and red. While the audio is playing in the timeline, the audio levels will rise and fall, extending high into the red or low into the green. The meter is also numbered with corresponding dB levels. 2. The four images below show four different VU meter readings: a. Image A shows a general VU meter. Green indicates low audio levels. Yellow indicates medium range levels. Red indicates high-pitched audio levels. b. Image B indicates a good range (-6 dB) of audio levels. Your levels should enter the low to medium ends of the yellow and occasionally go into the lower end of the red, but never
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stay in the red. Notice the small orange lines. These lines indicate points on the VU meter where your levels peak. Usually, you try to maintain a constant sound level, but sometimes a loud, quick noise, such as a door slam, will cause the level to rise to a high point and fall quickly. This is peaking. The VU meter will indicate the point where the level peaked and place a line there. When viewing your VU meter, be careful to notice how many times you peak. If you continually peak at around the same point in both of your stereo tracks, a small bar will appear in between the two tracks. c. Image C indicates low levels. Should your levels stay down in the green, your audio levels are too low and must be fixed. To fix them, you will need to raise the gain, but doing so usually adds noise or a fuzz to your sound. It is always easier to make a sound quieter than it is to make it louder. d. Image D indicates levels that are way too high. If you go into the red often and the level reaches the top of the VU meter, you are over modulating. When this happens you are clipping the highest ends of the sound wave. When this occurs, you will hear unpleasant crackles and pops in your audio. As you add more and more tracks to your project, you are adding to the overall level of the audio, so be careful as to how high your VU meter gets.

*B

* This is how your audio levels should look in the VU Meter.

V. Final Steps
A. Printing to Video: Export to Tape
1. Before you start to save your project to tape, make sure of you have done the following: a. Computer is connected to an export device, such as a VCR or DV camera, via FireWire and/or a Media Converter. b. If using a Media Converter, make sure that you have selected DV Out on the box. c. Set your VCR to Video and select the proper channel (Usually Line In). d. In the View pull-down menu, select External Video > All Frames. If you play your project in the Canvas or Timeline, you will see and hear it through the Video player. 2. Select File > Print to Video. The Print to Video pop-up window opens.
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3. The top portion of the pop-up box is the SMPTE Leader. The six items in the Leader box are the standard protocol that SMPTE (The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) has designated to precede any video. You dont need to have all of the items listed, especially if you are not planning on airing the piece on television. Always begin with Color Bars and Tone (-12 dB) followed by some Black that will then lead into your project (leader). You should also have some black at the end of your project (trailer). Make sure that Print: Entire Media is selected. Make sure that your options match this screenshot, then hit OK. 4. FCP will now begin to prepare your project for Printing to Video.

5. Once preparation is complete, follow the instructions on the screen. Make sure that you give enough time for your VCR to start recording and get rolling. Click OK. Your Project will play on the computer screen and be mirrored on the video monitor. When FCP has completed Printing to Video, the computer screen will return to the standard FCP interface. Hit Stop on your VCR then rewind and playback your project to make sure that it was successful. If everything is okay, you now have a video ready to play on any player!

B. Export to QuickTime (for iDVD)

1. File > Export > QuickTime Movie 2. Settings: Include: Markers: DV NTSC 48 kHz Audio and Video None (unless needed)

3. Check Make Movie Self Contained.

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4. Name your video and select where you would like to save the resulting file. 5. Click OK.

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