1. Getting Started with Final Cut ExpressWelcome| 00:00 | Hi! This is Lonzell Watson,
professional television director and producer.
| | 00:04 | I will be the instructor for your Lynda.com
Essential Training for Apple's Final Cut Express 4.
| | 00:10 | The purpose of this course is to
give you an extensive overview of the
| | 00:13 | post-production process as it pertains
the Final Cut Express 4, so that you can
| | 00:17 | immediately go out and create your own
video works of art. This training has
| | 00:22 | been laid out to follow this same
workflow that I use personally as a
| | 00:25 | professional video editor.
| | 00:27 | You will also practice how to put
your story together by storyboarding and
| | 00:31 | creating rough cuts of your movie,
then we will refine that rough cut into a
| | 00:35 | polished, professional presentation and
add sleek animated titles with Apple LiveType.
| | 00:41 | After we complete our tour of the Final
Cut Express interface, I will show you
| | 00:44 | how to create some attention
grabbing video by creating effects using
| | 00:48 | chroma-keying, advanced compositing,
animating still photos, customizing
| | 00:52 | special effects and creating custom transitions.
| | 00:56 | Last but definitely not least, what's
the good in having an amazing piece of
| | 01:00 | video if no one sees it? So we will
wrap up by showing you how to serve your
| | 01:05 | video for the web, for DVD distribution,
and for playback on the iPod. You will
| | 01:10 | learn all this and more in Final Cut
Express Essential Training from lynda.com.
| | 01:16 | Now let's jump in and get creative!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Overview of the Final Cut Express suite| 00:00 | What are you getting when you
purchase Final Cut Express 4? Well, you are
| | 00:03 | getting a powerful multi-track video
editing tool that supports multiple video
| | 00:07 | tracks as well as audio tracks, that
will allow you to produce professional
| | 00:12 | refined cuts. You are also getting
a variety of effects plug-ins, color
| | 00:16 | correction and audio enhancement tools
that will enable you to achieve popular
| | 00:20 | stylized looks in your video.
| | 00:22 | Final Cut Express 4 also comes with
LiveType 2, a dynamic text and graphic
| | 00:27 | program, complete with a royalty
free library, filled with customizable
| | 00:31 | textures, objects, templates and
effects. LiveType enables you to make
| | 00:36 | professional level animated graphics
to your video projects, in the form of
| | 00:40 | titles, lower thirds, credits and even
full screen animated graphics. Later on
| | 00:46 | in the program, we will discuss the
functionality of LiveType and how to bring
| | 00:50 | a LiveType project into Final Cut Express.
| | 00:53 | One thing you will notice, if you
have used Final Cut Express 3.5 is that
| | 00:58 | Apple's loop-based music composer and
audio editing application, Soundtrack Pro,
| | 01:03 | is not shipped with version 4. If
you have upgraded to version 4 from a
| | 01:07 | previous version of Final Cut Express,
you will still be able to use Soundtrack Pro
| | 01:11 | with the current
version of Final Cut Express.
| | 01:14 | If you are an Apple GarageBand user,
which is part of the iLife Suite, you are
| | 01:18 | still able to create your own loop-
based music within GarageBand, export to
| | 01:22 | disk, then import songs
into Final Cut Express 4.
| | 01:26 | Although Soundtrack and GarageBand are
similar, the big difference between the
| | 01:30 | two is that Soundtrack is optimized to
bring in video from Final Cut and let
| | 01:35 | you score directly to the video.
There you have it. Not only do you have a
| | 01:39 | wonderful multi-track editor in Final
Cut Express, which uses the same powerful
| | 01:43 | trimming tools as its big brother Final
Cut Pro, but you also have a library of
| | 01:48 | animated text and graphics in LiveType.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting essential preferences| 00:00 | Before you begin editing, it's
extremely important for you to adjust the Final
| | 00:03 | Cut Express Preferences to maximize
the efficiency of your editing session.
| | 00:08 | Efficiency is one word that you are
going to continually hear me stress
| | 00:11 | throughout this entire course. Because
many times efficiency is the determining
| | 00:15 | factor between making or breaking
deadlines, and one thing editors know plenty
| | 00:20 | about are deadlines. The first place
we will start is in the User Preferences
| | 00:24 | located under Final Cut Express in the menu bar.
| | 00:27 | Within the User Preferences, you will
find the settings that will allow you to
| | 00:31 | dictate how Final Cut Express
interacts with you and how the interface will look.
| | 00:35 | Here you have the Levels of Undo.
This setting will allow you to undo
| | 00:40 | changes that you have made to your
project by allowing you to press Command+Z
| | 00:44 | on the keyboard or simply going
to Edit > Undo in the top menu.
| | 00:49 | By default, this value is set at 10
but the maximum number of Undo is largely
| | 00:54 | depended upon RAM. This system that I
am currently working on will allow up to
| | 00:58 | 50 Undos. So I am going to go ahead
and make this 50. By default, you have 8
| | 01:03 | tracks of Real-Time Audio Mixing, which
is completely enough for most editors,
| | 01:07 | so you really don't need to change this.
8 tracks will allow you to lay down
| | 01:10 | two channels of audio that are
associated with your clips, two channels for
| | 01:14 | music, two for audio
effects and two for narration.
| | 01:17 | If you are working on a project with
many audio tracks, feel free to bump this
| | 01:20 | number up. The Show Tooltips are the
little descriptors that you see once you
| | 01:25 | park over buttons on the Final Cut
Express interface, that tell you the
| | 01:28 | function of the button. These tips are
extremely helpful as you are learning
| | 01:32 | Final Cut Express, so leave this on
for now. Open last project on application
| | 01:37 | launch does exactly what it sounds.
| | 01:40 | If you want Final Cut Express to open
the last project that you are working on,
| | 01:44 | every time you launch the program,
leave this box checked. If you want Final
| | 01:48 | Cut Express to open a new project each
time you open it, then you can uncheck
| | 01:52 | this. The Autosave Vault is a great
little feature that allows you to enable
| | 01:56 | Final Cut Express to automatically save
your project after predetermined amount
| | 02:00 | of minutes.
| | 02:01 | As you can see right here the default
is set to 30; I would suggest lowering
| | 02:05 | this to about 15 minutes. The next set
of parameters, you can pretty much leave
| | 02:10 | unchecked, due to the new Open Format
Timeline feature in Final Cut Express,
| | 02:14 | checking these buttons would
essentially prompt Final Cut Express to ask you
| | 02:18 | what tape format you are using.
| | 02:21 | This is good if you sometimes use 16:9
footage, then switch to projects using
| | 02:25 | 4:3 footage, HDV or DV footage. In
Final Cut Express 4, these prompts have all
| | 02:31 | been automated. So we will get into
this a little bit later as we discuss the
| | 02:35 | easy setup controls.
| | 02:37 | Report Dropped Frames During Playback
simply tells Final Cut Express to alert
| | 02:41 | you if frames have been dropped while
playing your video back, perhaps you have
| | 02:45 | an unrendered effect which can make
your video appear to stutter. Even though
| | 02:49 | this setting is turned on by default, I
am less concerned with this one because
| | 02:54 | it really doesn't speak to the
quality of my finished video. So I typically
| | 02:58 | turn this setting off.
| | 03:00 | Now as for the Abort capture on dropped
frames, I would like Final Cut Express
| | 03:04 | to stop if it detects that I am
dropping frames as I am ingesting my video
| | 03:09 | footage from a camera or tape deck.
You definitely want to keep this one on.
| | 03:12 | When you first launch Final Cut
Express and you don't have a camera or deck
| | 03:17 | attached to your computer, Final Cut
Express will give you an A/V device
| | 03:21 | warning upon launch.
| | 03:23 | If you don't want to have to click OK
in the warning box every time you start
| | 03:26 | the program, you can choose to not have
it show by putting a check in this box.
| | 03:31 | If the size of the text in the
browser window is too small, you can use the
| | 03:34 | menu in the Browser Text Size field to
change it to a larger setting; ideally,
| | 03:39 | don't touch this setting, but if
you need to you are free to do so.
| | 03:42 | The next set of parameters is another
example of how Final Cut Express works
| | 03:46 | hard to make your editing sessions as
efficient as possible. The Auto Render
| | 03:50 | allows you to enable the rendering of
effects after predetermined amount of
| | 03:54 | time of inactivity in Final Cut
Express. So if you are working on a project
| | 03:58 | with a lot of unrendered effects and
you break for lunch or you need to go to a
| | 04:02 | meeting, Final Cut Express will start
rendering those effects after you have
| | 04:06 | been away for the default 45 minutes
or whatever time you designate here.
| | 04:10 | Now let's move on to the Editing tab.
The Still/Freeze Duration setting allows
| | 04:16 | you to dictate the default duration
of the still images that you bring into
| | 04:19 | Final Cut Express, meaning if you
import a snapshot from your vacation in the
| | 04:23 | Final Cut Express and place it into the
Timeline, under the current setting, it
| | 04:28 | will have a duration of 10 seconds in
the Timeline. For now, 10 seconds is
| | 04:31 | plenty of time.
| | 04:32 | In the trimming section of this
training we'll get into setting Pre-roll and
| | 04:37 | Post-roll. So hold on and these
settings will make more sense later, when you
| | 04:40 | actually have a chance to see them in
action. The same goes for the Trimming
| | 04:44 | Options, go ahead and check Dynamic
Trimming and later we will trim away the
| | 04:48 | fat on a video sequence by using the
trimming tools to polish a video montage.
| | 04:53 | The rest are prompts for warnings that
we can leave as it is. Let's click on
| | 04:57 | the Timeline Options tab. The
parameters in the Timeline Options tab can also
| | 05:02 | be found on the Timeline itself and
will service better if we wait to configure
| | 05:06 | them as needed and we will. So don't
make any changes in this tab, just yet.
| | 05:11 | Let's move on to the Render Control tab.
This tab gives you control over the
| | 05:15 | quality of which Final Cut Express
will render and play back. By default,
| | 05:19 | everything is set to render at full
quality and the computers we use nowadays
| | 05:23 | are so fast that it is my opinion that
you can go ahead and leave everything in
| | 05:27 | here as it is. Because Final Cut
Express will be able to process effects fast
| | 05:32 | enough for us to work with. If you
ever need to edit something together very
| | 05:35 | fast at draft quality, you can always
change these settings to a lower quality.
| | 05:41 | The next set of preferences that we
need to discuss are the System Preferences,
| | 05:45 | which allow you to define how Final
Cut Express works in relation to your
| | 05:49 | computer. The Scratch Disks settings
allow you to choose where your captured
| | 05:54 | and rendered files in Final Cut Pro
will be stored. By clicking the Set button,
| | 05:59 | you can designate a location on the
second internal drive or an external drive
| | 06:03 | to house these files.
| | 06:05 | It's highly discouraged against
setting your built-in system drive as the
| | 06:10 | Scratch Disk, due to performance
bottlenecking. I will set this to my secondary
| | 06:14 | hard drive. At the bottom, you see at
its default setting, Final Cut Express
| | 06:19 | will leave a minimum of 2 gigs of hard
drive space on the Capture Scratch. So
| | 06:24 | there is no need to worry about
filling up your hard drive while capturing
| | 06:27 | video.
| | 06:28 | You should never lower this number as
it is recommended that you should leave a
| | 06:32 | hard drive at least 5% empty. A drive
needs at least 5% breathing room in order
| | 06:38 | to function properly.
| | 06:39 | The next tab is for designating
Search Folders. If anything goes offline in
| | 06:44 | Final Cut Express and you need to
perform a search, the folders that you
| | 06:48 | designate here will be the first place
that it looks. So if you tend to store
| | 06:52 | your media in this same place, it
would be smart to designate them as your
| | 06:56 | Search Folders.
| | 06:57 | Moving on to the Memory & Cache tab.
Final Cut Express is set to use 100% of
| | 07:03 | your system's memory. This setting is
fine just the way it is and the only time
| | 07:08 | that I would recommend changing this
particular setting is if you were getting
| | 07:13 | a lot of low memory errors.
| | 07:15 | In Playback Controls, RT setting is
set to Safe by default. I would like to
| | 07:20 | change this to Unlimited because it
performs well on my particular system
| | 07:23 | configuration. If you are editing an
effect-intensive project and you notice
| | 07:28 | that you are dropping a lot of frames
during playback, you may need to set this
| | 07:32 | to Safe. The video quality is set to
Dynamic, meaning that Final Cut Express
| | 07:36 | will automatically adjust the image
quality upon playback, so that you can view
| | 07:41 | your effects.
| | 07:41 | We'll dive further into RT settings
more as we add effects to our video in a
| | 07:46 | later chapter. At the bottom, the
Record option is set to Full Quality and if
| | 07:52 | yours isn't, you need to change it to
where it does say Full Quality. When you
| | 07:56 | go to print your finished project to
tape, this setting will ensure that you
| | 08:00 | are recording at the
highest image quality available.
| | 08:03 | Now let's move on to the External
Editors tab. If you have other software that
| | 08:07 | you like to use for specific task
such as Adobe Photoshop to edit still
| | 08:11 | pictures, you can designate an
external editor inside of Final Cut Express,
| | 08:15 | press the Set button and navigate to
the Photoshop icon in the Applications
| | 08:18 | folder.
| | 08:20 | Now when you right-click on the image
in the Timeline, then choose Open in
| | 08:24 | Editor. It will open directly into
Photoshop for manipulation. You can make
| | 08:29 | your changes to the still photo, then
save it and the photo in the final Cut
| | 08:32 | Express Timeline is automatically updated.
| | 08:35 | The final place that we need to take
a look at is the Easy Setup. Final Cut
| | 08:39 | Express provides you with easy setups
that will allow you to configure Final
| | 08:43 | Cut Express for capturing, editing
and outputting media in the appropriate
| | 08:47 | standard. It's important to take a
moment and think of a video format that you
| | 08:51 | will be editing in so that you can
choose the proper easy setup for your
| | 08:54 | editing session.
| | 08:55 | The new Open Format Timeline feature
in Final Cut Express 4 will allow you to
| | 08:59 | mix footage from various recording
formats such as HDV, DV, NTSC and PAL,
| | 09:05 | within the same sequence. But it is
still a good idea to pick an easy setup
| | 09:09 | that matches the majority of
the footage you will be editing.
| | 09:11 | I am going to leave the Format option
to the default all formats and rate to
| | 09:16 | all rates and make sure that our
Use option is set to DV-NTSC Anamorphic,
| | 09:21 | since this will be the bulk of the
content that we will be editing. The new
| | 09:25 | Open Format Timeline feature somewhat
negates the purpose of using the prompt
| | 09:28 | for settings on new project and
prompt for settings on new sequence as
| | 09:32 | aforementioned in the User Preferences
because Final Cut Express will now use
| | 09:36 | the setting of the first clip that you
edit into the Timeline to configure the
| | 09:40 | sequence settings.
| | 09:41 | Now that we have adjusted our
preferences for our editing session, let's take a
| | 09:44 | closer look at the Final Cut Express interface.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Remapping Exposé keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 | Before we get started with using Final
Cut Express 4, there is a setting that
| | 00:04 | we need to change. Some of the most
commonly keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut
| | 00:08 | Express are F9 and F10.
They are used for editing.
| | 00:13 | Unfortunately, the Macintosh operating
system is already using them, so let's
| | 00:17 | change that. Go ahead and go to the
Apple menu on the menu bar and choose
| | 00:22 | System Preferences. Then choose Expose
& Spaces. If you are on 10.4, choose the
| | 00:29 | Dashboard & Expose System Preference.
From here, click on the Expose tab and
| | 00:35 | you will see our hijacked keyboard
shortcuts below. Go ahead and change these
| | 00:38 | keyboard shortcuts to the dash
here at the bottom of the menu.
| | 00:43 | This allows Final Cut Express to use
these keys instead. Turning off this
| | 00:48 | keyboard shortcuts will enable you to
work effectively in Final Cut Express 4.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a premium member to
lynda.com's Online Training Library or have
| | 00:04 | bought this disk for this particular
title, then you have access to the project
| | 00:08 | files that enable you to
participate in the exercises.
| | 00:11 | After you copy the Exercise Files to
your desktop, you will notice that they
| | 00:15 | consist of folders representing each
chapter and a Media folder at the bottom.
| | 00:19 | The chapter folders are where you will
find the stage Final Cut Express project
| | 00:23 | files that you will be prompted
to open as you watch the training.
| | 00:28 | The Media folder is where all of the
audio and video pertaining to the lessons
| | 00:32 | files are housed. All of the Final Cut
Express project files in the chapter's
| | 00:36 | folder will reference the Media files
as they are opened. You won't need to
| | 00:41 | access the Media folder except when
prompted to import a still photo or a
| | 00:45 | project from another application.
It's important that you keep all of these
| | 00:49 | folders together in the same Exercise Files
folder so that the projects launch properly.
| | 00:54 | If you are a monthly or annual
subscriber to lynda.com, then you don't have
| | 00:59 | access to the Exercise Files. Feel free
to follow along using your own clips as
| | 01:04 | you view the course. Now let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Understanding the InterfaceLearning the interface| 00:00 | The Final Cut Express interface
consists of four major work areas, the Browser,
| | 00:05 | Viewer, Canvas, and Timeline. It's
crucial that you understand the functions of
| | 00:10 | each of these windows as they all
serve a practical and logical purpose that
| | 00:15 | will help mold your video project in
a nutshell. The construction of your
| | 00:20 | project will most likely proceed as follows.
| | 00:22 | You will import and organize your video
clips into the Browser, use the Viewer
| | 00:26 | window to preview clips to make edits,
use the Timeline window to lay down your
| | 00:31 | edits, and use the Canvas window to
preview your finished edits in the
| | 00:35 | Timeline. This is a very logical
setup but with that being said each window
| | 00:39 | has many different functions that
you need to be acquainted with. So,
| | 00:43 | let's get started with the Browser window.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Browser window| 00:00 | Think of the Browser window as the
great organizer of all the content that you
| | 00:04 | will use to build your show. This is
the area where you will access all of the
| | 00:08 | video footage that you have captured
from your camera or DV deck, all of
| | 00:12 | the audio files that you will be using
in your project and still photos from
| | 00:16 | your desktop. Before you can begin
working in any window in the Final Cut
| | 00:20 | Express interface, you must first select
it by clicking in it. So go ahead and
| | 00:24 | click in the Browser window.
| | 00:26 | As you can see there is already two
folders in the Browser. One for Video and
| | 00:30 | the other for Audio. The actual name
for these folders are Bins. Bins will help
| | 00:35 | you keep all of your project elements
organized and I can't stress enough how
| | 00:39 | important it is to see organized as
you are creating your video project.
| | 00:43 | There are a number of ways that you
can view the contents of the Browser
| | 00:46 | depending on your particular need
or work style. Each view will reveal
| | 00:51 | different information about the clips
that are housed in the bins. Right now
| | 00:54 | the Browser display is
set to View as Large Icons.
| | 00:58 | If I click on the first icon in the
upper right corner, I can change my view to
| | 01:02 | View as List. As you can see that
layout has changed and on the right we now
| | 01:08 | have access to information that we
didn't have in the previous view. By
| | 01:11 | clicking on the arrow next to the bin
marked as Video clips, I see that it
| | 01:15 | contains 10 video clips. I now have
information pertaining to these clips in
| | 01:20 | the columns to the right.
| | 01:22 | If I scroll over I can see that we
have set in and out-points for the clips.
| | 01:27 | That the clips were shot in 720x480
frame size and the audio sample rate is 48
| | 01:33 | KHz. Take notice of how I have neatly
organized my elements when I reveal the
| | 01:38 | contents of my audio and video bins.
It's important that you use this same
| | 01:42 | level of organization to organize your
project elements. If you don't, trust me.
| | 01:48 | You will eventually find yourself
wasting precious time rummaging for a video
| | 01:51 | clip or a specific audio file.
| | 01:54 | To import an object from your desktop
or an external drive, simply go to File >
| | 01:59 | Import and choose File or Folder. In
this case, I am simply importing a single
| | 02:04 | clip so I will choose File. Then
navigate to where the file is located on my
| | 02:09 | computer, select it and click Choose.
Since I have imported a still graphic
| | 02:15 | what we need to do now is create another
bin that will house all of our graphic files.
| | 02:20 | You can create a new bin in a number
of ways. You can go to File > New Bin or
| | 02:26 | right-click and choose New Bin or
press Command+B on the keyboard. Let's name
| | 02:31 | the bin Graphics and move our still
image into the New Bin. There are still
| | 02:36 | more ways that you can view the
contents of the Browser, such as View as Small
| | 02:41 | Icons, Medium Icons or even
arrange by name or duration.
| | 02:50 | At the top of the Browser window are
the tabs for the current open project
| | 02:54 | along with the Effects tab. When you
name your Final Cut Express Project, the
| | 02:58 | name will show as a Project tab. The
Effects tab on the other hand houses many
| | 03:02 | of the elements that you will use to
enhance your video, such as adding audio
| | 03:07 | and video transitions, effects filters
and a few fixes for audio or video that
| | 03:12 | they may not have been
shot under optimal conditions.
| | 03:15 | To utilize these effects you can
either drag the Effect icon down to the clip
| | 03:19 | in the Timeline or to the clip loaded
into the Viewer window. Speaking of the
| | 03:26 | Viewer window let's take a closer look.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Viewer window| 00:00 | The Viewer window is the area where
you will preview the clips that you have
| | 00:03 | imported into the Browser window and
set your edit points before laying clips
| | 00:07 | to the Timeline. When you double-click
on a clip in the Browser or on a clip
| | 00:11 | that you have edited into the Timeline,
you are loading that clip into the
| | 00:14 | Viewer window where you can play it back.
| | 00:17 | The transport controls located at the
bottom of the window give you ability to
| | 00:21 | play the clip and supply you with
increased navigability and playback ability
| | 00:26 | around edit points. Let's go ahead and
create a couple of edit points by using
| | 00:31 | the Mark In and Mark Out
buttons here at the bottom.
| | 00:34 | The Scrubber Bar is the white area
between the viewing area of the window and
| | 00:39 | transport controls. By dragging the
playhead you can move through the video
| | 00:43 | clip to pinpoint where you want to
mark the in and out-points. These two
| | 00:47 | controls on each side will allow
you to shuttle through the clip.
| | 00:51 | The Shuttle control on the right will
allow you to move through the video one
| | 00:55 | frame at a time. I generally find it
easier to use the Left and Right Arrow keys
| | 01:00 | on the keyboard to move through my
video clips, one frame at a time, but I
| | 01:04 | recommend that you use what feels
right for you. I will go ahead and place an
| | 01:08 | in and out-point.
| | 01:10 | Notice in the Duration field towards
the upper left corner of the window that
| | 01:14 | it shows me the duration of the edit
I just made. If you later find out that
| | 01:19 | what you needed was a longer clip,
you can type in a longer duration. Then
| | 01:23 | press the Return key on the keyboard
and the Mark Out will be moved to create a
| | 01:27 | longer clip. Keep in mind that you
can also click on the edit point in the
| | 01:32 | scrubber area and drag the
points to a new location if needed.
| | 01:38 | Now when I am ready, this is the
part of the clip that I will lay to the
| | 01:42 | Timeline to be part of my show. But
before I do that, perhaps I need to review
| | 01:47 | the edit that I have just made to see
if it's really what I want. To playback
| | 01:52 | only the edited portion of the clip
choose Play In to Out in the transport
| | 01:57 | controls. Due to the nature of the
remaining controls here I will show you how
| | 02:00 | to use them when we later discuss an
identical set of tools found in the Canvas window.
| | 02:05 | To the right of the Duration field are
the magnification levels that will allow
| | 02:09 | you to fit the entire clip into the
window, which is the default setting, or
| | 02:13 | increase the magnification of a clip
so that you can take a closer look at
| | 02:17 | clips. The adjacent controls will
allow you to activate specific overlay such
| | 02:22 | as the title safe boundaries.
| | 02:24 | If you are adding text to your project
you will need to turn on the show title
| | 02:28 | safe overlays because they depict
the areas of the image that will remain
| | 02:32 | visible when playing back your video on
a television monitor. The outer overlay
| | 02:36 | shows the action safe area that will
remain visible on a television monitor and
| | 02:40 | the inner overlay shows the area where
it's safe to place tittles. If you go
| | 02:44 | beyond these marks there is good
chance that part of your image will not be
| | 02:48 | visible when you play it back on a TV
set. So make sure that you follow the
| | 02:52 | specific overlays very closely.
| | 02:55 | Next is the Time field and it shows
you exactly where the playhead is located
| | 02:59 | in the clip. So whatever this field
reads means that the playhead is located X
| | 03:04 | amount of seconds into the clip you
have loaded into the Viewer. The tabs
| | 03:07 | located at the top of the Viewer window
specify functions within clips. When we
| | 03:11 | start adding effects to our video in a
later chapter, you will get to see these
| | 03:15 | tabs at work.
| | 03:16 | One tab that we can go ahead and talk
about is the Audio tab. If your sequence
| | 03:21 | in the Timeline contains audio you are
able to click this tab and receive much
| | 03:26 | more information about that audio. You
will be able to control the Level of the
| | 03:29 | audio as well as the Pan from here in a
waveform view. The other tools located
| | 03:34 | to the left of the mark in and out
icons will be discussed in detail in a later
| | 03:40 | chapter as we begin editing in the Timeline.
| | 03:42 | Last, at the bottom right corner of
the Viewer, you have Recent Clips pop-up
| | 03:46 | menu, which lists the last ten used
clips. So if you have changed your mind
| | 03:51 | about using a clip that you previously
loaded into the Viewer and would like to
| | 03:55 | see that clip again, click on it in
this list and it will reload into the Viewer.
| | 04:01 | Next what you have the Generators pop-
up menu, which allows you to access title
| | 04:05 | tools, mattes and shapes. Let's move on
to a window that is very similar to the
| | 04:10 | Viewer but plays a
different role, known as the Canvas.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Canvas window| 00:00 | The next window we need to discuss is
the Canvas, which is located in the top
| | 00:04 | right portion of the Final Cut Express
interface. This area is where you will
| | 00:07 | monitor the progress of your show. It
will allow you to see edits and effects
| | 00:11 | that you will implement as you build
your program. Notice as I drag the
| | 00:14 | playhead in the Canvas that its
movement is mirrored by the playhead in the
| | 00:18 | Timeline window. This allows you to
preview specific areas of interest within
| | 00:22 | the edited sequence.
| | 00:23 | At the very top of the Canvas lie the
tabs for each sequence in your project.
| | 00:27 | The controls located underneath are
nearly identical to those in the Viewer
| | 00:31 | window and allow us to change the
magnification of clips as well as activate or
| | 00:36 | deactivate clip overlays, just as we
discussed in the Viewer window. The only
| | 00:41 | difference is that the duration and
time pertain to the entire Timeline
| | 00:45 | sequence and not just individual clips.
| | 00:47 | In the top right corner of the Canvas
window is the button shaped like a film
| | 00:51 | camera. This is the Toggle Video Out
button. If you have the camera or deck
| | 00:55 | attached to your computer, this button
will allow you to print your finished show
| | 00:59 | to tape or simply preview out to a
television monitor as you are editing.
| | 01:04 | Like the Viewer window, the Transport
controls located at the bottom of the
| | 01:07 | Canvas, provides you increased ability
to preview areas of your show such as
| | 01:11 | playing between edits points or
playing a loop around the current frame.
| | 01:15 | You can also use the Canvas to make editing
decisions by jumping from cut to cut by
| | 01:20 | using the Go To Next Edit and Go
To Previous Edit transport controls.
| | 01:25 | The Canvas window is the primary area
where you are able to see your project
| | 01:29 | come to life. Next, we will discuss the
area where you will physically lay the
| | 01:33 | bits and pieces of your show, the Timeline.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the timeline| 00:00 | The Timeline is where you will actually
build your movie. So in essence, it's a
| | 00:04 | graphical representation of the nuts
and bolts that have come together to make
| | 00:08 | your movie. There are many things to
talk about in the Timeline but to start we
| | 00:12 | are only going to cover the essentials,
so you can get up and running with your
| | 00:15 | own projects. So let's get started.
| | 00:18 | At the very top lies the Sequence tabs.
If you have more than one sequence you
| | 00:22 | will see a tab representing each of them.
To access them all you need to do is
| | 00:27 | click on the appropriate tab and the
contents will open up in the Timeline.
| | 00:31 | Just underneath you will
find the RT real-time controls.
| | 00:35 | Now these are the same controls that
we configured earlier in the system
| | 00:38 | preferences in the playback control tab.
So we have already configured this by
| | 00:43 | setting our RT to Unlimited. The video
quality is set to Dynamic and we will
| | 00:47 | dive much deeper into these options
when we tackle the topic of effects
| | 00:51 | creation in a later chapter.
| | 00:52 | To the right is the Duration field,
which has the ability to show us how long
| | 00:57 | our program is if we move the playhead
to the end of the sequence by pressing
| | 01:01 | the End key on the keyboard. We can
also use the Adjacent Timeline ruler to the
| | 01:05 | right to view the length of our show.
| | 01:08 | If we take a closer look at the
sequence itself, you see that it consists of
| | 01:12 | eight clips with transitions between
them and that the music rests on two
| | 01:15 | tracks. This is how most of the
project will appear in the Timeline. As you
| | 01:19 | begin to edit more advanced programs
perhaps you will add narration to the
| | 01:23 | Timeline or even an audio effects track.
| | 01:26 | Before you lay an edit to the Timeline
you need to patch the Source button to
| | 01:30 | the appropriate track where you
want to go. Let's say that I wanted place
| | 01:34 | another clip over the first clip in
this sequence so that I can create a
| | 01:38 | composite effect. I would patch the
source to video track two, signifying that
| | 01:43 | this is the track where I want to
place the new clip. Now I will go ahead and
| | 01:46 | make the edit.
| | 01:52 | If you look at the audio on audio
tracks one and two you can see that we have
| | 01:56 | a problem. The new clip that I have
edited into the second track has two audio
| | 02:01 | tracks associated with it and has cut
into my two music tracks. See these icons
| | 02:05 | here in the shape of padlocks? These
controls will allow you to lock audio
| | 02:09 | tracks so this problem doesn't occur.
| | 02:11 | So I am going to undo this last edit
by pressing Command+Z on the keyboard.
| | 02:15 | I am going to go ahead and lock these
two audio tracks and remake my edit.
| | 02:21 | Another thing I could have done, if
this new clip had audio that I wanted to
| | 02:25 | use such as nat sound, I can move the
audio sources to tracks three and four and
| | 02:32 | now when I make my edit, the associated
audio would be placed on these two tracks.
| | 02:37 | If you have more than one set of audio
tracks in the sequence and you want to
| | 02:41 | hear only one audio source, there are
couple of ways you can do this. These
| | 02:45 | green audible buttons enable you to
soundless the tracks that you don't want to
| | 02:49 | hear, so that you can play
back the others. Let's try it.
| | 02:54 | (Waves crashing.)
| | 02:58 | Another way to playback specific audio
tracks is to click on the audio controls
| | 03:02 | in the bottom left corner and click
the Solo button, which is shaped as a set
| | 03:06 | of headphones and all the other audio
tracks are muted except this particular track.
| | 03:14 | (Waves crashing.)
| | 03:18 | The same is true for video tracks.
Click on one of the visible buttons
| | 03:22 | so that you can view only the
specific video track of interest.
| | 03:26 | Now if we move back to the bottom and
toggle on the Clip Overlays button, you
| | 03:30 | can see that there are now black and
pink rubber bands that appear in our video
| | 03:34 | and audio clips within the sequence.
The black rubber bands let us control the
| | 03:38 | opacity of the video clips, and the
pink ones let us control our audio levels
| | 03:45 | by either raising or lowering them.
When we create our own effects and start
| | 03:50 | adjusting audio in later chapters,
we will take a much closer look at the
| | 03:53 | functionality of the overlays.
| | 03:56 | Next to the Clip Overlays button is
the Toggle Track Height control, which
| | 04:00 | allows us to change the size of the
video and audio tracks in the sequence.
| | 04:05 | If you would like to work with these
tracks bigger, this is one place you can go
| | 04:09 | to change their size. The other thing
you can do is simply drag in the Timeline
| | 04:13 | and make a specific track larger. Right
next to the track height controls, you
| | 04:18 | can choose to show the actual
waveform of audio files in the sequence.
| | 04:22 | This can come in handy if you are
searching for a specific audio queue to make
| | 04:26 | an edit. One thing to keep in mind is
that if you make your track height too
| | 04:31 | small, you won't be able to see the
information in these clips. So I find that
| | 04:35 | a medium track size usually works
fine for me. If you press the Command key
| | 04:40 | along with the Plus key on the
Keyboard, you are able to zoom into the
| | 04:43 | Timeline. While the Command and
Minus keys will zoom you back out.
| | 04:49 | If you are working on a very long
program and your sequence no longer fits on
| | 04:52 | the page, you can either use the
bottom bar to scroll to another area of the
| | 04:56 | sequence or press Shift+Z on the
keyboard to put the entire sequence in view.
| | 05:04 | The Timeline is where you will spend
most of your time building your movie,
| | 05:07 | where you can actually see your work take shape.
| | 05:10 | Now, it's time to dig into the toolbox
and examine the audio meters of Final Cut Express.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the tools| 00:00 | The last two components of the Final
Cut Express interface that we need to
| | 00:03 | discuss are the Tool palette and the
Audio Meters. The Tool palette provides
| | 00:07 | the tools that enable you to perform tasks
such as selecting clips and trimming excess video.
| | 00:12 | The Selection tool enables you to
move clips around the Timeline as well as
| | 00:17 | make selections. You can even adjust
the length of the clips by clicking and
| | 00:20 | dragging from either end. Moving
downward, you have other options such as the
| | 00:25 | Edit Selection tool and the
Select Track Forward tool.
| | 00:29 | Next, you have a series of Trim tools,
which we will dive deeper into when we
| | 00:32 | start refining our edits in a later
chapter. In many ways the trimming tools
| | 00:37 | are the essence of non-linear video
editing because they enable you to find
| | 00:41 | your story by chipping away the excess
footage from your video clips allowing
| | 00:45 | you to achieve tightly edited scenes.
| | 00:47 | If I click and hold down one of these
tools, we can see a list of secondary
| | 00:51 | tools that are actually hidden under
the visible tools. The Roll tool will let
| | 00:55 | you adjust the in and out-points of
the two adjacent clips in the Timeline
| | 00:59 | without affecting the
overall duration of the sequence.
| | 01:03 | The Slide tool enables you to adjust
the edit points of three adjacent clips
| | 01:07 | simultaneously making your entire
sequence longer or shorter. There are also
| | 01:12 | cutting tools that enable you to
cut larger clips into smaller pieces.
| | 01:17 | Next, we have the Magnification tools
that give you the ability to zoom in and
| | 01:21 | out of clips in the Canvas or into the
Timeline window itself. If I click and
| | 01:25 | hold on top of this first tool, we can
see the Hand tool, which will allow you
| | 01:30 | to move around in an enlarged image
instead of using the blue scroll bars that
| | 01:34 | appear in the window.
| | 01:36 | The other tool that is in the shape of
a hand is the scrubber. If we change the
| | 01:40 | view of the browser to Icon view, we
can see a still representation of the
| | 01:44 | video clips. The Scrubber tool will
allow you to move through the clip as you
| | 01:48 | click and drag. So this is another
handy way to review a clip from within the
| | 01:52 | browser when the browser is set to one
of the Icon views. Later you will get a
| | 01:57 | chance to see this in action when we
start to storyboard our clips before we
| | 02:01 | edit them into the Timeline.
| | 02:03 | Going back to the Tool palette, we
have the Crop tool and the Pen tool.
| | 02:07 | Primarily, what the Pen tool is used
for is adjusting audio clips within the
| | 02:11 | sequence by way of overlays. Use the
Pen tool to click on the Pink overlays in
| | 02:16 | an area where the sound is too low or
too high and drag up or down to adjust the
| | 02:21 | audio for the clip.
| | 02:22 | We'll also have a more in depth
discussion of the functionality of this tool
| | 02:27 | when we start adjusting our own
audio in the Editing the Audio chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the audio meters| 00:00 | The Audio Meter is essentially an
audio monitoring device that allows you to
| | 00:04 | see where your audio levels are hitting.
Watch as I play the sequence.
| | 00:09 | (Music plays in background.)
You can see the levels going up and down
| | 00:11 | in the VU meter, and if you look closely in
| | 00:13 | the Timeline, you can see that its
movement follows the ebbs and flows of the
| | 00:18 | audio waveform.
| | 00:19 | For most editors, you want to keep
your audio around negative 12 decibels.
| | 00:25 | If you are hitting zero on this digital
scale, you are probably in the red and
| | 00:29 | are starting to hear you audio distort.
The actual mixing of the sound does not
| | 00:34 | occur in this audio meter, but it's a
great way to keep your eye on the audio to
| | 00:39 | make sure it's in optimal range.
| | 00:44 | Now, that you have got a chance to look
around the Final Cut Express interface,
| | 00:47 | it's time to discuss some options on
how you can better customize your own
| | 00:51 | personal workspace.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing the workspace| 00:00 | As you become comfortable working in
Final Cut Express, you will soon discover
| | 00:04 | that the ability to customize the
interface for your own specific need is a
| | 00:08 | wonderful thing. If you were to sit in
another video editor's workstation while
| | 00:12 | they were using Final Cut Express,
the layout would probably look different
| | 00:16 | than the default standard layout
that we have been using so far.
| | 00:19 | If you want to be an efficient video
editor, then customizing your workspace is
| | 00:23 | a must. Perhaps you are previewing
your show out to a television set and you
| | 00:28 | would really like to maximize the
Timeline area. You could simply click on the
| | 00:32 | dividing line between the Timeline and
the Viewer and Canvas windows and drag
| | 00:36 | upward. All of the windows adjust dynamically.
| | 00:40 | If you are working on a laptop, you may
find it more beneficial to decrease the
| | 00:44 | size of the Viewer and Canvas windows
since most of your work will be done in
| | 00:48 | the Timeline. If you are doing some
compositing work and would really like to
| | 00:52 | increase the size of the Viewer and
Canvas windows, go to Window > Arrange and
| | 00:56 | choose Compositing.
| | 00:58 | As you can see, the layout has
changed drastically to accommodate your
| | 01:02 | compositing work. Before you record
narration for your show using the Voice
| | 01:06 | Over tool, you may want to change the
window configuration to optimize your
| | 01:10 | work area. Again, go to Window >
Arrange and choose Voice Over Recording.
| | 01:15 | You can always choose Standard under the
Arrange options to return the interface
| | 01:20 | back to its default layout. You can
position the interface windows anywhere on
| | 01:24 | screen and Final Cut Express will
even allow you to save your own personal
| | 01:28 | layouts.
| | 01:29 | To save a custom layout, hold down the
Option key, then go to Window > Arrange,
| | 01:35 | and now you are given the option to
set a custom layout. Anytime you need this
| | 01:39 | particular layout, you can go back to
the Window menu and retrieve it. Final
| | 01:43 | Cut Express also gives you the
option of adding shortcut buttons to the
| | 01:47 | interface. If you look above each
window in Final Cut Express to the right
| | 01:51 | corner, you can see wells that will
allow you to add some easy access shortcut
| | 01:56 | functions from the button list. Go to
Tools > Button List and what you have
| | 02:01 | here is a whole list of shortcuts
that can be placed in any window.
| | 02:06 | So all you have to do is click that
button instead of navigating through a menu
| | 02:10 | system. I am going to place the
Import Files shortcut in my Browser window.
| | 02:14 | Now, when I want to import something,
I can just click that button instead of
| | 02:19 | right-clicking or going to the menu
bar at the top. These buttons will
| | 02:23 | automatically save when you close the
application and restore when you open it.
| | 02:28 | If you no longer have a need for a
button you have placed, just drag it from
| | 02:31 | the well and release it and it
disappears. As you can definitely see,
| | 02:36 | customizing your workspace is fast,
convenient and will allow you to work in
| | 02:41 | Final Cut Express more efficiently.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Importing FootageImporting from tape| 00:00 | The first thing you need to do before
importing your video footage into Final
| | 00:03 | Cut Express is to make the necessary
hardware connections between your camera
| | 00:07 | and the computer. What I have done
here is simply take my 4-6 pin FireWire
| | 00:11 | cable and connected the 4-pin
terminal into my camera and placed the 6-pin
| | 00:16 | terminal into the FireWire port of my computer.
| | 00:19 | I then turned on the camera and placed
it in the VCR mode, then launched Final
| | 00:23 | Cut Express on my computer. You want
to start by opening a new project and
| | 00:27 | configuring the easy setup for a
capturing session. As you can see here, there
| | 00:32 | are a number of settings that will
allow us to capture from many different
| | 00:35 | cameras and standards.
| | 00:37 | If the footage is in the HDV format,
there are a number of choices we have
| | 00:41 | here. We also have options for the
PAL standard that's primarily used
| | 00:45 | throughout Europe and the NTSC
standard, which is used in North America and
| | 00:49 | Japan. There are a number of anamorphic
presets in case the footage was shot in
| | 00:53 | wide screen 16x9. The settings
marked as Basic are good to try if you are
| | 00:58 | having problems capturing.
| | 01:00 | They're a simpler means of device
control that may allow you to capture.
| | 01:05 | The 32-kilohertz options are for when you
have shot your video with four channels
| | 01:09 | of audio, which is not as common.
| | 01:11 | I am choosing DV-NTSC because this is
the material we are going to be working with.
| | 01:15 | Choose Setup. And now the first
thing you want to do in Final Cut Express
| | 01:21 | is create a new bin. So press Command+B
on the keyboard and let's name it Tape_001.
| | 01:28 | Next, we need to set this particular
bin as our Capture bin. Right-click on it
| | 01:33 | and choose Set Capture Bin. Now, all
of our reference files to our captured
| | 01:38 | media will be placed in this folder.
Don't get these files confused with the
| | 01:42 | actual media that will be stored
elsewhere on your hard drive. These files are
| | 01:46 | merely references to the media that you
have stored in your designated scratch
| | 01:50 | disk location.
| | 01:51 | If you are used to using iMovie,
this is a different concept. As iMovie
| | 01:55 | actually stores the captured media
within the project. Speaking of scratch
| | 02:00 | disk, this is a good time to check the
location of the scratch disk by going to
| | 02:04 | the System Settings. I can now see
that my scratch disk is indeed set to my
| | 02:08 | external drive right where I want it.
We are now ready to capture our video
| | 02:13 | footage. To open the capture
utility, go to File > Capture.
| | 02:18 | One very important thing to note before
we begin is that capturing and logging
| | 02:22 | go hand in hand. If you haphazardly
bring clips into your system without naming
| | 02:27 | them properly, you are setting
yourself up for a huge headache. It's very
| | 02:31 | important to practice our best
organizational skills while capturing.
| | 02:35 | With that being said, give the tape
that you will be capturing a name in the
| | 02:39 | field marked as Reel. I am going to
name this tape Tape_1. This is also the
| | 02:45 | name that you should write on the
physical tape itself. Now, press the Play
| | 02:48 | button. The tape is now playing in the camera.
| | 02:51 | What we need to do is find the portion
of the tape that we want to bring into
| | 02:55 | our Final Cut Express system by
marking in and out-points. One thing you
| | 02:59 | definitely want to do when setting
your in and out-points for capturing is to
| | 03:03 | always capture a little more of the
action than what you plan on using. This is
| | 03:07 | not the place to perform tight edits.
Leave enough room around the scenes that
| | 03:11 | you are capturing so that you can have
a little extra space before the action
| | 03:15 | begins and after, so that
you can later add transitions.
| | 03:19 | A very useful way to shuttle through
the footage on tape is to use the J, K, L
| | 03:23 | keys on the keyboard. By pressing
the L key, I am able to move forward.
| | 03:29 | By pressing the J key, I am able to move
backward through the footage. The K key
| | 03:34 | will stop playback. Pressing the L
key twice allows me to speed up playback
| | 03:38 | going forward.
| | 03:41 | Let's press the K key to stop playback
and press the J key once to perform a
| | 03:46 | slow rewind. I want to capture a
close shot of these flowers. So I will go
| | 03:50 | ahead and place my in-point, then
move forward in the video and set my
| | 03:54 | out-point. All you need to do now is
click the Capture Clip button to begin
| | 04:00 | ingesting the footage into Final Cut
Express. The Log Clip box appears making
| | 04:05 | sure that this is indeed what I wish
to name the clip I'm about to capture.
| | 04:09 | It also gives me the chance to write a note
about the clip if I want to. Then click OK.
| | 04:15 | Final Cut Express is now rewinding
to the beginning of the shot to begin
| | 04:20 | ingesting the clip into the system. At
the bottom of the Capture window, you
| | 04:24 | can see information about the clip you
are capturing such as its length, the
| | 04:27 | name of the tape that it's capturing
from, the name of the clip and it also
| | 04:31 | gives you a heads-up that you can
press the Escape button on the keyboard to
| | 04:36 | abort this capture session. The
Capture window will close after it finishes,
| | 04:39 | then it's on to the next shot.
| | 04:42 | Going through each tape and selecting
only the scenes that you plan on using in
| | 04:46 | your show is a great way to
conserve drive space, but there is another
| | 04:50 | philosophy behind capturing your
footage. Some editors choose to ingest the
| | 04:54 | entire tape then break it up
into smaller scenes later.
| | 04:58 | Since Final Cut Express doesn't have a
media manager, I wouldn't suggest doing
| | 05:02 | it in this way, as it could get a
little tricky in terms of managing your clip
| | 05:05 | media. This may be something that you
would like to explore further as you get
| | 05:09 | a firm understanding of how sequence
clips relate to their captured media, which
| | 05:14 | we will be discussing in detail in a
later chapter on creating sub clips.
| | 05:18 | If you look in the Capture field,
you see that there are two more capture
| | 05:22 | options that we haven't used yet. The
Capture Now function will allow you to
| | 05:26 | capture from devices such as breakout
boxes or capture cards used to convert
| | 05:31 | analog to digital signals from a VCR.
So it essentially lets you capture from
| | 05:35 | devices that don't have device control.
| | 05:39 | At the end is the Capture Project
button, which will allow you to recapture
| | 05:43 | media that was once deleted from a
project. If you still have the tapes from
| | 05:47 | the original program, Final Cut Express
gives you the ability to re-capture all
| | 05:51 | of the off-line media for that
particular project. Now, we can close out the
| | 05:54 | capture utility and save the project.
| | 05:58 | If the exact location of your
capture files on your hard drive is ever in
| | 06:01 | question, just right click on that
particular clip within the browser and
| | 06:05 | choose Reveal in Finder and the Finder
will open the folder where it is stored
| | 06:10 | on your system drive.
| | 06:11 | Importing footage from a tape is very
straightforward process, but requires
| | 06:15 | some organization on your part. Now,
let's take a look at some of the other
| | 06:19 | methods of importing video and
audio elements into Final Cut Express.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Transferring AVCHD footage| 00:00 | New to Final Cut Express 4 is the
ability to capture footage from hard drive
| | 00:04 | based or memory card based AVCHD Camcorders.
| | 00:08 | The AVCHD format records footage as
digital files. So you are not really
| | 00:12 | capturing in the same sense as you
would with tape, but transferring the
| | 00:16 | footage. A very important thing to know
here is that AVCHD is only supported by
| | 00:21 | Intel based Macs. These new camcorders
use a USB connection to the computer.
| | 00:26 | It will then convert the files
from the MPEG 4 format to the Apple
| | 00:30 | Intermediate Codec.
| | 00:31 | To get started, we need to make the
necessary physical connections. Connect
| | 00:35 | your AVCHD Camcorder to your computer
using a USB cable, then power on the
| | 00:40 | camera, and put it in Play mode or VTR
mode depending on your camcorder. I am
| | 00:44 | going to create another bin and name
it AVCHD and set it as my Capture bin.
| | 00:50 | Now, we are ready to make the transfer.
Go to File > Log and Transfer, and the
| | 00:56 | Log and Transfer window appears.
| | 00:58 | You should automatically be able to see
the clips that exist on your camera in
| | 01:01 | the Browser area, and you can
review the clips by clicking on them.
| | 01:06 | (Birds chirping, background buzz.)
| | 01:08 | You won't be able to set in and out-points
for your clips. So you will have to transfer
| | 01:12 | the entire file. You can add your clip
information underneath the preview area
| | 01:16 | to make sure that everything is
organized once you transfer it to your
| | 01:19 | computer. I will go ahead and transfer
one of my files by selecting it in the
| | 01:22 | browser, then clicking the
Add Clip to Queue button.
| | 01:26 | The clip is then added to the transfer
queue and we can monitor the status icon
| | 01:30 | that lets us know that the file is
being transferred to our designated capture
| | 01:33 | scratch, where it will then be
imported directly into Final Cut Express.
| | 01:38 | A neat thing about AVCHD is that while
files are being transferred, you can
| | 01:43 | continue to add other clips to the queue.
And there you have it. Transferring
| | 01:47 | AVCHD files is a simple, tape-free
process that could be well on its way to
| | 01:52 | making capturing from tape extinct.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing music from a CD| 00:00 | By using iTunes you can easily convert
44.1 KHz audio files from a CD into the
| | 00:07 | higher performing DV sample rate of 48
KHz. But before you begin using music
| | 00:12 | you have purchased on iTunes or from a
new CD you have brought, be aware that
| | 00:16 | this music is copyrighted and you can
get in a lot trouble for using them in
| | 00:20 | your projects.
| | 00:21 | You may have purchased the album, but
you don't own the rights to the music.
| | 00:24 | There are many royalty free music
libraries out there where you can purchase
| | 00:28 | music and edit them into your video
projects without any legal ramifications.
| | 00:33 | If you need more information, visit www.
copyright.gov, so that you are aware of
| | 00:38 | copyright laws.
| | 00:39 | If you want to bring music in from a
CD, place the CD in the computer and
| | 00:43 | iTunes will automatically launch. If
the music file is on the desktop, you can
| | 00:48 | simply open up the iTunes application.
What we need to do is configure the
| | 00:52 | preferences so that it will convert the
audio files into 48 KHz audio, before we
| | 00:57 | use them in a Final Cut Express.
| | 00:59 | For this example, I have inserted a CD.
Go to iTunes in the menu bar and choose
| | 01:04 | Preferences. Navigate to the Advanced
menu at the top of the box, and select
| | 01:09 | the Importing option. In the Import
Using parameter, click on the pulldown
| | 01:14 | menu and choose AIFF Encoder from the
list and set the setting to Custom.
| | 01:21 | Change the sample rate to 48K, the
sample size to 16 Bit, and the channels to
| | 01:25 | stereo.
| | 01:27 | Now we can accept these changes by
clicking OK, then OK again. Now all you have
| | 01:33 | to do is select the audio file, and
click on the Advanced option in the menu
| | 01:37 | bar, and choose Convert Selection to
AIFF. iTunes starts to covert the file to
| | 01:43 | our new specifications and import it
into the library. Once the file is in the
| | 01:48 | library, right-click on it,
and select Show in Finder.
| | 01:54 | This is where the audio file exists on
your hard drive. So now you can simply
| | 01:58 | drag this file to a designated project
folder, or import it directly into Final
| | 02:03 | Cut Express to be placed in your
sequence. iTunes provides a quick and easy way
| | 02:08 | to divert your music files to the
higher quality DV sample rate of 48 KHz.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing photos| 00:00 | There will many times when you need
to import photos into the Final Cut
| | 00:03 | Express. In general, this is a very
easy process. One of the first things you
| | 00:07 | need to consider before importing
photos in the Final Cut Express is the format
| | 00:11 | of the actual graphic
that you will be importing.
| | 00:14 | Digital SLR cameras usually take
pictures in a JPEG format, but if you can take
| | 00:18 | pictures in the TIFF format, I believe
those work a little bit better with DV.
| | 00:24 | The quality just seems to be a little
bit better. Go to File > Import > Files,
| | 00:30 | then navigate to the media folder and
open the folder named Images, and open the
| | 00:35 | folder named Photos.
| | 00:37 | Let's go ahead and import the photo
named Beach into Final Cut Express. As I
| | 00:41 | place it in the Timeline, you can now
see that the photo is 10 seconds long.
| | 00:46 | This is due to the user preferences
that we talked about before. The green
| | 00:49 | render bar indicates that the photo
will have to be rendered before exporting
| | 00:53 | the project. If you open the User
Preferences and click on the Editing tab,
| | 00:56 | the Still/Freeze Duration is ten to 10
seconds. If you need all photos to have
| | 01:02 | a five second duration, all you would
have to do is change the setting to five.
| | 01:07 | Click OK, then delete the photo you
have already into the browser, and into the
| | 01:12 | Timeline, and import it again.
For now 10 seconds works just fine.
| | 01:17 | One thing you may notice when
importing photos you have taken, is that they
| | 01:20 | sometimes don't fill up the entire
viewing area. What you have to do is resize
| | 01:25 | the photo and to do that double-click
on the photo in the Timeline, so that it
| | 01:28 | loads into the Viewer, then go to the
motion tab. We can either drag the slide
| | 01:33 | scale over to increase the clip size,
or type in a value here in the adjacent
| | 01:37 | field until the image is the right size.
| | 01:40 | In this case, I am going to use the
slider to make the image big enough to
| | 01:44 | where the black on the top and the
bottom disappear. There may be times where
| | 01:48 | you have to do this for each photo you
are going to use in a project. Keep in
| | 01:52 | mind that when you increase the scale
of the photo over 100%, if it's not a
| | 01:57 | high resolution image, you are
going to lose some image quality.
| | 02:00 | Now we are on the topic of increasing
scale inside the motion tab. This is a
| | 02:04 | great time to talk about a little
effect that you may have noticed in the
| | 02:07 | documentaries called the Ken Burns
effect. Ken Burns is a famous documentary
| | 02:12 | filmmaker who uses an interesting
technique to create movement in still photos.
| | 02:17 | So what we are going to do is animate
this photo, so it appears that the camera
| | 02:20 | is pushing into it.
| | 02:22 | So in a nutshell, over the 10 seconds
life span of this clip, we are going to
| | 02:26 | slowly increase the size of the clip on
screen. This is another instance where
| | 02:31 | you will need to perform this with a
high resolution image. So preferably, you
| | 02:35 | want to use the image that has a larger
resolution than the sequence you are working in.
| | 02:39 | We will mark the current scale of the
clip as the starting point. So first hit
| | 02:44 | the Home key on the keyboard to place
the playhead at the beginning of the clip
| | 02:47 | in the Timeline. Now let's go ahead
and click once on the Insert Keyframe
| | 02:52 | button in the scale field
to set our first keyframe.
| | 02:55 | To animate something, there has to be
at least two keyframes. So press the End
| | 03:00 | key on the keyboard to move the
playhead to the end of the clip in the
| | 03:03 | Timeline, and increase the scale of
the picture just a little bit. A second
| | 03:07 | keyframe has now been set just by
changing the scale value. So we don't need to
| | 03:12 | click the Insert Keyframe button again.
| | 03:14 | Now play the sequence. We now have a
nice, smooth push into the photo. Next,
| | 03:20 | let's go take a look at how we can
use iPhoto with Final Cut Express.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing from iPhoto| 00:00 | Bringing your pictures in the iPhoto
is a great way to prep your still photos
| | 00:03 | before importing them into Final Cut
Express. So what we are going to do is
| | 00:06 | drag the entire folder named Photos
on to the iPhoto program in the dock.
| | 00:11 | As you can see, all of our photos have
been imported into iPhoto. To open a
| | 00:17 | photo for adjustment, simply double-click
on one of the images. Now if you're using
| | 00:21 | iPhoto version 6.0, all you have to
do is click on the option at the bottom
| | 00:25 | that's labeled Adjust to
access the image Adjustment tools.
| | 00:28 | If you are using iPhoto version 7,
which is part of iLife '08, click on the
| | 00:33 | pencil icon that says Edit. Then choose
Adjust. As you can see, there are many
| | 00:37 | tools here that can be used to enhance
the image. Such as brightness controls,
| | 00:41 | saturation, and exposure settings.
| | 00:44 | You also have Effects templates that
can help you achieve a specific aesthetic or
| | 00:48 | field that you may be going for. Let's
go ahead and raise the Saturation level
| | 00:52 | on this photo to really bring out the
colors. Next, we want to crop the image
| | 00:56 | so that it matches the aspect ratio of
our video sequence in Final Cut Express,
| | 01:00 | so that we don't see a black
space around our image like before.
| | 01:04 | So click on Crop and we are given a
number of different Crop settings to
| | 01:08 | choose from. Such as widescreen HD and
4x3 DVD, which is what we will be using.
| | 01:15 | An important thing that we need to do
here is make sure that we constrain our
| | 01:18 | dimensions. So now we can move our
cropped area around to frame the content
| | 01:22 | that we want.
| | 01:23 | But still maintain the 4x3 ratio. Then
click Apply, then click Done to save our
| | 01:29 | settings. Now we can see what our
image is going to look like in Final Cut
| | 01:32 | Express. Let's go back to Final Cut
Express and import our photo by right-
| | 01:36 | clicking at the browser window and
locating the photo in the photo library.
| | 01:41 | I am going to place the photo in
the Timeline, and as you can see our
| | 01:47 | adjustments have been retained, and the photo's
dimensions fit nicely into our 4x3 sequence.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing iMovie '08 projects| 00:00 | Now that you are becoming acquainted
with Final Cut Express, you may want to
| | 00:04 | locate a previous project that you
have cut in iMovie and bring it into Final
| | 00:08 | Cut Express to add some professional
polish to it. Importing iMovie projects
| | 00:12 | into Final Cut Express 4 from iMovie
'08 is done a little differently than it
| | 00:16 | has been in the past. Now, it starts
within the iMovie application itself. As
| | 00:21 | you can see, I have a project with a
series of five shots. A very simple
| | 00:25 | project. In order to bring this into
Final Cut Express so that you can take
| | 00:29 | advantage of a more professional
feature base, go to Share > Export Final Cut
| | 00:35 | XML. There is some very important
information to be pointed out here in the
| | 00:39 | Export XML box. All of the transitions
in your project will be changed to Cross
| | 00:44 | Dissolves. Titles, voiceovers, sound
effects and music tracks will not be
| | 00:50 | exported and neither will be cropping
or any animated effects, such as the Ken
| | 00:54 | Burns effect. I will go ahead and
name the project, then choose Save.
| | 01:00 | Going back to Final Cut Express, we
need to go to Import and choose XML from
| | 01:05 | iMovie. Now the sequence has been
placed into our browser where we can double-
| | 01:10 | click on it to load it into the Timeline.
As you can see, all of our clips are
| | 01:15 | there, along with our cross dissolves.
And now we can edit the project as if it
| | 01:19 | had originated within Final Cut Express.
If some of your specialty transitions
| | 01:23 | have been replaced with the cross
dissolve, just delete the cross dissolve and
| | 01:28 | replace it with another
Final Cut Express transition.
| | 01:31 | If you had a past iMovie project that
you really wish you could have done more
| | 01:35 | with, this is your chance to reinvent
them with the professional tool set of
| | 01:39 | Final Cut Express along with the
many more effects to choose from.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Putting the Story TogetherMaking subclips| 00:00 | Whether you are adding a dramatic
narrative or piecing together a highlight
| | 00:03 | sequence for a sporting event, the
variety of shots that you use in your
| | 00:07 | program can make the difference
between a boring segment or one that can
| | 00:10 | really grab the attention of the
audience and hold it to the very end. In many
| | 00:14 | circumstances, you may not be the one
doing the shooting. So you won't have
| | 00:18 | much say in the acquisition of the
footage. But your job as an editor is to use
| | 00:22 | the most compelling shots that you
have been given to hold the viewer's
| | 00:25 | attention. You will mix wide shots
with medium shots and extreme close-ups.
| | 00:31 | Precisely cutting on the action to
create natural edits without continuity errors.
| | 00:36 | In this scenario, we are looking for
the most compelling footage we can find
| | 00:40 | from a leisure day of surfing to
create a highlight reel. In the browser,
| | 00:45 | double click on the Surfing O3 clip to
load it into the Viewer. Here, we have a
| | 00:49 | particularly long clip featuring two
different surfers. There are two separate
| | 00:54 | shots that I want to use from this one
clip. And for organizational purposes,
| | 00:58 | I want to break it up into sub-clips.
| | 01:00 | Sub-clips can help you organize larger
clips by allowing you to breaking them
| | 01:05 | up into smaller pieces. This is a
very good thing to do if you are actually
| | 01:10 | story boarding your footage before
you start editing. Go ahead and play the
| | 01:14 | sequence and take notice of the parts
of the clip that you probably don't want
| | 01:17 | to use, like the times where the camera
operator moves the camera around to the
| | 01:22 | second surfer.
| | 01:23 | (Waves crashing.)
| | 01:26 | First, I want the part where the
surfer comes on to screen and eventually
| | 01:30 | wipes out. Then I want to get a few
seconds of the second surfer. What we need
| | 01:35 | to do is set an in-point for the clips
we want. Starting as the first surfer
| | 01:40 | comes into the view. I will pick an out
-point that we can cut on, just as he
| | 01:44 | falls into the water. Then go to
Modify > Make Subclip or press Command+U on
| | 01:53 | the keyboard. The Subclip Icon now
appears in the browser, represented with a
| | 01:58 | jagged edge signifying that it has
been torn from the original long clip.
| | 02:02 | I will name this clip Wipe_Out.
| | 02:04 | Moving on to the next clip. We can now
set the in and out-points for the second
| | 02:09 | surfer and make our second sub-clip.
| | 02:20 |
I will name this sub-clip Surf_To_Shore.
| | 02:23 | A sub-clip is simply a part of a larger
clip and can help you break down a larger
| | 02:29 | clip into smaller manageable pieces
that can be edited into the show just as
| | 02:33 | any other clip.
| | 02:35 | Now let's take a look at how story
boarding is a particularly easy way to map
| | 02:39 | out a show after we have
all the clips that we need.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Storyboarding| 00:00 | A very efficient way to help you
visualize the story before you begin editing
| | 00:04 | is to create a storyboard with the
clips you will be using. The icon views in
| | 00:08 | the browser window give you the
opportunity to physically arrange the clips in
| | 00:12 | the order that you would like them to
appear in the show. Double-click on the
| | 00:16 | Video Bin to open it in its own window.
Then right-click in the Bin window and
| | 00:21 | choose View As Medium Icons. Drag the
bottom right corner of the Browser window
| | 00:26 | to make the viewing area larger
so that you can arrange the clips.
| | 00:30 | Essentially, what I can do now is
visualize the order of the shots that I want
| | 00:35 | to use before I start to edit. So I
find out that I want to end on the shot
| | 00:39 | where he wipes out. I can go ahead and
arrange the clips so it's the last in
| | 00:44 | the sequence.
| | 00:45 | When storyboarding, sometimes you will
run into clips where the still image for
| | 00:49 | the video is not a good
representation of the action contained in the clip,
| | 00:53 | such as this clip named Surfing 01. In
this particular case, we know there is
| | 00:58 | probably another surfer. But at first
glance, all we see is water and it's
| | 01:03 | impossible to see the action. By
activating the Scroll tool in the Tool palette,
| | 01:07 | you can move through the contents of
the clips. Then press Control on the
| | 01:10 | keyboard to designate a new still
representation. When you have all of the
| | 01:15 | clips arranged in the order you like,
you can select all of the clips in the
| | 01:18 | browser and drag them to the
Timeline where they will be placed in order.
| | 01:22 | I am not going to do that right now
because one drawback to this method is that
| | 01:27 | you are placing a lot of excess video
in your sequence that will ultimately
| | 01:30 | need to be trimmed.
| | 01:32 | Next, we will look at another way to
make an edit that will allow you to lay
| | 01:36 | much tighter edits to the Timeline by
incorporating a process called three
| | 01:40 | point editing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Three-point editing| 00:00 | Although storyboard editing is a quick
and easy way to visually arrange your
| | 00:03 | story than edit it to the Timeline,
three point editing is the most
| | 00:07 | conventional way to lay down and edit.
And it's performed exactly the way it
| | 00:10 | sounds; by designating three edit
points before editing it to the Timeline.
| | 00:14 | We will discuss the most conventional way
first by placing an in and out-point for
| | 00:18 | the action within the clip and placing
an in-point in the Timeline to designate
| | 00:22 | where the edit will take place in the
actual program. Later we will dive into
| | 00:26 | the other possibilities of using the
three point editing method when we will
| | 00:30 | discuss back timing a clip.
| | 00:31 | As I mentioned before, arranging your
clips by storyboarding is very useful
| | 00:35 | when visualizing your show. And you
can still do that to set up your three
| | 00:39 | point edit. But this time, before I
drag my clips to the Timeline, I am going
| | 00:43 | to set in and out-points for my first
clip in the Viewer. Double click on the
| | 00:47 | first clip to load it into the Viewer.
You can use either the J, K, L keys to
| | 00:51 | move to through video to make edit
points, or simply drag in the scrub area at
| | 00:55 | the bottom. I am going to set an in-
point just before the surfer is in sharp
| | 00:59 | focus. And I will make an
out-point after he is in focus.
| | 01:08 | Now, we have framed the action that we
want to add to our show. Next you want
| | 01:12 | to create an in-point in the
Timeline to signify where the clip is to be
| | 01:16 | placed. Final Cut Express would use
the position of the playhead in the
| | 01:19 | Timeline as an in-point for the clip.
Click and drag the video from the Viewer
| | 01:24 | window and drop it on top of the
Overwrite overlay in the Canvas. Or, you can
| | 01:29 | just press F10 on the keyboard to make the edit.
| | 01:31 | Now we are ready to edit another clip
into Timeline. Let's go to the second
| | 01:35 | clip in the browser and place an in-point
and out-point to capture him walking on
| | 01:40 | the beach. Always be mindful of where
the playhead is in the Timeline before
| | 01:47 | you make an edit. Right now, the
cursor is at the end of the first clip. So
| | 01:51 | this next edit will occur at the end
of it. Go ahead and press F10 on the
| | 01:54 | keyboard to make the edit. Double -
click on the third clip and capture a few
| | 01:58 | seconds of him surfing by placing an
in and out-point. Press F10 to make the
| | 02:08 | edit. There you have it.
| | 02:10 | Three point editing is a very easy and
efficient way to lay down your edits and
| | 02:14 | leaves you less video to trim in the
Timeline than simple storyboard editing.
| | 02:18 | One other thing that may work for you
is going through each clip that you have
| | 02:22 | placed in the storyboard and setting
your in and out-points, then dragging all
| | 02:27 | of the clips at once to the Timeline.
This way only the edited portion of the
| | 02:30 | video will be placed in the Timeline
and you won't have to lay each edit down
| | 02:34 | one at a time.
| | 02:35 | Up till now, we have edited video
without music. But in reality, you will also
| | 02:40 | need to establish a rhythm or pace to
your cuts. Next, you will get to try your
| | 02:45 | hand at editing to a beat.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing to the beat| 00:00 | Whether it's to a beat or an emotion,
every edit has a rhythm. And just one
| | 00:05 | out of place cut can leave you
scratching your heads, wondering what you meant
| | 00:09 | to say. If you talk with an experienced
music video editor, they will tell you
| | 00:13 | that beat and verse lay a distinctive
blueprint for edits. Musical cues can help
| | 00:17 | an edit appear more natural, or supply
your edit more impact. By using the Slug
| | 00:22 | Generator in Final Cut Express and
creating through edits to musical cues,
| | 00:27 | you can strategically place video
clips where you want them in the sequence
| | 00:31 | without having to build up the entire
Timeline first. This way, you can place
| | 00:36 | your best shots throughout the entire
sequence using the Slug as placeholders,
| | 00:40 | instead of using your best stuff at
the beginning, then finishing weak like
| | 00:43 | most novice editors.
| | 00:45 | As you can see, I already have a
music track from Sound track Pro in the
| | 00:48 | Timeline. So what we need to do is lay
some blank slug into the video track one.
| | 00:52 | But before we do so, go ahead
and lock audio tracks one and two
| | 00:57 | so that we don't overwrite any music
tracks. Go to the Generator menu at the
| | 01:00 | bottom of the Viewer window and chooses Slug.
| | 01:03 | This is what we are going to use to
hold our places for our edits. And
| | 01:06 | eventually replace them with our
video clips. With a video track patched
| | 01:10 | to V1 and the playhead at the beginning
of the sequence, go ahead and make an
| | 01:14 | insert edit by pressing F10. Drag the
end of the slug clip in the Timeline to
| | 01:19 | make it as long as the music beneath it.
| | 01:21 | You need to be very familiar with the
music that you are going to use for this
| | 01:25 | piece so that you know which cues to
listen for. We will be making the edits in
| | 01:29 | real-time as we listen to the music.
So go ahead and play the music and pay
| | 01:33 | close attention to the noticeable hits
that will make good edit point, mainly
| | 01:37 | the crash symbols.
| | 01:38 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:54 | Notice how it has a definite ebb and flow.
We are going to place the playhead at
| | 01:58 | the beginning of the music and every
time we hear a hit, you are going to press
| | 02:02 | the Control and V keys on the keyboard
to make through edits in the slug.
| | 02:06 | Let's try it.
| | 02:07 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:23 | We now have our edits. And what we
need to do next is replace the slug with
| | 02:28 | actual surfing footage by using the
Replace/Edit feature. If you don't feel
| | 02:31 | like you did a good job making the
edits, I have created a sequence named
| | 02:36 | Pre-made Cuts with the cuts already made.
So if you need to, open that sequence
| | 02:41 | and let's lay down some edits. Within
the browser, go to the Bin named Video
| | 02:45 | and double click on a clip to load it
into the Viewer. Park the playhead in the
| | 02:49 | center of the first slug clip in the
Timeline. Drag the clip from the Viewer
| | 02:54 | window and drop it over the Replace
overlay in the Canvas window. If you are
| | 02:58 | getting an error message, chances are
you didn't center the playhead in the
| | 03:01 | slug clip and you need to try it again.
If the edit was successful, you can now
| | 03:06 | see the clip you have chosen in the sequence.
| | 03:08 | Let's do the same thing for another clip.
Put the playhead in the middle of the
| | 03:13 | next slug clip. Simply drag the clip
from the browser and drop it on to the
| | 03:17 | Replace/Edit overlay. You can do
this for the entire sequence, dropping
| | 03:21 | specific clips at moments in time
within the music and build up the entire Timeline.
| | 03:26 | Later, we will use the trimming tools
to re-frame the action in the shots and
| | 03:30 | make our edits tight. Next, we will
practice the technique that will make sure
| | 03:34 | that you end your project segment on
the right note by back timing a clip.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Backtiming a clip| 00:00 | Another three point editing technique
that you will find useful is the ability
| | 00:04 | to backtime a clip. Backtiming a clip
simply means that the end of a specific
| | 00:08 | clip is more important than how it
begins. A video clip ending exactly when the
| | 00:13 | music begins to fade out giving your
show a natural close is a perfect example
| | 00:18 | of this technique. In this regard,
the fade down at the end of the music is
| | 00:22 | more important than where the music begins.
| | 00:25 | When you will open the Backtiming_A_Clip
project in the Timeline, you will see
| | 00:29 | a clip of a surfer walking on the
beach with the camera pulling out of the shot.
| | 00:33 | Go ahead and play the clip.
What we are going to do is create a soft,
| | 00:38 | natural ending to this clip by having
the music fade out as the clip fades
| | 00:42 | down. Open the Audio Bin in the
browser and double click the clip named
| | 00:47 | Reality_TV to load it into the Viewer.
Scrub all the way to the end of the
| | 00:52 | audio clip so that you can see the
waveform start to fade out. Set a single
| | 00:57 | out-point at the end of the music.
Then go down to the Timeline and make sure
| | 01:01 | that your audio is patched to A1 and A2.
Set an in-point at the beginning of
| | 01:07 | the clip and an out-point at the end.
The goal is to edit the audio clip into
| | 01:11 | the Timeline so that the end of the
song is queued up with the end of the
| | 01:15 | video. Press F10 to make the edit.
| | 01:17 | Final Cut Express has now used the out-
point designated in the Timeline and in
| | 01:23 | the Viewer to backtrack to the in-point
in the Timeline to create a natural end
| | 01:27 | for the piece. Go ahead and play it back.
| | 01:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:40 | Next, I will show you what you need to know
before you delete unused clips from your project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deleting clips| 00:00 | As you will approach the completion of
your show, your first instinct may be to
| | 00:03 | delete all of the unused media from
your hard drive. This can be very tricky if
| | 00:08 | you have made sub-clips like we did earlier.
| | 00:10 | If you make the mistake of deleting a
media file that has an associated clip
| | 00:14 | within your sequence, some of your
media in the show will go off-line. You can
| | 00:18 | tell that a clip has gone off-line when
there is a red line to the clip in the
| | 00:22 | browser or in the sequence. Keep in
mind that although you can rename your
| | 00:25 | sub-clips, they still point back to
the original master clip and that master
| | 00:30 | clip references the captured
media located on your hard drive.
| | 00:33 | First, I will suggest creating a New
Bin titled Unused_Clips to store all of
| | 00:38 | the clips in the browser that you don't
need, instead of deleting them. If you
| | 00:42 | are absolutely sure that you have not
used a clip in your sequence, you can
| | 00:46 | right-click on that clip in the
browser and choose Reveal in Finder to locate
| | 00:51 | the media file in your hard drive and
delete it from there. Be very careful
| | 00:56 | when deleting media that
you don't think you need.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Moving clips around in the timeline| 00:00 | Knowing how to move your clips
around once they have been edited into the
| | 00:03 | Timeline is a must. As your project
progresses, you may find yourself wanting
| | 00:08 | to go in a different direction. Or
maybe you will decide that a certain shot
| | 00:11 | will work better in another place.
After using the storyboard method of editing
| | 00:16 | or after you have used Slug to lay
down your edits, the Swap Edit feature is
| | 00:20 | the convenient way to shuffle around
clips in the Timeline without changing the
| | 00:23 | duration of the program.
Let's take a look at the sequence.
| | 00:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:37 | After playing the sequence a few times,
maybe you've determined that a certain
| | 00:41 | clip will work better in another place.
Make sure that the Selection tool is
| | 00:44 | activated. Then click-and-drag the
clip directly over the area where you want
| | 00:48 | to place it. Press the Option key,
and now you can see the Swap arrow.
| | 00:52 | Then release the clip. This is a very
easy way to shuffle your sequence clips.
| | 00:57 | The most elementary way to move clips
is to simply use the Selection tool and
| | 01:01 | drag them either up or down or left
or right. As you probably noticed, by
| | 01:07 | default all clips on the Timeline
have a magnetic property that snaps them
| | 01:11 | together, that allows you to quickly
and accurately line up clips with edit
| | 01:15 | points and helps to eliminate gaps in
the sequence. You can toggle the Snapping
| | 01:19 | feature on or off by clicking the
Snapping button in the upper right corner of
| | 01:23 | the Timeline area, or by
pressing N on the keyboard.
| | 01:27 | Next, we'll talk about using markers to
flag certain parts of the show that may
| | 01:31 | need special attention.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using markers| 00:00 | Markers are great way to designate an
area of interest in the program. Perhaps
| | 00:04 | you want to make a note that a
specific title or graphic needs to be inserted
| | 00:08 | in the given point or an audio effect
needs to be placed in a specific area.
| | 00:13 | Placing a marker in a Final Cut
Express sequence is as simple as parking the
| | 00:16 | playhead within the Timeline at the
point where you wanted to be and going to
| | 00:21 | Mark > Markers > Add. Or simply
pressing M on the keyboard. You can also load
| | 00:26 | clips into the Viewer and place markers
from there with the Add Marker button.
| | 00:31 | A disclosure triangle well then appear
next to the clip in the Browser allowing
| | 00:35 | you to see all the markers
that are contained in that clip.
| | 00:38 | To create a marker with a note, tap
the M key twice and the Edit Marker box
| | 00:42 | will appear. Type in a note into the
Comment field and press OK. As you can
| | 00:47 | see, the Marker shows in the Canvas
window. When you are ready to delete the
| | 00:50 | markers, select them and press
Command+Tilde on the keyboard.
| | 00:55 | Adding markers is a great way to
pinpoint specific frames that needs special
| | 00:59 | attention in the editing process. Now
that we've edited all of our video to the
| | 01:02 | Timeline, it's time to fine tune
our edits and polish the story.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Fine-Tuning the EditsTrimming with the Roll and Ripple tools| 00:00 | Trimming is the essence of video
editing. The ability to chip away the excess
| | 00:04 | video is the only way to reveal your
story. So you must make every effort to
| | 00:09 | master the tools in Final Cut Express.
| | 00:11 | One very encouraging thing to remember
is that when you are trimming in Final
| | 00:14 | Cut Express, you are using the same
professional tools you used in Final Cut
| | 00:19 | Pro. So the skills that you learn here
are easily transferable when you decide
| | 00:23 | to upgrade. Before we can talk about
trimming, it's important that we discuss
| | 00:27 | the concept of handles.
| | 00:29 | In order to extend clips in the sequence,
you must have the available media to
| | 00:33 | do so. And this extra media is
referred to as handles. This extra media is
| | 00:38 | largely dictated by the amount of
material that you ingested onto your computer
| | 00:42 | hard drive, when you captured it from
your camera or deck. If you have used
| | 00:47 | three-point editing to lay down your
edits, an easy way to see if the clip has
| | 00:51 | enough media to perform a trim is to
double-click on that clip in the Timeline
| | 00:55 | to load it into the Viewer to see if
there is any space before and after the
| | 01:00 | in and out-points. This is essentially
the same sequence that we constructed in
| | 01:05 | the Editing to the Beat exercise.
| | 01:07 | But this one has a few problems. The
edit points are aren't on cue with the
| | 01:11 | beat, the action contained in the
clips aren't properly framed, and the video
| | 01:16 | track is not as long as the music on
the audio track. We will correct all of
| | 01:20 | these imperfections with the
Trimming tools. One thing you may want to do
| | 01:24 | before trimming is to turn off the
Snapping button by pressing the N key on the
| | 01:28 | keyboard.
| | 01:29 | You can tell if Snapping is on or not
by looking in the far right corner of the
| | 01:33 | Timeline window and seeing if the icon
is grayed out. Let's go ahead and play
| | 01:38 | the sequence so that we can
see what needs to be done.
| | 01:40 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:47 | Now a good way to approach the
Trimming tools is to know that the Ripple and
| | 02:00 | Rolling tools are good for changing the
length of clips and the Slip and Slide
| | 02:04 | tools are good for when you don't want
to change the length. First off what we
| | 02:09 | can do is line up our edit points with
the music cues and make our video track
| | 02:13 | as long as the music track. And we can
do this with the Roll and Ripple tools.
| | 02:18 | Much like the Selection tool, the Roll
tool allows you to adjust the position
| | 02:22 | of edit points. But instead of
leaving a gap in the sequence, it moves the
| | 02:26 | in-and-out-points of the two adjacent
clips. What we need to do is move the
| | 02:31 | edit points for the first few clips so
that they are on cue with the hits in
| | 02:35 | the music. Let's go to the Timeline
Layout pop-up menu and choose Show Audio
| | 02:40 | Waveforms. Then make our Track Height
larger so that we can see what's going on.
| | 02:45 | If you look closely you can see the
cues that we need to align with our edit
| | 02:49 | points. Go to the Tool palette and
choose the Roll tool. Looking at the
| | 02:53 | waveform, you can see where the first
hit lies in the music. Now let's play
| | 02:58 | back the sequence again.
| | 02:59 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:15 | With this first edit, the cue that we
are cutting on is not as evident as the
| | 03:19 | remaining ones. But there is a slight
hit that we could make work. So I am
| | 03:23 | going to move the first edit point back.
Click on the edit point with the Roll
| | 03:27 | tool and drag the edit back to where
the subtle hit in the music occurs.
| | 03:31 | Then play it back.
| | 03:35 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:38 | The Roll tool has simply moved the in
and out-points of the first and second
| | 03:43 | clips while not affecting the overall
length of the show. This is a great tool
| | 03:47 | for lining up edits that may not have
been where you intended. Let's go to the
| | 03:51 | next clip and do the same.
| | 03:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:55 | Again the music cue occurs just before
our edit. So take the Roll tool and move
| | 04:00 | the edit point backward. As you are
moving these, notice the brown overlay that
| | 04:05 | appears and how it shows you how much
handle space you have to work with while
| | 04:09 | you are performing the trim.
Play the sequence again.
| | 04:13 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:19 | The third edit point is off as well, so
let's move that back. By the way, feel
| | 04:24 | free to make the audio waveforms
larger if you need to. For the fourth edit
| | 04:28 | point, we are going to use the
Ripple tool. So go to the Tool palette and
| | 04:33 | choose the Ripple tool or simply type
the R key twice on the keyboard. Any
| | 04:37 | adjustments that you make with the
Ripple tool will ripple throughout the
| | 04:41 | entire Timeline just as the name
insists. The video track in this sequence is
| | 04:46 | not as long as the music track. So
when adjusting this fourth edit point, we
| | 04:49 | can go ahead and fix that problem
right now. Play the sequence again.
| | 04:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:02 | This time, the edit comes a little too
early before the cue, so click on the
| | 05:06 | edit point. Notice that you can
select either side of the edit when you are
| | 05:10 | using the Ripple tool. In this case,
since this particular clip is shorter than
| | 05:14 | the rest, let's make it longer by
clicking on the left side of this edit point.
| | 05:17 | If you look in the waveform, the hits
are becoming more-and-more prominent
| | 05:22 | which makes the job of finding the cue
easier. Go ahead and drag the point over
| | 05:27 | to the right above 12 frames. The
overlay that displays when you drag edit
| | 05:32 | points is a good way to see how far you
are actually moving the edit. The edit
| | 05:36 | is now on cue and the sequence is now
the same length as the music tracks.
| | 05:41 | Another thing we could have done to
lengthen the overall video track is to use
| | 05:45 | the Selection tool by tapping A on the
keyboard, and simply drag the end of the
| | 05:50 | last clip in this sequence until it
was as long as the music track. Since the
| | 05:54 | surfing_05 clip was considerably
shorter and needed to be longer to cut on the
| | 05:59 | music hit, we made the right
decision by using the Ripple tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Trimming with the Slip and Slide tools| 00:00 | One thing you've probably noticed is
I have been playing back the sequence is
| | 00:04 | that the action is a bit off. The Slip
tool is a great way to frame the action
| | 00:08 | in the clip once you have your edit
points in place. Press the S key on the
| | 00:12 | keyboard to activate the Slip tool.
| | 00:14 | When cutting a high-energy montage like
this you must ask to yourself, "What is
| | 00:19 | the most interesting thing happening in
this shot?" Obviously, you already have
| | 00:22 | some idea of what that is because of
the shots you selected to use in the
| | 00:26 | sequence. Well, this is the time to be precise.
| | 00:29 | I am simply going to scrub through the
first clip here to see what action would
| | 00:33 | best serve this clip. I know that
there is a closer shot of this guy and his
| | 00:37 | board so I am going to slip this clip
and find a tighter shot of him and the
| | 00:42 | board.
| | 00:43 | Notice as I am dragging the clip back
and forth, that the Canvas window now
| | 00:47 | displays the starting and the ending
frames of the clips in the form of a left
| | 00:51 | and right window. As I slip the clip,
the incoming and outgoing frames are
| | 00:56 | being trimmed simultaneously.
Now let's play back the clip.
| | 00:59 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:03 | That looks pretty good. So let's move
on to our next clip. In this clip, I am
| | 01:07 | going to frame the action so that you
see the focus pull to the surfer before
| | 01:12 | we go to the next shot. The next shot
is essentially an action shot. So I am
| | 01:17 | simply going to frame him at the height
of the wave at about eight seconds and
| | 01:21 | twenty frames into the clip, and I'll
do the same for the rest of the clips.
| | 01:25 | Since this is a highlight reel,
what I am looking for here is the most
| | 01:28 | interesting thing going on in the clip,
which would be someone riding a wave or
| | 01:32 | wiping out. I specifically picked this
surfing_01 clip to use at the end of the
| | 01:37 | segment because he wipes out at the end
bringing the sequence to a nice close.
| | 01:42 | Another thing to keep in mind as you
are slipping is that if you plan adding
| | 01:46 | transitions, you don't want to slip the
clip too close to the very beginning or
| | 01:51 | to the end. You want to make sure
that you leave yourself enough handles to
| | 01:54 | work with. Let's playback the
sequence and see what we have so far.
| | 01:57 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:14 | That's starting to look pretty good.
The edit points on the second to last clip
| | 02:18 | are not on cue. So this is a good time
to use the Slide tool to adjust those
| | 02:23 | cuts. Press the S key twice on the
keyboard to activate the Slide tool.
| | 02:28 | The Slide tool will move the clip
either to the right or to the left in the
| | 02:32 | sequence. But each adjacent clip needs
to have the handles that we talked about
| | 02:38 | before to allow for it. When I slide
this, the clips located on each side will
| | 02:43 | become either longer or shorter to
accommodate the move. While the clip I am
| | 02:47 | dragging will only have its position
changed. So let's go ahead and move that
| | 02:52 | and play the sequence back from the beginning.
| | 02:55 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:11 | Everything looks pretty good. And
now we have the makings of an exciting
| | 03:15 | montage like you would see on a sports show.
| | 03:18 | Next, we'll discuss using the Trim
Edit window to fine-tune your edits. Once
| | 03:23 | you've mastered trimming in Final Cut
Express, you'll be well on your way to
| | 03:26 | conveying your message clearly and concisely.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Trim Edit window| 00:00 | Another way to trim clips in your
sequence is to use the Trim Edit window.
| | 00:04 | Just double-click on any edit point
with the Selection tool to open the window.
| | 00:07 | And this time we are going to move it
at a point in real-time. I am going to
| | 00:10 | double-click on the fifth edit point
in the sequence. Now by default the Trim
| | 00:14 | Edit window performs a rolling trim,
like we used before by dragging either the
| | 00:18 | in or out-points in the Scrub area.
And as you can see, we have the outgoing
| | 00:22 | clip on the left and the
incoming clip on the right.
| | 00:25 | You can also perform a Ripple Edit by
choosing to trim only one side of the
| | 00:29 | edit at a time, by clicking either of
the outgoing or incoming clip. The green
| | 00:33 | bar above the window lets you know
which side is active. By clicking closer to
| | 00:37 | the divide in the middle, the cursor
has turned back in to the Roll tool and
| | 00:41 | you can click once to select
both sides of the edit again.
| | 00:45 | At the bottom of the window you can
choose to either Trim Back five frames, or
| | 00:50 | just one frame. And on the other side,
you can Trim Forward five frames or just
| | 00:54 | one. The period and comma keys on
the keyboard will also allow you to move
| | 00:59 | edit points forward or backward one
frame at a time. So let's say that we
| | 01:03 | wanted to Trim Back five frames. That
will mean that the outgoing clip on the
| | 01:07 | left will be made shorter, and the
clip on the right will become longer, and
| | 01:12 | vice versa if I wanted to
trim forward five frames.
| | 01:15 | When the Dynamic options are checked,
you have the ability to move edit points
| | 01:18 | in real-time during playback. And
sometimes you may find this easier than
| | 01:22 | dragging and clicking to reposition cuts.
There is one thing that we need to do
| | 01:26 | before we begin to trim dynamically,
and let's go into the User Preferences,
| | 01:32 | click on the Editing Tab, and set our
Preview Pre-roll to two seconds. Now when
| | 01:38 | we tell Final Cut Express to play
around the edit, it won't backup so far
| | 01:42 | before it starts to play the area we
are looking at. So what we are doing here
| | 01:45 | is narrowing our area of interest for
playback, which will help us when we are
| | 01:49 | editing dynamically.
| | 01:51 | Now let's play around the edit.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:00 | As you can clearly see the edit doesn't land on
| | 02:03 | the crash symbol in the music. So
what we need to do is move the edit point
| | 02:07 | forward, so that it's on queue. I am
going to click the Play around Edit button
| | 02:11 | and listen for the queue. Then I'll
press the I Key to set a new in-point.
| | 02:16 | Before you start make sure that you
are performing a Roll Edit by confirming
| | 02:19 | that both sides of the cut are active.
If there is a green bar above both
| | 02:23 | windows then both sides are active,
and you are ready to make a roll edit,
| | 02:27 | let's make the edit.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:40 | And there you have it. The cut now
lands on the crash symbol in the music.
| | 02:44 | Instead of dragging edit points, to
align them with a music queues like we did
| | 02:47 | in the last video, we could have
loaded each edit point in to the Trim Edit
| | 02:51 | window, and adjusted them individually
in real-time to achieve the same goal.
| | 02:55 | Dynamic Trimming is a great way to
find a natural edit point. And if you are
| | 02:59 | cutting narrative work, it's a great
way to establish shortcut continuity when
| | 03:03 | cutting between wide shots and close-ups.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Deleting gaps within the timeline| 00:00 | As you are building up your story in
the Timeline, there will be times when you
| | 00:03 | need to go back and remove clips within
the sequence that you no longer have a
| | 00:06 | need for, which can result in a gap.
There is more than one way to fill a gap,
| | 00:10 | and they largely depend on whether
you need the show to remain at a finite
| | 00:14 | duration, or if you have some leeway
and can simply remove the clip without
| | 00:18 | replacing it with another.
| | 00:20 | Before we get into filling gaps, make
sure that the music tracks are locked,
| | 00:24 | because all of the video clips that
we will be using to fill them with have
| | 00:28 | associated audio and will overwrite the music.
| | 00:31 | Now let's say that you've build your
Timeline out to the length that it needs to
| | 00:35 | be, and discover that at certain clip
in the middle of the show has become
| | 00:38 | irrelevant and it needs to be removed.
In order to remove a clip, you can
| | 00:43 | simply replace it with the Replaced
Edit function or perform a Lift or Ripple
| | 00:47 | Delete. If you are using a standard
keyboard, select the clip in the sequence,
| | 00:52 | and press the larger Delete key to
perform a Lift Delete. This will leave
| | 00:57 | a gap in the sequence that will need
to be filled. Let's go ahead and do that
| | 01:01 | for a couple of the clips in the sequence.
| | 01:03 | If I don't need my sequence to come in
at a particular duration, I can use the
| | 01:06 | Ripple Delete on the keyboard, which is
the smaller Delete key, and delete the
| | 01:10 | clip as well as close the gap. To
perform a Ripple Delete on a Laptop press Fn+
| | 01:16 | Delete key. I am going to close the
first gap in the sequence by way of the
| | 01:21 | Replaced Edit function like we did in
the editing to the Beat movie. Place the
| | 01:25 | playhead in the middle of the gap,
then drag the clip to the Replace Edit
| | 01:29 | overlay in the Canvas.
| | 01:31 | Another option is that I use is the
Selection tool, and simply drag the edge of
| | 01:35 | a clip and extend it. You want to
make sure that snapping is turned on by
| | 01:39 | pressing N on the keyboard,
before you begin to drag the clip. This way
| | 01:43 | the clip will snap firmly to the next
clip. And you also need to be sure that
| | 01:48 | the clip that you are extending
has enough handles to accommodate the
| | 01:51 | extension. One other way to fill that
space is to use the Extend Edit feature,
| | 01:56 | which will allow you to place the
playhead where you want the edit to occur.
| | 02:00 | Select the edit point by clicking
on it, then pressing the E key on the
| | 02:03 | keyboard to extend the edit.
| | 02:06 | Just like everything in Final Cut
Express, there are many ways to perform a
| | 02:09 | task, so use the technique that works
best for you. Three-point editing is also
| | 02:14 | a great way to fill gaps. Placing in
an outpoint for the gap by pressing I+O.
| | 02:20 | Queue the new clip, and set an in-
point for reaction and press F10 on the
| | 02:25 | keyboard to make the edit. The gap is
then filled from the in-point that you've
| | 02:29 | designated in the Viewer. If it's more
important to you how the clip ends,
| | 02:33 | you can have easily set a single out-
point for the clip in the Viewer, and
| | 02:37 | Final Cut Express would backtrack that
edit to fill the gap in the Timeline.
| | 02:42 | New editors are sometimes afraid to
go back and tamper with things, because
| | 02:46 | they are unsure how to fill the spaces
they leave behind. So don't be afraid.
| | 02:50 | As you can see, it relatively easy to
replace clips and fill in gaps in the Timeline.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Keeping everything in sync| 00:00 | There are lots of safeguards in
Final Cut Express that can help you keep
| | 00:03 | everything in sync. One of them
being the Link Selection button, keeping
| | 00:07 | associated audio with the respective
video clip. But occasionally, things will
| | 00:12 | get out of sync and you can easily
tell by the red marks that appear in the
| | 00:15 | clip. Within this red marks you can see
how many frames out of sync your clips
| | 00:19 | are and thankfully it's very simple
to sync them backup. Just right-click on
| | 00:23 | the red mark in the audio and choose
Move into Sync. This option will
| | 00:27 | physically move the audio
and video clips back into sync.
| | 00:30 | Now let's say that you forced a clip
out of sync on purpose, and you don't want
| | 00:34 | to physically move the clips back into
place, but want to sync the audio with
| | 00:38 | the video clip. In this case, right-
click on the red marks in the audio, and
| | 00:42 | choose Slip into Sync. Now your clips
are in sync, but the clips' positions in
| | 00:47 | the Timeline remain the same.
| | 00:49 | Although putting clips back into
sync may seem fairly easy in Final Cut
| | 00:52 | Express, save yourself a headache and
always remember when working with the
| | 00:56 | Link Selection button deactivated, to
edit a clips video and audio together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Editing the AudioAdjusting audio levels| 00:00 | Achieving solid audio can sometimes
be a daunting task. Your message and
| | 00:04 | intent can be lost if the audience
can't hear what's being said. I have opened
| | 00:08 | the Editing the Audio chapter, then
launch the Adjusting_Audio_Levels project.
| | 00:12 | The sequence that you see is the
intro for a video blog episode for wine
| | 00:17 | enthusiasts and it has a few audio
problems. I will go ahead and play it.
| | 00:22 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:32 | (Woman 1: Hi and welcome to our first video blog.
My name is Kristin and I'm part of the Wild Wino Woman.)
| | 00:37 | (Woman 1: Now it may look like I'm at a vineyard,
but I'm actually at home in Westlake, California.)
| | 00:43 | As you can hear, the music is
obviously too loud and Kristin's intro
| | 00:47 | is very soft. Now before we begin
adjusting levels, you need to know what good
| | 00:52 | audio is. Audio should average around
-12db on the Digital Audio Meter. Now this
| | 00:58 | doesn't mean that it can't fluctuate
above, but we want the bulk of our audio
| | 01:02 | to hit around -12db with a little
headroom up to -6db, allowing for some
| | 01:07 | dynamic range.
| | 01:09 | You probably noticed that the music
was teetering around 0db which anything
| | 01:13 | over opens the door to distortion on
the digital scale. Final Cut Express has
| | 01:18 | a few tools that you can use to tame
many of the audio problems that you may
| | 01:21 | inherit like this in post.
| | 01:24 | One of the first things you need to
be aware of is what has priority in
| | 01:27 | the segment you are working on. Clearly
in this intro, when Kristin starts to
| | 01:32 | speak, her voice should
take importance over the music.
| | 01:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:38 | (Woman 1: Hi and welcome to our first
video blog. My name is Kristin...)
| | 01:42 | Now in the beginning of the
sequence when no one is talking, you can
| | 01:46 | simply crank up the music to -12db, but
when you are working with a mixture of
| | 01:50 | both, your ultimate goal is to find a
balance and keep them averaging around
| | 01:54 | -12 decibels. So first, what we want to
do is lower the level of the music. And
| | 02:00 | I am going to start by clicking on the
Audio Controls button in the Timeline to
| | 02:04 | reveal more audio controls.
| | 02:06 | When working with multiple tracks
of audio, it really helps to be able
| | 02:10 | to silence all other tracks so that
you can focus on just one area. The icon
| | 02:14 | shaped like headphones are for soloing
a given track. So if I click on these
| | 02:19 | buttons next to the audio track 3 and
audio track 4, I will hear only those
| | 02:24 | tracks.
| | 02:26 | Now another way I could have
achieved this is to either disable all of
| | 02:29 | the other audio tracks by deactivating
the Audible icon next to all the other
| | 02:33 | tracks. Or I could have simply clicked
on their Mute buttons located next to
| | 02:37 | the Solo button. This time I will choose to
solo the tracks. Go ahead and play the audio.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:03 | Overall, the music needs to come down
a bit. But when she starts to talk, it
| | 03:07 | needs to come down even further. First
we are going to bring the audio down to
| | 03:11 | -12db by using the new Normalization
Gain filter. Select the music track, then
| | 03:18 | go to Modify > Audio > Apply
Normalization Gain. In the Apply Normalization
| | 03:25 | Gain controls, you can choose the
level that you want to set the audio to. So
| | 03:29 | let's change this to -12, then click OK.
Now let's listen to the sequence again.
| | 03:37 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:51 | Those are good levels and our
audio peaks around -12. I'm going to
| | 03:55 | click the Solo buttons again to
deactivate them because now we need to consider
| | 03:59 | the audio along with the speaker's
voice. I am going to show audio waveforms
| | 04:05 | and you can see that Kristin's
levels are much softer than the music's.
| | 04:10 | If you toggle the clip overlays, you
see a pink line that stretches throughout
| | 04:14 | the audio clips. If I click on one of
those, I can drag audio levels up or down
| | 04:20 | to wherever I need them. Notice as I
am dragging upward, you are able to see
| | 04:24 | the new decibel level. What we need to
do is slightly lower the music tracks
| | 04:29 | when she starts to speak. But
first, let's have another listen.
| | 04:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:39 | (Woman 1: Hi and welcome to our first video blog.
My name is Kristin and I'm part of the Wild Wino Women.)
| | 04:44 | (Woman 1: Now it may look like I'm at a vineyard,
but I'm actually at home in Westlake, California,)
| | 04:49 | (Woman 1: to show you how to make
homemade wine. So let's go take a look.)
| | 04:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:02 | The audio is much better. But we can
give Kristin's voice a little more
| | 05:05 | emphasis. I am going to deactivate the
waveforms so that you can get a better
| | 05:10 | view of what I am doing. Just before
she speaks, I am going to hold down the
| | 05:14 | Option key on the keyboard and click
on the red audio overlay in the music
| | 05:18 | track and create two control points.
And I will create two more right after she
| | 05:23 | finishes, then drag the middle of the
overlay down to slightly lower the audio
| | 05:30 | as she speaks. Now I
will play back the sequence.
| | 05:34 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:38 | (Woman 1: Hi and welcome to our first video blog.
My name is Kristin and I'm part of the Wild Wino Women.)
| | 05:44 | (Woman 1: Now it may look like I'm at a vineyard,
but I'm actually at home in Westlake, California,)
| | 05:49 | (Woman 1: to show you how to make
homemade wine. So let's go take a look.)
| | 05:54 | The audio can be raised. So let's
drag the overlay upward about 3 db.
| | 06:02 | Let's play it back again.
| | 06:05 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:07 | (Woman 1: Hi and welcome to our first video blog.
My name is Kristin and I'm part of the Wild Wino Women.)
| | 06:12 | (Woman 1: Now it may look like I'm at a vineyard,
but I'm actually at home in Westlake, California,)
| | 06:17 | (Woman 1: to show you how to make
homemade wine. So let's go take a look.)
| | 06:21 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:28 | Now we can clearly hear the voice of
our onscreen talent by making a simple
| | 06:32 | level adjustment with the Normalization
Gain function and simple audio key
| | 06:35 | framing. Nothing beats acquiring good
audio while in production. But Final Cut
| | 06:40 | Express has many tools that can help
you tame the wild audio that you may be
| | 06:43 | asked to edit. Next we will
take a look at the audio filters.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using audio filters| 00:00 | Final Cut Express also has a
collection of audio filters that can help you
| | 00:03 | minimize common audio problems. If you
go into the Browser window and click on
| | 00:07 | the Effects tab and go down to the
Audio Filters folder, you see two
| | 00:11 | collections of filters, one for Apple
and one from Final Cut Express. The Apple
| | 00:15 | filters each start with AU for Audio
Unit and you will find some overlap
| | 00:19 | between what the two lists offer,
such as the High Shelf Filter and the Low
| | 00:23 | Shelf Filter. Feel free to use either
list, as they both function largely the
| | 00:28 | same way. To apply a filter, drag it
from the list to the clip in the Timeline
| | 00:34 | and double-click on the clip to load
it into the Viewer. To tweak the filter,
| | 00:38 | click on the Filters tab at the top of
the Viewer to access the parameters of the effect.
| | 00:42 | As you can see, I have just added the
Reverberation filter to the clip and now
| | 00:46 | I can choose the type of reverb that
I want, such as a Larger Room, Hall or
| | 00:51 | Tunnel. If you make tons of adjustments
in here, you will realize that you want
| | 00:55 | to start over from scratch, just click
the red X, which is the Reset button to
| | 00:59 | start over. Some of the more useful
filters such as the Low Shelf Filter help
| | 01:04 | to minimize background
noises such as traffic or wind.
| | 01:08 | If you have an interview or a piece
of video with a person speaking really
| | 01:12 | stresses their Ss, the Vocal DeEsser
can help minimize the emphasis of the Sss
| | 01:16 | sound. The Vocal DePopper will also
help an overly strong pronunciation of the
| | 01:21 | P sound. After you apply and tweak a
filter, you can reuse it by dragging the
| | 01:26 | filter from the Viewer into a bin for
later use in the sequence, there you have it.
| | 01:31 | The audio filters in Final Cut
Express can help you make the most of what
| | 01:35 | you have been given in post.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating audio transitions| 00:00 | When you have all of your shots in
order, audio transitions can help you move
| | 00:04 | gently from cut to cut. When you are
cutting video together that was shot in
| | 00:08 | different locations on different
cameras by different shooters, the background
| | 00:12 | noise quality in each scene can differ
and can sometimes be distracting to the
| | 00:17 | viewer. It's a good idea to place audio
transitions on your cuts to ensure that
| | 00:21 | the transition between audio is smooth
from scene to scene. Have you ever heard
| | 00:26 | the expression of seeing audio? A hard
audio transition can sometimes make you
| | 00:31 | see things that aren't there like a
jump cut. What I am getting at is that a
| | 00:35 | rough transition can visually break up
your scene when you may not want it to.
| | 00:39 | Luckily, applying an audio transition
is even easier than applying filters.
| | 00:44 | First, we need to listen to the sequence.
| | 00:47 | (Man 1: A lot of my customers have been wondering what a
Tandoori oven looks like. Here's your chance to peek in one.)
| | 00:53 | (Man 1: Let's get to the kitchen and we will see how
we prepare a lot of traditional Indian Tandoori dishes.)
| | 00:58 | (Man 1: Let's go to the kitchen.)
| | 00:59 | (Chopping, whirring.)
| | 01:05 | As you can tell, the transition from
| | 01:07 | shot to shot in the kitchen is really
harsh due to the varying ambient noises
| | 01:13 | and sometimes that's the price you have
to pay in order to get in some natural
| | 01:16 | sound. With that being said, we can do
something to help smooth out the audio
| | 01:20 | in this sequence. What we are going to
do is add audio transitions to each of
| | 01:25 | these cuts, starting with the first clip.
Since the cross dissolve audio transition
| | 01:30 | can be applied to both audio and video,
first we want to lock our video track,
| | 01:35 | so that we only add it to our audio.
Later when we add video transitions you
| | 01:39 | will see that not all video
transitions can be used as audio transitions.
| | 01:43 | In fact, the cross dissolve is one of the
only transitions that could be applied
| | 01:47 | to both. So right-click on the cut
between the first two audio clips and choose
| | 01:52 | Add Transition Cross Fade.
| | 01:56 | Let's do that for the remaining edits.
Now play back the sequence.
| | 02:01 | (Man 1: ...dishes. Let's go to the kitchen.)
| | 02:03 | (Chopping, whirring.)
| | 02:10 | The various shots have noticeably different
noise quality, but the transition between them
| | 02:15 | is a whole lot better. In my opinion,
the last transition lasts a little too
| | 02:19 | long, so what we have to do is make it
shorter. Right click on the transition
| | 02:24 | and choose Duration. Let's make the
Duration 28 frames, then choose OK.
| | 02:31 | And play the sequence again.
| | 02:33 | (Man 1: ...to the kitchen.)
(Chopping, whirring.)
| | 02:40 | That sounds pretty good.
You may come across a cut
| | 02:43 | where you need to adjust the alignment
of an edit and have it start on the edit
| | 02:47 | or end on the edit instead of
centering it like we have done here. There are
| | 02:52 | many factors that can play into why
you would want to change the alignment.
| | 02:55 | Perhaps the audio of the outgoing clip
ends right on the edge of the clip and
| | 03:00 | the audio of the preceding clip doesn't
start until a few seconds into the clip.
| | 03:05 | In this case, you would align the
transition to start on the edit and gradually
| | 03:09 | fade up into the preceding clip.
Audio cross dissolves can provide smooth
| | 03:14 | transitions from shot to shot,
allowing your audience to concentrate on the
| | 03:18 | visual and fully experience the
production. And the best transitions of this
| | 03:22 | kind happen without ever being noticed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Adding Video TransitionsOverview of video transitions| 00:00 | Final Cut Express has quite a variety
of video transitions to choose from and
| | 00:04 | if you don't find the right transition
for the job in Final Cut, there are many
| | 00:08 | third party vendors online where you
can purchase new ones and some of them are
| | 00:12 | even free. Starting out, many new
editors rely too heavily on fancy transitions
| | 00:18 | to add a kick to their videos.
Knowing when to use the appropriate video
| | 00:21 | transition can be crucial to the
success of your show. If you are setting a
| | 00:26 | dark, ominous tone for a scene then
you may not want to choose a flamboyant
| | 00:30 | transition like a cube spin. Perhaps
what you need is a nice, long dissolve or
| | 00:35 | fade to black or even a sharp
dip to color to create suspense.
| | 00:40 | With that being said, the occasional
over the top transition for a sports
| | 00:44 | highlight reel may be exactly what you
need. The key is to know the difference.
| | 00:49 | What we have here is a series of shots
depicting a day of surfing at the beach,
| | 00:53 | played over a piece of music
you can find in Apple Soundtrack Pro.
| | 00:58 | A short simple cross dissolve would
probably suffice for this entire sequence,
| | 01:03 | but for the sake of this exercise we
are going to use a variety of transitions
| | 01:08 | so that you can get the hang
of applying and adjusting them.
| | 01:11 | A key fact to remember when applying
video transitions is that they require
| | 01:15 | overlap between the outgoing clip and
the incoming clip, so you will need to
| | 01:19 | make sure that you have extra handles
on these shots to accommodate for the
| | 01:23 | transition. Just like we talked
about during the chapter on trimming, the
| | 01:28 | amount of handles that a clip has is
dictated by the amount of media that was
| | 01:32 | originally captured. A quick way to
determine if your clip has handles is to
| | 01:36 | double-click on it in the sequence
and load it into the Viewer. The space
| | 01:40 | before and after the in and out-
points is extra media that can be used to
| | 01:45 | create the transition. So during the
capture process, make sure that you are
| | 01:49 | leaving enough wiggle room around the
scene so that you can add transitions
| | 01:53 | later. Click on the Effects tab in
the browser and click the disclosure
| | 01:57 | triangle next to the video
transitions to reveal the selections.
| | 02:01 | The transitions in bold print are real-
time effects. The others will have to be
| | 02:06 | rendered before they can be reviewed.
| | 02:08 | In the next video we will apply some
of these transitions, edit them for a
| | 02:12 | custom look, then save them for later use.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting video transitions| 00:00 | In the project named Adjusting Video
Transitions, let's go into the Effects tab
| | 00:04 | and drag the Dip to Color transition
into our first cut. Now once you have
| | 00:09 | applied the transition, you have the
ability to tweak them and create your own
| | 00:12 | customized effect that can be saved and
reused. The Dip to Color dissolve is a
| | 00:17 | very flexible effect and for that
reason, it's one my favorites to use.
| | 00:21 | Let's play it back.
| | 00:23 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:25 | By default, it's set to fade to black
then fade up into the next clip. We can
| | 00:30 | use a transition editor to tweak
this effect even further such as for
| | 00:33 | shortening its duration and changing
the color that it dips to. Double clip on
| | 00:37 | the Dip to Color transition in the
sequence and the transition editor opens in
| | 00:41 | the Viewer. Here we can use the
Roll tool to change the position of the
| | 00:45 | transition within the sequence or the
Selection tool to make it shorter by
| | 00:49 | simply dragging toward the center of
this image. At the bottom we are going to
| | 00:54 | have this effect dip to a different
color and we can do that a number of ways,
| | 00:58 | one being with the eyedropper where
we can select the dominant color in the
| | 01:02 | incoming clip for a smooth
transition or choose from the Color palette.
| | 01:07 | This time, I am choosing to make the
transition dip to white and I am going to
| | 01:12 | make it shorter to give it a punch by
dragging inward with the Selection tool
| | 01:17 | from the right hand side. Notice
that I could have also typed a shorter
| | 01:21 | duration in the Duration field in the
upper left corner of the window. I will
| | 01:24 | go ahead and playback the sequence.
| | 01:27 | (Music playing.)
| | 01:29 | That effect looks pretty good. But you can
| | 01:32 | choose to tweak it even further by
changing the threshold or the softness of
| | 01:35 | the effect so that there is a little
transparency at the whitest point of the
| | 01:39 | effect. At the top, we have three
different ways that we can align the
| | 01:45 | transition around the cut. Right now,
the transition is centered on the edit
| | 01:49 | point, but we can also choose to have
it start on the cut or end on the cut.
| | 01:54 | This way, I can have the transition
start right as the music cue hits by
| | 01:59 | aligning it to start on the edit or
just before the cue by ending it on the edit.
| | 02:06 | After creating a custom effect that
you know you will want to use again, drag
| | 02:10 | the hand icon to the top of the
Favorites folder and rename it Dip to Color
| | 02:14 | Dissolve_White. Let's use that
effect and paste it into the next two edit
| | 02:22 | points and play back the sequence.
| | 02:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:37 | Go down to the Wipe category of transitions
| | 02:39 | and drag the effect named Gradient
Wipe to the next cut. A Gradient Wipe is a
| | 02:44 | fresh way to add a little spice and
uniqueness to your transitions by letting
| | 02:47 | you use an image for the basis of the
effect. So you are basically telling
| | 02:51 | Final Cut Express to use a
designated matte image to create a transition
| | 02:55 | between two clips. I will double click
on the Gradient Wipe in the Timeline to
| | 02:58 | open the Transition editor. Go to the
Images folder in the browser and drag the
| | 03:03 | Graphic named Swirl_Chrome2 to the
Gradient drop zone in the Transition editor.
| | 03:09 | This gradient was made completely
within Adobe Photoshop so feel free to make
| | 03:13 | your own custom gradients. The initial
transformation between the outgoing clip
| | 03:17 | and the incoming clip will occur within
the darkest parts of the image with the
| | 03:21 | lightest areas transitioning last.
Now play the Timeline.
| | 03:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:29 | The effect could use a little bit of softening,
so let's move the slider up a little and play it again.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:39 | There we go. That looks better.
| | 03:41 | For the next cut, click on the edit
point to highlight it, then go to Effects >
| | 03:46 | Video Transitions > Slide >
Push Slide and review the clip.
| | 03:53 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:59 | Final Cut Express will also let you change the
direction of transitions and as you can see in
| | 04:04 | this particular effect, by default,
the incoming clip comes from the bottom.
| | 04:09 | Double-click on the transition and load
it into the Viewer. If you look closely
| | 04:13 | to the side, you can see a little
arrow and what you want to do is click it.
| | 04:18 | You can actually see the arrow switch
directions on the icon. Now the incoming
| | 04:22 | clip should come from the top. Let's play it.
| | 04:26 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:29 | For our last transition, I am going to
the 3D Simulation folder and choosing
| | 04:33 | Cross Zoom, and then I will drag it
to the edit point. With this particular
| | 04:40 | effect, you can adjust the amount
of zoom or add a blur to enhance it.
| | 04:45 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:48 | I would like to show you one last
technique for applying transitions. If you
| | 04:51 | have a series of clips in the browser
that you want to use in the show, you can
| | 04:55 | set your in and out-points for each
of them in the browser then lasso those
| | 04:59 | clips and drag them to the Canvas
window and drop them over the with transition
| | 05:04 | overlay. All the clips will be
edited to the Timeline with the default
| | 05:09 | transition applied, which is a cross
dissolve, and in the order they were
| | 05:12 | selected. This is a good way to add
simple transitions to a series of clips.
| | 05:17 | There you have it. Feel free to tweak
away with your transitions, but in the
| | 05:21 | end don't forget to be tasteful and
choose the right effect for the right video.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Correcting ColorWhen to correct color| 00:00 | When do you need to color correct? Just
about any shot could benefit from color
| | 00:03 | correction, whether it's to add
warmth to a scene by increasing color
| | 00:07 | saturation, making a scene appear
cooler by dropping the saturation and adding
| | 00:12 | a hint of blue or for more practical
purposes such as fixing problems that may
| | 00:16 | have occurred during the time of
shooting, problems such as over and
| | 00:20 | under-exposed shots due to lighting issues
or to correct an improper white balance.
| | 00:25 | Here we have a series of shots that
depict two of the under and over-exposed
| | 00:29 | shots we will be working on and right
next to them are the same shots that have
| | 00:34 | been improved by the color correction
process. This first shot of the statue is
| | 00:38 | a little under exposed and as a result,
the image appears a bit flat and bland
| | 00:43 | and the color corrected shot adds a
little more life to the video. Now maybe
| | 00:47 | the look you are going for could be a
bit dreary and this shot could work as it
| | 00:51 | is. But for my taste, it's just a
little dull so we will fix that later.
| | 00:56 | The following shot of the lake is clearly
over-exposed possibly because the camera
| | 01:01 | operator didn't use the proper lens
filter for a sunny day on the water. In the
| | 01:05 | corrected shot, you can see that we
have gained a little more information in
| | 01:08 | the sky, in the lake areas and the
green in the trees have regained some of
| | 01:12 | its vibrancy.
| | 01:13 | Over the next few videos, we will
color correct shots that have exposure
| | 01:16 | problems and you will also learn how
to save custom color correction settings
| | 01:21 | so that you can reuse them to maintain
consistency between similar shots in a program.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Correcting problems with exposure| 00:00 | In this exercise we are going to tackle
what is probably the most common video
| | 00:04 | problem around, over and under-exposed
shots. The first thing we need to do is
| | 00:09 | apply the Color Correct filter. So go
to the Effects tab in the browser and
| | 00:14 | open the folder named Color
Correction and drag the Color Corrector to the
| | 00:19 | first clip in the sequence. Double
click on the first clip so we can access the
| | 00:23 | filter controls in the Viewer by
clicking on the Color Corrector tab.
| | 00:28 | Since we are going to be working
mostly in the Viewer and Canvas windows, go
| | 00:32 | ahead and maximize the viewing area by
switching to the Compositing layout.
| | 00:37 | The Color Correction controls can also be
accessed through the filters tab in the
| | 00:40 | Viewer but I find this view to be very
cluttered and more difficult to work in.
| | 00:46 | So I like to use the visual controls to
perform the bulk of my color correction
| | 00:49 | work. At the very top of the Visual
controls, you have the ability to toggle
| | 00:54 | the filter off and on. Moving to the
right, you can actually keyframe Color
| | 00:59 | Correction effects in the graph area
and we also have the hand icon that we can
| | 01:04 | use to save our custom looks for later.
The most noticeable tools in the Color
| | 01:08 | Corrector are the Balance and Hue wheels.
| | 01:11 | The balance wheel lets you control
color spill resulting from an improper white
| | 01:16 | balance. Have you ever seen a given
shot where there was a blue cast in even
| | 01:20 | the things that were supposed to be
white, have a blue tint? This wheel enables
| | 01:25 | us to make whites in our shots,
truly white by allowing us to essentially
| | 01:29 | perform a white balance in post. The
Hue wheel allows us to make changes in
| | 01:34 | color temperature and perform global
changes to our sequence. The sliders at
| | 01:38 | the bottom give us the ability to
tweak whites, mids, blacks and saturation.
| | 01:44 | The controls located to the right let
us automatically balance white values,
| | 01:48 | contrast black values and the eye
dropper can also be used for matching skin
| | 01:53 | tone between shots.
| | 01:55 | First, let's select the eyedropper
for the Balance wheel and let's click on
| | 02:00 | something in the shot that is supposed
to be white. So I am going to choose the
| | 02:03 | top of this statue's head, if you
look closely in the Balance wheel you see
| | 02:08 | that the white dot in the middle has
slightly been moved toward the yellow and
| | 02:11 | the red and away from the blue. So
automatically, we have removed some of the
| | 02:15 | blue cast. Our true enhancements in
this image are going to come from tweaking
| | 02:20 | the sliders and tweaking is
definitely the keyword when it comes to Color
| | 02:24 | Correction. I am going to bring the
mids up a little and I am also going to
| | 02:28 | bump up the white levels to put
more white back into the statue.
| | 02:33 | Now the trees and the greenery in the
background are starting to wash out, so I
| | 02:38 | need to lower my blacks a bit and
raise the saturation to put some color back
| | 02:42 | into them. After we are finished, we
can now toggle off and on the Color
| | 02:47 | Correction filter to see the before
and after. Most of the time when you are
| | 02:51 | color correcting, the changes you make
will be subtle just like we did for this
| | 02:55 | image. We cut down on some of the
flatness of the image that was a tad bit
| | 02:59 | under-exposed and added a little vibrancy.
| | 03:02 | Let's move on to the next clip, drag
the Color Corrector filter down to the
| | 03:05 | next clip. Take the eyedropper again
and let's click on these white houses in
| | 03:11 | the distance. Now we see a more
significant change from the center position of
| | 03:16 | the Balance wheel moving toward the
blue in the spectrum. I am going to bring
| | 03:20 | my whites down because there is way
too much of it in the shot. Now we are
| | 03:25 | starting to see some color information
in the sky. Let's bring the mids down a
| | 03:29 | little bit and bump up the saturation.
Let's take a look at the before and
| | 03:36 | after. This is a significant
improvement from the original shot. If you have
| | 03:45 | other shots like this one, you can
drag the filter from the hand icon to
| | 03:48 | another clip in the sequence or simply
drag the effect to a bin and rename it
| | 03:54 | Color Corrector on lake so you can reuse it.
| | 03:58 | When color correcting, always keep in
mind that maintaining consistency from
| | 04:03 | shot to shot within the same scene will
preserve continuity as the program progresses.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Being broadcast-safe| 00:00 | A very important issue to discuss while
on the topic of color correction is the
| | 00:04 | importance of being broadcast safe.
When you ensure that your video was
| | 00:08 | Broadcast Safe that means that your
video is free of the legal video levels
| | 00:13 | pertaining to saturation and exposure.
Unlike Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express
| | 00:19 | doesn't possess scopes or range check
features to help you identify problems
| | 00:23 | such as these, but what you do have
is a Broadcast Safe filter that you can
| | 00:27 | apply to your entire sequence. Whether
your video was going straight to DV or to
| | 00:32 | the web or you don't ever plan on it
being broadcast, it's still a very good
| | 00:36 | idea to remain color safe.
| | 00:38 | Illegal video levels have been known to
cause compression errors when encoding
| | 00:43 | for the web and can result in some
unsightly video when played back on a TV
| | 00:47 | set. So after you have completed
your show, select the entire sequence by
| | 00:51 | pressing Command+A, then go to
Effects > Video Filters > Color Correction >
| | 00:58 | Broadcast Safe and the filter will be
applied to the entire program. The change
| | 01:03 | in your video may be very subtle, but
it's a very important adjustment. Make
| | 01:08 | sure that Broadcast Safe filter is the
very last filter that you apply to your
| | 01:11 | program.
| | 01:13 | So if you are like me, and you are
constantly tweaking even after you think you
| | 01:16 | are done, load the clip into the
Viewer, then click on the Filters tab and
| | 01:23 | confirm that the Broadcast Safe filter
is last in the list of Applied Filters.
| | 01:27 | The default settings are fine, but if
you really want to be careful you can set
| | 01:32 | the filter to Very Conservative or
Extremely Conservative. As you can see, it
| | 01:37 | only takes a few extra moments as you
are wrapping up your program to make sure
| | 01:41 | that you are Broadcast Safe and in my
opinion, it will protect the integrity of
| | 01:45 | the overall quality of your video.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Creating EffectsOverview of RT playback| 00:00 | The topic of effects creation and the
real-time capability of your workstation
| | 00:04 | go hand in hand. If you are combining
effects and compositing, eventually you
| | 00:08 | are going to reach to your computers
capacity to process these effects in
| | 00:12 | real-time and as a result, you will
have to render. If you aren't familiar with
| | 00:17 | the term, rendering is the process
of joining video and audio files with
| | 00:21 | effects. During the rendering process
render cache files are created and will
| | 00:25 | allow you to play back those effects in
real-time. Just above the Timeline ruler
| | 00:30 | there are two Render status bars, the
top is for video and the bottom is for
| | 00:34 | audio. These will let you know of an
effect you have created will have to be
| | 00:39 | rendered before you can review it by
displaying various colors of Render
| | 00:42 | Status. A dark green Render bar
signifies a real-time effect and no necessary
| | 00:48 | rendering is necessary and a red bar
means that you will have to render the
| | 00:52 | effect before you can play it back;
dark gray means no rendering is necessary.
| | 00:58 | When we look in the Effects tab some of
the filters are in bold letters meaning
| | 01:03 | that they are real-time effects and
the ones that aren't will have to be
| | 01:07 | processed. Your real-time settings can
be found in the upper left hand corner
| | 01:11 | of the Timeline. By default, your RT
settings are set to Safe Real Time which
| | 01:16 | means that Final Cut Express will
attempt to play back clips that contains
| | 01:20 | certain effects in real-time without
dropping any frames. If it's unable to do
| | 01:25 | so, a red Render bar status appears
over that particular area in the Timeline.
| | 01:30 | Choosing Unlimited RT tells Final Cut
Express to play back the effect the best
| | 01:35 | it can. When you have exceeded your
computers processing power, an orange
| | 01:39 | Render Status bar lets you know when
you are into unlimited playback. If you
| | 01:43 | are seeing an orange bar, Final Cut
Express is sacrificing a little bit of
| | 01:47 | playback quality to play back that effect.
| | 01:51 | You can go ahead and change the next
two settings to Dynamic so that we can
| | 01:55 | ensure that we are getting the highest
quality preview that's possible with the
| | 01:59 | most effects. This will allow Final
Cut Express to automatically adjust
| | 02:03 | playback quality according to our
processing needs. What we are going to do now
| | 02:08 | is add some effects to a clip in the
Timeline so that we have to render it.
| | 02:12 | I am going to select the clip then go
to Effects > Video Filters > QuickTime >
| | 02:18 | Emboss. As you can see, we have a red
Render bar and when we try to play it
| | 02:25 | back it says Unrendered. Well, there
are few things we can do. You can press
| | 02:29 | Option+P on the keyboard, which will
force Final Cut Express to play back all
| | 02:34 | frames of the effect, but not in real-
time. Or we can switch our RT settings to
| | 02:39 | Unlimited and get an orange status bar,
meaning that we will be able to play it
| | 02:44 | back, but we will just have to
sacrifice some image quality to do so.
| | 02:48 | Although we have discussed some ways
to preview clips that are in need of
| | 02:51 | rendering, eventually you are going
to have to render your entire sequence
| | 02:55 | before you output. So let's take a
look at some ways of how to render effects
| | 02:59 | by going up to the Sequence menu. The
Sequence menu provides you several ways
| | 03:04 | for selecting clips to render with the
first being to manually select the clips
| | 03:09 | that you want to render then choosing
Render Selection. With this option, you
| | 03:13 | can target individual clips or group
selections for rendering by pressing
| | 03:17 | Command+R. You can tweak your render
selection a bit further here by choosing
| | 03:23 | to render effects that Final Cut
Express would normally attempt to play back on
| | 03:26 | its own by putting a check mark
next to preview and unlimited.
| | 03:30 | Render All does exactly what it says
it will. It will render all effects
| | 03:34 | regardless of what is selected. Go
ahead and make sure that all of these are
| | 03:38 | selected so that it will render
absolutely everything before final output.
| | 03:44 | Render Only will let you hand select
which type of render you want to perform
| | 03:48 | and quite frankly, I don't use this
particularly much. With the exception of
| | 03:53 | the Miixdown option which will take all
of your audio tracks and mix them down
| | 03:57 | to a single group of audio files on
your hard drive. I personally like to do
| | 04:01 | this before I output a project that has
many audio items because I find that it
| | 04:05 | improves the overall quality of
my audio when I print to tape.
| | 04:08 | Now you can adjust your real-time
playback to your own specifications as well
| | 04:12 | as selectively render your
effects and your production.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using filters| 00:00 | Final Cut Express has a number of
effects plug filters for you to choose from
| | 00:04 | to give your video an extra pop. You
have your standard fair such as blurs and
| | 00:08 | wipes, and your more stylized effects
like Bad TV and Solarize. If you don't
| | 00:13 | find what you are looking for in this
line up, there are plenty of third party
| | 00:16 | plug-in options online that you can
purchase and beef up your effects library.
| | 00:20 | Let's go to the Effects tab
and open our Video Filters.
| | 00:24 | Just like the transitions library, the
real-time effects are involved and you
| | 00:28 | will find that many of these effects
are real-time. When you get to some of the
| | 00:31 | more complex effects, you will have to
render. I am simply going to drag the
| | 00:35 | Gaussian Blur filter to my first clip
on the Timeline and as you can see as
| | 00:40 | soon as I drop the effect you get an
immediate result. If we load this clip
| | 00:43 | into the browser, we can
access the filter controls.
| | 00:47 | One more thing I want to draw your
attention to is the fact that in order to
| | 00:50 | see the changes you are making to
your clip in the Timeline from the Canvas
| | 00:54 | window, you must have the playhead parked
over the clip in the Timeline. This can
| | 00:58 | sometimes cause confusion with new
Final Cut Express users, as they begin to
| | 01:02 | add filter after filter to a clip,
wondering why they can't see the new changes.
| | 01:07 | Now as you can see in the Filter
controls, the Radius is set to 2. We can
| | 01:11 | increase this range with the slider,
perhaps to make a nice still for us to run
| | 01:15 | our end credits over. At the top
here we can choose to make the effect
| | 01:19 | channel-specific. The Border category
of filters do exactly with the name
| | 01:23 | infers. They provide borders for
your video and if we load that into the
| | 01:28 | Viewer, you can dictate the size of
the border as well as the color. There is
| | 01:32 | plenty of possibilities with this effect.
| | 01:34 | You could drop a Line Art effect over
top of the video first. Then add the
| | 01:47 | border and drop the scale down. Hit W
on the keyboard to enter Wireframe mode
| | 01:54 | so that we can move it. And now you
have a moving picture on the wall for a
| | 02:02 | picture in picture effect.
| | 02:04 | The next category is one that quite
frankly I don't find myself needing very
| | 02:08 | often but the Channel filters are good
for making color changes at the Channel
| | 02:13 | level by breaking down the video as an
RGB signal. You'll probably only need
| | 02:19 | these four specific projects.
| | 02:21 | We have already performed an example
with the Color Correction and Broadcast
| | 02:24 | Safe filters. You can use the
Desaturate Highlights and Lows filter to
| | 02:29 | target the brightest and darkest spots
of the video and lower their Intensity.
| | 02:33 | These are essentially the same filters
but with modified default settings.
| | 02:38 | The Destroyed category is good for
warping video and you will see that Fisheye
| | 02:42 | effect used in many
extreme sports highlight reels.
| | 02:45 | Most of the time, they are using an
actual fisheye lens to shoot the footage.
| | 02:49 | But this effect is pretty convincing as
well. It also has practical uses such
| | 02:54 | as correcting minor problems with lens
distortion. This category is a new group
| | 02:59 | of effects plug filters that I
really enjoy. These are really great for
| | 03:03 | creating light effects in your video
and you see effects like this all the time
| | 03:08 | in sports promos such as
the Bloom and Light Rays.
| | 03:11 | I will go ahead and apply this to a
clip and I can raise the threshold to
| | 03:15 | increase the scope of the effect. Go
ahead and experiment with these and see if
| | 03:19 | they can help you in your upcoming
project. There is a lot of similar
| | 03:23 | functionality between the Color
Correction filters and the next category, which
| | 03:27 | is Image Control.
| | 03:29 | But there are a few things in here that
I think you will find very useful such
| | 03:33 | as Desaturate, Sepia and Tint. The
Desaturate filter will essentially give you
| | 03:38 | a black and white clip. One very
powerful use of these filters is the ability
| | 03:42 | to keyframe changes over time, which
means I can apply the filter with the
| | 03:47 | playhead at the beginning of the clip,
click the Insert Keyframe button and the
| | 03:51 | Amount's set to 100. Move the playhead
to a later part of the clip and change the
| | 03:57 | Amount to 0 and have the clip fade into color.
| | 04:01 | The Sepia filter will instantly give
you a sepia tint, that you can manipulate
| | 04:05 | as well as the Tint filter, which
you can choose a color then adjust the amount.
| | 04:15 | The next category, Key, is good for
removing a background. If you have shot an
| | 04:21 | actor on green screen or blue screen,
there are many other third party wares is
| | 04:25 | out there they can give you more
control but Final Cut Express does an
| | 04:28 | acceptable job for a simple keying job.
| | 04:31 | We will cover this more fully later in
this chapter. The Matte category is for
| | 04:36 | advanced compositing and gives you the
tools to cut out images and place them
| | 04:41 | over other video images. The
Perspective filters enable you to create 3D moves
| | 04:47 | with your video by keyframing. And the
QuickTime category offers many filters
| | 04:52 | whose functions are very similar to
others that we have already talked about.
| | 04:56 | With that being said, the Lens Flare
filter in this category is a very popular effect.
| | 05:02 | The Sharpen filters can help refine
soft video and the Stylize category is
| | 05:07 | where you will find your special
effects filters for your video to give a
| | 05:11 | unique look such as Line Art
which offers a hand drawn look.
| | 05:16 | What I have shown you here are some of
the most widely used and popular filter
| | 05:20 | effects in Final Cut Express. Feel free
to experiment with all of them and see
| | 05:25 | if they can breathe some
fresh air into your video work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compositing| 00:00 | Final Cut Express gives you the added
power of combining multiple video tracks
| | 00:04 | to create dynamic effects through
compositing. Compositing is a relatively easy
| | 00:08 | way to add some sophistication to your
video projects. But these effects are
| | 00:12 | somewhat intense and will require some
rendering. Notice that we are using both
| | 00:16 | the track 1 and video 2
tracks to create this effect.
| | 00:21 | When compositing, I suggest that you
enable Unlimited RT and you will need to
| | 00:25 | toggle on the clip overlays as well.
Composite Modes use the color and
| | 00:30 | brightness of each layered clip and
determines how they will interact with each
| | 00:34 | other on Timeline. The default
Composite Mode for clips are to be opaque so
| | 00:38 | when I place the clip on the video
track 1 and 2 in the Timeline with the
| | 00:42 | playhead parked over each one them,
you will only see what's on top. By using
| | 00:46 | the Opacity Overlay in the video clip,
we can begin to modify the clip's
| | 00:50 | transparency by percents
revealing the clip in track 1.
| | 00:55 | By using the Composite Modes, we can
further tweak the aesthetic of this effect.
| | 00:59 | Select the clip in track 2 and go to
Modify > Composite Mode > Overlay. As you
| | 01:05 | can see the Composite Mode works with
the Opacity and color values of each
| | 01:09 | clip, giving you a very dramatic effect.
When playing back your effect, if you
| | 01:14 | should get a warning that says you are
dropping frames go ahead and uncheck the
| | 01:18 | Warn Next Time checkbox. Only the
playback is dropping frames and will have
| | 01:22 | no effect on our project when we print to tape.
| | 01:25 | Let's undo that by pressing Command+Z
and try another mode. This time choose
| | 01:30 | Modify > Composite Mode > Lighten.
The Lighten Mode accentuates the lightest
| | 01:36 | parts of the image, in this case the
statues. If you are shooting your own
| | 01:40 | video, be conscious of how you can
shoot your video to take advantage of this effect.
| | 01:45 | Perhaps compose the shot
where you shoot a face that is extreme
| | 01:48 | screen left and another that is
screen right, so you can composite them
| | 01:52 | together side by side. This effect is
used extensively in documentaries, in
| | 01:57 | prime time investigative
shows like dateline in 48 hours.
| | 02:01 | Some compositing modes can help you
correct an image imposed that may have been
| | 02:05 | underexposed to help increase the
overall vibrance of the image. Moving to the
| | 02:10 | second image, I have simply set two
of the same video clips on top of one
| | 02:14 | another. Then I will go to Modify >
Composite Mode and choose Multiply. The
| | 02:19 | image was slightly washed out before
and now we have added some vibrancy to the
| | 02:23 | picture by using a simple Composite Mode.
| | 02:26 | The third clip on the Timeline is
severely underexposed; a way to help this
| | 02:30 | image without going into the Color
Corrector is to use the Screen Composite
| | 02:34 | Mode. So select the clip, then choose
Screen. In Screen Mode, the lightest
| | 02:39 | parts of the overlapping clips are
emphasized improving our underexposed
| | 02:44 | footage. For other sides, you may need
to experiment with other Composite Modes
| | 02:48 | depending on the given clips light and
dark areas. There is one last thing I
| | 02:52 | want to show you and that's how to add
a color tint to all of your footage in
| | 02:56 | the Timeline by compositing.
| | 02:57 | I am going to go to the slug generator
and choose Color Matte. Let's change the
| | 03:02 | color by going into the Control tab
and clicking on the Color Swatch. I am
| | 03:05 | going to choose something that's close
to Sepia like Mocha. Edit the Matte in
| | 03:10 | the video track 3 and place it
into the soft like Composite Mode.
| | 03:22 | Now the entire Timeline has a mocha
tint that can be modified by lowering the
| | 03:26 | Opacity Overlay. So play with these modes
and experiment to see how you can add some
| | 03:31 | depth and artistic value to your video projects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting clip speed| 00:00 | Having the ability to change the
speed of which a clip is played is a very
| | 00:04 | basic but powerful tool that can be
used for added effect. And here we have a
| | 00:09 | clip that we are going to perform a
speed adjustment on, but we are only going
| | 00:13 | to apply the adjustment to part of the clip.
| | 00:15 | The goal here is to have the clip play
at full speed for the first few seconds
| | 00:20 | then slow the rest of the shot down
to give a little flavor to the shot. By
| | 00:25 | pressing Ctrl+V on the keyboard, we can
make a through edit in the clip exactly
| | 00:30 | where we want the change to occur and
apply the speed change to only the second
| | 00:35 | half of the clip.
| | 00:36 | I am going to make my edit about three
seconds into the clip. Now I am going to
| | 00:40 | click on the second half of the shot
to select it, then go to Modify > Speed.
| | 00:46 | In the Speed field, type 60 to have the
clip playback at only 60% of its normal
| | 00:51 | speed, then make sure that Frame
Blending is turned on so that our slow motion
| | 00:56 | will be smoother. Click OK.
| | 00:59 | Speed changes tend to work the best
when you change it even increments so keep
| | 01:04 | that in mind. If you look next to the
name of the clip in the sequence, you can
| | 01:07 | see that the speed has now been
reduced to 60% and that is now longer than
| | 01:11 | before. You can also see that we need
to render our clip, so go to Sequence >
| | 01:16 | Render All. Now play back the clip.
| | 01:35 | This effect looks pretty good as you
| | 01:37 | probably noticed while we were in
the Speed window there is also a box for
| | 01:41 | Reverse. If you check this box, Final
Cut Express will now play the clip in
| | 01:46 | reverse at 60% speed.
| | 01:52 | This is probably not a good effect
for the clip we are currently using, but
| | 01:56 | think of some of the ways that you
could utilize that in a football or
| | 01:59 | basketball highlight reel.
| | 02:01 | One other effect you will find some use
for is the ability to create a freeze
| | 02:05 | frame. Just park the playhead over the
frame that you want and go to Modify >
| | 02:10 | Make Freeze Frame. The Freeze Frame
then loads into the Viewer and can be
| | 02:16 | edited into a sequence just as any other clip.
| | 02:19 | So whenever you want to add some
style to your video clips, consider using
| | 02:22 | speed and direction changes as well as
creating freeze frames to give your work
| | 02:27 | that extra pop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Keying video clips| 00:00 | Occasionally, you may find the need to
place your on-screen talent in front of
| | 00:03 | a green screen or blue screen and
replace the background with another image.
| | 00:08 | This is referred to as Keying. Although
there are very many dedicated keyers in
| | 00:13 | the market, Final Cut Express can yield
acceptable quality when the proper care
| | 00:17 | is taken for setting up for such an effect.
| | 00:19 | To successfully key a scene, set
yourself up for success by making sure the
| | 00:24 | subject and the green screen itself
are well lit with no shadows. Make sure
| | 00:29 | that the subject is several feet in
front of the screen to prevent any green
| | 00:32 | color spill. And you also want to make
sure that there are no wrinkles in the
| | 00:36 | green screen fabric. You will see an
accurate shot against the green screen in
| | 00:40 | the video track 2 and the
background that we will be using in track 1.
| | 00:44 | Double-click on the green screen clip
to load in into the Viewer. Then the
| | 00:48 | first thing we need to do is go to the
Effects tab under Video Filters > Key
| | 00:54 | and apply the Color Smoothing 4:1:1
to our HDV green screen clip. The Color
| | 01:00 | Smoothing filter helps reduce the
jagged edges that can form around the actor
| | 01:04 | we may perform our Key.
| | 01:06 | Use the 4:1:1 filter for DV or HDV
footage in the NTSC color space and if you
| | 01:12 | use PAL, miniDV, DVCam, you may see
better results with the 4:2:2 filter. Now
| | 01:19 | drag the Chroma Keyer filter to the clip.
As you can see the filter has already
| | 01:24 | done a lot for the effect we are going
for, but you can still see an outline of
| | 01:28 | green surrounding the actress.
| | 01:30 | Open the Chroma Keyer tab in the Viewer,
so that we can see the tools we have
| | 01:33 | to work with. If you are left with a
lot more green still surrounding your
| | 01:37 | subject after you have applied the
Chroma Key filter, use the eyedropper and
| | 01:42 | click close to the body of the actor
to select the color that you want to
| | 01:45 | remove. And that color
will show in the Color Wheel.
| | 01:49 | Let's turn off the background layer
so that we can only see black. Now to
| | 01:53 | remove this thin green outline, we
can adjust the color range control to
| | 01:57 | include more hues because the green
closer to her body may be lighter than the
| | 02:02 | outer sections.
| | 02:04 | One thing that you will discover
quickly about keying is that it can involve a
| | 02:08 | lot of tweaking to get it to look
the way you want it to. There is no one
| | 02:12 | setting fits all in the realm of keying.
The Saturation slider works much in
| | 02:16 | the same way as the Color Range and
controls the degree of saturation defining
| | 02:21 | the key, and the Luma Control
adjust the range of luma in the key.
| | 02:25 | The top handles in each of these
controls lets you select a larger range of
| | 02:29 | color saturation or luma and the bottom
handles control the tolerance. Dragging
| | 02:35 | the handles from within the gradient
itself just shifts the overall range. What
| | 02:40 | we can do now for this image is use the
Edge Thin slider to help remove some of
| | 02:45 | the hint of green that is still left.
You don't want to go overboard with the
| | 02:49 | Edge Thinner because you can
actually eat into the actress.
| | 02:53 | So what we are going to do is tweak
this just a little bit, then bring up the
| | 02:56 | Softening to smooth out the effect.
There is a few more viewing options that
| | 03:00 | you can choose from that
will help you tweak the effect.
| | 03:03 | The first being the View Final Matte-
Source button. The function of this button
| | 03:08 | is just as it sounds, enables you to
view the final key, the matte image, which
| | 03:14 | gives you a white key with a black
background, enabling you to tweak the key
| | 03:18 | without the image detail. As you can
see here, we have pulled a good key
| | 03:23 | because most of the image in this view
is solid white and it also allows you to
| | 03:27 | see the original source footage.
| | 03:29 | The Invert Selection button will
reverse the key you have defined giving you
| | 03:33 | yet another way to view the key so
that you can further tweak the effect. All
| | 03:37 | that's left for us to do now is render
the sequence. There you have it. This is
| | 03:42 | a very basic but effective key,
performed within Final Cut Express.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Adding TitlesTitling your program| 00:00 | Final Cut Express has a number of
Titling tools that you can use to title your
| | 00:04 | shows and they can all be found in the
Generators menu at the bottom of the Viewer.
| | 00:09 | Under the Text category, we have a few
options to choose from. The Crawl option
| | 00:14 | is for creating crawling text and you
see this is used for weather alerts at
| | 00:18 | the bottom of the screen and sometimes
for breaking news. Lower Thirds are what
| | 00:23 | you generally see in interviews where
the person speaking is being identified
| | 00:28 | or for the identification of a
specific location like in a news report.
| | 00:32 | Outline Text gives you several
specialized text functions that create static
| | 00:37 | text with outlines. Scrolling Text is
used for creating credit roles like you
| | 00:41 | see at the end of television programs.
The Plain Text option is for making
| | 00:47 | general full screen text like we are
about to make. And the Typewriter option
| | 00:52 | creates animated text that types on
screen one character at a time. We will be
| | 00:56 | examining how to make Lower Thirds and
Scrolling Text in later lessons as well
| | 01:00 | as using the Boris 3D Title tools.
| | 01:04 | The first thing we need to do is turn-
on the Title Safe Overlays. The Title
| | 01:08 | Safe boundary is 20% smaller than the
size of the frame, and the Action Safe is
| | 01:14 | 10% smaller and this is to make sure
that none of our elements get cut off when
| | 01:18 | it's played back on a television set.
Respect these boundaries because the edge
| | 01:23 | amount that gets cut off varies
between manufacturers of television sets and
| | 01:27 | you don't want the viewers to miss any
of the information you are putting on screen.
| | 01:31 | Now I am going to the Generators menu
and choosing Text and Text again. The
| | 01:37 | Text Generator has now been loaded
into the Viewer. Let's go ahead and edit
| | 01:41 | that to the Timeline. Then double-click
on it to see where we can make our changes.
| | 01:45 | Now if we go into the Controls tab at
the top of the window, we can retype the
| | 01:51 | text as well as change its Parameters.
Go ahead and type whatever you want
| | 01:55 | here. For my text, I am typing SURF
TOWN. In the Canvas window, turn on
| | 02:00 | Image+Wireframe, so that we can move
our text around and place it where we want it.
| | 02:04 | There are few key things to
consider when adding titles to your video.
| | 02:08 | Light-color text works best with dark
backgrounds and light backgrounds tend to
| | 02:14 | work best with darker text. If you want
to change the color of your text, click
| | 02:19 | on the Color Swatch to
bring up the Color palette.
| | 02:22 | Also, text that's smaller than 24
point is hard to see on TV. So go bigger by
| | 02:27 | using the slider for Size adjustments.
I am going to set mine to 54 point.
| | 02:32 | While I am at it, I am going to change
my Font type as well. Keep in mind that
| | 02:37 | thicker fonts work best. So you can
always change the Style to Bold or use
| | 02:41 | other options. Right now, the text
is centered but if you want it to left
| | 02:46 | justify or right justify it, it can be
controlled in the Alignment parameter.
| | 02:50 | Be mindful of the tracking of
characters. In other words, their closeness to
| | 02:54 | one another, which varies among font
types. Use the Tracking slider to increase
| | 02:59 | the distance between font characters
if you have to because jumbled fonts are
| | 03:04 | much harder to read.
| | 03:05 | If you have more than one line of text,
use the Leading to increase or decrease
| | 03:10 | the distance between each line. The
Aspect slider distorts text and is usually
| | 03:15 | left at its default setting, unless you
have a specific need for a warping text
| | 03:19 | effect. Also keep in mind that each
parameter in here can be keyframed to
| | 03:24 | create an animated effect.
| | 03:25 | Probably, the most basic effect used on
titles is the Drop Shadow. And the Drop
| | 03:30 | Shadow can be found under the Motion tab.
Place a check in the box to activate
| | 03:34 | it and click the disclosure triangle to
tweak the parameters of the shadow such
| | 03:39 | as its Offset, Angle, Color, and the
Opacity which will give me a much more
| | 03:45 | bold shadow.
| | 03:47 | Applying titles in Final Cut Express
is relatively easy but keep in mind when
| | 03:51 | you are creating text that readability
is king. Later, you will see how to use
| | 03:55 | LiveType as well as import text from
Photoshop to create custom titles for your
| | 04:00 | Final Cut Express project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating lower thirds| 00:00 | Lower 3rds are great ways to identify
speakers in your video productions and
| | 00:04 | are very easy to create in Final Cut
Express. What we are going to do is create
| | 00:08 | a Lower 3rd that identifies our on-air
talent and the organization that she is
| | 00:13 | associated with.
| | 00:14 | Go to the Generator menu and choose Text
> Lower 3rd. As you can see we have two
| | 00:21 | lines of text that will allow us to
place the name and some extra information
| | 00:26 | at the bottom. I am going to go ahead
and edit the text into the Timeline and
| | 00:31 | load it into the Viewer.
| | 00:33 | In the Controls tab, in the Text 1
field, let's type the name, which is
| | 00:38 | Kristin, and in the second field I am
going to type Wine Enthusiast. We need to
| | 00:48 | turn on the Title Safe Overlays. And
let's adjust the placement of our text
| | 00:52 | again by turning on Image+Wireframe and
repositioning the Lower 3rd. I am going
| | 00:56 | to leave the Font type and Size as is right now.
| | 01:01 | If you are looking in the Canvas,
you can see that the text is a little
| | 01:04 | difficult to read. To fix this, first
I am going to place a drop shadow by
| | 01:10 | going to the Motion tab and checking
Drop Shadow. And let's bring up the
| | 01:17 | Opacity. Now go to the Background
parameter under the Controls tab. Here we can
| | 01:25 | choose to place a Bar or a Solid
background behind the Lower 3rd text. And I am
| | 01:30 | going to choose the Solid background.
This helps the text, but we need to make
| | 01:35 | a few more adjustments to make it look better.
| | 01:37 | Let's change the color of the
background to cyan and bring the Opacity down
| | 01:43 | a little. I don't want this Lower 3rd
to stretch across the entire bottom of
| | 01:47 | the screen. So I am going to crop the
right side of the Background graphic down
| | 01:52 | just a little bit. Go to the Crop
parameter under the Motion tab and turn the
| | 01:57 | Right to about 51%. That looks much better.
| | 02:03 | I am going to go back to the Controls
tab and change the Style for Text 1 to
| | 02:07 | Bold and slightly lower the text
size for the second line of text.
| | 02:14 | When you are finished creating the
Lower 3rd, drag the finished version to the
| | 02:17 | browser, then right-click on the clip
and choose Duplicate As New Master Clip.
| | 02:23 | Now we can use the saved Lower 3rd as
a template for other interviews in the
| | 02:28 | show by editing it into the second video track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dynamic titling with LiveType| 00:00 | LiveType is a dynamic motion
graphics program that will allow you to take
| | 00:04 | titling for your Final Cut Express
projects to a whole new level. If you
| | 00:09 | performed the complete install of
the Final Cut Express software on the
| | 00:12 | installation disk then LiveType
should already been installed on your hard
| | 00:15 | drive and should be ready to
use. So let's open LiveType.
| | 00:19 | Within LiveType, you will be able to
create sleek animated titles that you
| | 00:24 | could not achieve natively in Final Cut
Express with text generators. You have
| | 00:29 | a library of vector-based characters,
fully animated backdrops where you can
| | 00:33 | place text, fully animated lower-
thirds and mattes and fully keyframed
| | 00:39 | behaviors that can be applied to text.
| | 00:41 | If you want to further expand the
prowess of LiveType, there are developers
| | 00:46 | online that sell new effects, extra
templates and fonts specifically for
| | 00:51 | LiveType. LiveType is a very capable
program. So before we get started, I just
| | 00:56 | want to cover some of the key areas.
If you want more well rounded look at the
| | 01:00 | LiveType, you should take a look at
some of the LiveType titles offered by
| | 01:04 | lynda.com. Much like Final Cut
Express, Live Type consists of four main
| | 01:09 | windows: the Canvas, Inspector,
Media browser and Timeline.
| | 01:15 | The Canvas provides you with a visual
representation of your project and will
| | 01:19 | allow you to preview as well as make
adjustments to objects that make up your
| | 01:23 | work. The Inspector is where you will
have all your tools that you will use to
| | 01:28 | tweak parameters of the design
elements and it also includes a text entry box
| | 01:32 | for adding text.
| | 01:33 | The Media browser has all of the
design elements you will use to build your
| | 01:38 | project. This is where you will find
all of the animated fonts, textures and
| | 01:43 | objects. And at the top of the window,
you are able to preview all of them
| | 01:48 | before adding them to your project.
| | 01:50 | Much like Final Cut Express, the
Timeline is where you will choreograph your
| | 01:54 | project. Before you begin designing
there is some key Project Properties that
| | 01:59 | need to be configured. So go to Edit >
Project Properties. Change the Preset to
| | 02:07 | NTSC DV 32, and set the Field
Dominance to Lower Even, which is the Field
| | 02:13 | Dominance for DV. Anytime that you
start a new LiveType project, these
| | 02:17 | properties will revert back to the
default setting unless you go to LiveType >
| | 02:22 | Settings > Remember Settings. Now click
in the text entry box in the Inspector
| | 02:30 | and type something.
| | 02:31 | If you look in the center of the
Inspector, you can see the control for Size.
| | 02:39 | So make you text bigger or smaller if
you need to. You can now change the font
| | 02:43 | by going to the Fonts tab and making a
selection then choosing Apply. What we
| | 02:50 | are going to do is applying animation
to this text by applying a LiveFont. Go
| | 02:55 | to LiveFonts and choose String, click
Apply. Now we have animated our text,
| | 03:02 | play the sequence. You may notice
some stuttering as LiveType loads the
| | 03:06 | animation in caches. We can now choose
to extend the duration of the text by
| | 03:10 | dragging it at the end, like you would
with the Selection tool in the Final Cut
| | 03:15 | Express. And let's make sure that we
set our play range to the end of the title
| | 03:19 | in the Timeline so that when we go to
export, we only get the text and no empty
| | 03:25 | space. Instead of rendering our
LiveType movie then importing it into Final Cut
| | 03:29 | Express, we are going to go to File >
Save As and create a LiveType project
| | 03:36 | that we can import
directly into Final Cut Express.
| | 03:40 | We can now import the file in Final
Cut Express and edit it into a sequence,
| | 03:44 | but it will have to be rendered before
you export the project. If you would like
| | 03:50 | to make further changes to the text
while on Final Cut, right-click on the clip
| | 03:55 | and choose Open In Editor.
| | 04:00 | As you make your changes in LiveType
then save it, it will be updated in Final
| | 04:04 | Cut Express. If you want to know more
about LiveType, go ahead and check out
| | 04:09 | LiveType Essential Training on the
lynda.com Online Training Library.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Boris text| 00:00 | Boris Title 3D is another tool in your
arsenal for creating text in Final Cut
| | 00:05 | Express. There are some similarities
with the generator controls, but Boris 3D
| | 00:10 | has a few more controls that
you may find to work better.
| | 00:13 | I have opened the project named Boris_
Text and I am looking under the Generator
| | 00:17 | menu and going to Boris Title 3D. Under
the Controls tab, click on the Title 3D
| | 00:25 | icon where it says Click for options.
The window opens and we can now add text
| | 00:30 | into the field. The bottom half of the
interface gives you the ability to make
| | 00:34 | changes to the text. We can select
our text and make it bold, italicized,
| | 00:40 | underlined, or all of the above.
| | 00:43 | The dials let you skew the text along
the X and Y axis and you can also change
| | 00:48 | the size of the font or the font type.
The next tab is for alignment and we can
| | 00:54 | make the text wrap or go from top to
bottom or create a reverse mirror effect
| | 00:59 | by choosing right to left reading and
change the direction of the characters.
| | 01:03 | The following tab is for Fill, and we
can choose to fill our text with color or
| | 01:08 | with the gradient and we can change
the style opacity of the gradient. Click
| | 01:13 | the Gradient swatch and the Style
Editor opens letting you edit the gradient.
| | 01:18 | I am going to make sure that Live Update
is on, so I can immediately see my changes.
| | 01:23 | Next, I am going to change my
Gradient Type to Edge and change my Color to
| | 01:28 | Cyan. I can tweak this effect
further by dictating the color range of my
| | 01:32 | radial. So I am going to have my text
go from dark cyan to white. If I don't
| | 01:39 | like this, I can go back and change my
type to something else. I am going to
| | 01:43 | click OK to accept the changes.
| | 01:46 | The next tab is for Outlines and as
you can see here, you can choose an Edge
| | 01:50 | Style, the Position, the Color of the
outline and so on. I don't want to put an
| | 01:55 | outline for this text, so I am going
to move on to the next tab, which is for
| | 01:59 | Drop Shadows. In order to apply Drop
Shadow, first you will need to select the
| | 02:04 | text, then click one of the
five wells here to activate it.
| | 02:07 | Boris text will let you designate 5
presets that you can return to each time
| | 02:12 | you use Title 3D. I will go ahead and
click in the first well and we can easily
| | 02:17 | change the color of the shadow, the
distance of the shadow from the text and so on.
| | 02:21 | One thing to point out here is
that having to select your text before you
| | 02:25 | can make changes makes it hard to see
the actual change you have made. So you
| | 02:29 | may find yourself having to deselect
the text to view a change, then select the
| | 02:34 | text again. I think this looks good, so
I am going to click Apply, which places
| | 02:38 | it into the Viewer window. We can now
edit this into our show. I am going to
| | 02:44 | patch my video to Track 2 and
press F10 to edit it into the sequence.
| | 02:51 | As you can see, Boris gives you a
little more flexibility when it comes to
| | 02:54 | creating text. So if you need
something a little more stylized than the text
| | 02:58 | generators, this could be what you are
looking for. If we load the clip into
| | 03:04 | the Viewer, you can see that there are
more controls under the Control tab. All
| | 03:08 | of these controls are keyframe-able.
So if you wanted to place the text way
| | 03:12 | back in the distance and have it move
toward the camera, we can animate the
| | 03:18 | distance parameter.
| | 03:19 | Let's set two keyframes. One for the
text to start in a distance, then move
| | 03:27 | ahead in time, then bring the text
closer to the screen to create our second
| | 03:31 | keyframe. Put a checkmark in the
Deflicker parameter so that the motion will be
| | 03:36 | smooth. I am going to place the
playhead at the beginning of the sequence and
| | 03:41 | press Option+P to play it back. That
should play back smooth on a television
| | 03:46 | set and we have made a simple, but
effective animation for our text. That's it.
| | 03:50 | Boris Title 3D gives you a few more
title design options and a little more
| | 03:54 | flexibility than the regular text
generators. Later, during the creating credit
| | 03:58 | rolls movie, we will take a look at
Boris Title Crawl and the Title Crawl
| | 04:03 | generator in Final Cut Express.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing Photoshop files| 00:00 | The use of Photoshop has become a
necessity for video editors. You can use
| | 00:04 | Photoshop to create titling effects
such as a Glass Bug or Network ID that you
| | 00:09 | see in the bottom corner of TV shows
or to build a logo for your company.
| | 00:13 | Once you get the graphics in the Final
Cut Express, you can use them just as
| | 00:17 | any other clip. The key is to properly
save them in Photoshop before importing
| | 00:21 | them. In the browser, we have two sets
of graphics that I have created in
| | 00:25 | Photoshop. One is the Glass Bug or
Network ID that contains effects layers and
| | 00:32 | the other is a multi-layered file
made in Photoshop with all of its layers
| | 00:36 | intact.
| | 00:37 | If you have created a graphic in
Photoshop and you have used effects such as
| | 00:41 | Bevel and Emboss or advanced blending
to make a Network ID like this one. First
| | 00:46 | you need to save it within Photoshop in
a file format that will allow Final Cut
| | 00:50 | Express to recognize those effects
layers. Saving your work as a PNG will allow
| | 00:55 | you to maintain your effects layers in
embedded alpha channel, which enables
| | 00:59 | you to place it over video. With this
being said, this format does have its
| | 01:03 | drawbacks. The PNG format will flatten
all of your Photoshop layers. So if you
| | 01:09 | have created a multi layered graphic
in Photoshop, it will be imported as a
| | 01:13 | single layer file.
| | 01:15 | If you want to import a file that
maintains each graphic layer so that you can
| | 01:19 | bring them into Final Cut Express and
have the option of manipulating each
| | 01:23 | individual layer, you can save the
image as a Photoshop psd file with layers.
| | 01:29 | Keep in mind that Final Cut Express
only understands standard Photoshop layers
| | 01:34 | within the psd format and does not
understand effects layers such as Drop
| | 01:38 | Shadows, Glows and Bevels.
| | 01:41 | When you bring in the multi layered
Photoshop file, it will be brought in as
| | 01:45 | its own sequence. Double-click on it
in the browser, copy it, then go back to
| | 01:51 | your project. Auto-select Track 2 by
toggling off Auto Select on video Track 1,
| | 01:58 | then paste the text layers. Using
Photoshop to create graphics for your video
| | 02:02 | projects opens up a whole new realm of
possibilities for logos to use in your
| | 02:07 | videos as well as provide you some
new design elements to add into your projects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating credit rolls| 00:00 | Creating credit rolls in Final Cut
Express is easy and comes in very handy at
| | 00:05 | the end of your video production. Go to
Text > Scrolling Text and then go to the
| | 00:10 | Controls tab and type in your names. I
am going to add a few random names here
| | 00:16 | and separate them with an asterisk.
The asterisk will leave a nice little gap
| | 00:20 | for us when we take a look at the credits.
| | 00:22 | You can't see the video right now,
because it's at the bottom but it will
| | 00:26 | scroll up when we play it. I am going
to patch the video to Track 2 and press
| | 00:31 | F10 to make the edit.
| | 00:36 | As you can see, you will need to
render it in order to play it, if your RT
| | 00:39 | settings are not set to Unlimited. The
text scrolls upward screen, disappearing
| | 00:44 | at the top. This text is impossible to
see on this particular background. So
| | 00:49 | let's go to the Controls tab and change
the Style to bold. Set the color of the
| | 00:58 | text under the Controls tab to a darker
color. Then add a drop shadow under the
| | 01:05 | Motion tab to make it stand out.
| | 01:09 | Another thing we can do is have the
video fade in as it comes on to screen from
| | 01:14 | the bottom and fade out as it reaches
the top. Under the Controls tab, raise
| | 01:20 | the Fade Size by moving the slider
upward. Now as the text reaches the top, we
| | 01:26 | should see a gradual fade. Let's play it.
| | 01:37 | If you don't like the spacing of the
| | 01:38 | names, you can change the size of the
gap between the two columns with the Gap
| | 01:42 | parameter as well as the distance
between lines by adjusting the Leading.
| | 01:49 | At the bottom, we can also change the
direction of the scroll. If you don't like
| | 01:55 | the speed of the scroll, you can slow
it down by physically making the clip in
| | 01:58 | the Timeline longer or you can speed
it up by making it shorter. If you speed
| | 02:03 | it up too much, you may see some
stuttering in the scroll. So be mindful of the
| | 02:07 | speed.
| | 02:09 | For more of an in-motion effect, you
can go to the Motion tab and turn on
| | 02:14 | Motion Blur and adjust the amount. This
does make your text blurry, so use this
| | 02:19 | sparingly. Let's delete the text. The
second title tool we need to look at is
| | 02:26 | the Boris Title Crawl under the
Generator menu. If you press Click for options,
| | 02:32 | you have the same exact interface and
options you saw in the Title 3D. Enter
| | 02:36 | your text like you did before and I
am just going to put my name and my
| | 02:40 | producer's name and change the color of
my text. Click Apply and it loads into
| | 02:51 | the Viewer.
| | 02:53 | Under the Controls tab, there is a
parameter that will let you choose the type
| | 02:57 | of animation you want and I am choosing Roll.
Edit it into the sequence, then play.
| | 03:12 | If you want the Roll to be faster,
shorten the length of the clip in the
| | 03:15 | Timeline or make the clip longer for
a slower roll and there you have it.
| | 03:22 | Creating title rolls in Final Cut
Express is very easy and involves no manual
| | 03:26 | keyframing. When creating text in Final
Cut Express, make sure that you always
| | 03:31 | preview to a television monitor so that you can
see exactly what your audience will be seeing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Delivering the StoryPolishing before delivering| 00:00 | Over the next few videos, we will be
discussing a variety of ways to deliver
| | 00:04 | your video to your audience, such as
making a DVD, printing to tape, publishing
| | 00:09 | to the web and sending a video to your
iPod. But before we get too far ahead of
| | 00:13 | ourselves, there are a couple of
things we need to look at before we send our
| | 00:17 | video anywhere.
| | 00:18 | We need to make sure our video is
prime for export by making sure that
| | 00:21 | everything has been rendered and last
but not least, does our video look the way
| | 00:26 | we want it to? In order to make sure
everything is rendered, first we need to go
| | 00:29 | to Sequence > Render All and make sure
that everything has a checkmark next to it.
| | 00:35 | Next, select the sequences in the
browser, then press Option+R to render the
| | 00:39 | entire project. If I have a lot of
audio elements in a project, such as dialogue,
| | 00:47 | narration, a music track and special
effects, another render that I like to
| | 00:52 | perform is a mixdown of all of the
audio before I send my video out. Go to
| | 00:56 | Sequence > Render Only > Mixdown. Final
Cut Express will then create one render
| | 01:02 | cache file for all audio in the project.
I find that this sometimes gives me
| | 01:07 | better sounding audio when I print
to tape and less encoding errors when
| | 01:11 | performing DVD compression.
| | 01:13 | If you only have two tracks of music
like this sequence, you may not find it
| | 01:17 | worth your while. Last but not least,
look at your video from start to finish
| | 01:22 | to make sure that everything looks
right. This is the time to make sure that
| | 01:26 | you have what you think you have.
Let's get started looking at some ways to
| | 01:29 | deliver your finished
video production to the world.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting for DVD authoring| 00:00 | Creating a DVD remains one of the most
popular ways to showcase and distribute
| | 00:04 | your video work. Although Final Cut
Express is not bundled with a DVD
| | 00:08 | operating application, I suggest that
you use iDVD, which is part of the iLife
| | 00:12 | suite of applications and
ships with the every new Mac.
| | 00:15 | iDVD will enable you to create
anywhere from very basic DVDs to sleek, flashy
| | 00:20 | designs with the professional flavor.
In order to create a DVD of your work,
| | 00:24 | you will first need to export a self-
contained QuickTime video file from Final
| | 00:28 | Cut Express. First, mark an in and out
for the beginning and the end of your
| | 00:32 | sequence, then go to File > Export >
QuickTime Movie. I am going to name this
| | 00:39 | sequence Surfing and save it to my
Movies folder. Before you save, make sure
| | 00:45 | that the file includes audio
and video and is self-contained.
| | 00:50 | Launch iDVD and choose to create a new
project. I am going to name my project
| | 00:55 | Riding Waves and save it to my Movies
folder. Since my program is in the 4:3
| | 01:02 | Aspect Ratio, I will choose
Standard 4:3, then choose Create. iMovie
| | 01:09 | immediately begins to play a theme. You
can now search through various designs
| | 01:13 | to find the one that looks right for you.
| | 01:16 | As you browse through here, you will
notice that some of the themes have their
| | 01:19 | own music and others don't. I am going
to choose the design named Center Stage
| | 01:25 | and as you can see, iDVD is telling
me that my project is standard and the
| | 01:29 | template I have chosen was made for
wide screen. Now, I have a choice to
| | 01:33 | convert my project to wide screen or
keep it standard. I am choosing to keep it
| | 01:38 | standard and the iDVD
project will match the project.
| | 01:42 | We can begin to insert our video
into the template by going to the Media
| | 01:46 | button. You are now shown all of the
movies that are in your Movies folder as
| | 01:50 | well as your iTunes music. Keep in
mind that much of the music you have in
| | 01:54 | iTunes is copyrighted, so make sure
you are using only royalty free music for
| | 01:58 | your projects. After I find the
project I saved, simply drag it to the Drop
| | 02:02 | Zone and we can now see
it playing in the window.
| | 02:06 | Some of the template options in iDVD
have more than one Drop Zone. So if you
| | 02:11 | only have one video you are using,
make sure that you use a design that
| | 02:15 | utilizes only one Drop Zone. We need
to make a Play button, so drag another
| | 02:20 | instance of the video to the window to
create a button. We can now rename it
| | 02:24 | Play. At the bottom, you can change the
font type, make the text bold or italic
| | 02:31 | and change the size of the font.
| | 02:33 | To view how your DVD will actually look
when playing it back, we need to run a
| | 02:37 | simulation. So click the Play button at
the bottom to access the remote control
| | 02:43 | and press Enter.
| | 02:50 | Click the Stop button and
iDVD returns to its normal interface.
| | 02:54 | If you are making a highly stylized
DVD with lots of text and buttons, I
| | 02:59 | suggest that you turn on the TV Safe
Area by going to View > Show TV Safe Area.
| | 03:05 | If you don't want the Apple
watermark in your DVD menu, you can go to
| | 03:08 | Preferences and uncheck Show Apple
Logo watermark. Once you have the DVD the
| | 03:14 | way you want it, save the project,
insert a blank DVD and go to File > Burn
| | 03:20 | DVD. It's that simple.
| | 03:22 | If you want to go deeper into iDVD,
I suggest that you check out the iDVD
| | 03:27 | Essential Training title on the
lynda.com Online Training Library so you can
| | 03:32 | get a more comprehensive view
of this amazing application.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting to tape| 00:00 | Another way to deliver or archive your
video production is to master the final
| | 00:04 | project to tape by using the Print to
Video command. Roughly you can place
| | 00:09 | about 60 minutes of DV video on tape,
which is about 12 gigabytes on a hard
| | 00:13 | drive. Before you print a video make
sure that you have connected the video
| | 00:17 | camera to the computer via FireWire
cable, and that the camera is placed in the
| | 00:21 | VCR or Play mode.
| | 00:23 | Go to the Easy Setup and make sure
that you are using the correct setup.
| | 00:27 | In this case, I am exporting
a DV-NTSC Anamorphic sequence.
| | 00:34 | Set an in-point at the beginning of the
sequence and a out-point at the end. Go
| | 00:39 | to File > Print to Video.
| | 00:43 | Inside this box you can predefine what
happens before and after you record the
| | 00:48 | sequence to tape. For broadcast
purposes you only have a few seconds of color
| | 00:53 | bars for calibration,
followed by a few seconds of black.
| | 00:56 | The Slate option will allow you to
give your project a custom name that will
| | 01:01 | show before the program, and you can
also designate a countdown if needed.
| | 01:06 | With that being said, I don't
personally use countdowns. There is another
| | 01:09 | opportunity to lay some more black
so that the tape can be paused by the
| | 01:14 | operator before the actual show begins.
| | 01:17 | In the Media field you have the
option to print the entire media or just
| | 01:22 | between the in and out-points,
like I made in this sequence.
| | 01:26 | You can also choose to record more
than one instance of the show on the tape
| | 01:29 | that will loop and lay
down black between the loops.
| | 01:33 | In the Trailer field, I am going to
choose to record 5 seconds of black at the
| | 01:36 | end of the show. Leave the
Automatically Start Recording option checked.
| | 01:41 | This means that Final Cut Express will
automatically engage a FireWire compatible
| | 01:44 | camera or deck into Record mode as soon
as we click the OK button, which means
| | 01:50 | that we won't have to click OK in here,
then go and press Record on our deck.
| | 01:55 | After we click OK, we go into Full
Screen Mode, then it asks you to click OK to
| | 02:00 | start recording, and you are now
printing to video within your specifications.
| | 02:59 | When it's finished, Final Cut Express
reverts back to its normal interface.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting for the web| 00:00 | You can use QuickTime conversion in
Final Cut Express to export your video
| | 00:04 | project so that it can be viewed on
the web. Go ahead and place your in and
| | 00:07 | out-points at the beginning and at the
end of the sequence. Then go to File >
| | 00:14 | Export > Using QuickTime Conversion.
I am going to choose to save this in our
| | 00:19 | Movies folder, and I will name it Riding Waves.
| | 00:22 | At the bottom in the Use category, we
can choose a preset compression setting
| | 00:26 | from the pop-up menu that will use the
H.264 codec, such as Broadband-High for
| | 00:32 | those with a faster connection. To be
on the safe side you may want to choose
| | 00:36 | Medium or Low, so that those with very
slow connection speeds can easily access
| | 00:42 | your video.
| | 00:43 | When you start using highly compressed
options such as Dial-up, you will notice
| | 00:46 | a significant drop in video quality,
which you may not find acceptable. Only
| | 00:52 | use the streaming options you see here,
if you are using a dedicated web server
| | 00:56 | for online distribution.
| | 00:58 | To further customize your video and
audio compression settings, click the
| | 01:01 | Options button and open up the
Video settings. The Compression Type is
| | 01:06 | currently set to QuickTime's latest
compression rate, H.264, and this is the
| | 01:11 | type that we want to use for this
project. The Frame Rate is set to Current,
| | 01:15 | which means that it's using our
sequence's current frame rate of 29.97. Click
| | 01:20 | OK, and let's look at the size of the video.
| | 01:24 | The original dimensions of our video
are 720x480. If we kept it this big, the
| | 01:30 | file size would be too big, resulting
in a very slow download on the web. So
| | 01:34 | our Export settings have been reduced
to 480x360 to optimize the download speed
| | 01:40 | for our video. Click OK.
| | 01:43 | Make sure that sound is checked in
the Movie settings, then click OK again.
| | 01:48 | You really have to know what you are
doing in here, so I suggest that you be
| | 01:52 | very conservative when using
these options for the first time.
| | 01:55 | When you have everything the way you
want it, click Save, and when your video is
| | 01:59 | exported, it is now ready for the web.
| | 02:02 | There are also a number of third party
applications you can find online that
| | 02:06 | will help to streamline the encoding process.
| | 02:11 | (Music playing.)
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting for iPods| 00:00 | Final Cut Express offers the ability to
export your finished movie, so that it
| | 00:04 | can be viewed on a video iPod. So if
you are out and you want to show someone
| | 00:08 | what you have been working on, a
quick way to show them would be from your
| | 00:12 | iPod. This is a very straightforward process.
| | 00:15 | Select a project for export within
the browser, then go to File > Export >
| | 00:22 | QuickTime Conversion. Then change the
format to iPod, give it a name, then
| | 00:29 | choose to save it in your Movies
folder, then click Save. Final Cut Express
| | 00:34 | then converts the movie to the
optimized aspect ratio of 320x240 for the iPod.
| | 00:39 | Let's take a look at it.
| | 00:42 | When you double-click the movie file
you have just saved, it will automatically
| | 00:46 | be added to the iTunes library.
| | 00:48 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:59 | So now all you have to do is connect your iPod
| | 01:03 | and import the movie. There you have it.
It's that easy. There is no settings
| | 01:08 | to modify and the video is ready to go mobile.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | It's truly a great time in history to
be a video editor. You no longer have to
| | 00:05 | be part of a multi-million dollar
creative studio to produce amazing video
| | 00:09 | works of art. With the advancements in
camcorder technology, home computing,
| | 00:14 | and software like Final Cut Express 4,
your imagination is quickly becoming the
| | 00:19 | only barrier to what you can achieve.
| | 00:21 | The Internet is a tremendous resource
for anyone who wants to showcase their
| | 00:25 | work to audiences around the world, 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. If this is
| | 00:31 | your first time using Final Cut Express
or if you just want to brush up on some
| | 00:34 | of your editing skills, I hope that
you will take the information in this
| | 00:38 | course and go out and do something
creative. Get away from just using brute
| | 00:42 | memorization to memorize steps and
truly focus on what is the best way to
| | 00:47 | portray your message.
| | 00:48 | Some of the most creative editors I
have ever seen are producers who are
| | 00:53 | completely new to editing. The key
ingredient that they bring to the table is
| | 00:57 | that they have a great idea and a
vision for what it's supposed to look like.
| | 01:02 | When you are working in Final Cut
Express, keep in mind that you are using the
| | 01:05 | same professional trimming tools
that are used in Final Cut Pro, with an
| | 01:09 | interface that is almost identical.
So when you are ready to take that next
| | 01:13 | step and invest in the Studio, you
won't be walking into unfamiliar territory.
| | 01:18 | Well, that concludes our time here.
Until next time, this is Lonzell Watson
| | 01:22 | reminding you to be creative and edit well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
