Editing suggests a mysterious process, both mechanical and cerebral. Editing divides between mastering the mechanics of equipment and software, and mastering storytelling. When starting, people often dwell on the procedures and consider themselves to be editing when they make the machine work. Software is so complex and powerful that it seems that you have created meaning just by making the software do something. Making software work should not be confused with making an idea work. Success in editing follows from attending to the conceptualization and planning of your end product before you engage machines.

Film editing was called cutting because you literally cut and spliced sections of film and sound. Physicality informed the process. Linear tape editing meant copying sections of a source tape to an edited tape. Physical movement of the tape marked your progress. Non- linear editing is a black box, or in our case a white and gray box. Non-linear editing presents problems of disconnection.

The CDA can only provide limited time and storage space on our Final Cut Pro systems. These notes address how to get the most out of your time at the CDA. By following these guidelines, you will be able to keep track of your project, gain a level of competence with our gear, and have the tools to build a program. Final Cut Pro has many features and supports a variety of work styles. There is a copy of Final Cut Pro for Macintosh by Lisa Brenneis (ISBN 0-201-35480-2 $25) in the lab, which is a good reference. If you anticipate using Final Cut Pro extensively, you should buy a copy.

where we will post the peculiarities of our systems.

There is a page of DV links on my website http://www.cda.ucla.edu/faculty/bishop which can lead you to many other sources of information about the program.

1. Tape Format We use only DV tape (miniDV and DVCAM) on Final Cut Pro Stations because the deck and computer are connected by a digital firewire cable. If you have shot on other formats, you need to use the dubbing station to transfer your video to DV tape. You can buy mini-DV tapes on campus at Lu Valle Bookstore.
2. Other Media You can also import audio from CDs, stills from Photoshop files or import Quicktime files over network or via zip disk.
3. Decks The lab has three kinds of digital decks. The small decks are Sony Mini-DV GV-D300. The larger Sony DSR-20 decks play both mini-DV and DV-CAM tapes. We have one JVC BR-DV600U which has component connections and time-code allowing the highest quality transfer between Beta and DV.
4. Recording Speed The Sony DSR-20 plays but does not record at the slower mini-DV speed. A one hour mini-DV tape used in the Sony DSR-20 deck will record only forty minutes. A tape recorded at DVCAM speed will usually not play back on your mini-DV camera at home, so make sure and make a VHS copy. Keep this in mind when you output to video.
5. Disk Space DV requires 3.6 megabytes of storage per second of program material. That’s 216 megabytes of storage per one minute of DV, or one gigabyte of storage per five minutes of DV. You will be allocated space in proportion to the projected length of your final movie. Depending on the class you are taking, the focus will be on short design oriented movies from thirty seconds to five minutes, or longer documentary projects from ten to twenty minutes. The rule of thumb is to estimate the length of your final movie and multiply by five to calculate storage space, taking into consideration that you will digitize more video than will be in your final movie, you will create render files, undos, scratch copies etc. This ends up being a one to one ratio between minutes and gigabytes. A one minute movie would need one gigabyte of storage space. A twenty minute movie would need twenty gigabytes. If you have shot a great deal of footage, winnow it down to the usable parts before putting it on the computer. This is standard industry practice.
6. Using your password, logging on & registering Final Cut Pro The first time your name and password are entered, you will log on, create a Final Cut Pro alias for the desk top, double-click on the alias, and then register to use the program. You should only have to register once. The registration # will be posted on the computer monitor. You will be able to manage your own desktop and preferences. No one else will have access to these except the lab manager. If there is a problem, and the preferences have to be trashed, you will be informed with a note. Do not place anything in the Users Folder on the startup drive! It will take up space on a drive that has very little space and it will be erased when the system folder needs to be replaced.

Before approaching a computer-editing machine like Final Cut Pro, know your footage well.

I always make VHS window dubs of my DV footage.

At the CDA, you can make a window dub at the dubbing station.

1. Put the original DV tape in the DSR-20.
2. Use the patch bay to route the DV MONITOR OUT to the VHS COMPOSITE IN, and the audio from the DV to the VHS.
3. Make sure that the Time Code Display is on.
4. Place a VHS in the VHS deck, press PLAY and RECIORD at the same time
5. Press PLAY on the DSR-20 deck.

That gives you a cheap copy of your footage with the frame accurate reference numbers in a format that you can look at on any VHS machine. You will not have to come to the CDA to look at and log your tapes. And using these VHS tapes will save wear and tear on the extremely fragile DV tapes.

Even television news producers, under severe time constraints, log their tapes before they try to use them. Backing and forthing through camera original tapes is a waste of time, particularly with the slow deck control of our FCP systems, and easily damages tapes. A log based on time code gives you ready access to the best parts of your footage, and a tool for thinking out your edit without the time pressure of being on the computer.

Programs built from talk edit best on paper. Transcribe the dialogue and interviews and index it with time code. Then make a copy, cut it up and paste in into a coherent script. This is much faster than doing it on tape or the computer and will give you a map of your program’s logic.

You only put the footage that you expect to use into the computer. Video eats up disk space (5 min per gig) and you are only allotted so much. Use you logs to plan what you will capture.

Final Cut Pro Tutorial

Exercise 1

1) Click on the Final Cut Pro icon to open the program.
2) File > Save Project As . . .
3) Click on the desktop icon (if you are not already on the desktop) and open the drive that has been assigned to you.
4) Click the New Folder icon
5) Use your first and last name to name the folder followed by "Video" e.g. Genghis Khan Video
6) Name the project and save it.

Check Preferences

The preferences are critical. Set them when you start a project, and check them every session. Sometimes the video will not show up on the monitor. That problem can usually be fixed by trashing the preferences and restarting the computer.

Exercise 2

1) Edit > preferences
2) There are 5 tabs: General, Device Control, Capture, Sequence Presets and Scratch Disks
3) General: Make sure that View External Video Using is set to Apple Firewire NTSC (720 x 480)

4) Device Control: Make sure it reads Apple Firewire, DV Time, NTSC

5) Capture: NTSC DV (3:2),
* Make sure that audio is set to Source, DV audio, Two channels, Speaker: off

6) Sequence Presets: DV NTSC 48 kHz

Scratch Disks This is important because it determines where your media files are stored and media files are what eat disk space.

7) Scratch Disks: x on Capture Audio and Video to separate files
8) Click on the Set icon
9) Select the folder you already created for your project.

You will be assigned two drives. This is where you create the folder for the second drive.

10) Click on the next Set icon
11) Click on the Desktop icon
12) Open the second disk that's been assigned to you (by double clicking).
13) Click on New.
14) Use your first and last name to name the folder followed by the "Audio" (this will be your second folder). e.g. Genghis Khan Audio
15) Click select.
16) In the first folder x the video box and in the second x the audio and render files. It is better to keep your video and audio files on separate drives.
17) At the bottom you will see Waveform Cache and Thumbnail Cache. Set and select your second folder.
18) Click O.K.!

You are now ready to begin.

Exercise 3

1) Insert your Mini-DV tape into the Deck. There are three types in the lab: Sony GV-D300, Sony DSR 20 and JVC DV600U.
* On the Sony DSR 20, make sure the Input Select is set to Input DV
2) File > Log and Capture . . .
3) The deck can be controlled from the Log and Capture window. Click on the play arrow or push the space bar on the keyboard to stop and start.

Preparing the Browser

Exercise 4

1) File > New > Bin
2) Name the Bin
3) Control/Click the Bin icon and a menu will appear. Choose Set Logging Bin. The name of your logging bin will now appear at the top of your log and capture window.

There are a variety of ways to capture video.

Video clips are organized into bins. Bins are just indexes of the captured clips, not copies of them. So you can have the same clip in more than one bin. The organization of your bins is the most important thing to set up a successful edit. You might start with making a bin for each person who speaks in your footage, or bins for each topic covered, or each location in which you shot. Most editors make a bin of clips that really turn them on that they want to be sure to include somewhere before the edit is locked. If you are going to be cutting dance or montage, you can make bins for different screen directions and image sizes. If you are going to be working with color, you can make bins of each dominant color. If you don’t put your footage into logical bins, you spend all your edit time looking for clips.

Logging
It's a good idea to have a computer log with time-code and notes of everything you've shot which can be output as a batch list. It is quick and painless on Final Cut Pro.

Exercise 5

1) Mark your in and out points with the arrow tabs next to the time code window in the lower left and right-hand corners or use the keyboard: i for in, o for out.
2) Type in the label, scene and take and if you place an x next to these boxes they will appear in the name of the clip.
3) Click on Log Clip
4) Click on O.K.
5) You have created your first "off-line clip." It should have a red slash through it. This means it is not digitized yet. Once you have viewed all your footage, logged them as off-line clips, and made copious notes, you can decide which clips are essential to digitize. This is important if you have hours of footage and limited disk space.
6) Repeat steps 1 through 4 until you have created at least five off-line clips.

Now that you've created a log of your tape, you might want to save it and print it.

7) Stretch out the Browser window so you can view as many columns as possible. Many of these are unnecessary for your log record.
8) Control/Click on the empty or unnecessary columns and choose Hide Column.
9) Next go to File > Export > Batch List . . .
10) Name it and save it to your project folder.
11) To print, go to the Apple icon in the top left corner and open the stickies program.
12) File > import text . . . > open Batch List
You can print this but it would be better to copy this into an email addressed to yourself and then format it in Word or Excel. The video lab does not have these programs on the computers.

Preparing to Digitize
Although it should, Final Cut won't necessarily preserve the in and out points of the clips in your bin once they are digitized. If you want to preserve these, save the project as "Off-line clips" and open a new project called "On-line clips". Copy the Bins from your "Off-line clips" project and paste them into your new project. Now you're ready to digitize, but you have a record of your off-line clips, if you ever need to refer to it.

Digitizing

Exercise 7

1) Select three of the clips in the Bin by pressing Command/Click.
2) In the log and capture window, click on the Batch icon.
3) A window should appear that reads Capture: Selected clips in logging bin.
4) Click O.K.
5) Click continue.
6) Final Cut Pro will search for and capture the clips.
7) There should now be three clips without red slashes in your on-line Bin. Delete the other two.
8) Close the Log and Capture window.
9) As you double-click on each digitized clip, it will play in the Viewer window.

Putting a program together means putting clips, or parts of clips into a sequence. You do not have to start at the beginning. You can build sequences of sections and then copy these sections into a new sequence. If you have a sequence that you like, you should make a copy of it before tweaking it further so that you can always go back to something you liked if your new idea doesn’t pan out. You can make multiple versions of a sequence to try out ideas.

The first objective in editing is to get the program flowing, to get your clips in the correct order, and to make sense out of your story. This can be done with straight cuts that do not require rendering (which eats time). Save all transitions, and effects until you are happy with your straight cut edit.

There are many ways to get your clips from the Browser to the Timeline to create your movie. This tutorial will not include the multiple ways to accomplish this. Review the book, the program tutorial, or Final Cut Pro Help for using the Viewer and the Canvas. These sources will explain the mysteries of insert, overwrite, replace, fit to fill, and superimpose.

The following exercises show you two basic methods of starting the editing process.

Exercise 8A

1) The quickest way is to drag and drop the on-line bin onto the time-line placing the three clips in order. The video track is blue and the two audio tracks are green.
2) Click on the time-line window and press Home to place the playhead at the beginning of the sequence.
3) Hit the space-bar to play your sequence.
4) There is a simple way to trim your clips. Click and drag.
5) To create more tracks click on a clip and drag it up. You can create as many tracks as you want with this method.
6) To unlink video and audio go to sequence > linked selection and uncheck it. The short-cut is shift/L.

If you are familiar with tape editing, you can use the source and monitor screens as if they were a source and record deck.

Exercise 8B

1. Double click the first clip you want to use in the browser window. It will appear in the source window (on the left).
2. Play the clip by hitting the space bar, and stop it when you get to the place you want to make the in edit. You can use the left and right arrow keys to move back and forth a frame at a time to find your exact edit point.
3. When you find the edit point, press the "i" key (for IN)
4. Then Play the clip until you get to the end of the part you want to use and when you have the precise frame, hit the "o" key (for OUT)
5. Then click in the timeline window and hit the "i" key for the place you want to insert the clip from the source. (If this is the first edit, it will be at the beginning of the time line.
6. Hit F9 to make an insert edit. The clip from the source will appear both on the Timeline and in the Record window.

Titles using the Video Generator

Now all you need to do is create a title and credits and you can output your movie.

Exercise 10

1) Video Generators > Text > double-click on Text
2) Click on the Controls tab and name your movie by highlighting the existing text and replacing it with your own.
3) When you click on the Video tab the new text will appear.
4) If you want to change the font or the size, go back to the Controls tab and adjust it to your liking.

You need to drag this title into your Browser but first create a new bin.

5) File > New > Bin
6) Name the new bin Titles and Credits
7) Click on the Viewer and drag the title into the new bin.
8) It will be called Text. Rename it.

Now drag the title to the Timeline. Make sure the playhead is at the beginning of the sequence. If it isn't, click on the Timeline window and press home.

9) Click on title and drag to the Timeline.

Adding Motion to your title

10) Double-click on the title clip so it reappears in the viewer.
11) Click on the Motion tab.
12) Open Basic Motion.
13) Make sure the playhead in the viewer is at the beginning of the title.
14) Adjust the scale, the rotation, the center, and the anchor point by moving the sliders or typing in a value. As you tab the changes will appear on the screen.
15) To secure these changes at the beginning of the clip, click on the green keyframe button. This creates a keyframe on the graph.
16) Drag the playhead forward in the viewer.
17) Once again, change the values of scale, rotation, center and anchor point. As you change the value, a new keyframe is created on the graph.

This is creating motion

18) Drag the playhead another few seconds forward and change the values.
19) Finally, drag the playhead to the end of the title and change the values.

By dragging the playhead you can review what you've done. If you want to change these values you can skip forward or backward by clicking on the arrows on either side of the green keyframe buttons.

20) Render your Title.

Importing music from a CD for the title sequence

Save your Final Cut Pro Project and Quit the Program.

Exercise 11

1) Place the CD in the slot above the zip drive.
2) Open the Soundedit program.

The track you want to use will need to be converted before importing it into Final Cut Pro.

3) Xtras > Convert CD Audio . . . > choose a track and double-click
4) Save it in your audio folder
5) Close the Sound Edit program.
6) Open the Final Cut Pro Program by double-clicking on the Project icon in your folder.

To import the audio file into the Browser of your project

7) File > import > file and locate the file.
8) Drage the audio file from the browser to the Timeline and create a new track so you don't lay it on top of existing audio . Adjust its length to match the title. Use audio transitions to fade in and fade out.

Congratulations! You're ready to Print to Video

Exercise 12

1) File > Print to Video > click O.K. > click O.K. again and press play and record on the DV recorder.

Insurance

You now have a copy on DV and the Project and media can be trashed. However, before you do this, you should make a Quicktime movie and a Final Cut Pro movie. Making a Final Cut Pro movie is the equivalent of making a single clip that can stand on it's own without the original project or media.

Exercise 13

1) File > Export > Final Cut Pro Movie . . . save this in the Computer's ARCHIVAL FOLDER. Create a sub-folder with your first and last name and save.

A Quicktime movie can serve many purposes. Once these are made you will have a version for archival use, to put on the web, to burn to CD or DVD etc.

2) File > Export > Quicktime . . . save this in your sub-folder in the ARCHIVAL FOLDER.

A final insurance is to create an EDL list. If all your original tapes are labeled properly, your movie can be reconstructed from this list.

3) File > Export > EDL . . . same drill.

A Few More Notes

You can do almost everything in Final Cut Pro using the mouse, however it takes much longer and guarantees carpal tunnel syndrome. Almost every function has a keystroke equivalent. It is daunting to learn them all at once, but whenever you find yourself doing the same thing over and over, look at the notations to the right of the command you are actualizing with the mouse. There may be a control key sequence that will do that for you without the mouse.

Using the space bar to start and stop playback, the arrow keys to step through footage a frame at a time, or to jump from edit point to edit point are a great start.

Marking in and out points with I and O, and executing your edits with F9, F10, F11 etc. will greatly simplify your life (at least the editing part of it).

It won’t take you long to discover the limitations of titling in Final Cut Pro. It is great for lower third subtitles, and some main titles, but you may want to do your titles in Illustrator, Photoshop or some other graphics program and bring them in on Zip or over the network.

Premiere and After Effects have some capabilities that Final Cut does not. We are set up for editing, so extensive After Effects and Premiere work should be done on other stations and brought in as QuickTime Movies.