Final Cut Express...

Final Cut Express is a non linear video editing application. It is designed for editing videos and is used by amateurs and professionals. We had someone come into our lesson to teach us how to use it so we can edit our videos that we have recored and what we will record.

Friday 2nd
The layout of final cut is very simple and easy to understand while using it. It has the videos and different clips on the top left hand side and these can be organised by creating 'bins' these are jus folders which will help you organised your clips from different projects. There is then the viewer window which is where you watch the clips. Next to that there is then another viewer but this one is where you can view a certain place in the clip and then play it back. Underneath all that you then have the time line which is measured in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. Frames are every seperate image in the clip.
We learnt how to input a video on to the programme and how to drag it into the viewer so you can watch it. Then we got told about useful keyboard shortcuts for example instead of keep clicking on play every time you want to play it you can just hit the spacebar to play and pause it. Other useful keyboard shortcuts were J which rewinds the video K pauses the video and L fast forwards the video, J and K can increase in time if pressed again so therefore it will rewind or fast forward quicker.
We then uploaded our own clip that we had recored of the sixth form and learnt hom to crop it so we only have the section we needed. First you watch the video and the then when you what you clip to start from and you press I this is telling it that you want this as you start time then you keep watcing it till you come to the time you want to finish your clip then you press O. That is then your seperate clip that you have cropped and you can watch it inthe second viewer and the whole video in the first viewer.
Friday 9th
We had another lesson on learning about the programme final cut express. This time we learnt how to crop the video by just viewing it and then pressing escape when we wanted to crop it to make that a new clip. We also learnt how to import music onto final cut express and how to insert it right in the middle of the clip so the video isn't showing but the music is playing. we also got showed how to overwrite the video which meant the music deleted the video which was underneath it so then you lost some of the video and the we got taught how to actually play in over the video. Aswell as doing this we also went over the other things we did like the keyboard shortcuts which really help and are easier to use then to have to keep using the mouse to do everything.