Reviewed By: Roxanna Sandoval
As a college student who only had one semester to learn Final Cut Pro, this book was very useful for quick reference. It includes all kinds of tips neatly organized and simply explained. When I had a question, I simply looked up the topic in the chapters in the table of contents or in the index. The tips are easy to understand and straight to the point. They are usually explained in a page or less with helpful illustrations. This is also a great user manual for people who want to know more than the basics. It presents shortcuts and tips to make you work faster. As I read the book in order, I discovered how much I didn’t know!
The first chapter shows how to manage your system with Final Cut Pro with tips on organizing files, backing up, settings and preferences. The next chapter was very helpful to me because it clearly explained technical settings that can make or break your project such as dropped frame errors, how to avoid interlacing problems, the different types of ProRes, different transfer rates, bit depth, etc. The third chapter describes how Final Cut Pro ingests different types of media and gives pointers on which settings to use to import them. The most helpful tips for me where on reconnecting and converting media. Chapter four shows shortcuts and useful hints on working with the application. This is the essential chapter that can save you hours of work! Chapter five continues demonstrating tips to help you edit faster by presenting different trimming, toggling, sliding, and rolling techniques. The next chapter focuses on audio and explains the best ways to monitor audio as well as fast tips to mix it all. Chapter seven taught me a lot of transition and effect techniques. I discovered new transition and effects that I wasn’t even aware of.
And to wrap things up, the last chapter describes the last part of every project-exporting and outputting. This chapter describes how to export to various forms of media and gives you some last tips to improve your work. I would definitely Recommend this book for anyone who is learning how to use Final Cut Pro or already knows the basics and would like to learn more.
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