Making Movies with Final Cut Express

Book Description
If you're making the move to Final Cut Express (or thinking about why you should) and want an expert personal trainer--you're in luck. In Making Movies with Final Cut Express, Hollywood veteran and fun guy Michael Rubin—-a pioneer in the editing field—-comes to you!

In these 336 pages, Rubin lays out everything you need to know to start producing entertaining and informative videos with Apple's new Final Cut Express. Offering loads of illustrations and a friendly writing style, this handy book makes it easy for even complete novices to become skilled and comfortable at digital video editing. And if you're already editing home movies with Apple's iMovie software, you'll quickly learn the ways Final Cut Express can dramatically raise the sophistication of your projects.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Millions of people are getting involved with digital video. Most of them fall into one of two categories. The first group will try it and just decide it￯﾿ﾽs too much trouble. The second group will catch the bug -- big-time. They￯﾿ﾽll want to do really great work -- whether they￯﾿ﾽre producing last winter￯﾿ﾽs family gathering or the next Blair Witch Project. Chances are, they￯﾿ﾽll get frustrated with the entry-level software they￯﾿ﾽve been using. Many of them will go out and buy Apple￯﾿ﾽs new Final Cut Express, which offers truly amazing power and value for the price. Then, they￯﾿ﾽll scratch their heads: Where to begin?

We suggest they start with Making Movies with Final Cut Express by Michael Rubin.

Nobody has more experience explaining digital video editing and production to newcomers. Rubin￯﾿ﾽs Beginner's Final Cut Pro was a breakthrough in beginner￯﾿ﾽs books on the ￯﾿ﾽprofessional￯﾿ﾽ version of Final Cut. He helped pioneer nonlinear editing techniques at LucasFilm back in the '80s and wrote the field￯﾿ﾽs classic introduction, Nonlinear: A Field Guide to Digital Video and Film. (Along the way, he found time to assist Academy Award–winning editor Gabriella Cristiani in her nonlinear post-production of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky, serve as principal nonlinear editor on Paul McCartney￯﾿ﾽs concert film Get Back, and work on Lonesome Dove.)

Think of Making Movies with Final Cut Express as ￯﾿ﾽFilm School in a Book.￯﾿ﾽ Rubin isn￯﾿ﾽt interested in simply teaching you how to point and click; he wants to teach you to make great videos. Not a lot of abstract theory here: Rubin teaches hands on. (That￯﾿ﾽs what that DVD full of raw footage is for.)

Rubin starts by helping you make your Mac a bit more ￯﾿ﾽvideo friendly,￯﾿ﾽ and giving you a personal tour that makes all of FCE￯﾿ﾽs knobs, boxes, and numbers a lot less intimidating. If you￯﾿ﾽre moving from iMovie, he also provides a ￯﾿ﾽRosetta Stone￯﾿ﾽ comparing the terminology of the two programs.

Before you start monkeying with the video controls, Rubin shows you some easy, professional techniques for precisely controlling where you stop and cut video -- both mouse- and keyboard-oriented approaches. (There￯﾿ﾽs even a find-the-right-frame ￯﾿ﾽscavenger hunt￯﾿ﾽ to get you comfy.)

Then, it￯﾿ﾽs on to basic editing. Rubin does a nice job of helping you ignore the complex tools you don￯﾿ﾽt need yet, so you can get results with the ones you do need. You￯﾿ﾽll get comfortable with your footage (there￯﾿ﾽs a nice ￯﾿ﾽShot Vocabulary Cheat Sheet￯﾿ﾽ to remind you what cutaway and establishing shots look like). Next, you￯﾿ﾽll walk through making basic inserts, trims, roll edits, swap edits, and so forth -- meat-and-potatoes stuff you￯﾿ﾽll use constantly.

Rubin presents a full chapter on working with multiple tracks: music and sound mixes; titles and text; picture tracks; transition effects; even keyframes and compositing. Maybe handiest of all: the chapter on ￯﾿ﾽbeing your own assistant.￯﾿ﾽ (Unless you have a paid staff -- yeah, right -- who￯﾿ﾽs gonna create the log sheets, handle the timecoding, and so forth? You.

If you￯﾿ﾽre ready to get serious about digital video, you￯﾿ﾽre ready for this software -- and this book. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

You don't have to go to film school to learn from the master: In Making Movies with Final Cut Express, Hollywood veteran Michael Rubin comes to you! In these pages, he provides everything you need to know to start producing entertaining and informative videos with Apple's new Final Cut Express. Offering loads of illustrations and a friendly writing style, this handy book makes it easy for even complete novices to learn digital video editing. After covering the basics of working with Final Cut Express--using the timeline, adjusting shots, inserting audio tracks, adding text and titles, and more--Rubin lets you hone your skills by editing and assembling the video clips included on the companion DVD. By the time you complete this book, you'll be ready to create your own effective video projects and improve the footage you've captured in the past.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal