Final Cut Pro Level 1 Study Materials

Susan Smith of Edinburg High School has study materials available on her school's website for passing the Final Cut Pro Level 1 exam.

Revised Link 9/24/10

Final Cut Pro's Documentary Oscar Winners

MacWorld has an article that notes that nine out of ten 2010 Academy Award nominees in both the feature and short Documentary categories were edited with Final Cut Pro. (All of the shorts were done with FCP.)

This includes feature winner, The Cove, and short category winner, Music by Prudence.

Final Cut Pro Color Correction - Video Tutorial

Digital Content Producer has a video tutorial on Final Cut Pro Color Correction, which is presented by Jan Ozer.

Of all the skills necessary to successfully edit video, one of the most important is brightness and color correction. To understand how to adjust brightness and color optimally, you have to know how to read a waveform monitor.

In this tutorial, first we'll learn how to enter Apple Final Cut Pro's color correction mode and read the waveform monitor.

Pan and Zoom Filter - Free

FX Factory is offering a free Pan and Zoom filter for Final Cut Pro/Express, Motion and After Effects.

The Pan and Zoom plug-ins let you create the photo animation style made popular by Ken Burns with intuitive controls and automatic motion control that achieves stunning results without a single keyframe.

FTVstudy.com - Great resource

FTVstudy.com is a website that is full of excellent materials. It was developed as a resource for Film and Television Students of Far North Queensland, Australia by teacher Clyde Williams. He generously allows others to access the content.

This website is to help you with your Assessment Requirements for the study of Film, Television and New Media, here at Cairns State High School.
Other schools are welcome to access these resources.
We would be happy to hear from any teachers or students as to the sharing of any extra materials you might have, or like to see here on this site.

He has a page with a number of student examples. He also has some Final Cut Express video tutorials.

Apple documentation website

Apple has eliminated paper manuals for their latest software release. You can find the documentation at:

http://documentation.apple.com/

Final Cut Studio - Ripple Training Tutorials - Free

Apple has announced the release of the latest version of Final Cut Studio.

The folks at Ripple Training have produced 19 free tutorial videos that cover some of the new features in:

Final Cut Pro 7
Motion 4
Compressor 3.5
Soundtrack Pro 3
Color 1.5

Combined, the total running time for the 19 tutorials is a whopping 78 minutes! Produced by all the Apple-certified experts at Ripple Training: Steve Martin, Brian Gary, Mark Spencer, and Alexis Van Hurkman.

Alex Gollner's Final Cut Plugins - Free

Alex Gollner has a number of free Final Cut plugins. Some of these include:

Lower Third
This generator provides extra text and positioning options for labelling people and places.

Repeat
This filter surrounds a scaled down version of a clip with copies.

Wave Transition
A transition plugin that produces a variety of wave transition effects.

He also has a number of Final Cut tips and tutorials on the same page.

Free Final Cut Express Plugins

Larry Jordan's latest (free) Final Cut Pro Newsletter mentions a tip from Tom Wolsky:

Piero Fiorani has created a series of free plugins. He's primarily an FCE user and some of them are really for that application, but he has a Quarter PIP filter as well as an easy-to-use motion control (Ken Burns-like) filter.

SONY XDCAM EX Tutorials

Sony has a series of short work flow tutorials for the XDCAM EX format.

The XDCAM EX format's revolutionary file-based workflow allows the user to ingest, edit, and export high quality content exclusively as data files, greatly enhancing the speed and flexibility of the editing process.

View brief tutorials of the XDCAM EX editing process with the following non-linear editors: Sony Vegas, Avid Media Composer, Apple Final Cut Pro, Thomson EDIUS and Adobe Premier Pro. Registration (at no cost) is required.

Final Cut Pro: How to maintain aspect ratio HD to SD

Apple has an article in their Knowledge Base titled, Final Cut Pro: How to maintain aspect ratio when exporting high definition formats to standard definition.

If you're working with media in a high definition format such as HDV or uncompressed HD, and wish to export QuickTime reference movies in a standard definition format such as DV or IMX, here are some tips that will help you maintain the correct aspect ratio in your exported movies.

Also see Final Cut Help tutorial on this subject.

MacBreak Studio - Free Tutorials

Mac users will really benefit from the podcast MacBreak Studio. They feature tips and techniques for users of Final Cut Studio. They have had some really excellent episodes. They are short, around eight minutes, which makes them great for showing to a class. They put out a new episode every Friday.

Join Steve Martin, Mark Spencer, Brian Gary, Alex Lindsay and friends as they reveal the ins and outs of video production on the Mac. From 3D to audio, video, and compression, learn from the experts how to add advanced techniques to your production workflow and a professional touch to your video content.

KenStone.net - Final Cut Pro Audio Filter Guide

Check out the two part Final Cut Pro Audio Filter Guide written by Jon Chappell. It does a great job explaining what all those filters do.

It can be found on Ken Stone's web site, which is one of the best resources for articles on Final Cut Pro. Since 1990 his site has published valuable tips and reviews of video production and post production products.

Final Cut Pro Practice Study Guide Cards

Laura Dahl has prepared study guide cards in PDF format for the Final Cut Pro Level One exam. You can print them out and cut them up with scissors. She has them arranged by chapter.

Disksomnia - FCP Utility - Free

Digital Heaven has just release a freeware item of interest to Final Cut Pro / Express users. Here is what they say about it:

Hot off the press is Disksomnia, our latest freeware utility application that stops external disks from going to sleep.

Video editing and sleeping disks are a bad mix, particularly if you have media spread across several external disks. If you've ever moved the playhead to another part of the sequence and stared at the spinning beachball while a disk wakes up then you'll know exactly what we mean!

Disksomnia stops external disks from going to sleep (including those that ignore the Energy Saver setting to stay awake) by giving them a gentle poke every five minutes when Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express is running. After installing and launching for the first time, Disksomnia is totally automatic and works invisibly in the background. There are no settings, no need to launch the app manually and best of all...no more sleeping disks.

Digital Heaven FCP Podcast - Free

Digital Heaven is posting a podcast featuring Apple certified trainer Martin Baker. He provides free Hot Tips for Final Cut Pro that will save you time and make your editing life easier.

Supported Devices for Apple Pro Applications

Apple has a webpage that will give you a list of Supported Devices for Apple Pro Applications based on the software version you are using.

Use it to find out recommended cameras, control surfaces and audio interfaces that will work with Final Cut Pro / Express.

Final Cut Pro Practice Exam

Apple has a practice exam for Final Cut Pro 6 on their page describing their certification program.

GeniusDC.com tutorials - Free

GenuisDV.com, a training and consulting company has a number of free tutorials for Final Cut Pro, LiveType, Photoshop for Video and Avid Exress.

HD to SD Version in Final Cut Pro

The website FinalCutHelp.com has a quick tutorial on how to convert an HD project into an SD version in Final Cut Pro.