In the most recent issue of Pop Photo, I am interviewed about how to make DSLR movies. One of the things that people have been asking me is how did I learn Final Cut? Truth be told, I found FC to be rather daunting when I first opened it. So what did I do? I studied and I learned it. Now we work in FC daily, and I am probably as comfortable at it as I am at Photoshop. These are my 3 totally un-secret tips on how to learn FC:
1. Get the Ripple Training Series on Final Cut. They are podcasts lessons that I can do when I am on an airplane or otherwise sequestered. This is a nice way to go because you don’t need a book, just a laptop, which is handy if you are stuck in an airplane seat.
2. The Apple Training series of books is excellent. We still refer to the Final Cut and the Color ones whenever we forget a quick key command or some other of the varied minutia that is Final Cut.
3. The Apple In Store classes . This is brilliant, and if anyone is new to FC, you should make a point of taking advantage of the added value you get from owning an overpriced Mac. At certain Apple stores, they give trainings. Usually these are something along the lines of ” How to use iTunes”. But they also do Final Cut lessons. I went every Saturday afternoon for 2 hours for months to the Apple store in Santa Monica to have free classes in FC. The guy who ran the classes was a working TV editor. It was great, and it was free.
This will not make you a great editor, anymore than learning Photoshop will make you a great photographer. But what it will do is give you the tools and the language to start. I knew nothing, zero as far as motion goes, and 3 months later I did a 4 minute piece for TIme Magazine. Now 10 months later I am doing a commercial. None of that would have been possible without forcing myself to learn an editing program. If I can do this, you can. It is not so hard, really it isn’t.
One last thing. Don’t make the mistake I did and buy FC Express for cheap, then try to upgrade later to Studio. You can’t. Just bite the bullet and buy Studio, you won’t regret it.
