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Interface and Media Management

Yes, the questions have varying flavors of this final cut ten ready for professional use I hate apple because they killed final cut seven final cut ten looks like my movie final cut all right let's tackle this one time final cut ten version ten point one delivers absolutely professional grade results if you were to add it a piece of video in final cut ten and final cut seven adobe premiere cia six cc avid media composer six or seven and you looked at the edited version of any of those applications you would be unable to tell the difference off which application edited the clip you could see the difference entitling you could see the difference in effects but you could not see the difference in terms of image quality you could not see the difference in terms of editing or trimming or transitions like dissolves final cup tennis fully professional to say that final cut ten has done a face that looks like my movie is to say that volkswagen is just like a porsche they both have accelerators...

they both have steering wheels they both have four wheels. Therefore obviously a portion of ox wagon must be the same car it's more much more than just whether the interface is dark or light it's what the interface does which is what we're going to talk covering over the next three days in terms of debating which application you like uh there's really big strengths to premiere, which I trained and like a lot of nerves big strengths to final cut ten both of them deliver professional grade results, both of them confused and are being used to multi million dollar feature films down to a small wedding and event, videographers and everything in between. So in terms of what the application khun do the application khun, do whatever your imagination requires. If you need tied integration with photo shop, you need tight integration with audition you need tight integration with aftereffects premiere is a better choice if you want absolute blazing speed you want the the ease of use is that the final cut ten provides if you're new to editing, you're going to be learning final cut ten faster than you will ever learn premier or fashion than you will ever learn at evident final cut ten I think is a faster editor. I think it's a more flexible editor, I think it helps to avoid mistakes and allows us to concentrate on storytelling in terms of features. I like the multi cam feature inside final cut ten more than I do inside premiere I like the chroma key and effects package inside to final cut more than I like it inside premiere I like the integration between affection motion and final cut ten. Maur than integration between after effects and premier, although there are people that like aftereffects better than I do, that would have a different opinion on that. I think that in terms of harnessing the horsepower of your computer, both premier and final cut ten are far superior to the editing that's capable on final cut seven final cut seven really just uses one and a half processes on your computer, regardless of how many you have. It doesn't use the gpu at all, and it only uses two point five gig of ram, both premier and final cut ten are optimized to take advantage of every cpu, every core, every gpu cycle that's available on your computer, you get much better performance out of both those applications for me, I'd say eighty five percent of the editing eighty to eighty five percent of the editing that I do this final cut ten the majority. The rest is done on premiere, with the exception of one show a week, which I still do on final cut seven because it uses a template that I still like this. I think jim gets back to probably the most important question. I love the fact that you're an art director on the love, the fact that you work in graphic arts. Do you find yourself when you talk to your client's? Excuse me? I have a photo shop person or I'm an illustrator person or do you define yourself in terms of the work that you create? Definitely the work that I create this is exactly what we need to do is editors from far too many years, we defined ourselves a saying that we're an avid editor where a final cut editor where premier editor as though there was only one tool that was available to us. If we hire a carpenter, we don't hire a carpenter because they have a saw or a hammer will hire a carpenter because of what they can make our kitchen or bathroom look like same thing with an editor, you never wanted to find yourself a cyma divinci colorist or I only used lightwave or excuse me if I can't use premier it's not worthy of being edited. This is stupid to finding ourselves in terms of the tools that we use. We needed to find ourselves in terms of the results that we create because it's the results that we create that clients air hiring, not whether we do it in premier or final cut or avatar, sony, vegas or I movie clients for the most part haven't yet realized we had it using computers in most cases, they still think we're cutting film we need to define ourselves in terms of the results that we create and pick the tool that enables us to create the best results if I need to have tight integration with after facts I'm using premiere if I want really fast speed, I'm doing multi cam work or I'm working in a progress environment final cut ten hands down and if I'm teaching new people, I found that I can teach new people how to use final cut ten at a professional level in about the third of the time that I can teach them to use premier or any other editing software for me speed, ease of learning, simplicity of the interface and powerful features of the reasons that I recommend using final cut ten jim did that answer the question? Yes, thank you should we take a look at the software selfish? We just talk about it interfaces let's look at it, you are just amazing let's take a look at the final cut interface we're going to just cover that here's what I want to cover I want to talk about the interface I want to talk about media management will create and modify libraries will create and modify events, we'll import media and discussed the import media preferences which are really important to understand to keep your media under control and then we'll show you howto move media between libraries and events and illustrate display options for library on browser panel so everything leading up to the process of editing hide this this is final cut it is a single window interface that has three broad sections in the top right corner is what's called the viewer this is context sensitive and it displays what we're looking at whether it's down in the timeline at the bottom which is where we build our edits or whether it's the browser in the top left corner which is where we have access to all of our media now there's a couple of hidden windows here which we'll get to a little bit later one is the inspector which is where we make changes to a clip on one is the timeline index which helps us to find stuff, but in point of fact, if we divide the screen into thirds this is the library in browser this is the viewer this is the time line the library and browser gives us access. The timeline is where we build our story and the viewers where we watch everything this think us in the middle is called the toolbar the toolbar itself is divided into three sections this helps us with clips and with editing this helps us keep track of where we are and this part here is all with effects we're going to be spending most of our time initially with this part of the toolbar in earlier versions of final cut, we would list all the hard drives that were working with they would be listed in what was called the the the events browser here hard drives are no longer displayed and that's because libraries could be stored on any hard drive they could be stored in any folder they could be named anything consequently, rather than display the hard drive which is simply shows the library remember the library is a collection of stuff so this is our library panel we can hide it by clicking this button right down here this hides or reveals the library the on ly reason for hiding it because you want to have more room for your clips I'm gonna leave it displayed for just a moment these are the clips and as we scroll up or down I'm using a scroll wheel mouse this works with track pad but I like the scroll wheel mouse and so I tend to be mouse focused rather than trackpad focus it's personal choice it works well either way I can look at all the different clips that I have available and will explain with these color bars across the top mean ah little bit later as we start importing in the bottom right corner if we take a closer look we've got this slider we've got this little icon if I grab the slider and drag it, I can make my thumbnails extend so what I'm seeing here is I see a thumbnail of my image every five seconds or I see a thumbnail every ten seconds or I see a thumbnail every thirty seconds what this allows me to do is to take a look at the clips and get a better handle of what the content is inside them by essentially enlarging the clips. So I seymour of what that particular clip is about notice here we can see ah thumbnail every half second or a thumbnail every two seconds this allows me to change the height of the clips I can make them very small so I can get them all to fit inside the window or make them larger. This allows me to change the size of the thumbnail the image that I'm displaying and I can also show wave forms way forms are a visual representation of the volume of the sound I'm going to leave wave forms off until we get a little bit farther into our our editing package are editing training and then we'll turn him on. But just to keep the image is simple I'll leave them off we click this icon to turn this on or often earlier versions of final cut it was a switch I often refer to it as the switch even know it doesn't look like a switch anymore same thing over here we have a swim which allows us to determine what we're looking at inside the viewer, I'm simply calling the switch to your attention. We'll talk about what it means a little bit later in the training, and this allows us to change the zoom display. I'm not changing the actual size of the image I'm simply changing how that image is displayed inside the viewer really good keyboard shortcut is command plus to zoom in command minus to zoom out and shift z unless you're in europe, where it shift said shift z will automatically expand or contract the image to fit. Then down here in the timeline, the timeline is where we have individual clips you can see each individual clip has got a gold box around it. This is where we edit our images and in the bottom there's a switch which allows us to change the zoom in or zoom out horizontal scale of our our timeline and again, we've got this icon, which allows us to change the size of the images and whether we're looking at audio, audio and video or just video, we'll talk more about this is we get into editing for right now, it's enough to know that that little icon is there, we'll make that just a shade smaller, so the images are not quite so much in our face. I never used the slider I'm a big fan of command plus to zoom in command minus to zoom out and shift z tohave everything fit inside the window I am a keyboard shortcuts junkie I confess it because I found that with keyboard shortcuts I could get worked on ah whole lot faster than without him that's oh oh jim jim jim I almost forgot how could I have for gotten? I need you to remind me, okay? I have keyboard shortcuts thousands of them millions of them that I want to share with people at the end of every segment but I'm likely to forget. So could you just remind me to share the keyboard shortcuts because they don't give you my favorite keyboard shortcuts at the end of each one of the segment's going forward could you just add that to your notes? Absolutely on what if somebody wanted an entire pdf of all of your shortcut? You know it's funny you should mention that because if you get the download I'm gonna have ah, I think it's a twelve page pdf that has two hundred and seven of my favorite keyboard shortcuts built into the pdf so we will we will make that available as well perfect. Thank you. Okay, let's, take a closer look up here and notice that we have this four star thing gus, this is the icon for a library and we see libraries just to show this point if we go too, I have a second hard drive here it's this little thunderbolt dr that I have connected if I double click it to open it up notice here I have, I personally created a folder called final cut libraries because I like having all of my library stored in one spot so I can find them library's khun b named anything they can be stored anywhere they could be stored inside folders that could be stored at the root level whatever you prefer doesn't make any difference. Libraries could be stored anywhere. Oh, this is so cool and watch this very closely there's a very cool piece of software that's not made by apple, made by a company called arctic whiteness and it's called the final cut library manager it's a ten year old piece of software they're based in france and what this allows you to do is tow instantly take a look at all the different libraries that are on your system. You can also see how much of this is using original media. How much is using optimized media? How much is using render files? What is is using proxy files you can delete stuff that you don't want, you can copy files, this is probably the most useful little utility I've run into I really, really like it's called final cut library manager it allows youto open files, copy files, delete files, manage files, sort files, find files, and you can even search for stuff like what are the folders? The events that are inside? What are you working with? What's in it? How big is it? How much space does it take? What bruce? Coffee slices bread tucks you in? Better not. You just can't ask more of software than this. And for, like, eleven bucks give or take a little bit. I just I find it indispensable for doing any kind of serious editing with final cuts. So I just want to mention this to you, it's. The only third party utility I'm going to talk about is part of this training. But if provides functions that just make your life ah, whole lot easier is called final cut library manager made by a company called arctic whiteness. All one word, arctic whiteness dot com ed, you had a question? Not in the apple store. Cool stuff. Thanks. All right, so let's, just get back to final cut notice that I've created a folder. I created a folder called final cut libraries. I store all of my libraries inside it and there's lots and lots of museum been doing this for bed, and I could put these anywhere, so although in the old version of final cut, we had to have a final cut events folder and any old version of final cut, we had to have a final cup projects folder. In this particular case, we can start libraries anywhere. Remember, library is the master container that contains everything. So I just have this one icon that represents everything that's related to the demo say, of the interface that I just showed you that class blowing interface. But what happens if I have an earlier version of final cat version ten point zero? In the earlier version of final cut, we had to have a folder called final cut events, and I had to have a folder called final cut projects. These two folders where to go thes. Two folders, final cut events and final cup projects were required and were created by final cut on every hard disk that was attached to your system. Inside it, it would create folders that relate to each of the events. Remember an event in the early version of final cut was a collection of media and each of the projects that you created on your system. Well, what happened is, is that you would then open the event, which gave you access to your media, and all these events would be open at once, and we used to utility in those days called event manager ten toe move events into and out of final cut because final cut didn't provide that on its own well, event manager tennis no longer needed it's now been essentially supplanted by final cut manage library manager, but we still have the problem of how do we convert from the old event to the new so here's what we do if you have events or projects from the earlier version of final cup, they must be upgraded to a library for you to be able to work with the media. And the way that works is if you don't already have a final cut events folder or a final cut projects folder on your hard disk create one the way that I just did. Then grab the clip that you want to create let's see, what do I want to create here? Let's? Uh, let's, take the timing event notice that I've started in a folder called final cut events hidden because it's, not called final cut events final cut pro ten doesn't see it so on lee, those events that are in the final cut events folder. And on lee, those projects which are in the final cut projects folder are visible to the earlier version of final cut because I want to do some file moving around, I'm going to quit out of final cut, so I've quit command q grab the timing event, drag it into final cut events, grabbed the timing event, dragan in the final cut projects and now on ly those files that I want to convert are now stored inside final cut events and final cut projects. I want to convert the timing event and other timing project when I start final cut now, as it starts up, it realizes, hey, there is something here, so I'm going to go to file update projects and events remember, you have to update to go from ten dot zero to ten dot one, and the current version of final cut is ten dot one. If you've recently purchased final cut, say from the end of december onward, you purchased the ten one version you don't have to do this upgrade. If you purchased final cut before december, then you will have to upgrade your projects and most of us have already upgraded, but in the event not then this is how it works, you click on update projects and events, it will update everything on all the hard drives that are attached to your system. This is why you want to make sure that on ly that which you want upgrade is in the final cut events folder and on lee in the final cut projects folder you then click update all final cut goes through and does don't worry about that it's just simply says you can't find the media, which is okay for this example final cut then goes through and it updates the old database to the new database. It does not touch media because media works equally both the old and new version but the databases don't, so it has to update the database. Then it says, do you want to save or move the old projects in events to the trash? I always want to make sure stuff works, so I click save I will not quit out of final cut what's just happened is this final cut creates a new folder on your hard drive called the name of the hard drive second dr thunderbolt old final cut projects in events it creates this folder automatically. Inside it is the old final cut events folder with that which is in it and the old final cut projects folder without which isn't it? This is just there for your protection in case the world has ended the important one is this library icon right below it, the library icon is now the new version of that converted project. So you, khun essentially once you know this library works, you could trash this folder it's just there is a backup because we clicked save it's the library that I want a double click. This automatically opens up final cut and inside final cut it, then opens that converted timing project, so see, there it is there's our timing project and there is our objects that's, the events and it's offline that's what the red indicates we'll talk more about that a little bit later, but the way that we update the project as we put it into the affection we put into the final cut events folder and the final cup projects folder goto the file menu say update, but on lee put in those folders that you want to update still with me, okay, this is tricky because if you don't do it right, if you don't do it right it's going to update everything all at once, it puts it into one gigantic library storing all of your projects and all of your events, and I've got to spend a whole lot of time sorting it back out again. It's much better to do this multiple times and update each individual event that you need to put into a single library rather than update the entire hard disk it one time I've got more training on this on my website so in case you're confused or several articles that I've written to talk about this more just visit larry jordan dot biz and look for media management do a search on the website and it will talk you through this in excruciating detail but I wanted to give you a heads up on how it works for now I'm going to just simply delete both those projects because I don't need them and let's go back to final so if you would have moved that new library into the folder final cut we have to reconnect the media will finally figured out that it's no the media the there's two things one you don't have to move the library the library could be named anything stored anywhere I only put it in the final cut library folder because it helps me to figure out where my library is our final cut does not care you can have library stored anyplace I recommend always storing it toe on external drive for performance reasons a supposed to storing it to your desktop or storing it to your home director because the home directory the desktop just aren't fast enough but you can call it evening and stored anywhere so do I have to move it to the library folder the answer's no but I would because it helps me the media was not linked because I have three editing systems back at the office as I was getting this system ready this traveling system ready to come here for creative live I copied files from one hard drive tow another because the media remembers the path name to the other hard drive it comes up is unlinked because I haven't taken the time to go through and lincoln had the media been linked originally with the original final cut ten project ten zero project it would have arrived linked inside this version because I no longer have the earlier version of final cut ten I couldn't in preparation to this class link the media because I didn't have the older version, so what I would do now is once he came in, I would then go lincoln because your media files are never changed, they're not they're not that media is never touched it simply updating the databases that affect that the point to where that media restored that makes sense. Jim, we doing okay over there weii r I wouldn't ask one question. It goes back just a little bit on workflow. Would that be okay? Sure. Fantastic. This is from michael michael pete we had a couple people asking this similar shin when archiving a library and it's media in an external media environment does it make sense to consolidate the external media into the library and then archive it to make things easier no consolidate as final cut ten uses the word means to take libraries which are on multiple hard drives and put them all into a single library there's no real advantage is that the problem is the problem is final cut does not actually copy the media from the library into the project from the externals it just simply takes the path it writes down the name of the hard disk and every folder that is between the name of the hard disk and where that file is stored it remembers that path otherwise project files have been the trigger bite size so once you've got the media imported, the best advice is don't move it anywhere just leave it where it is because final cut will always be able to find it so you would not want to consolidate projects because as soon as you move that external media into the library your link so break especially if you do it inside the finder I'll show you a way that you can move media later as we start to talk about libraries but basically think about the way that you want to have your media structured before remember that planning that I was talking about the workflow think about do I need this media to be shared between multiple projects? If the answer's no then just bring it into the library and don't worry about it if the answer's yes then leave it external imported external and leavitt external and just remember to back up that folder when you're doing archiving don't try to miss it in the middle because that can be done but generally gets screwed up okay gosh is it that late already there's so there's so much stuff to cover and give me a second to check my notes okay, another cool tip this isthe secret don't tell anybody just the three of us jim doesn't even have to know if you hold the option key down hold the option key while you start final cut I'm holding the option key down after a couple seconds it opens a secret dialogue pump pump poem which allows you to select library that you want to open or not open any libraries and instead to create a new library or click on locate and it opens a standard file picker that allows you to specify whatever library you want to open it gives you the option off opening whatever you want is that not cool don't tell jim all right I want to create I want to create a new library to keep like for really simple so we're gonna call this my first library you don't have to call it my first library you can call the library anything you want but this is my first library that I've created for creative live I think my first libraries appropriate but you don't have to call it that let us not be that literal my children final cut opens this is final cut with nothing in it this's the totally empty interface and notice up here we have my first library if I grab a vertical line and drag left or right, I could make this library panel a little bit bigger so I can size it to be whatever I want and notice that not only do I have the library icon, I also have an event the four stars indicate a library. The single star indicates an event and noticed that by default it dating time stamps it to today's date, which is today only if you're watching it today if you're watching this in the future than its yesterday state but today it's today state not yesterday's date don't get confused with the date it's always the date that you you created the library, some people get confused like me, press the return key and it automatically opens this up and we're going to just rename this event to be media. You could call it wilma or fred doesn't make any difference. You just simply press the return key. It opens a text, read it you can rename and event in any time if you want to rename a library, highlight the name of the library, press the return key and you can call this my second library press the return key again to accept that but in this case because I want to call it my first library, I'm going to go back and rename it pressed the return key we can rename libraries we can rename events we can rename projects in all cases highlighted pressed the return key type and impressed the return key to lock it in. If you want to delete the library, you could delete any library as long as there's a least one library open and it would lead a library you right mouse click on it notice down here it's great back allows us to close the library I can't close the last library there has to be one library and one event always open, but if I had two or three I could close the second of the third one not a problem which who have that? Um bernard did you ever at it using final cut seven we're gonna put you on the spot if you're sitting down put your final cut seven hat on jim, you could put on your adobe premiere hat because the answer is exactly the same, but we're going to we're going to call on bernard what is the keyboard shortcut teo import media and final cut seven command command I the man is a genius? Yes what is the keyboard shortcut to import media in premiere? I believe command I, the guy is a genius again. What would you guess? The keyboard shortcut is to import media inside final cut ten and I, you know, some people say the interface is totally different. How wrong they are command. Now, do you see anything in the interface? Look very closely that could enable you to import media inside final, cut ten anything at all? Then it would come to mind a big button with the down here. Yes, this always shows up whenever there's no media inside the event. So is bernard so brilliantly put. Command I or click the import media or go file import media. You have three different options, but the answer is it's exactly the same as we're used to in every other application. It's, just theater face is darker.