Lost

I had a dream last night. I was in college, and in one hard course after another. The day was filled with advanced mathematics, physics, biochemistry. I was utterly lost and out of my depth, and after many hours of class I had only hours of homework ahead of me before it would start up again the next day.

The dream is referring, of course, to my attempts to come to grips with Final Cut Express. I have wrestled with the program for hours and hours, all weekend, and have nothing to show for it except a deeper incomprehension than when I started. I only know how much more there is I don't know. Part of it is jargon and definitions. I don't know what the difference is between a marker and a mark in, I have no idea what a keyframe is, and don't get me started on audio. The 1000+ page pdf that comes with the program takes you through what the controls do, but it gives no information as to what you use the controls for. It's classic manualese.

I need a book that takes me through some basic conceptual understanding of workflow, and attaches the instructions to those tasks. For example, transitions. In iMovie I mastered that task. Drop the transition in between two clips. In Final Cut you need to do something with handles (and there is no definition of what a clip handle is, just that you have to have them). I never figured it out.

I have ambitions to take the video I shot at the last wedding I was at, combine it with stills, loop some of the audio from the camcorder, take some audio from my digital sound recorder, and tell the story of the day. But my ambitions far exceed my skill set.

Anyone have some resources that can help me out? Someone want to come by and give me a clue?

Comments

[Karen]

Lisa Brenneis "Final Cut Express for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide" from Peachpit is generally well regarded. Peachpit is one of the best publishers (Take Control, my favorite, doesn't have a Final Cut book.)

[Doug Plummer]

Karen,

Wasn't there a wholesale revamping of the interface in v4.0? I like Peachpit too, but I don't believe that they, nor anyone else, cover this version.

[Chris J.]

Doug,

I found these tutorials straight from the source. They may or may not help, but at least they cover the new version's interface.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/tutorials/