Why video?

I am immersed in editing my footage from a dance camp I went to at the end of March. My intention is to make a five to eight minute documentary. I am having to learn Final Cut, yet again.

So why am I putting myself through this pain? It's because I am completely captivated by the storytelling capabilities of video. A still photograph exists as a discrete object, to be made meaningful by the context of presentation and the readiness of the viewer to be moved by this object, the photograph. Yet viewing a photograph can just as easily be a disposable moment, like we do with so many images in the media. Video, once you make the commitment to watch the thing, takes you for a ride. It is multi-sensory and, when well crafted, both invisible and potent in the immersive reality of the moment. It's much bigger than a still image.

I learn mostly by doing, but I need an example to follow. Final Cut is way too complex to learn by stumbling. I am a reader, and books are how I tend to learn most new technology.  I also have a free month's subscription for Lynda.com (from registering CS3), and I've been working through Larry Jordan's FCP 6 series. But I don't like the tyranny of the video format for learning something (ironic, isn't it), and I want a physical book with an index, and with corners I can dog ear to mark those sections that I want to look back at again when I get stuck.

So I sat at Barnes and Noble the other day, comparing books, bought one only to discover it was for a version several years outdated, returned that one, and then went to the University Bookstore. The way I shop for books of this sort is look up one thing on how to do something (like, how to make a Ripple Cut), and compare how each of the books tells me how to do it. The one that puts it in a way that makes is understand it is the one I get. In this case, it was two books from Focal Press, “Final Cut Pro Workflows (Osder & Carman), which is giving me a much needed background on video technology and terminology, and “Final Cut Pro 6—For Digital Video Editors Only” (Watson).

My goal is, by the end of the summer, to call myself something of a professional at this, and add it to what I do for a living.

Comments

[CWM]

You should really try using iMovie. It may provide you with as much editing power as you need. Beginner video editors often suffer from the same bug that bit all of us when fonts first came to the PC / Mac. Many early documents looked like serial killer letters. The same is true with 5-10 minute videos. Most scene transitions should be cross dissolve, fade in or fade out, nothing more. All the bells and whistles don't provide a benefit for most presentations. You can be producing great videos in a few hours and avoid the huge learning curve with Final Cut Pro. I have been down the same path ...I now use iMovie for almost everything related to video ...so much faster. The HD version is the best for most work, but even the more recent (completely different) version works well.

My first few months with a video camera I did all my post in iMovie, so I'm familiar with it. I quickly hit the limit on what polishing I could do with it, and got Final Cut Express. I couldn't make heads nor tails of that program, until I took a 10 day video training which used FCP. The scales fell away from my eyes, and I continue to marvel at the capability of the program. It's like Photoshop, which I've been using since 4.0, and which I know, generously, 5% of what is possible. But I couldn't have a professional life as a photographer if I had stuck with, say Paint Shop Pro, my first image editing program.