Overview

Digital video editing is divided into three phases:

• Getting your material into the computer

• Editing it, which is the fun part

• Getting it back out of your computer

Unfortunately, the first part is often the hardest and trickiest. It gets easier and more fun as you go. The last phase is the simplest.

This lesson is about the first part, getting your material into your computer. First you have to set up your application correctly. In Final Cut Pro, as in most video editing programs, that means setting up your preferences lots of preferences and settings for video and audio.

After setting preferences, we ll go into logging and capturing your media. These fundamentals are absolutely necessary for Final Cut Pro to function properly. Set it up right, get your material into your project properly, and you re halfway home. You cannot overestimate how important this is. Many preferences can be set in the Final Cut interface. Preferences have been moved in OS X. In every OS X application Preferences are now under the ApplicationName menu. Some of the prefs may seem to be duplicates; some of them only appear in one location. What s important is to get them right.

To get them right, you need to understand something about the workflow of video editing and to make some decisions about how you want to work. You have to make a fundamental choice before you start: do you want to work online or offline?

At its simplest level, offline...