Final Cut Express
With creating Wanted, I have been making some rather large steps up. SD to HD, hosted website to self hosted website and finally from using iMovie to Final Cut Express.
All in all I have really enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the app; I think that to really learn an app you need to sit down with a project - a target of what you want to do and get to work. Messing about with it and clicking on buttons is all very well, but you never really learn a workflow.
By having a project you can work out the best way of doing things, and over time find out better ways of doing so.
I was very surprised. when I realized that I actually preferred editing in Final Cut Express over iMovie. Just the sheer control you have over your footage is far superior to that of iMovie. Simple things: like cropping video, having layers - being able to move and resize video and images manually. These are all things that I now take for granted.
Sure, the interface may not be the best in the world - but it works very well and once you get over it you realize how intuitive it really is. The amount of “things” you can do is also impressive, there are enough to probably, at this stage, to do whatever I want. By the sound of things, Final Cut is simply a few more things added to the menu.
The only thing that I have found lacking in the Final Cut Express bundle is a app similar to Motion. I don’t think LiveType does any of the stuff I want it to be able to do, like, create different and exciting lower thirds and enticing introductions. I tried, but could not get anything near what I was looking for.
Luckily for me I have enlisted my friend, Stu Helm, who is whipping me up a couple of things for Wanted! 
So far I am loving exploring Final Cut Express, it has made me want to venture out from just video podcast and to maybe making a few short films. Should be a great experience!
Which do you prefer? iMovie or Final Cut Express?
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I feel the same way after switching to Final Cut Express. The interface is a bit clunky, but the amount of control you get is great.
One app that I use as a mini-Motion is Keynote. I know it may sound funny, but Keynote can do so pretty awesome animations and lower thirds if you set the background to 0% opacity. You create your effect, and then export as a movie with a really high frame rate (I find 60 or 120fps works well). Then import into Final Cut and it works great.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:07 pm