EDITING YOUR FILM: Final Cut Pro

Transcription

1 EDITING YOUR FILM: Final Cut Pro Johnny Barrington I am a film maker who learned how to edit on final cut pro as a necessity to making films. I now work with professional editors on my projects but the experience I gained from learning how to edit by myself has helped me communicate my ideas and develop a language that speeds up the editing process when working with others. These notes are intended to provide you with the information needed to cut together a coherent sequence of moving images and sounds: an EDIT. Final Cut is a powerful editing tool used by amateurs and professionals alike. It can be used to edit anything from home movies to Hollywood Blockbusters. What is Editing? Editing is taking out the bad bits and leaving in the good bits I have heard an experienced editor say this with all sincerity and I think it is well worth remembering when things get confusing and chaotic! Editing is the process of selecting what to show and what not to show an audience, to guide the eye of the viewer in the most effective way to achieve an emotional response. The editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of film-making originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording, acting). Stanley Kubrick was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film-making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit." Editing is as important as the filming stage. Often editors go unnoticed on good films because cuts should flow seamlessly and smoothly from one shot to another, thus the editor is often the unsung hero in many great films. The following notes will take you through the process step by step and help you gain a basic understanding of Final Cut that can be built on and become a skill for you to use in almost all future media related projects.:

2 LOGGING & CAPTURING 1. You have your filmed material on tape (mini dv) OR flash card (hdv) or hard disc. You need to get that material onto your computer to edit it. 2. A firewire cable is essential to take your footage from the camera to the computer or external hard drive. The firewire has a high data transfer rate needed for video material. OR THIS Connect the firewire from your camera to your computer and switch the camera to VCR or PLAY mode. 3. Start up Final Cut Pro on your computer and got to FILE > NEW PROJECT. You will be given a prompt to name your project in the window, and click OK. 4. Now you need to import your raw footage. a. for tape based media (minidv/hdv tape) click FILE > LOG AND CAPTURE b. for footage on a hard disc recorder/ flash card (HD/SD) click FILE > LOG AND TRANSFER 5. A window should appear which gives you full control of your camera via the computer. See below a LOG & CAPTURE WINDOW: For tape based media: rewind tape in the camera. Press PLAY and then press CAPTURE button. A window should appear showing you that your footage is being captured.

3 For HD flash card media select individual clips and press ADD SELECTION TO QUEUE. They should automatically start transferring onto your computer. 6. Once the clips are present in the BROWSER window on final cut, you are ready to begin editing! EDITING There are 4 windows in the basic FCP (final cut pro) editing layout: 1. Browser (bottom left) - where you keep your video clips 2. Viewer (top left) - where you watch your video clips 3. Canvas (top right) - where you watch your edited sequence. 4. Timeline. (bottom right) - Where you create your edited sequence. Chop up clips add sound effects etc. You can see the video (blue segments) running along the top half of the window and the audio (green segments) running along the bottom. The timeline is your workshop where you can see the bare bones of your edit.

4 SETTING IN POINTS AND OUT POINTS Whilst viewing clips in the viewer window you can set IN points and OUT points.this is the method of trimming a clip so that it only contains the portion of the clip you wish to show. For example. If you wanted to trim off the clapper board from the beginning of a clip you would bring the playhead to the point where you wanted the clip to start and press I for in point. Similarly, the out point for the clip would be set by moving the playhead to the point where you want the clip to stop and then press: O for out point. Once this has been done you can click and drag the image to the TIMELINE. The clip that appears in the timeline will be trimmed to the time in between the in and out points. You can then do the same with the next clip you wish to put in the timeline and create a sequence of 2 moving images, perhaps going from a wide (establishing shot) to a close up. This is the first CUT in the beginning of an edit.

5 Once captured/transferred, your footage should appear in the browser in the form of CLIPS and from there you can drag and drop these clips into the timeline, then manipulate them using various tools in the TOOL PALLETTE: The tool palette is your toolkit and enables you to cut clips and manipulate them on the timeline. The SELECTION tool is the default tool and used for selecting clips, dragging them onto the timeline. The next tool that is relevant to basic editing is the RAZOR BLADE tool. It is useful for cutting the beginnings and ends of multiple clips. The PEN tool is useful for working on audio levels and setting fade ins and fade outs. The other tools are less essential for basic editing, but here is a link to a far more detailed guide to the tool palette.

6 EFFECTS / VIDEO & AUDIO FILTERS Here are some of the most commonly used effects/filters. They can all be found in the EFFECTS tab on the top tool bar of your screen. They are used to improve image/sound quality, but can also be used to alter and distort it. Brightness and contrast are very handy filters for adjusting your image if it is under/over exposed. Speed is used for slow motion shots, or to make shots faster to be exciting and dynamic. Black & White/ DESATURATE De-interlace is a subtle effect that can make your footage look more filmic or cinematic. Colour correction An example of where Colour Correction would be necessary would be if you had filmed under streetlights and the picture looks far too yellow. Audio filters reverb echo - noise reducer. TRANSITIONS You can simply CUT from one shot to another or you can use transitions to make changing from one shot to another smoother or more exciting. Cross dissolve and fade in fade out transitions are most commonly used. TEXT/TITLES Adding titles and text to your finished film can all be done by clicking on the A symbol in the bottom right corner of the browser window:

7 ADDING OF MUSIC SOUND EFFECTS Any mp3 s can be added to your film on final cut. It is necessary to convert them to an aiff. file to make them compatible with final cut. The application quick time can be used to do this. Open QUICKTIME appliction and select FILE>OPEN FILE then find and select the mp3 file, then click FILE>EXPORT. Select SOUND TO AIFF in the export box Then in the options box select: FORMAT: LINEAR PCM. CHANNELS: STEREO RATE: 48KHZ QUALITY: BEST SAMPLE SIZE: 16 BITS Then click OK and SAVE. Switch back to Final Cut Pro and click FILE>IMPORT>FILES Find and select the aiff. File created in QUICKTIME. Click OK and it should appear in the browser window as a clip ready to be used in Final Cut. EXPORTING To export a master of your finished film click FILE>EXPORT>QUICKTIME MOVIE. A master of your film will be created as a QUICKTIME movie file. You can then use this to create more compressed versions for uploading to internet/ipod/dvd etc. Compression basically saves on the file size of your movie without reducing quality too much. It is almost always necessary to compress your final film before uploading or burning to dvd. Usually the final film is in QUICKTIME format. END NOTES Here are some good websites and books: Final Cut Pro for Dummies. Helmut Kobler On Film Editing Ed Dmytryk In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch is an excellent book. If you are interested in editing fiction or documentary I would highly recommend that you read it. He edited Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy amongst many others. The Eye is Quicker by Richard D. Pepperman is more practical and solid. basic editing tutorials online: