DOWN AND DIRTY QUICK START TUTORIAL

I have been meaning to get to this for awhile, and have started and stopped a couple of times. But this is a down and dirty tutorial to start people off with Final Cut. People have different workflows and preferences, and this is an approach I use very often. There are tweaks and modifications to things, such as changing codecs, and at some point I may write more about that. There are also an amazing number of books and websites that will provide more detail. And the PDFs and Tutorials which come with Final Cut Studio are also worthwhile, albeit a rather large set.

That being said, sometimes a kick start helps and once you get your hands on a project the process will lead you along as you wonder "How" or "Can I" do something. But the whole process is really this:

1.) Hook up a camera

2.) Capture the footage

3.) Drop some shots on a timeline

4.) Do some color correction and add a transition or two

5.) Send to tape, web format etc.

For the majority of regular editing, dragging a clip onto the timeline and changing its length is going to be something done over and over when shooting dive video. Though multicamera editing is a cool feature in Final Cut, chances are pretty darn low that it will ever apply to a standard dive video you shoot on a dive trip. Ditto for a vast majority of features in Final Cut.

If you follow the links in order it should get you going. At the end there is a a couple of movies with all the steps. No laughing because I hit a couple of wrong keys along the way. Happens to us all, and besides I was still drinking the A.M. coffee.