Final Cut Pro HD | H•O•T Hands-On Training [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

NOTE | Larry's First Interface Rule of Final Cut Pro

Thinking about the Viewer brings to mind the first of my two interface rules for Final Cut Pro:

Select something, then do something to it.

Although this may not be as deep as "I think, therefore I am," it is the underlying method Final Cut uses to determine what you want to do. You select a clip and edit it to the Timeline. You select a clip and delete it. You select an edit point and add a transition. You select an audio clip and apply a filter. And so on.

NOTE | The Great "Mouse vs. Keyboard" Debate

I will confess right here near the beginning that I am a huge keyboard shortcuts fan; which is why you'll find at the end of each chapter a summary of relevant keyboard shortcuts for that chapter.

On the other hand, I work with a very talented editor who does everything with the mouse. In fact, Ed does everything he can to avoid touching the keyboard.

Fortunately, Final Cut is not so partisan. It doesn't particularly care if you edit using just the keyboard, just the mouse, or some combination of both. There are over 600 menu commands in Final Cut Pro. You can access them using menus, program them into keyboard shortcuts, or create individual mouse button shortcuts (which you'll learn how to do later in this chapter).

My goal is to show you the options, then let you pick the one that works best for you.

1.

Start by opening Chapter 02 Lesson, if it isn't already open.

If you already have it open, choose File > Revert (and click OK to accept losing all changes) to reopen the project to the condition it was in the last time it was saved.

2.

Look for the MCU to camera clip in the Browser. Load it into the Viewer by double-clicking it.

[View full size image]

The lower portion of the Viewer window contains the playback controls for a clip, which consist of the following:

Playhead:
The vertical black line with the yellow triangle on top is called the playhead, and it represents the width of a single frame. The frame the playhead is parked on, or playing over, or scrolling across, is shown in the image section of the Viewer. By sliding the playhead back and forth in the white horizontal space at the bottom of the clip (remember, clips can be video, audio, or both), you can view the entire contents of the clip.

The look and operation of the playhead is identical in the Viewer, the Canvas, and the Timeline. The key point is that the vertical black line represents the frame being displayed in the window.

Media limits:
Chapter 6," Trim Your Story," and Chapter 8," TransitionsMaking Change Beautiful."

Shuttle bar:
The shuttle bar allows you to quickly scroll back and forth in your clip. The farther you move the bar from the center, the faster you go in that direction.

Jog wheel:
The jog wheel allows you to slowly move the playhead through a clip. You move it by dragging it left or right.

[View full size image]

Playback buttons:
The playback buttons provide a series of specialized button shortcuts for playing the clip in the Viewer. The center button plays a clip from the location of the playhead. When a clip is playing, this button converts to a Stop button. dYou can also play a clip by pressing the spacebar. When a clip is playing the spacebar also stops it. The other buttons will be discussed more in Chapter 4," Build Your Story."

3.

Experiment with moving around in a clip:

Press the spacebar to play and stop the clip.

Grab the playhead with the mouse and drag it around.

Slide the shuttle bar to the left and right to fast forward and rewind through a clip.

Turn the jog wheel to learn how to move a clip in slow motion.

4.

Experiment with the five buttons just below the image of the clip to see what they do:

Click the center button (the right-pointing arrow) to play a clip.

Click it again to stop the playback.

Click the leftmost button to jump to the beginning of a clip.

Click the rightmost button to jump to the end of a clip.

Chapter 4, "Build Your Story," when you see it also allows you to play a clip from the In to the Out.)

Click the second button from the right to play a clip starting a few seconds before the playhead and ending a few seconds after the playhead. (You'll learn how to change the length of this pre-roll and post-roll in Chapter 4.)