migrating from avid

[The Lobby]

Probably 2 things that will help you out with your migration.

The book ‘FCP for Avid Editors’ doesn’t teach you how to edit but instead shows a ton of pictures and descriptions of the “Avid way” of doing things and what it looks like and is called in FCP. The accompanying disc also includes an Avid Keyboard layout for FCP so everything will seem like it’s just where you left it.

Also look in TOOLS>BUTTON LIST. Here will be able to find any command by using the search box. Once you find what you are looking for you can drag that button into the spaces (kind of looks like a hamburger bun turned sideways) at the top of the timeline, viewer and canvas (amongst a couple of other places too). This will give you the type of buttons you may be used to in Avid when you check “Second Row of Buttons” in your Media Composer settings.

[Sean Lander]

Initially you try and make FCP to work like an Avid. (Which is easy) Later on you try to make Avid work like FCP. (Hard)
If your experienced with Avid you shouldn’t have too much trouble. The main difference is the amazing amount of things
you can do directly in the timeline with FCP. Probably the hardest thing to get used to will be dragging in the time markers area (FCP)
as opposed to dragging on the timeline tracks themselves (Avid)

I guarantee once you get used to it you won’t want to go back. Hopefully the project your going to be working on will give you the time
to really come to grips with FCP. I reckon it takes about a month before your completely comfortable with it.
That was my experience.

Good luck.

[Blub06]

Another way of saying the above is that there are no yellow and red arrows, no modes.

You double click on the clips in the timeline which loads them into the source window, the tabs on the top of the source window are where you do filter controls and motion controls. If you put the curser over the clip (in the timeline) you are trying to effect with a motion you can control the frame in the record window like with 3Dwarp, if you select the oval icon above the record window in the center that

[Tom Matthies]

“scrub” Chris.
As a long time Avid editor going back to some of the first Chicagoland Avid systems running on Mac 2/FX machines I found it fairly easy to transition to FCP. Even without reading the manuals, with Avid experience I found that I could manage to do productve edits right from the start. After a while you will stop trying to emulate the Avid system on FCP and at that point you will really take off. Believe me, you will never look back. I still pop over into “Avidland” now and then since we are still running a pair of Symphony systems here. It usually takes me an hour or so to get back into Avid mode editing. I’ve been with FCP since version 1.25. Although both systems work well with each having it’s own strong points as well as weaknesses, I much prefer FCP to the Avid platform. I can more easily concentrate on editing on FCP since it is so flexable when moving clips around on the timeline. When in FCP’s “Effects mode” you have so much more control using keyframes than with Avid, although the current version of the Adrenaline software is catching up fast.
All in all, just remap the leyboard if you want to feel more comfortable with the interface in FCP, but I would limit just how much you change. It would be best in the long run to just leave things as they are and do your best to learn the FCP way and “unlearn” the Avid method.
Although a few of our Avid editors here still refuse to embrace FCP and don’t take it seriously (!?) the fact is that at least one of the Symphonys will be replaced shortly with another FCP HD system and the remaining Symphony will likely be replaced with an Adrenaline HD system since we are now moving into the HD arena. Time and technology march on and things change. A couple of the remaining “Avid Guys” here will be forced to sink or swim in the world of editing. Embracing new ways of doing things that you are comfortable with the “old Ways” is often not easy. In the long run what does not kill will only make us stronger. Not sure where that quote is from but it seems appropriate here.
Tom