Please comment on the complex nature of Final Cut, it will be a great help!

[David Bogie]

[rachel morgan] “briefly discussing how complex the program is, how much time and practice it takes to learn it, how there are several ways to do any one thing, how no one knows every single little detail about the program, how we’re all still learning to a certain degree, how long it took you to learn, how much practicing you did… and/or similar. It would be”

Umm, that’s about it, right there. You answered your own question/problem.

FCP is designed to be everything to everyone in the entertainment business. You can either do it all in FCP or you use the other tools in the studio suite and they’re each almost as complex as FCP. so there’s no end to learning these applications. Can’t be done. But FCP is no different in this aspect of complexity and depth than any other professional level video editing suite that contains Premiere or an Avid product.

Heck, you can’t learn everything about any aspect of television or film production in a year or two. You can tell your students this with a straight face and total honesty: You decide what you want to learn how to do and then you concentrate on it and leave the rest for a future when you have more leisure time.

bogiesan

[Mark Raudonis]

[david bogie] “Heck, you can’t learn everything about any aspect of television or film production in a year or two.”

I would add this:

Learning the “buttons” on any NLE suite is only the tip of the iceberg. Knowing “how” to do something only brings you to the starting line of “why” to do something.

Tell your students that if they choose to enter this field they are committing to a lifetime of learning.
They will never be “done”. There will always be innovations, improvements, upgrades, and paradigm shifting technology that will affect their careers. I’ve lived through three major changes in the technology: film to tape, linear tape to Non-linear, tape to “tape less”. Throughout this all, however,
the fundamental concept of storytelling has NOT changed. Story drives everything, and your students will have their whole career to practice great storytelling.

There is no “easy” button for someone pursuing a career. The software is complex to accommodate the almost infinite amount of possibilities that great story telling can require. The capabilities contained in the FCP software suite used to take up several dedicated rooms and millions of dollars of equipement (seriously!). Learning how to use it all can take an entire career.

Mark

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
The guy who headed the team that designed Final Cut Pro sort of agrees with you, because he went out and created the current version of iMovie (09) because the old iMovie and Final Cut Express/Pro are too complicated for a novice user….

But a tool that can be used to edit Hollywood movies, or extended reality TV shows HAS to be powerful – and that brings the complexity.

Your approach seems fine to me – teach video ‘production’ – the way to bring a story (great or small) to the screen. If your students focus on that, then they can learn to work out how to deliver that – to produce an enjoyable/engrossing movie experience.

Some of that story-telling process is editing, but learning a complex editing application through and through isn’t part of that task….

When I first sat down to edit on a computer (16 years ago) it took me a whole month to read the (quite small) manual that came with the edit software, so that I understood how to use the program.
BUT I had been a TV film/video editor/producer for twenty-five years before that, so I KNEW what I wanted to achieve.

I still never use about half of Final Cut’s features – as bogiesan says, however much you know you keep on learning…

Your students need to learn to focus on what they need to know, and leave the rest for later training opportunities.

[Gary Adcock]

[rachel morgan] “. This year a few of my students seem to be wondering why after basic instruction on the program and sitting down in front of it a few times (as folks who have never edited before) they don’t know the entire program back and forth and are a bit overwhelmed.”

Understanding….

Even in this day and age, editing is an art form, taking years of experience in addition to lifetime of learning. I bet these same students think they know every nuance in Photoshop inside and out too.
( channels? besides the RGB ones?)

I think you have left out part of their education- the part where they finally understand if it was easy everyone would be doing it, and there would most likely be more than one Best Picture Oscar.

Yet it comes down to while Apple’s FCP excels at creating a simplified interface, the underling facts of editing are becoming aware for your students and my guess is that some of them are getting slammed in editing from the mistakes from production. Audio is out, mixed frame rates, bad video, worse lighting can and will befuddle even some of the most hardened editors I know.

In this process do you ever tell you students that in the real world most people do not do every task in the industry and the best editors really understand shooting, or the best shooters understand the subtlety of editing?

One of the truest tasks of any editor I know is cutting a :60 spot. EXACTLY not off by one field or frame- with clean and concise edit,dialog and music. No effects, no tricks and cuts only. I do this as a test with students to get them on the right track.

Final Cut started (called KeyGrip then) as the first mainstream video application that made use of the FireWire protocol on consumer DV cameras, it has evolved from those humble beginnings to one of the most used tools in the video production. Your students need to be taught that as the technology advances exponentially so do the tools, while your knowledge decreases at the corresponding geometric rates, because FCP is hugely powerful, some of its capabilities so far beyond the vast
majority of its users that most do not understand what the app is truly capable of, so start off small.
It is incumbent on you to let your students know that you can only scratch the surface with a class of this type, there is just too much to pass on.

I have spent a lifetime learning my art and I know nothing, every day I get the chance to learn something new, even though I have worked on computers since, well forever (it seems) – I don’t know anything.

I have worked in Film and TV for over 20 years, I have been lucky enough to work exclusively in HDTV since 2001 – and It was shortly after that I realized don’t really know anything at all – especially when I am talking to some of my associates in the industry. ( OK there are a huge number of people here on the COW laughing at this statement. Some of the really smart people know exactly what I am talking about)

Lastly let me put this in perspective for your students.

I have worked in Photoshop since the very beginning, even prior to the official release of v1 and I consider myself pretty qualified in Photoshop, but I am never around my friend Rich Harrington for more than 20 mins. that I do not get one new PSD trick!!! I have been working in that App for all these years now and I still do not know everything.

(Channels – you mean I can save selections as channels in photoshop for later use? really?)

gary adcock

Tech Chair for 2009 NAB’s Director of Photography Track.
Writer and Tech Editor for Macworld Magazine.
International Consultant in HD and Film.
Forum Moderator on Creative Cow.
Glass Artist

[Rachel Morgan]

For everyone who responded to this post, thank you so much, this is so great. I read all of your responses to my students with much success.
I’m especially glad that everyone mentioned the importance of storytelling, focusing on what it is that you want to do while having an understanding of the big picture, the importance (and joy) of life long learning and that it’s only possible to scratch the surface in such a short time. This is all stuff that I tell my students, but for them to hear it from different voices and voices of folks in the field really hit home. Thanks!!!!