Final Cut Pro - An Introduction to Editing

Before I started on this course the only prior experience that I had of editing came from the basic Windows Movie Maker software. It was quite intimidating at first. therefore, to get to grips with the advanced Industry standard practice of Final Cut Pro. Many professional productions are edited using this software, and it extremely expensive to have access to. Deciding that I wanted to get to grips better with the software, I set myself the target of putting together the first cut of our Fiction Film.

The first thing that was new to me when it comes to this professional editing software is the amount of different file types and wrappers you have to deal with. The program MPEG Streamclip thankfully simplifies things somewhat in this regard. Using MPEG Streamclip, you must always import the MOV files that you captured from your camera and convert them into ProRes. ProRes is easy to edit with and avoids the potential for any glitches which would occur editing straight from MOV. Your finished edit is usually exported as an MP4.
I need to remember how to do this, there have been a few instances where I have forgotten to put footage through MPEG Streamclip.

Using Final Cut Pro I was able to put into practice quite a few different cuts that I have learned, and also get quite creative with things. The first of these was the match cut. At the beginning of  our film, the protagonist enters the library, pulls a chair out from under the table and sits down. We go from a wide shot of the protagonist pulling forth the chair to a close of him sitting down on it. This is known as  a match cut.

One thing I have picked up vicariously through my film watching experience is the the quick intercutting together of action scenes. I tried to incorporate some of this quick cutting into our punching scene, and I was able to get a roatlty free punching sound effect which really put the exclamation point on the scene, and contributed to the comic book mood we were going for.

The ending to our film has the protagonist flashing back from his fantasy world back into the real one. To accomplish this effect I tried to be creative and included quick cutting between lots of different shots. One of my lecturers commented that this resembled a cutting technique often used in older films, with reference to the graduate. Really I was inspired by the way flash backs are sometimes portrayed in Italian Horror films, particularly in Dario Argento's films there is often a moment where the main character is recounting clues from memory, and it is usually cut in a frenzied manner such as this.

A full example of my edit can be seen at the following link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TozAmDW0wew

Overall this exercise was extremely beneficial to me in developing my editing skills. I got to practice creativity where I previously hadn't been able to, and make the most of the Final Cut Pro software. I believe this exercise was responsible for me really beginning to feel comfortable with editing this year. My progress was confirmed when my peers and tutors commended me on my edit.