A brief overview of this section, in which we will look at the following topics:

• Creating a library, event, and project

• Importing media

• Adding media to the timeline

• Basic editing tools and functions

• Some other buttons that are really useful

It's time to get going, so first up is creating a library, events, and projects. In this lesson, we will walk you through the process as you follow along and get ready for the learning journey.

Please download Resources provided

Importing media is how you get the footage you are working with into FCP. In this lesson, we look at ways to do this as well as provide you with resources you can import to follow along with the projects in this course. Note: See additional resources available for download.

In this short lesson, we will look at how you move your media to the FCP timeline - along with some tips and tricks to make you more efficient.

Just as certain tools can help a builder become very efficient, the same is true with FCP. In this lesson, we will explore the wide range of tools FCP offers. In doing so you will understand their purposes and how they can enable you to become a super efficient video editor!

Final Cut Pro is very adaptable and can change shape and form on the fly - it can adjust to your needs. In this lesson, we will explore some additional options to change how your program looks and behaves. Doing so really ensures that your editing happens as smooth as possible and you aren't banging your computer in frustration.

By the end of this lesson, you'll have a personalized setup that enhances your editing efficiency and makes the process more enjoyable.

The aim of this section was to get you comfortable within the FCP interface by understanding what different buttons do and how you are able to adjust the form and function of FCP. This provides you with the key skills necessary to continue through the rest of the course.

Recap:

• We created the Library for our two projects

• We stored the Library in an external Hard-drive

• We looked at the different ways to import media

• We sequenced clips in the timeline

• We explored the different tools available

• We looked at how we could change FCP's form and function with different buttons

DO:

• Familiarise yourself with the FCP interface and the tools we described.

• Use the clips provided and sequence them to create a rough draft of your own video (See example)

By the end of this section, you will have edited and exported your own projects with a whole bunch of special effects and edits.

In this section we will cover:

• Adding transitions in between clips

• Speeding up and slowing down clips with retiming

• Resizing your media with transform

• Adding keyframes to create animated effects

• Adding music and sound effects to your clips

• Advanced audio edits

• Creating custom titles in your video

• Exporting your completed project

Movies, documentaries, and YouTube videos almost always use transitions. The goal is often to be subtle so you don't even notice when one scene changes into another. They are a crucial edit and in this lesson, you will discover how to use them in your project.

Whether you want to create a super clean slo-mo video or dramatically speed up your video this can all be achieved with retiming. Here we will look at how you can do all this and more with some very clever tools that ensure your video looks smooth even if it is recorded at a low fps.

One of the main focuses in editing is framing your shot. In this lesson, we will discover how this can be achieved with the use of a super important tool - the transform tool. We will look at how it can not only reframe a shot but also create cutaways. Also, we will discover some other tools offered such as crop, trim distort and Ken Burns and look at what they can do for your videos.

In Final Cut Pro, you will soon discover the importance of keyframing as it can be used in almost every aspect of FCP. To introduce you to this important concept we will look at how this can be used with the transform tool to create smooth animated effects.

"Sound is half the picture" (George Lucas).  This is so true. Audio is so critical in keeping the viewer engaged. Here we will look at how you can add sound effects and music to your timeline. But more than this, we will look at how you can perform some pretty advanced edits to your audio to make your final video even better.

This is a TITLE

This is text

Titles and text are really important for not only adding information but also setting a mood. In this lesson, you will discover how you can add titles and text to your own footage, as well as how you can change the way it looks and even animate it.

There is no point in having your project, your video, your masterpiece sitting in the timeline for no one to see. So, in this lesson, we will look at how you can share your project with the world through the use of exporting. We will look at the different ways to export and how to adjust the setting to get it just right for your viewers.

This really was a comprehensive section and we covered a lot of important content. Let’s RECAP.

We looked at:

• How transitions can transform your shots and make cuts super smooth

• Retiming your clips - Fast, Slow, and in Reverse

• Transforming, cropping, trimming, distorting etc. and how you can reframe your shots

• Keyframing and its application with the transform tool (creating animated effects)

• Adding music and sound effects to your timeline

• Editing audio to create different effects

• Adding and customizing text and titles

• Exporting projects

DO

• This was a long section. Your only "do" is to give yourself a pat on the back.  You deserve it :-)

This is the next milestone in your editing journey from beginner to intermediate as we start the first intermediate section.

This section will cover:

• Properly organizing your media in your library

• The important concept of "storylines"

• Building up a more advanced project

• Mini Challange!

• Adding special effects to your videos

• A very important concept - Compound Clips

• Mini Challange!

Importing media is one thing, but staying organised is another. We know organisation can be a struggle sometimes, but it's always worth it. So we will see how you can use keyword collections to file your clips into specific named locations. Note: See additional resources available for download.

Movies, video games and a whole lot other has storylines. It's what drives the story forward so here in final cut we also have storylines. So we will understand just what this means and look at the difference between primary and connected clips.

In this course, we make use of "mini-challenges".  Each mini-challenge helps reinforce what you have learned but also gives you an opportunity to see your skills in practice. Note: See additional resources available for download.

It's time to introduce you to the world of effects. This is an important place where you can truly transform your footage to whatever you like. This is where movie magic happens so brace yourself.

The importance of compound clips cannot be understated. If you use them right you might find yourself becoming 10x more effective at editing and doing things you thought impossible. So we will look at just how they work and how you can use them in conjunction with effects to achieve incredible results.

Mini-Challange time. Like we said before, these are designed to reinforce your learning as well as push you further. This time it is not so mini, but we know you can do it ;) Note: See additional resources available for download.

This concludes the first intermediate section, you are no longer a beginner editor. Well done! You have learned...

Recap

• How to use keyword collections to keep yourself and your media organized

• About Storylines, and the differences between primary and connected clips

• How to apply special effects to video and audio

• The importance of Compound clips, how they can save you time and perform special edits

• More advanced keyframing with special effects

DO

Well, this is a creative challenge for you. Think of a special effect that you want to create and try to create it for yourself this will challenge both your skills and creative mind.

In this section, we continue with more Intermediate lessons that will help you apply sepcialized effects to your videos.

This section will cover:

• Applying basic color correction

• The power of Chroma-Keying (Green Screen)

• Advanced Audio effects

• Using Custom Generators

Colour correction is a fundamental skill of any good editor. So, in this lesson, we will look at some of the basic things you can do to get your shot looking more even, as well as how to revive seemingly unusable footage.

Sit back, grab your popcorn (provided in link) and watch this short example of some effects you can achieve with Chroma Keying, and how it can transform not only your video but how you teach/train/present online.

Well, you've seen it. Watching Craig "magically" transported to different places. Seeing the power of having Craig appear inside along with the content of a lesson. This is almost always made possible through the use of chroma-keying. In this lesson, you will discover the tools Final Cut Pro gives us so you can recreate these same effects and much more. Note: Additional resources are also included for download.

This isn't the advanced section, but we are going to discuss some advanced audio techniques because audio is important! Here we will look at how we can sync high-quality external audio with that from our camera because in more professional projects you will almost always have a separate audio source. We will go over two ways of doing this - the automatic way, and the manual way, just in case the automatic method fails.

One window we have not yet really considered is the generators window, it does offer us a wide range of tools, but in this lesson, we will look at how we can use this in combination with clips to create some really interesting animations, or moving vector graphics as one might say.

In this section, we continued with some more Intermediate lessons and how you can apply sepcialized effects to your videos. By now you have learned how:

• to apply basic color correction

• to use the power of Chroma-Keying (Green Screen) to make "magic" happen

• Advanced Audio effects can improve your audio when using multiple input devices

• Custom Generators can be used to create animations

In this section, we continue with more Intermediate lessons by looking at some powerful features around tracking, effects, and presets.

This section will cover:

• A quick approach to using tracking

• Customising tracking for better results

• Importing text, effects, and transitions

• Effects Presets & Paste Attributes - Ensuring professional consistency

• Consolidating Media and Finalising the Main Project

It's Mini Challenge challenge time.  This challenge is designed to test and prove your skills. So, bring along your A-game, and let's see if you are up to the challenge! Note: See downloadable resources below.

Final cut pro gives us a great tool to track media to objects, it's pretty much automatic keyframing, and who doesn't like the automatic method? So, we will go over how you can track objects to the subjects in about 10 seconds. This can really make for some interesting and professional effects with very little work.

Tracking doesn't always work out so flawlessly, when the shot isn't super clean our track can mess up, so here we will understand how you can fix that, but further how you can make your track more dynamic with the use of transform and keyframing.

It's time to expand your final cut pros capabilities by adding in more effects from the web. There are a vast amount of custom-made effects, titles, transitions, and more created by skilled designers. This is your chance to explore this trove. But do remember - if it looks dodgy it probably is, so be careful.

There is an extremely fast way to move effects from one clip to another. There is also a way to create your own custom effects that you can use in any project. We will discover how this is possible and how this can save you so much time and ensure your edits are consistent.

Well, you have edited and finished your project and now you want to keep your library in long-term storage. Or, you want to give your library to someone else to edit, how can you do this without wasting space or demolishing your internet. Thankfully this is possible and we will see how we can make our libraries easily movable and storable.

In this section, we looked at some of the more Intermediate features.

This section covers:

• A quick approach to using tracking

• Customising tracking for better results

• Importing text, effects, and transitions

• Effects Presets & Paste Attributes - Ensuring professional consistency

• Consolidating Media and Finalising the Main Project

Welcome to the advanced section. With everything you have done already, you are now ready to push on to the exciting features and opportunities that FCP advanced offers.

This section will cover:

• Importing of proxy media

• Using multicam

• The importance of indexes and roles

• Auditions

The time has come when you challenge yourself with a project bigger than your computer is capable of handling. Now don't let your computer's power limit your creative genius. To ensure your computer can handle your big project, we will look at how you can convert your media into proxy media, which will dramatically increase performance and make the impossible possible. Note: See the attached resources.

It sounds a little like an oxymoron - "Mini challenge - Advanced Project". And you are right if you're thinking this. This is no small feat. We need you to bring your big brain to this mini challenge and show us what you can do as you apply all your skills and learning.

You didn't think there would be just one camera in a professional project, did you? Most professional projects involve many cameras and many mics. In order to manage all this without going insane, we will show you how you can use Final Cut Pro's multi-cam tools to edit multiple cam and mic inputs.

This is the pinnacle of organisation. If you can properly organise your timeline with the use of index and roles, you are properly set for working on more professional projects.

Maybe you are not so sure how your project is going and want to try to go in a different direction. Well, you can do this without completely eliminating the current state of your project. With snapshots, you can create a whole different version of a project without the fear of losing the original idea.

Similar to snapshots you can do a similar thing for clips within the timeline. Using auditions you can have multiple different clips, edits, and effects in one and quickly change to completely different clips, edits, and effects. It's time to audition your clips.

You've enjoyed your first taste of some advanced and powerful features of FCP. All of these will further augment what you already know.

This section covered:

• Importing of proxy media

• Using multicam

• The importance of indexes and roles

• Auditions

Welcome to the finale section. However, just because it is the finale doesn't mean the learning is over. In this section we will show you lots more advanced featires.

This section will cover:

• Custom LUTs

• Adjustment layers and color correction,

• Color correction (manual)

• Color grading

• Color grading and recreating effects

• Important preferences

• FCP preferences

You don't need to be a skilled color corrector to create a really nice looking style and look. Instead, you can do this very quickly using Custom LUTs. Work smart, not hard remember, or maybe smart and hard, you got this.

It is time we dive into the world of color correction. To ensure we remain organised we will use adjustment layers, which help us understand where our color correction is being applied.

Color correction is very important and final cut pro gives us a vast range of tools to make color adjustments. We will look at how we can visualize colour with different graphs and charts and how we can make adjustments with the color wheel.

After you correct the color in your footage, it is time to grade. This is where you create that look you are after, and instead of using Luts to use pre-created looks, we can create our own looks. You are the artist, the media is your canvas, get painting.

To better your understanding of the color correction workspace, we will recreate a popular orange teal look, but instead of using LUTs, we will do it ourselves with the tools on hand.

Being a professional editor is about creating professional videos, but it is also about being as efficient as possible. So here we will look at some very important practices that will keep you organised and save you a lot of time.

It's time to really dial in your interface and make it yours. So here we will discover all the different options you can adjust/tweak in Final Cut Pro to truly set up the space to be as efficient as possible for you. We will also discuss a sneaky way in which you can save an immense amount of storage.

You have reached the final lesson, this is a BIG DEAL. Fantastic work getting here, now for just one more recap before we have your Do.

Farewell from us...but of course, this is not really farewell. We are here to assist you as you continue to use Final Cut Pro. So, please reach out and connect - we would love to hear from you. We wish you all the best with your editing journey ahead.