If you’re new to Final Cut Pro,
you’ve come to the right place.
Today, we’re going to do a full beginners tutorial,
and you’ll learn everything from importing media,
to exporting your finished project.
Let’s not waste any more time, and jump right in.
When you first open up Final Cut Pro,
you’re greeted with a blank workspace,
divided into a number of different sections.
To better explain what goes where,
I’m going to skip ahead a bit,
and take you to a Final Cut Pro window with a finished project.
Don’t worry, after I explain Final Cut Pro’s user interface,
we’ll come back to this empty window,
and fill it up ourselves.
Up in the top left corner, you have your media browser.
This is where all your video and audio clips live,
ready to be added to your project.
To make it easier to find the clips you need,
your media can be divided into events.
These are just containers used or organize your media,
and you can set this up however works for you.
You also have your media sidebar here
with all your music, still images, and sound effects
you have on your computer.
I hardly ever use this,
but if you need a still image from the Photos app,
or a song from your iTunes library you want to use in your project,
this is where you’ll find it.
You can also find all the titles and generators Final Cut Pro comes with
in the Titles and Generators sidebar,
all organized into different categories,
to make it easy to find exactly what your need.
On the right hand side of the media browser,
you have your viewer window.
This is where you can preview and playback your clips,
either from your media browser, or your timeline.
Certain effects also come with on screen controls you can adjust,
and these will also be displayed in your viewer window.
In the top left hand corner,
you have your inspector window.
Here, you have the Video inspector,
where you can adjust any video properties of your clips,
a color inspector for color grading and color correction,
an audio inspector for adjusting the audio properties of your clips,
and an info inspector,
where you can see a summary of your clips information.
This includes the video resolution of your clips,
frame rate, video codecs and much more.
At the bottom of Final Cut Pro interface, you have your timeline.
Most of your time spent in Final Cut Pro will be down here,
editing your project.
The editing process in Final Cut Pro consists of 6 steps.
Let’s go back to our blank window,
and start with step one, Importing your media into Final Cut Pro.
Before you can do anything with your project,
you first need to transfer your media from your device,
like an iPhone, or your camera’s memory card
into Final Cut Pro.
There’s a few different ways you can do this.
The easiest way to get your media into Final Cut Pro,
is to simply drag and drop it into your media browser.
Simply open a finder window,
navigate to the folder that contains your media,
select all the clips you want to use,
and drag and drop them into your media browser.
Another way to get your media into Final Cut Pro,
is by clicking the import button in the top left corner.
In the pop up window, navigate to the device your media is on,
select your clips
and click the import button to bring them into Final Cut Pro.
After importing your all your media,
our next step is to organize everything.
Now, a lot of people skip this step,
but taking a few minutes to review and organize all your media
can save you a ton of time.
What I like to do, is organize my media into different events,
or containers, for different types of media.
Right click anywhere in the sidebar, and make a new event.
We’ll name this one Video.
Click on your library name to see all your media again,
command click all your video clips,
and drag them over to your new Event.
Repeat these steps with your music, your sound effect,
still images, and any other media type you have.
Another super useful tool in organizing your media
is the ability to favourite and reject clips.
This is where you can go through and review your clips in the media browser,
pick your favourites,
and reject any clips you know you don’t need.
Skim over any clip in your media browser to preview it,
and, if you like the clip,
and want to make sure it get’s used in your project,
select it,
and use the keyboard shortcut F to mark this clip as your favourite.
The clips you mark as favourites
will be highlighted with a green line at the top of the clips thumbnail.
You can also favourite specific parts inside a clip.
Skim your clip, and at the start of the segment you want to mark as favourite,
press I on your keyboard to set the In point.
Move to the end of your segment,
and press O to set the out point.
The part of your clip you selected will be highlighted with a yellow frame.
Press F to mark this part of your clip as a favourite.
You can also select and mark entire clips
or parts of clips you know you’re not going to use
by marking them as Rejected.
To reject a clip, select it in your media browser,
and press the Delete key on your keyboard to mark this clip as rejected.
This rejected clip will be highlighted with a red line at the top of the clip’s thumbnail.
You can reject entire clips, or like before,
certain parts, by using the I & O Keys to set the In and Out Points,
and rejecting the selected range with Delete.
Go through all your clips, review them,
and favourite or reject entire clips, or just specific parts.
If you’re unsure about a clip, just leave it alone.
When done, in the top right corner of your media browser,
you get a few view option.
If you choose Hide Rejected,
Final Cut Pro hides all the clips you marked as rejected.
This will be the view you use most of the time.
You’ll still see all your clips you might need for your project,
and the clips you favourited
will be highlighted with a green line at the top.
If you select the Favourites view,
Final Cut Pro filters all your media,
and just shows the clips or parts of clips you marked as favourite.
If you have a lot of clips your working with,
this can be super useful.
To show all your clips again, select the all clips view.
WIth your media organized,
it time to start editing your movie.
In Final Cut Pro, this is called a project.
To make a new project,
click the New Project button in your timeline,
or if you don’t see it, use the keyboard shortcut Command N.
In the pop up window, name your project,
and select the event you want to store it in.
Next, choose a resolution for your project,
so if you’re making a video to upload to YouTube
set this to either 4K or HD.
If you’re making a video to share on a mobile platform,
you can set this to either Vertical or a square aspect ratio.
Let’s set ours to 4K.
For frame rate, if possible, select the frame rate
as your clips were shot in.
In North America this will be 24 or 30 frames per second.
Click OK to make your project.
The next step is to select clips from your media browser,
and add them to your project.
The simplest way to do this is by dragging your clips
straight down into the timeline.
Select one or more clips in your media browser,
and drag them down into your timeline to add them to your project.
Your clips will be Magnetically connected to each other,
with no gaps between them.
To preview your clips,
simply use your cursor to skim over your clips,
or press Spacebar to play your project in the viewer window.
To rearrange the order of your clips,
just select the clip you want to move,
and drag it over to where you want it.
With the magnetic timeline
Final Cut Pro moves other clips out of the way
to make room for the clip you’re moving.
You can also layer clips in Final Cut Pro
by adding clips below or above your timeline.
If you layer video clips,
only the clip that’s on top is visible,
while audio from both clips can be heard.
This is useful if you want to have the audio from your main clip playing,
such as a person talking, while adding B-Roll on top
to show the viewer what the person is talking about.
If you layer Audio clips,
all the layers can be heard at the same time.
Audio Only tracks,
like background music or sound effect are normally connected below your timeline.
So, if you grab an audio track you want to use for background music,
and add it below your timeline,
when you play back your project,
both the music track
and the audio from your video clip will be heard.
After you arrange all your clips in the timeline,
it’s time to fine tune the cut points.
The default edit in Final Cut Pro is called a ripple edit.
This adjusts a clip’s start or end point
without leaving a gap in the timeline.
Move your mouse cursor over the start or end of your clip,
and your cursor changes from a pointer to a trim icon.
To trim your clip,
click and drag the start or end point
to shorten or lengthen the clip.
The clips attached to this edit point are rippled accordingly.
If you need to make a cut in your clip,
open the tool dropdown menu and select the blade tool.
Move your skimmer to the frame where you want to make the cut,
and click.
You clip will be split into two individual clips.
A much easier and quicker way to cut a clip,
is by using the keyboard shortcut Command B.
Just move your skimmer over a frame
where you want to make a cut,
and press Command B on your keyboard to split your clip into two.
You can now ripple trim, or if necessary,
delete each individual clip.
To add titles, or text to your project,
go back to the media browser,
and select the Titles and Generators sidebar.
Select the title preset you want to add to your project,
drag it down into your timeline,
and add it above your video clip.
Most title presets that come with Final Cut Pro
come with a transparent background,
so you’ll still be able to see the video clip under the text.
To replace the text,
double click the the title in the viewer window to select the text,
and type out your own title.
Over in the inspector window,
you can change the font, size, color,
and many other parameters
to make this title look exactly the way you want.
To adjust the duration of your text,
just ripple try the start or end points of your title clip in your timeline.
By default, the cuts between your clips in your timeline
are what’s called hard cuts.
You one clip ends,
and the following clip starts playing immediately after it.
To soften this cut, or even stylize it a bit,
Final Cut Pro comes with quite a few transitions.
To add a transition between your clips,
select either the end point of your current clip
or the start point of your following clip,
and open the transitions browser by clicking this button here.
Select the transition you want to use,
and move the skimmer over it to preview the transition.
Once you find the one you want to use,
select it,
and double click it to add the selected transition between your clips.
Now instead of a hard cut,
you have this nice, soft transition between your clips.
Now that your project is complete, it’s time to share your masterpiece.
To export your project as a movie file,
go up to the top right corner of the Final Cut Pro window,
and hit the Share button.
You’ll get a popup with a number of different share presets.
Yours might be a bit different than mine,
but you should see an export file preset.
Select it,
and in the next window, select the settings tab.
If you want to upload your video online,
you’ll want a manageable file size,
so open the Video Codec dropdown menu,
and select H.264.
This will export your clip as an MP4 file,
that’s widely compatible,
retains great quality,
and doesn’t take up too much drive space.
Hit Next, and select a destination for your movie.
Click save to export your Final Cut Pro project as an MP4 movie file
you can share with your friends,
or upload to an online platform of your choice.
This was just a general overview
of how to make a movie in Final Cut Pro.
There’s a ton more you can do with it.
Honestly, you can, and some people have,
edit a full feature film, just in Final Cut Pro.
If you’re just starting out,
my best advice is to start a simple edit,
and as you come up with ideas of how you can make it better,
try and figure out how to do it in Final Cut Pro.
There’s a ton of how to videos on YouTube
that can help if you’re ever stuck.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you back here next week.