David A. Cox: The video that you are about to watch is the third chapter in
my 12 part course on video production for small business owners and nonprofits.
If you would like to start the course from the beginning, just go ahead
and click the card icon that just appeared at the top of your screen.
You are watching the free version of this course that I've made available
on YouTube, which is totally fine.
We will have a few commercial breaks, but Hey, that's how we're able to
keep everything free around here.
The alternative is you can take my paid course on Thinkific up until this chapter.
The experience has been pretty much the same on both platforms, but that being
said in this chapter, the students of mine who are taking the course through
Thinkific, right, are going to gain access to all of the footage that was shot when
we were filming our demo commercial.
And they're also about to get this really amazing final cut pro library template
that can be adapted to work with.
Any business, if you would like to take the course on Thinkific, I've
made it really affordable at only a hundred dollars for all 12 classes.
I will give you a link to that down below in the video description, without
any further ado, let's begin the call.
Hey folks.
And welcome to chapter three in my 12 part course on video
production made, especially for small businesses and nonprofits.
Here's what we're going to cover in this chapter.
We are going to start by reviewing a few basic definitions, just to
make sure that everyone is on the same page and clear on terminology.
Then I'm going to give you a tour of the different windows.
Up final cut pro.
And after that, I'm going to recommend that you change a few different
settings, just to make things a bit more user-friendly at the end, I'm
going to teach you a game-changing trick that will save you a ton of time.
When you go to create new videos in the future, just in case any of you do not
already own a copy of final cut pro, I would like to remind you that apple offers
a free 90 day trial, and I will post a link to that down below in the video.
I've been using final cut pro to edit almost every single video
I've made since I was in college.
And if there is one lesson that I have learned over the years that I would like
to pass on to all of you, it is this, the key to a positive editing experience is
the delicate balance of having your files organized and also having a good workflow
so that you can very quickly process your footage in order to assemble the edit.
Let's start by going over a few definitons.
The final cut library represented by this icon here contains a combination of
events which are basically folders and inside of those folders is where you store
the different elements that make up your project, including your footage, music,
sound, effects, graphics, et cetera.
It's also where you keep the project file, which is where the
information about the edit itself is.
To create a new library event or project, you will find all of those options
here at the very top of the file menu.
When you create a new library from scratch final cut pro will automatically create
an event that is named the current date.
Think of using events like your documents folder.
Sure.
You could dump all of your documents into one folder and provided
you don't have too many of them.
You'll probably have no problem finding things, but when you
start to accumulate hundreds of documents, that's when you really
need some sort of a folder structure.
Or in this case events.
The general rule of thumb is you only want to have one project
per library, but that being said, there are exceptions to the rule.
Here's an example, when it would be acceptable to have multiple
projects inside of one library, let's say your business or organization
has more than one location.
In chapter one, I suggested that you open your commercial by inserting shots
of local identifiable landmarks, because we are targeting a local audience.
Well, if you have multiple locations, you could simply duplicate your project.
Swap out those first few shots of landmarks from your first location,
insert landmarks from the second location.
And just like that, you've got a brand new commercial that you can target
at a new audience because those two versions would share the majority of.
It makes sense to keep both projects in one library.
What you do not want to do is have one library that contains 10 projects and
all of those projects are completely different videos with different content.
If you do, it'll completely overload your computer.
It'll burn down your house, ruin your marriage.
As I mentioned in chapter one, you can choose to keep your
project on your local hard drive.
If you have enough free space or you can utilize an external hard drive
wherever you decide to keep it.
The first thing you want to do is create a new folder because that way, if you do
eventually need to move it to an external hard drive, everything is self-contained.
Now that being said, there are two places where you should never store your project.
Those two places are the desktop and the documents folder.
The reason why is because if you have iCloud drive enabled specifically the part
where it backs up those two locations, it's going to try to upload all of those
files to the cloud, which are massive, and it will bring everything, including your
internet connection to a screeching halt.
If you do want to keep your project on your local computer, the place I recommend
you store, it is the movies folder.
I know a lot of you out there probably won't have a shortcut to
the movies folder on your sidebar.
So let's do that again.
I want you to open up a new finder window, and then I want you to click
where it says finder here at the top left.
Now let's click into preferences and select sidebar.
Now, all I need to do is check this box next to the movies folder and that way,
anytime I open a new finder window, I have a handy shortcut, easily accessible.
Thank you so much for watching everyone.
We will be right back.
When you first open up final cut pro you'll find the browser
window here at the top left.
If you look here at the top top, you'll notice we have three tabs
starting with this first tab.
This icon will show you what libraries you currently have open.
And just a reminder this once again is the icon for a library
and underneath that, you'll see the events that live inside that library.
If we click over to this second icon, you'll see that we can access photos
and videos stored inside of the photos app projects that have been created
inside garage band music stored inside of the music app and a whole bunch
of sound effects that you probably didn't even know existed on your Mac.
This last tab is where you can access your titles and generators.
We are going to spend a lot of time here in a future chapter, but let me just say
this final cut pro by itself does come with some very basic titles and effects.
But if you want your content to stand out, this is where you can
add third-party plugins to really take things to the next level.
There are a lot of companies that make third-party plugins for final cut pro,
but nobody does it like motion VFX.
And on that note, I am happy to report that this course is now
officially being sponsored by our friends at motionvfx.com just to be
clear, I've been a fan of these guys.
Well, before they agreed to sponsor my course, and I only
work with companies that I love.
So a big thank you to them, and we'll go over how to use some of their
plugins in a future chapter for now.
Let's continue where we left off this window.
Here is the preview.
Anytime you're scrubbing through your footage.
This is where you will see that preview over here on the right.
We have the inspector pretty much, anytime you ever want to make changes
to anything, whether it's a video clip effect, title, the volume, it's
all going to happen in this one.
This bottom section is referred to as the timeline.
And that is where the actual edit takes place.
Now, just in case you don't see some of the windows that I just showed you,
let me show you where you can find the controls to hide or reveal those sections.
If you look here at the top, right, we have three buttons.
This button will hide or reveal the inspector.
This next icon will hide a reveal, the timeline, and here, just to the
left of that, we have the toggle to hide or reveal the browser.
It's good to get to know these buttons, because sometimes when you're working on
a project, you want to see a really big preview window and to get that you need
to hide the browser or the inspector.
Hey folks, I hope you're enjoying the class.
We will be right back after this brief commercial break.
Before we start creating content.
There are a few important settings that I want to review with you guys.
So if you're following along at home, I want you to click where it says
final cut pro here at the top left.
Then let's go into practice.
Let's now click over to the playback tab and let's have a
little talk about this option right here, where it says rendering.
When you add something like a title or a special effect to your video, your
computer has to process that information, which uses your computer's resources.
Now, if you have one of the newer Macs, for example, the ones that have the chip
technology built into them, your computer is probably fast enough that it can
start to render when you're not using it.
Point two seconds.
If you have an older computer, you might want to consider changing
that to something like 10 seconds.
That way it performs its best while you're using it.
And it can process all of that background information when you're
often going to the bathroom or having.
Let's now click over to the next tab where it says import here at the top.
We have a really important setting that we need to talk about.
When you import footage into your library, it can either reference those files or
it can create a second copy of them.
The default option is to copy to library storage location.
The good part about that option is it means that everything that you put
into your library is self-contained the problem with it is the size of that file
is about to explode through the roof.
So for that reason, I very strongly recommend that you
change it to leave files in place.
The last few settings that I recommend you change are as follows.
I recommend that you tell final cut to automatically balance the color, fix
audio problems and remove silent channel.
Final cut has this really insane AI feature where it can make
a lot of basic corrections.
And just by checking these boxes, it's going to automatically apply
those to every single clip..
I have a handful of other settings that I'd like to show you.
And again, these are all about making your life a little bit easier.
The next one is for those of you out there who are going to store your files
locally, but that being said, even if you do store your files on an external hard
drive, you may find this tip very useful.
Let's close that window.
And at this point, I want you to click on this downward pointing
arrow at the top left of your screen.
This is one of the ways that you can import footage by the way another
option is you can use command and the letter I, as an igloo.
And what I'd like you to do at this point is navigate to your
movies folder to get there.
I'll just click on my home folder and here it is.
You're going to need to come back to this location a lot.
Trust me.
So what we're going to do is create a very simple shortcut,
just secondary click, also known as right click on the movies folder.
And one of the options that you will see here is favorite.
So that way in the future, when you need to import footage, you
can quickly access that location.
Don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back.
Most people who teach final cut pro will tell you that anytime you're
creating a new video, you always start by creating a new library.
What I'm going to teach you is an alternative method that will save
you a ton of time down the road, instead of creating a new life.
Every time you create a new video.
What you can do is create a library that is preloaded with all of the
different assets that are going to consistently appear in every single video.
Then when you need to create a new video, you just duplicate that library
and it's got everything good to go, including your logo, shots of the
interior and exterior of your business.
Background music, headshots pre-rendered graphics and stuff.
Think of it, students at this point, we're going to talk about the file
that you can now download, which is called business library template.
What I want you to do is to start by duplicating that file so that no matter
what, you can always go back to the original, the way to do that is to just
click on it so that it's highlighted and then press command D on your keyboard.
Now you want to rename the duplicated file, the name of your business,
followed by the words library.
When you're done open up the library that has your business name on it, and
let's start to customize it for starters.
If there are any events that do not line up with the type of content that
you're going to be creating, you can remove them by secondary clicking on
them and then select move event to trash.
Alternatively, if you need to add any additional events, you can do that
once again, by going to file new event.
At this point, let's start to load our assets into the different.
Let's start with the logo.
I'll click on the logo event and now I'll click the import button at
the top left and I'm going to point it to the place in my computer,
where I have all my different loads.
You remember how a moment ago, I told you to change the file storage
option to leave files in place?
Well, because we are creating a template for this particular
example, we do actually need to change that back to copy to library.
Now, all you need to do is repeat that process with any other files
that are going to consistently appear in every single video.
When you're done, you want to quit out of final cut pro, go back to the
library template that you just create.
And duplicate it again just to keep it safe.
So now anytime you want to create a new project, all you have to do is duplicate
that library and then you're good to go.
In just a moment.
I'm going to give my Thinkific students, their homework assignment.
But before we get to that, I want to give you a little preview of what we're going
to cover in chapter four and chapter four, we're going to begin to assemble our edit.
I have a bunch of shortcut keys that I'm going to teach you.
And those of you who are participating on Thinkific will get a PDF
guide that you can print out.
Okay, thank you for students.
Here is your homework assignment.
You should have downloaded the folder of footage from Tequesta chocolate and
inside of that folder, you will find the library file sub folders containing
all of the assets to our project.
And what I want you to do is open up the requested chocolate library file, and
I'll walk you through the next steps.
We're going to begin the process of importing the footage from our
folders, into the corresponding events.
It's super easy.
I'm going to do the first one with you and your homework is to.
Let's start with the logo.
I'm going to click on the logo events so that it's highlighted.
And then I'm going to click on the import arrow here at the top.
Next I'll point this to the contents of the corresponding logos folder, and just
make sure that you switch this setting back to leave files in place, and then
click import selected by having the entire folder highlighted it'll import
everything that lives inside of that.
When we go back to this browser window, you'll see that now all of those
files are visible here in the browser window, just for the heck of it.
Let's do one more together this time, I'm going to import the product footage.
I'm going to start by selecting the event.
Then I'll go to import, highlight the folder.
And you'll notice that this time I do not need to switch the copy function.
Why?
Because it always resumed from the last settings that we're using.
So now when I click import selected, once again, those files are
visible right here in the browser.
Okay.
That does it for this class again, in the next chapter, we are going
to begin to assemble our edit.
Thank you so much for watching everyone class dismissed.