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Final Cut Pro HD, it is over board for a beginner and my application?

post #1 of 11
11/20/04 at 6:35am
Thread Starter 
I am new to the Mac world, in fact my iMac 20" G5 has not even arrived yet. I have used PC's all of my life, blah, blah, blah.

I am making the switch for a number of reasons. One of my top priorities is to create small product video's, commercials is a better description, to place on our website. Just showing the products and listing features beside them. I may even get a female to narrate some of the features. This is basically an ad for our products that will be on our website and possibly be pimp'd at product shows.

I have never messed with video and ordered Final Cut Pro HD, is this overkill for a beginner? Is there a program out there that will better serve my needs easier to get me started?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Eric
www.bargerandsons.com
On Order: 20" iMac, 1 gig Ram, 1.8 Ghz, wireless mouse and keyboard
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post #2 of 11
11/20/04 at 8:25am
Quote:
Originally posted by aplnub
I am new to the Mac world, in fact my iMac 20" G5 has not even arrived yet. I have used PC's all of my life, blah, blah, blah.

I am making the switch for a number of reasons. One of my top priorities is to create small product video's, commercials is a better description, to place on our website. Just showing the products and listing features beside them. I may even get a female to narrate some of the features. This is basically an ad for our products that will be on our website and possibly be pimp'd at product shows.

I have never messed with video and ordered Final Cut Pro HD, is this overkill for a beginner? Is there a program out there that will better serve my needs easier to get me started?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Eric
www.bargerandsons.com
On Order: 20" iMac, 1 gig Ram, 1.8 Ghz, wireless mouse and keyboard

It is not too much for a beginner. Just recognize that you are a beginner. Start modestly. You can't expect to produce Star Wars: Episode III your first few times out. But as you learn the ins and outs of the program, you will get there.
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post #3 of 11
11/20/04 at 8:42am
Thread Starter 
Thank you!! That is the advice I needed. I realize I am a beginner, I just want to be able to throw some text up, make some cheezy music, and have my wife do a little narration with some nice transitions.

All in the name of doing a short 5 minute or less clip to promote our bisiness at confrences, to the people who would purchase our products, and have it look like someone with some sense did and not my uncle on his BETA 1989 video camera who edited video by entering the text in throug his camera. Ugh!! I was about 12 then and I knew it looked like CRAP!

Eric
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post #4 of 11
11/20/04 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally posted by aplnub
I may even get a female to narrate some of the features.
On Order: 20" iMac, 1 gig Ram, 1.8 Ghz, wireless mouse and keyboard

what's this female you speak of?? was it really necessary to define the gender of your talent? anyways...

assuming cost wasnt a factor, final cut pro will be fine. really you could have saved money and gotten final cut express, but whatever.
Tsunami Steve
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post #5 of 11
11/21/04 at 6:02am
If you're planning on doing real commercial work, then FCP HD is not overkill.

If you're a hobbyist who wants to do some more interesting things than what iMovie supports, then I'd save your money and buy Final Cut Express instead.

What you loose in FCE is the HD and film support, along with the sophisticated color correction.

The big thing about FCE is that it teaches you the FCP workflow without the bells and whistles you'll probably never use.

If you decide to take it further, but the FCE to FCP upgrade.

Spend the money you save on as much disk as you can and a good camera - e.g. Panasonic DVC30 or DVC60, Canon GL2, Sony PDX100 etc.

You can learn the craft of editing very, very well using FCE.

I do commercial wedding and event videos, 99% of what I do could be done using FCE. the one FCP feature I use is color correction - but that's because my first job was as a colorist
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post #6 of 11
11/21/04 at 7:55am
Quote:
Originally posted by kiwi-in-dc
If you're planning on doing real commercial work, then FCP HD is not overkill.

the only feature he would gain by upgrading to FCP is color correction, and it doesnt sound like he would be doing that. so i still say FCE.
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post #7 of 11
11/21/04 at 9:56am
Thread Starter 
Thanks to everyone again for the replies and good advice. I will keep my copy of FCP and just learn to use it, well. I have a firewire hard drive and a 160 gig built in to my iMac coming.

I have thought about it some more and just want to put together a 30 sec spot show casing our products. I need to start small.

Is having a camera with image stabilization a neccessity?

Eric
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post #8 of 11
11/21/04 at 10:04am
Thread Starter 
One more thing, a little off topic.

Can anyone reccomend any good books on learning how to use FCP HD?

Eric
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post #9 of 11
11/21/04 at 11:09am
Quote:
Originally posted by aplnub
One more thing, a little off topic.

Can anyone reccomend any good books on learning how to use FCP HD?

Eric

The Final cut pro 4 Visual quickstart guide by Peachpit Press is a good one. (fcp4 and HD are basically the same if there isnt a book out on HD yet.) But I actually learned FCP on my own, just trial and error, and I know more or the same about it than anyone that i've worked with in the professional video world.

If youre shooting commercials of products, you should always be using a tripod unless its like a skateboard ad or something, so image stabilazation is irrelevant.
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post #10 of 11
11/21/04 at 7:30pm
Quote:
Originally posted by ipodandimac
the only feature he would gain by upgrading to FCP is color correction, and it doesnt sound like he would be doing that. so i still say FCE.

What I said was "real commercial work" - that frequently implies 24p or film which FCE doens't handle
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post #11 of 11
11/21/04 at 9:20pm
Quote:
Originally posted by kiwi-in-dc
What I said was "real commercial work" - that frequently implies 24p or film which FCE doens't handle

to be fair, "real commercial work" involves way more than one person, especially when that one person has very limited video experience.
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