Final Cut Express 4

The first thing you should know when considering a book purchase is the author's intended audience. This book is intended for the beginner who has no experience with a digital editing system and has just purchased Final Cut Express. Thus, if you have even moderate experience with something like Adobe Premiere, say enough to complete a basic project with wipes, audio and graphics, then this book will move a little slow for you. Anyone experienced with high-end editing software doesn't need to know how to make a bin, mark edit points, scrub a clip or do overwrite or insert edits. However, if any of the previous terms are new to you, you need this book. It will baby step you through each procedure and, when you are finished with the book, you will be able to do basic projects competently and you'll be prepared for advanced material. Yes, there is more to learn than this book covers, but this material is essential for mastering more advanced work, and no instruction book I've ever seen is as easy to follow and downright readable as this one.Bare in mind, I hate technical manuals with a passion. My favorite way to learn is to have someone sit and teach me visually and hands on. So I can't say I really enjoyed this book, but it was more enjoyable than having a root canal, and from me, that's high praise! Each of the 16 chapters is timed to take an hour to 90 minutes to complete, although I often took a half hour longer than the chapter indicated. Still, most people should finish this in 24 to 32 hours. There are six bonus chapters on the DVD that comes with the book, but I haven't read those yet, and I'm not sure why they are on the DVD instead of being printed in the book (perhaps to keep printing costs down, since the subjects covered in the bonus chapters don't seem like they will require any additional illustrations other than what is in the book.) The DVD has video and audio material corresponding to the lessons in the book. You don't learn to capture your own footage until chapter 12. I think this the best way to go. This way, the author knows what material you have and can guide you through the basic functions while you work on real video and audio clips, as opposed to just describing what a tool or functions does in general. Thus, the author can walk you through a basic project, which they can't do if you are using your own material. By the time you are taught to capture your own footage, you know the basic functions. If you absolutely need to work on only your own material, you can always read chapter 12 first. For the rank beginner, this book comes with my highest recommendation, and I feel comfortable recommending any other books in the series by this particular author. As a final note, I do need to mention, if you are a budding film maker or videographer, that a book like this only tells you how to use the tools on an editing program. This is not the same as knowing how to make good, creative decisions on choice of shot, shot duration, juxtaposition or any of the other artistic considerations of editing a movie, music video. Learning to use the tools is essential, but if you want to be a pro someday, it's not nearly enough. Just like learning the mechanics of writing (spelling, grammar, syntax) is essential, but not enough to make you a competent novelist, learning the mechanics of editing won't make you Walter Murch. Sorry, but I've gotten tired of low-budget "filmmakers" who don't progress from the mechanics of editing to the art.

One of the trials of using many of Apple products these days is that they make it difficult to use common file formats and applications. Let's say you use Audacity, for instance, a wonderful and free, quite sophisticated audio editing system and produce mp3 files, you'll have a hard time getting the files into Final Cut Express (FCE). But, of course, many of us live in a musical world of mp3's. Of let's say you are into the world of Apple and you've composed some music with Garrageband and now want to use the music in your FCE project. These are not uncommon issues. The volume will be of little if any help. In fact neither mp3 nor Garrageband is even listed in the index. Heavens help us, not even wav file appears there. The book is organized around the assumption that the reader has all that he needs already in the ideal format--true if all one is going to do is construct a video with the materials on the accompanying CD.Apple's world unfortunately can be too proprietary, even provincial, and this book is not going to steer your around the various and often considerable hurdles the novice, or even relatively experienced movie maker, encounters with FCE.At this point in time, when we've had a decade or two, at least, to explore the powers of multimedia, one might expect the volume-- equipped as it is with a CD attached to its spine--to, say, use video tutorials as the center piece of instruction--after all the book is about producing video. But no, it's just a textbook with some files on a CD to practice with. Boring and unimaginative--worse, a waste of the consumer's time and money.To learn FCE, I'd say stick with the video tutorials that Apple has on its site, supplemented by the numerous movies users have placed on youtube to help one another with FCE--a program even less transparent than iMovie. Unfortunately one has to hunt down supplements to the tutorials, such as documentation on Garageband--some kind souls have produced (google "How to Convert a GarageBand File to an .mp3"). I'm tempted to give the book only one star, given that I'd like to have my money back, but at least it does represent effort. A pity David Pogue hasn't produced a missing manual on FCE, since his books tend to be more comprehensive and a program like FCE really needs lots of explanations and examples, particularly more of the real world of file formats and diverse equipment.

When I upgraded from my old PowerBook to a new MacBook I was dismayed to find that a new version of iMovie came with Leopard. After reading disparaging reviews of iMovie '08, I decided to upgrade to Final Cut Express even though my video editing needs are rather modest. After installing the software and seeing that the PDF user manual was over 1100 pages, I knew I wouldn't have the patience to go through it all and I wanted to order something simpler. With FCE4 being quite new, the only choice immediately available was Diana Weynand's book and I ordered it. Now that I've gone through the entire book, I can enthusiastically recommend it. At first I was dismissive of the DVD that came with it, thinking that it would just contain video demonstrations of various editing operations. It turns out, however, that the DVD contains the material for methodical exercises that take you through various lessons so that the book is really an instruction course, not just a guide. Going through the lessons with the book and DVD is actually fun even though I may never use some of the advanced functions FCE4 offers. I believe that for relative beginners like me this book is indispensable. I confess that I will now go through it again to clear up some of the material I didn't quite understand or have forgotten. Also, there are some questions Weynand's book left unanswered for me, but having the background I gained by studying the whole book made it easier for me to turn to the actual user's manual that came with the software. I'm very excited about FCE4, and I owe a lot to this book.

Having had Final Cut Express on my computer for over a year, and struggling to understand how to use it, I decided to invest in this training manual. The initial copy I bought had a faulty DVD, and I was extremely impressed with the speedy replacement from Amazon. I am now about 7 lessons in on the training, and I find it really helpful. I am not keen on the film clips used, but the point is they de-mystify this programme for someone like me who needs to be instructed as to how to do it!A really good worthwhile buy for me.

We had just bought final cut express for our mac, and needed a how to guide to be able to get started. it is great for looking up information. but is quite technical, so is no good for a "read cover to cover" moment to get the gist of how the software works.

Just what i wantedeasy to follow and understandthe tutorials on DVD are veryhelpfullwould recomend to anyoneinterested in video editing.

I recommend this book to every one who is searching for easy and detaild way to learn about the Final Cat E.It was my first encounter with FCE and thanks to this book I have already made my first movie using FCE.This book is perfect!!!

An indispensable tool for those self-taught who want to deepen their knowledges in Final Cut Express.