Discovering Films & Photography by Jon Bryant

Like many others I have been eagerly hoping, waiting and anticipating a major upgrade of Final Cut Pro for about 12 months now.

Am I a Pro Editor? Well, how do you define “Pro”? If you were to argue that editing is potentially an income source, then I suppose yes, I’d qualify. Other’s would argue I’m not “Pro” because I don’t edit for a living or my main source of income. Some would say I am definitely not “Pro” because I do not own Final Cut Studio. Quite frankly in my opinion it’s not important.

I bought my first Mac back in 2005/2006: one of the first Intel core duo 17 inch Mac Book Pro’s. At the time it was top of the range and cost me a packet. I had been using windows based editing systems, of the consumer variety (Pinacle, Roxio and so on) for about 4 years with SD footage. My projects were getting larger and my windows based PC was struggling to cope. I’d had enough and decided to make the leap to a Mac after seeing friends edits with tremendous results.

As the Mac Book Pro came with iLife 06, I didn’t have to look much further than iMovie 06. It was timeline based, light and ideal for a Mac beginner like myself to start banging out home movies. About 12 months later friends and family were impressed, and I started getting requests; weddings, birthday parties and so on. At that time I had no idea of the journey I was about to encounter.

I quickly outgrew iMovie 06. Apple launched iLife 08. It was at this point iMovie got a complete overhaul; iMovie 08. An 08 version you would think would be better than the 06 version? In my opinion (and I was not alone) it was a step backwards. I didn’t upgrade. I wasn’t yet ready to move to Final Cut Pro, I couldn’t justify a $999 outlay. However, Apple had the answer, they had the middle ground in Final Cut Express.

I bought Final Cut Express 3.5 in 2007/2008. I loved it. I still love it. It punches well above it’s weight. Over time I had to upgrade to version 4.0, especially as I made the migration from SD to HD clips and needed log and transfer capability. read more...