Final Cut Express 4 -- can't find basic commands used in iMovie

[Sparkly]

Still trying to work with FCE... I'm not very experienced with iMovie either, but I remember being able to do things like crop and zoom to trim off non-focal areas and enlarge center areas; I could use the wireframe (as I recall) to determine where the center of the clip should be; and I could make up for shaky cameras by telling it to focus on some particular object.

So I'm working with some terrible home-done video and trying to make it look better, but can't find these simple tasks in FCE! I've looked a tutorials all over the place and still can't find it. Am I indexing the wrong terminology? Is there no way to do these basic things in FCE? Do some tasks have to be done in iMovie and then exported?

Grrrr....

[MagickMuffin]

1. Not sure if this will help, but who knows maybe something will click

I have FCP 5 and still haven't figured out everything there is to know. If you're looking for the wireframe feature it is located in the viewer and canvas browser at the top of the window, it is the middle button.

Might I suggest getting a Training Series book that has extensive tutorials. I suggest the first link, I have the FCP 4 book by her (Diane Weynand) and it is a very comprehensive book. It's $30 but would be beneficial to have especially since FC is a intensive program.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321534670/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B002BFTQIE&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1GKEG4BHJTAFTHHH1CMQ

http://www.amazon.com/Final-Cut-Express-Training-Tutorials/dp/B002BFTQIE



Tutorials:

http://www.google.com/search?q=final+cut+express+tutorial&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

A review:

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Edit+Review+%26%238212%3B+Apple+Final+Cut+Express+1.0.1&expire=&urlID=17819852&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcontentproducer.com%2Fmag%2Fvideo_apple_final_cut_3%2Findex.html&partnerID=99721


Hope this helps :hi:

[Sparkly]

2. Thanks, MM!

I actually was looking at that one! I appreciate your recommendation.

I finally found the answer to my dilemma yesterday, a Big Huge "DUH" -- I was thinking the wireframe was the screen frame, essentially. I was trying to center a cropped video clip inside the wireframe. None of the directions in the manual were making sense to me. The problem was that my video was so tiny, I didn't see the big black box that is actually the screen frame (not sure if that's the right word). One I zoomed back enough to see that there are THREE elements -- wireframe, black area of the screen, and video -- it made sense!

(They need really skilled teachers to write these tutorials!)

I will check out the other things you've linked.

Did you start with Final Cut Pro 5??

[MagickMuffin]

3. I started out with FC Express, but not for long

I upgraded to FCP 4, then we found a FCP 5 on from Craigslist and bought it.

The screen to the left is Viewer window; the right is the canvas window. They are usually black screens until you add your objects, i.e. video or photoshop files.

Here's a tip for you: the button I mentioned upthread there is a feature that will help if you intend to add text. It is called Screen Safe Mode, which will have a double blue (box) lines. We inside blue box is the Safe Mode, which will insure your text won't be cut off of the frame.

I highly recommend Diane's book. I have the one for FCP4 and it is really good. They have DVD clips that you use to get yourself familiar with the program. Of course not having seen the Express version I can only assume it will be as good, but I would certainly think it is of the same caliber as the other books.

I was very intimidated until I got my book. It helped a lot!

Good Luck with your project :hi: Happy editing.