Finding your way around Apple’s Final Cut Pro movie editing software can be a bit bewildering, even with its well-written and comprehensive instruction manual. I hope the following tutorial will get you up and running within minutes. It involves little more than extracting clips from source video footage and assembling them into a new movie. As unambitious as this may sound, it illustrates the main architecture of the program and presents an easily understood workflow. I think you will be surprised at how easy it is to do some serious work with this extraordinary software and find yourself itching to explore its many capabilities.

Important note: This tutorial applies to Final Cut Pro X 10.0.9. Things are somewhat different in Final Cut Pro X 10.1 in which, for example, there is no longer a Project Library.

I offer another tutorial on how to incorporate a movie from Final Cut Pro in a Web page elsewhere on this Web site.

It is important to understand the following entities used in Final Cut Pro:–

• Event

  An Event is a set of one or more video source files available for editing. You import video source files from various sources (eg, camera, mobile phone, internal or external hard drive, other software) into Events which reside in an Event Library. Despite the temporal terminology, a Final Cut Pro Event needn’t necessarily relate to a single discrete event in time, as we might understand the term in general parlance. The source files in a single Event could have come from multiple sources with differing times of origination. Items can be copied or moved from one Event to another. In this tutorial we will work with a single Event consisting of a single source file.

• Project

  A Project is a single video destination file in which you do the actual editing. (I use the term “destination” here to draw a familiar distinction between source and destination files. I do not mean to imply that any particular Project necessarily represents your final destination file.) You select video source files from amongst the Events in the Event Library for use in Projects which reside in a Project Library. The video footage in a given Project is displayed as a filmstrip in the Timeline where you can create and trim clips and assemble them into your final movie. Clips from one Project can be incorporated into as many other Projects as desired. In this tutorial we will extract multiple clips from our chosen Event (original source file) and assign each to its own Project; we will then assemble a selection of these clips into a final destination Project.

Strictly speaking, both Events and Projects are folders, not files, so I’ve taken some pedagogical licence in the above characterizations.

In a sense, Projects are downstream from Events which are themselves downstream from your original source files (which reside outside Final Cut Pro). Upstream entities are immune from changes in downstream ones. So you can edit away to your heart’s content!

Important reminder: This tutorial applies to Final Cut Pro X 10.0.9. Things are somewhat different in Final Cut Pro X 10.1 in which, for example, there is no longer a Project Library.

In contrast to most other applications in which the main menu bar runs across the top of a window, the main menu bar in Final Cut Pro runs across the middle of the window, dividing the window into upper and lower panes. (The relative sizes of these two panes can be adjusted by clicking and dragging the upper margin of the main menu bar up or down.) The upper pane is itself divided into left and right panes by a vertical line. (The relative sizes of these two panes can be adjusted by clicking and dragging the vertical line left or right.) Each of the three panes is equipped with its own menu bar running across the bottom of the pane.

Permanently visible within these three panes are the following components of the program:–

• Event Browser

  Sitting in the left upper pane, this component displays in static form (as filmstrips or as a list) the Event with which you are currently working.

• Viewer Display

  Sitting in the right upper pane, this is a miniature viewing screen in which your movie runs.

• Timeline

  Occupying the lower pane, this component displays a filmstrip of the Project with which you are currently working. This is where you create clips and assemble your movie.

The visibility of various panels can be toggled. When visible, a panel intrudes into one of the above panes. We identify a selection of these panels:–

• Event Library

  Intruding into the left upper pane (pushing aside the Event Browser to its right), this is a list of all the Events imported into Final Cut Pro.

  To show or hide the Event Library, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Show [or Hide] Event Library
  • Shift-Command-1 [that’s a one]
  • Click on the leftmost button in the menu bar at the bottom of the left upper pane (ie, beneath the Event Browser).

  Note that the latter two actions toggle visibility of the Event Library.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Event Library visible.

• Project Library

  Intruding into the lower pane (pushing aside the Timeline to its right), this is a list of all the Projects you have created in Final Cut Pro.

  To show or hide the Project Library, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Show [or Hide] Project Library
  • Command-0 [that’s a zero]
  • Click on the movie reel button at the bottom left corner of the Final Cut Pro window.

  Note that the latter two actions toggle visibility of the Project Library.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Project Library visible.

  Observe that the movie reel button is actually the leftmost button in the menu bar at the bottom of the lower pane (ie, beneath the Timeline). This emphasizes the intimate relationship between Projects and the Timeline.

• Titles Browser

  Intruding into the lower pane (pushing aside the Timeline to its left), this is a set of titling schemes (ways of overlaying text) available in Final Cut Pro.

  To show or hide the Titles Browser, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Media Browser > Titles
  • Click on the “T” icon on the right-hand side of the main menu bar in the middle of the window.

  Note that each of these actions toggles visibility of the Titles Browser.

  You can also hide the Titles Browser by clicking on the little cross in the upper left corner of the Titles Browser panel.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Titles Browser visible.

• Transitions Browser

  Intruding into the lower pane (pushing aside the Timeline to its left), this is a set of transitioning schemes (ways of passing from one clip to the next) available in Final Cut Pro.

  To show or hide the Transitions Browser, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Media Browser > Transitions
  • Click on the icon between the musical note icon and the “T” icon on the right-hand side of the main menu bar in the middle of the window.

  Note that each of these actions toggles visibility of the Transitions Browser.

  You can also hide the Transitions Browser by clicking on the little cross in the upper left corner of the Transitions Browser panel.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Transitions Browser visible.

• Generators Browser

  Intruding into the lower pane (pushing aside the Timeline to its left), this is a set of useful stand-alone video clips available in Final Cut Pro.

  To show or hide the Generators Browser, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Media Browser > Generators
  • Click on the icon just to the right of the “T” icon on the right-hand side of the main menu bar in the middle of the window.

  Note that each of these actions toggles visibility of the Transitions Browser.

  You can also hide the Generators Browser by clicking on the little cross in the upper left corner of the Generators Browser panel.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Generators Browser visible.

• Inspector

  Intruding into the upper pane (pushing aside the Viewer Display to its left), this is a set of configuration information and adjustment tools.

  To show or hide the Inspector, do one of the following:–

  • Window > Show [or Hide] Inspector
  • Command-4
  • Click on the sliders icon (second from the right) on the right-hand side of the main menu bar in the middle of the window.

  Note that the latter two actions toggle visibility of the Inspector.

  Most of the time you don’t need to have the Inspector visible.

To create a new Event, do one of the following:–

• File > New Event…
• Option-N

The Event Library does not need to be visible to do this.

To create a new Project, do one of the following:–

• File > New Project…
• Command-N
• Click on the “+” button just to the right of the movie reel button at the bottom left corner of the Final Cut Pro window.

The Project Library does not need to be visible to employ the first two of these methods, but it does need to be visible to employ the third (because otherwise the “+” button itself is invisible).

I think it’s helpful to allocate your original source movie to a Project of its own:–

1. Show the Project Library.
2. Create a new Project.
3. Name this project something that reflects the name of the whole original source movie.
4. Hide the Project Library.
5. Click on the appropriate Event (viz, your source movie) in the Event Library.
6. View > Event Browser > as Filmstrips
7. Drag the filmstrip from the Event Browser down into the Timeline.

Your new Project now contains the original source movie.

For the moment, disable skimming: View > Skimming (ensuring it’s unticked).

Play the movie, using the familiar controls in the Viewer Display menu bar. Note that the spacebar also toggles between Play and Pause.

The playhead is an orange vertical line spanning the Timeline; at its top end it has a pentagonal shape (resembling a tab marker in a word processor’s ruler). Playback of the movie begins at the position of the playhead. To alter the position of the playhead, do one of the following:–

• Drag the playhead tab left or right.
• Click above or below the filmstrip in the Timeline at the desired location: the playhead will snap to the cursor position. (Clicking the selection cursor within the filmstrip selects the clip containing the cursor, without altering the position of the playhead.)

Now enable skimming: View > Skimming (ensuring it’s now ticked).

The playhead changes color from orange to grey, and (when the cursor is inside the Timeline) an additional vertical line (orange and lacking a tab) spans the Timeline. This is the skimmer and it moves within the Timeline with the selection cursor, without the need to click anywhere first. The skimmer allows you to skim through your movie without altering the position of the playhead.

Some things to note:–

• The “S” key toggles skimming on and off.
• In actual fact, the skimmer is always orange and the playhead is always grey. If skimming is not enabled, the skimmer and the playhead coincide, with the skimmer overlying the playhead (which is why the playhead appears orange in this situation). Enabling skimming separates the skimmer from the playhead.
• What you see in the Viewer Display correlates with the position of the skimmer, rather than with the position of the playhead. (Presumably this is why the skimmer is colorful, while the playhead is not — reflecting the priority of the former.)
• Playback disables skimming. Skimmer and playhead (re)unite into a single colorful line whose progress along the filmstrip is visible in the Viewer Display.
• Pause restores skimming to its previous status (enabled or disabled, depending on your choice in the View menu).
• Clicking in the Timeline outside the filmstrip causes the playhead to snap to the cursor position regardless of whether or not skimming is enabled. If skimming is enabled, it just means that the playhead snaps to the position of the skimmer but without the two being reunited.

Hitting the “M” key sets a marker in the Timeline for future reference.

The marker is set at the position of the skimmer, so playback need not be in progress in order for you to set a marker.

If playback is in progress, you don’t need to pause the playback to set a marker: just hover your finger over the “M” key during playback and depress the key briefly to insert a marker on the fly. (Recall that during playback the skimmer and the playhead coincide.)

To move or delete a marker:–

1. Control-click on the marker to reveal a contextual menu.
2. Choose “Cut” from the contextual menu. You would stop here if you simply wished to delete the marker.
3. Position the skimmer where you want to reposition the marker.
4. Command-V to Paste the marker at the new position.

To position the skimmer precisely on a previously set marker:–

• if the skimmer is located before the marker, do one of the following:–
  • Mark > Next > Marker
  • Control-’ [that’s an apostrophe]
• if the skimmer is located after the marker, do one of the following:–
  • Mark > Previous > Marker
  • Control-; [that’s a semi-colon]

Depending on how many markers you have set and the current position of the skimmer in relation to the particular marker in question, you may want to drag the skimmer closer to the marker before using one of the above techniques to position it precisely on the marker. Alternatively, it may be more convenient to repeat the above procedure as often as necessary to gain the desired result.

Observe that the relative positions of the semi-colon and apostrophe keys act as a mnemonic for the direction in which the skimmer will move towards the nearest marker.

It is convenient to extend the range of the Control-’ and Control-; keyboard shortcuts by adding markers at the very beginning and the very end of the filmstrip in the Timeline. To navigate directly to these positions, type fn-left-arrow [that’s the function key followed by the left arrow key] or fn-right-arrow, as appropriate.

1. Play the whole movie through, setting markers just above the filmstrip in the Timeline at (roughly) the beginning and end of each segment you wish to have as a clip.
2. Go back to each marker and move it as necessary so that each clip contains a bit more at its boundaries (beginning and end) than you think you will actually use.
3. We now use the blade cursor to cut the filmstrip at each marker:–
   1. Position the skimmer precisely on a marker.
   2. Command-B
   3. Do this at each marker as you scroll along the Timeline.

A clip consists of any of the following:–

• the film fragment between two consecutive cuts
• the film fragment between the beginning of the filmstrip in the Timeline and the first cut
• the film fragment between the last cut and the end of the filmstrip in the Timeline
• (generalizing) in the absence of any cuts, the entire filmstrip in the Timeline.

1. Ensure the Timeline shows your whole original source movie. If it doesn’t:–
   1. Show the Project Library.
   2. Select your original Project (ie, the one containing your complete source movie).
   3. Hide the Project Library.
2. Control-click on a clip in the Timeline to reveal a contextual menu. Choose “Rename Clip” from the contextual menu and name the clip as you wish. You may wish to prefix the clip’s name with something that will reflect the order of clips in the original source movie; eg, “My Movie Clip 3 — Packing”, “My Movie Clip 4 — Departure”.
3. With all of the clip’s name selected, Copy [Command-C] the name.
4. Click within the clip itself to select it, then Clip > Reveal in Event Browser [Shift-F]. The clip portion of the filmstrip will be delineated and selected up in the Event Browser.
5. Show the Project Library.
6. Create a new Project.
7. When prompted to name this project, Paste [Command-V] the name of the clip. Don’t alter anything else in the dialog box unless you really want to.
8. When you click the “OK” button, the Project Library disappears and you are left with a blank Timeline.
9. Click within the delineated clip in the filmstrip up in the Event Browser to select it.
10. Drag the selected clip from the filmstrip in the Event Browser down to the Timeline. Don’t alter anything in the dialog box that opens unless you really want to: just click the “OK” button. Your new Project now contains the clip.

Repeat this entire process until all your clips are in separate Projects in the Project Library.

All your clips now reside in separate Projects. To reduce the resulting clutter in the Project Library we can collect this set of related Projects into a folder within the Project Library.

1. Show the Project Library
2. Create a new folder by doing one of the following:–
   • File > New Folder
   • Shift-Command-N
   • Click on the New Folder button just to the right of the “+” button at the bottom left corner of the Final Cut Pro window.
3. Click on the new folder’s name, then hit Return to allow changing its name to something that reflects the fact that it will contain all those single-clip Projects you have just created.
4. Drag all those Projects onto the folder’s icon.

If you chose sequential clip name prefixes, your Projects should now be listed in that order.

Of course, you don’t have to postpone putting a Project into this folder until you have extracted all your clips into separate Projects. Once the folder has been created, you might prefer to drag each newly created Project into it straight away.

So far we have created roughly delineated overlong clips and stored them in a convenient place. This strategy expedites the process of first-pass selection of segments of the film that merit further consideration, without getting bogged down in too much detail. If you have named your clips appropriately, you can now view each clip in a group of related clips and decide which is/are worth more refined editing for the purpose you have in mind.

Almost certainly you will wish to refine the endpoints of a clip.

[This topic incomplete.]

You may wish to remove the existing soundtrack from your clip, perhaps because you wish to replace it with another soundtrack or because you wish your clip to play as a silent movie. Elimination of camera noise could be a motive for the latter.

1. Ensure your movie is showing in the Timeline.
2. Select the clip whose soundtrack you wish to excise.
3. Detach the soundtrack by doing one of the following:–
   • Clip > Detach Audio
   • Control-Shift-S
4. The soundtrack will now appear as a detached green audio strip below the video strip in the Timeline.
5. Select the soundtrack you wish to remove and hit the Delete key.

Sometimes you wish to overlay text on a video clip; for example, in order to identify a speaker, location or time, or to provide a translation. Final Cut Pro calls such a text overlay a “title”. (This overlay is actually a clip itself, but we ignore this nicety here except when giving the title clip a name.)

To add a title to a clip:–

1. Ensure your clip is showing in the Timeline.
2. Position the playhead (not just the skimmer) where you wish the title to commence.
3. Show the Titles Browser.
4. Double-click on the titling scheme you want. A title rectangle appears above your clip in the Timeline; a connecting vertical line links the two.
5. Control-click on the title rectangle to reveal a contextual menu. Choose “Rename Clip” from the contextual menu and name the (title) clip as you wish. Note that any alteration here is not reflected in the text overlay itself.
6. Position the playhead within the title rectangle, near its left margin, so you can see the title overlying your main clip in the Viewer Display.
7. Click on the title rectangle itself to select it.
8. Show the Inspector.
9. Click on “Text” in the menu bar at the top of the Inspector panel.
10. Moving the cursor over the title area in the Viewer Display will reveal one or more text fields in the title. Clicking on one of these fields causes the Inspector to display configuration information relating to the selected field. Use the Inspector tools to alter the text content and formatting of each field, as desired. Clicking and dragging a text field allows you to move it to a different position in the display.
11. Click and drag the left and right margins of the title rectangle to set the start and finish points of your title in the Timeline.

To have a title fade in and out, rather than appear and disappear abruptly:–

1. Ensure your clip is showing in the Timeline.
2. Click on the title rectangle to select it.
3. Show the Transitions Browser.
4. Double-click on the transitioning scheme you want. (Cross Dissolve is an easy one to start with.) The title rectangle now shows grey padding indicating where the transition will apply to the title.
5. Click on the grey transition zone of the title rectangle to select it.
6. Show the Inspector. It should now appear as the Transition Inspector.
7. Use the Inspector tools to alter the configuration of the transition, as desired.
8. Click and drag the left and right margins of a grey transition zone to set the start and finish points of the transition in the Timeline.

To delete a title from a clip, click on the title rectangle above the clip in the Timeline to select it, then hit the Delete key.

To delete a transition from a title, click on the grey transition zone in the title rectangle above the clip in the Timeline to select it, then hit the Delete key. Note that some transitioning schemes actually insert more than one transition zone. (For example, Cross Dissolve inserts leading and trailing transition zones.) Removal of one such transition zone does not affect the others: each transition zone must be removed independently if you wish to remove all those in a multi-zone transition.

It’s handy to know that titles can be copied and pasted, either elsewhere in the same clip or even between clips in different Projects.

Rather than have your movie end abruptly, you may wish to terminate it with some blank footage.

To create a blank clip:–

1. Show the Generators Browser.
2. Click on “Solids” in the Sidebar.
3. Click and drag the black “Custom” generator to the Timeline. For our present purpose, we position it immediately following the rest of the movie, but it could be placed anywhere you like; also, you may prefer one of the other colors on offer.

Your Blank Clip will now result in a silent black screen on playback.

If you wish to incorporate your movie in a Web page (see my tutorial on this subject elsewhere on this Web site), it seems that a subtle parameter setting is required in order for the video object to be displayed nicely (ie, with the movie display and the video controls of equal width):–

1. Ensure your movie is showing in the Timeline.
2. Show the Inspector.
3. Click on “Video” in the menu bar at the top of the Inspector panel.
4. Click within any clip in the Timeline.
5. Select all the clips in the Timeline by doing one of the following:–
   • Edit > Select All
   • Command-A
6. If the Spatial Conform tool is not among those listed in the Video Inspector, certain component clips of your movie will need to be deselected until it is. These include any you incorporated from the Generators Browser (such as a blank clip if you used the above method of creating one). Command-click on each of these clips to deselect them. Do this with as many clips as necessary to make the Spatial Conform tool available.
7. Now make sure the Spatial Conform “Type” is set to “Fill”.