Final Cut Express 4: Editing Workshop [With CDROM]

After buying the FCE programme I started wading through the 1000 plus pages on-screen manual and got bog downed very quickly. I was up to about page 350 and fortunately Tom Wolsky's book turned up in the mail before I threw a tantrum and gave up. Problem with learning from the on-screen instructions is that it's not in a useful order so can't practice what they're saying as haven't learnt how to set up and capture yet. Mr Wolsky's book is in a sensible order. It starts with setting up the computer, then to capture then to edit etc. The DVD that goes with the book, gives you the material you need to practice on until brave enough to start on your own. Another problem with the manual is it doesn't give you value comments. By that I mean it tells you what the button or command does but usually no information on when to use it or why. Mr Wolsky does. This is so useful at the beginning stage when you need everything set up right or it probably wont work and he's got comments and recommendations on why and when to use a particular setting. I'd been swapping my short-film-making efforts over from iMovies, so I was quite impatient at having to go right back and start again to get even vaguely close to where I had been. So did appreciate how well-ordered the book was to get me back editing again as soon as possible. Then I carried on with the next few chapters on sound and applied that to my efforts. I got bogged down for quite some time with the Boris Calligraphy chapter and came to a grinding halt. Then concluded I didn't need to know about twirling, swirling, multi-coloured, rotating text and got moving again. All I needed was 3D text that fades in and out and could ignore the rest. I don't think this is an indictment on the book, more that I was looking for what I needed to get my film effort progressing. So only got up to chapter 12 so far. Once I've applied that to my movie I shall read the rest and see what I need. And that really is a strength of the book that I can do that - rather than having to absorb it all at once. Also appreciated that the examples given to practice on in the DVD don't look like professional takes. It's got useful stuff that relates to me - like cutting out the footage where you knocked the camera and how to cope with sound that's jumping all over the place. Mr Wolsky's book has told me everything I need to get started. (Although I still havent figured why I cant use the editing keyboard commands like F10, F12 etc for insert and over-write, must have missed that bit somewhere.) I should also point out that now Ive some idea what I'm doing I can now use and appreciate the on-screen manual, but as a complete beginner it was soul-destroying.

Final Cut Express has a bit of a learning curve to work through. I'm only half-way through this book, and its worth is already more that I paid for it. I'd already been through most of the online help, and also another FCE4 book that I had purchased, when I bought this one. It has provided many valuable insights that have made it possible for me to actually become productive with Final Cut Express.

I plowed through the book in order of the lessons & I can't imagine having learned FCE any other way. While learning, I produced 2 new TV commercials for a local New Orleans gardening & gift shop, & I'm ready for more. The veteran video guys at the tv stations couldn't believe we did the spots in the attic of the store on an iMac. I couldn't have done them in iMovie--and I couldn't have done them so quickly without this book.

I bought Tom's earlier book on FCE 2, and it was the best purchase I've ever made for any of the software I use. Tom writes like an editor and an artist. He writes in a manner creative people can understand. Practical and to the point. I have been in the broadcast production industry for 28 years and I can tell you Tom is the real thing. If this book doesn't help you then you should find another hobby. P.S. Ignore the idiotic one star rating. The book is in English.