Final Cut Pro Workflows: The Independent Studio Handbook

After teaching post production for many years, it is nice to find a book the exemplifies six important words: "Story, story, story! Workflow, workflow, workflow!" This book is designed very well for those who truly want to understand the processes involved with post production. After years of trying to find books that would compliment my professional knowledge and collegiate instruction, Jason and Robbie have provided me with an excellent reference for my academic and professional students.

Your book fills a much needed gap in the non linear workflow for editors and producers alike! For me the video formats and compression chapters are fabulous cross platform information. Lately, it seems that everywhere I go people are reading it. Virginia Quesada, Q MEDIA, INC. and VIDEOCULT.COM

This book should be marketed differently. I (hesitantly) picked it up expecting a very software specific how to book and what I got was a guide to creating and maintaining a sucessful post production firm. I am new to the production world; only just recently opening a boutique production company here in Chicago. For a while I struggled with Final Cut Pro and maintaining productive organization from reel to distribution. THIS BOOK HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING. The amount of money that this book has saved me is starting to stretch into the thousands. Optimizing your workflow within Final Cut is the best way to maintain quality and effeciency. Most creative media help books talk about specifics, glorified tutorials really. Final Cut Pro Workflows breaks down the entire process of post-production in a really straightforward way. It even gives you amazing case studies that touch on not only the physical aspect of the post-production but dealing with clients, vendors, and talent. Imagine the best textbook you ever read in school, especially on your favorite subject. I don't know about others but I would read it through, enjoying learning the material. Final Cut Pro Workflows does that. This book, while obviously geared towards FCP (with suite specific hints, shortcuts, options), should also be marketed towards the overall creation and maintainability of any production company regardless of the suite. With just a little bit of translation you can apply the business help aspects of this book to an Adobe/ Avid workflow or even a workflow that has takes advantage of ALL the available software out there. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a desire to take their production values to the professional level.

As the co-author of this book, I just want to thank all of our students who inspired the writing of this book with their hunger for practical knowledge on FCP and the great questions they ask in class. So often, the nature of these questions went beyond the technical text and sample projects that we were using in class. It is also frequently difficult to answer real-world questions about FCP in the classroom context. So many of these answers "depend on the project you are doing . . . " Consequently, we took to using a series of real-world anecdotes - experiences of our own in postproduction that could illustrate the larger points regarding process and decision-making. These experiences made the conceptual basis for this book, and those anecdotes became the case studies. Robbie and I hope that you enjoy what we think is a unique approach!

As a user of Final Cut Pro, but a relative newbie to postproduction I've struggled to understand the "Big Picture" of postproduction workflow. Final Cut Pro Workflows is an awesome resource that doesn't cover all the same button pushing techniques that every other Final Cut Pro book does, but provides insightful and thoughtful workflow techniques that I've been able to apply to all my projects. What I found particularly cool, and what I think separates this book from others is the 3rd part of book which is a collection of case studies. These case studies are great because they're written as a narrative and explore quite a few different workflows using Final Cut Pro. This book is a must have!