FCP, ‘Cause You Don’t Know How To Do Anything
I think the new slogan for Final Cut Pro should be, “Final Cut Pro, ‘Cause You Don’t Know How To Edit”.
Last night I heard bandied about that Final Cut Studio [2] is a great product because if you don’t know how to do something, like edit or burn a DVD or create a soundtrack or create some motion graphics then you can always do it in FCP or DVDSP or Soundtrack Pro or Motion. It kind of hit home with me and made me laugh (as well as an auditorium full of FCP users).
It was also commented on the night before at a related event for post production types that people don’t want to learn how to do something, like how to use a piece of software, they just want to use it.
It is so true, people buy a piece of software to solve their problem. I can’t do my taxes or don’t want to pay an accountant to do them, so I’ll just buy “TaxBookPro” and that will take care of that. Just fill in the lines and “Viola!”
How many people never read the manual for a piece of software or hardware for that matter and just start fiddling with it and try to figure it out as they go? Most, I’d venture to guess. I’ve done it many times.
I did have some life experiences though that helped me be more manual friendly. The main one, my parents knew that problems with equipment came from a lack of understanding of that equipment and always made sure that I read the manual for any new household appliances that we got in the house, before I was allowed to use them. You know, like for the new microwave, it’s good to know that aluminum foil arcs in a microwave or that to cook something shorter than a minute, you should turn the dial past the one minute mark and then to the number of seconds you want to cook for. Things for the new dishwasher that were good to know: don’t use laundry detergent in it but shampoo would be okay to use or don’t open quickly while in use, wait until you don’t hear the water spinning anymore.
The more I read manuals, the less problems I had with things in general. I could do things like fix cars, motorcycles and mopeds. I could raise rabbits and tropical fish. I could get along better with people. I could hook up computer parts.
What happened with technical manuals though? Why were they so hell-bent on being confusing rather than easy to understand? Why did they have to be so big? Why were they filled with so many hard-to-understand words? Was it a technical standard to have a 1000-page manual that sounded erudite to pass as a good piece of software? Sometimes I think so.
I was lucky in that I didn’t own Final Cut Pro before I started to “read the manual” on it. I wanted to know how to use the software and I knew I couldn’t afford it at the time, so I took a community course on editing. I didn’t know the first course was going to be on FCP but it was a requirement for the next which I knew would be on FCP. Turns out the first class was taught on FCP 6 and the textbook for the class turned out to be Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 by Diana Weynand. The class was very good and covered editing and camera shot principles as well as the technical use of the software. We got to practice on TV series, using scripts to edit and creating our own short. I really enjoyed the class and that’s what propelled me to do all I’ve done and all I’m doing today.
I still consider that I don’t know how to edit or do soundtracks or make DVDs, even though I’m dabbling with the software. But that won’t stop me ’cause FCP is made for people like me!