First off, I took the liberty of changing the meaning of the ‘W’ in the title to where not what just in case there is any confusion. Personally I think they can be interchanged and understood based on the context, but that’s a discussion for another blog.
I’ve received quite a few emails from people requesting me to get into some more basic concepts around editing in addition to the Final Cut Pro tutorials. In this post I have taken the workflow from the User Manual and supplemented it with my comments and actual experience working in post production.
Keep in mind that different people may have different workflows. This one is pretty standard and is a good place to begin for any Final Cut Pro user. Within the workflow itself is a lot of wiggle room so you can start broad and chisel away until you discover the workflow that is best for you.
Step 1 - Planning
This step is very important and often overlooked. If you plan carefully and get the entire post-production team (or your group o
f friends) on the same page, it will go much smoother.
Things to think about are what format/codec you will be editing in? Do you have enough hard drive space? Have you acquired all the footage that was shot and any notes that we’re taken on the day of the shoot? If there is a deadline for the project, have you given yourself enough time? Do you have the music, effects and graphics you need? And there are many more.
It is actually best to start thinking and planning the post production phase as soon as you start the pre production on the project. This way you can ensure that it will be a smooth transition from production to post production.
Step 2 - Setting Up
This can range from the very simple to the very complex depending on your formats and what you need to get into the Final Cut Pro system. This step includes things like plugging your camera/deck into your computer to capture footage, setting your presets and user configurations in FCP, setting up your scratch disks, etc.
For more complex projects you may need to install additional hardware and such, but for the majority of users, this is a fairly simple step. If you already have a system you always edit on, then the work in this step will be very quick.
Step 3 - Logging and Capturing
I know so far this sounds like it sucks, but we are almost to the fun part. But first, my least favorite part. Logging, as defined in the manual, is the process of identifying which shots on tape you want to capture to your hard disk for editing. And capturing means transferring source media from your video camcorder or deck to your computer’s hard disk.
Final Cut Pro allows you to log and capture in many different ways. You can log and capture one clip at a time, log all the clips then capture, or even capture all your footage and then log clips.
The way that I prefer is to actually log clips on set and while watching dailies. This means I am there with a pen and pad using a log and capture spreadsheet to note the clips. This might sound like a lot more work, but it makes the capturing much faster.
Once I have the spreadsheet of the logging information, I can just type in the in and out time codes along with a description of the shot. Then once I’ve logged all the shots I batch capture them onto my computer. Otherwise, you have to go through all the source footage again and manually pick your in and out points, which is just painful to me. I dunno, maybe you enjoy it.
Step 4 - Editing
Finally! This is where you take all that crap you just unloaded on your computer and turn it into an award winning masterpiece.
You assemble your audio (usually temporary at this point), video, graphics, etc. into an edited sequence. You usually start broad by putting clips in order of the script (if there is a script) and then continue to fine tune until it works as you planned.
This is also the step where you will begin to see, and attempt to solve, any problems that there may be with the project. For example, you may need to flop a shot here and speed up another shot there in order to get the effect you want to achieve.
This section could be talked about forever, which is why I made this website. Check out some of the other articles to learn more.
Step 5 - Mixing Audio
Once the video editing in your project is complete or “locked” as they say, you start to dig in to the audio.
This step includes cleaning up bad audio, adding sound effects, music and voice overs. You also balance out the levels so that you can still hear what people are saying over the music, etc.
Sound is a very important step and I think it is often over looked by beginning media makers. Don’t do it! You can do quite a bit with sound in Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. If you want to get more advanced, then I would check out Logic Pro.
Step 6 - Adding Effects
This is another one of my personal favorite steps. Some people will begin adding effects during the editing stage, but these are usually temporary space holders until the picture and audio are locked. This main reason for waiting until the end to do effects is that they are time-consuming and often expensive so you don’t want to do any more work than you actually have to.
This includes everything from color correction to the creation of 3D animated characters. Effects can be extreme and obvious like adding explosions and blood, but they can also be as subtle as changing the name on a sign or removing a boom mic.
Adding effects comes late in the workflow, but it is definitely something you need to be thinking about from the very beginning. This will help to ensure that the effects are seemlessly integrated into your final work.
Final Cut Pro can do a fair amount of effects on its own, but I would recommend looking into Motion and After Effects if you want to get serious with it.
Step 7 - Outputting
Woohoo! The project is complete and now you just need to output it to DVD, a quicktime video, the web, your iPod, whatever.
Final Cut Pro makes it pretty easy with a ton of export options for making digital media files as well as outputting to DVD. You can also export EDLs or FCP XMLs to edit on another workstation, such as Avid. There is even a batch export option that allows you to do multiple exports at the same time.
This step seems simple and straightforward, but do not wait until the last minute to attempt it. I have had so many long nights trying to export something because the project was due the next day. I would say to give yourself at least a day, if you can, for exporting/burning/uploading/etc because there is always at least one issue.
Conclusion
That’s the post production workflow in a nutshell. There is a ton of stuff that can be written about each of those steps and I plan to attempt to write about it on this site.
Hopefully this gives people just starting out a pretty good idea about how the process normally works. Perhaps you see some room for improvement or there is a step you follow that I did not include? Let us know in the comments!
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